433. 10 Life-Changing Lessons from The ONE Thing

Chris Dixon:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to The ONE Thing podcast. I'm Chris Dixon.

Nikki Miller:

And I'm Nikki Miller.

Chris Dixon:

And we have a special episode for you guys this week. Nikki and I, we thought it would be really cool to go through and share 10 life lessons that we've learned in and around The ONE Thing, in the book and the community and our coaching. And we thought it would be fun to go through and share five of each of our biggest lessons that we've learned that impact life from our own experience or something we've seen show up with people, like I said, in the community or coachees or the trainings that we've done. And some of it's our own kind of, I think, interpretation of these key principles you know so well from the book, and some of them are more directly tied, but you'll see how it all comes to life. And we thought maybe it would be a fun and interesting way to look at, like I said, our interpretation of some of the things that have been most impactful. Well,

Nikki Miller:

And I think the practical application of The ONE Thing, right, Chris? And I think that probably one of the top questions we get asked is, what's your favorite thing from The ONE Thing? What's the one thing you could choose? And out of character of the book today, we didn't just choose one. We both have a few that have been particularly impactful in our lives and particularly impactful that we've seen with people like you, to your point that we've coached or done trainings with. And I'm really excited to go through this. I think someone's going to have the ability to interpret some of these principles differently after listening to this today.

Chris Dixon:

I hope so. I know I certainly did when going through them and thinking through this. It's fun. I've already seen how that's shown up and it was a really cool activity just to, to build the conversation. So excited to share it with you all.

Nikki Miller:

Well, and just to have a little more fun, we didn't cross notes today. So we're both just going through what we have found the most valuable and it's going to be a surprise to both of us. So I'm excited to go through this with you too.

Chris Dixon:

That's right. So we'll figure it out as we go. So why don't we just jump in? You ready, Nikki?

Nikki Miller:

Let's do it.

Chris Dixon:

All right. So my lesson number one and no priority order necessarily is what I'm calling the 20 percent approach. And as you guys may or may not know, the 80/20 principle is something that we live and breathe around the one thing as it relates to prioritization and you're trying to figure out like what is that 20 percent? What are the minority of things that if I focus on those, we'll have the greatest return on investment towards anything. It could be that 20 percent of the people on your team delivery 80 percent of the overall value or 20 percent of your investments provide 80 percent of your growth or 20 percent of the to dos on your to do list will deliver 80 percent of your results. So that's the context. But that's kind of like the direct line interpretation.

I found that there's almost like a general mindset that you can leverage when it comes to the 20 percent and how you see life and how you communicate with people. And it's really about truly understanding what matters most and that recognizing that things don't matter equally. And like I said, it could be the way that you communicate. It's before you send a message or before you attempt to explain something to someone, say to yourself like, okay, what's the 20 percent of this message so that I can make a high return on investment conversation or some of the interesting ways that you can shape this so that your mindset is more about investing your time. We've been known to say, like, think about investing your time versus spending your time. And I think that's a great way to approach life and all things. And so that's something I thought would be really interesting to share that there's a way that you can kind of overlay how you think about the world using the 20 percent.

Nikki Miller:

Well, I think when you interpret the 20 percent principle, at least for me, Chris, when I think about the 80/20 rule, which is the way we interpreted in business is that 20 percent of our activities is going to yield 80 percent of our results. Alternatively, this principle shows up everywhere that you'll see in most businesses, 20 percent of the businesses own 80 percent of the market.

And so you start to see this principle show up everywhere and it just starts to help you conceptualize what actually matters and to study the things that are going to have the biggest impact, because I don't want to study the 80 percent of businesses that have 20 percent of the results. I want to study the 20 percent of businesses that are having the 80 percent of the results. What are they doing differently? And what we've come to find and what's so interesting is that there's usually not all that much difference in how they're approaching. It's usually something very subtle and very impactful.

Chris Dixon:

That's such a great point. And I agree, I see that too. If you look at 15, 20 businesses that are in the same market or they're a similar product, there's going to be 80 percent of it is overlap. And then there's the 20 percent that they find unique niche success with. And so I think that's true too and a really great observation.

Nikki Miller:

And I think where most people get stuck is that they just spend far too much time in the 80 percent. They're trying to control their day, or they're trying to control the 80 percent in hopes that they'll make time for the 20 percent, not realizing that it needs to be flipped. That if they just spent their time in the 20 percent, the 80 percent usually ends up taking care of itself, or it doesn't need to be taken care of at all.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, absolutely. And something I used to always say is that the 20 percent is what you're not going to say no to. It doesn't mean you necessarily have to say no to the 80 percent, but your 20 percent is the stuff that no matter what, it's going to get done. And then you can work in priority for everything else.

Nikki Miller:

And what we often tell people is that this isn't the assumption that the 80 percent doesn't matter. It's just that it doesn't matter at the expense of the 20 percent. It doesn't matter in lieu of doing the 20 percent. We just can't prioritize the 80 percent, otherwise it'll yield the 20 percent of the results, right?

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. And something that's interesting, like almost conversely, I've found you got to be careful because the 20 percent is relative, and it's relative to you and your perspective and your perception. And so if you don't create a common understanding amongst a couple people or a group of people or a team, you may say as a leader or even as a peer, “Hey, let's focus on the 20 percent.” But if you haven't -- if you don't have a means to identify what that mutually is, then you will have different perspectives. And so it could even be in a conversation where you're like, hey, just give me the 20 percent of this so I can know what I need. Okay. Even in saying that, you've just said, it's what you need. They need to know what you need. And so just keep that in mind as you're leveraging this concept of 20 percent that they have to create a common understanding for people to be able to work off the same frame.

Nikki Miller:

Well, Chris, that's such a good point. I'm so glad you said that. In business especially, this matters, because we have to be on the same page about what that 20 percent is. If we disagree, then ultimately, we're both going to create chaos in the organization. And it will only know when the results happen, who was right. So better for us to be on the same page about what that 20 percent is in order for us to have even more focused effort.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. So the 20 percent approach, live by priority and apply the 20 percent where you can as a general mindset. And I think it's a great way to be focused on the right things.

Nikki Miller:

Well, as I could have guessed, we were already pretty close on our first principles. Mine is that The ONE Thing taught me, the number one thing that The ONE Thing taught me, mine, I would say went in order on my first principle, which is that time spent is not the same as time spent well. And this is very closely in alignment with the 80/20 principle.

And Jay said something to me one time, and I think he recently posted in his 20 Percenter newsletter, which is that when things -- when you're working hard on the things that don't matter, does it matter that you're working at all? When you're working hard on the things that don't matter, does it matter that you're working at all? And so I look up and say, when we're working really hard on the things that aren't actually driving us forward and whatever the priority is, does it really matter that we're working as hard as we are? And if we can get focused on the things that matter most, then we're going to drive more results and it's going to be a smoother ride with less resistance.

And so in the book, we talk about that this idea that activity is not the same as productivity that, and it's in the book, what we call the business trap. And I think a lot of drivers, a lot of people who are success oriented can get trapped in this. I think they think the busier they are, the harder they work, the more they take on, the more productive they will be. And there's so many books, so many examples in the book, more than we could count or even have time for on this podcast, that that's just quite simply not true.

And when you've mastered this, when you have enough discipline to master this principle of focusing on what matters most for long enough in order to create the results, then you'll start to see this actually come to fruition in your own life. But it sometimes can feel counterintuitive. I think that's the hardest part about the implementation of The ONE Thing that most of us look up and say, “Well, wait. I'm going to get more results by doing less.” And we'll say, yes, but it's doing less of what matters least and more of what actually matters in alignment with where you want to be. So it's not how many hours we put in. It's how much we put into the hours, right?

And like I said, success-oriented people can fall into this trap of more of I can do more, and I can achieve more and take on more. And if I do more then I'll be even more successful. And the truth is that our to do list just ends up expanding and our productivity retracts. We just end up taking on more for the sake of more instead of doing more for this, doing, excuse me, less for the sake of more impact.

Chris Dixon:

So true. I mean, there's a lot of crossover with this in the 20 percent philosophy, but I think it's a really, it's a more direct application of that. And you said it, but at volume of work and impact are not necessarily correlated. You can be really, really busy, but not be productive. You're in an influential position, or even if you're not, you could work from 6 a.m. till 10 p.m. and fill it with all kinds of things, but not get the most important things done. And that's, I think, a difficult switch to make.

And if you're in the type of place where you've built some comfort in being busy and you kind of outwardly project that and that's how you create space and it's hard to overcome that. And to change your perception or maybe the limiting belief you have about how you should be productive, but it's so true that you got to get clear on what are the most impactful things you can do. And then make sure that those are done and focus your time there. If you do one thing that's really important during the day and nothing else, it's better than doing a whole lot of things that don't add up to the sum of something important.

Nikki Miller:

And Chris, I don't know about you, but what I see with a lot of people who create this much busyness in their lives, and by the way, I can raise my hand really high and say that I've been here before is that it's just a really great way to hide, a really great way to hide from -- maybe I'm hiding from the fact that I don't actually know what matters most, or worse I don't actually know what I want. So I'm just going to do everything and I'm going to seem really busy or maybe even be really busy. And then I don't have to take accountability for the fact that I'm not actually pushing down a domino that matters because I'm not really clear which one does matter. I've never made a decision about what that is.

Chris Dixon:

I mean, you said it, the thing that's probably most important is it feels uncomfortable because there's growth there or there's something. And so it feels uncomfortable and you can either consciously or subconsciously shy away from it to stay busy. Instead of doing the thing that feels like it's taking you out of your comfort zone.

Nikki Miller:

For sure. I mean, it's easy for us to say, well, I'm just so busy that I couldn't take that thing to the finish line, or I'm just so busy with all of these things that I wasn't able to get that done. And by the way, if we're a really busy person, a lot of other people will buy that. But someone who is following the principles of The ONE Thing, somebody who understands us at a really high level is probably going to look up and say, was that one thing that you missed because you were so busy, actually the thing that would have potentially made you less busy or would have eliminated some of the chaos because that was actually the thing that mattered most. So again, I go back to, it's not that these other things don't matter. It's that they don't matter at the expense of what's going to have the biggest impact and what's going to matter most on the journey to where we want to be.

Chris Dixon:

I think there's a good segue there if you are up for shifting to lesson number three.

Nikki Miller:

Let's do it.

Chris Dixon:

Let's do it. So how do you know what the most important things are? And I think it comes from clarity. And my lesson number three, or my second of this series is clarity is a journey, not a destination. And what I mean by that, when I say clarity is just knowing what you want to accomplish or what you need to do and how you're going to do it, or who you need to grow into. And the journey of gaining clarity, like I said, it's over time. It's something that you don't arrive to and stay there. It's really something that you have to build. And once your purpose and your priorities become more clear, they become vivid, your ability to, like, locate where you are and where you want to go becomes faster. You can get to that place quicker.

And in the book, Jay and Gary talk about these three commitments. And one of the three commitments is to follow the path of mastering. I think that applies here as much as anywhere, which is the journey, this path to getting clarity. It's something that you just have to continue to stay on. And the more experience that you get with figuring out what you want in any scenario or the path to get there is something that you can sharpen over time. It's like working out. And it's like gain -- it takes some time to get momentum going, but once you're frequent with it, it's something that you can get to faster.

Nikki Miller:

And Chris, I know we see this a lot, that sometimes people struggle with this because they say, I don't want to define my purpose, or I don't want to give absolute clarity on where I want to go, because what if it changes? Like they just can't fathom the idea of putting a line in the sand and saying, this is what I want to do. And I always tell them, breathe, this can change. To your point, you can sharpen it or broaden it based off your experience or your heart or whatever comes up. But ultimately, you're not going to make a decision about something that's so far away from who you are that it's going to take you entirely off track. And your life will always be less than it could have been were it not intentional. So make a decision about where you want to go and then start lining up your dominoes. And by the way, if you pick your head up and it's not the direction you want to go anymore after your evolution, then just change.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. I find when someone's relatively new to thinking in this way, that the expectation is that they have to figure it all out before you can take action. It's just, it's not true. Like you just put it up there. It's okay. Give yourself permission to just put something on the board. And then over time, because you're thinking about it more often, you're working this out like a muscle. You can shift and change that. It starts to serve a different purpose that for you that it doesn't need to be that you know exactly what it is and you're a hundred percent certain so much that you always have this north star out there. That's keeping you kind of directionally accurate as you go through and prioritize your day, your week, your month of year, et cetera. And you'll get better at that as things change. Or maybe your priorities change, your season of life changes, that's okay. You've got this muscle now. You can just update accordingly and then continue moving.

Nikki Miller:

I think this is a really important point because I do think so many people have a challenge with creating clarity around this because they're not sure what the actual plan is in order to get there. And we always tell them, you don't need to know right now, and you probably will never know at the beginning. If you've never been there before, then it would be really challenging for you to create the perfect plan in order to get there. You find the best path forward by implementing the imperfect plan.

So start implementing your imperfect plan and then create a better plan as you get there. I always -- we're both runners, so we get to use this analogy, but I always tell someone you're going to have a much better plan to run your first marathon after you've run your, excuse me, to run your second marathon after you've run your first. You can never know ahead of time everything that you're going to need. You can never plan perfectly because you've quite simply have never done it before. So you find the right path forward by implementing the imperfect plan. Just build the imperfect one first and then take a step.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. And then to your point, just being comfortable with the imperfect plan, because it's probably never going to be perfect. It will be better, or at least you'll feel more connected to it as you work on it over time. Or maybe you can see a little further over the horizon than you did before. But I think you have to be okay with knowing that you've got to just strength this in how frequently you revisit the plan and learn from things.

Nikki Miller:

For sure. All right, Chris, I want to take us to my next two are from something that we don't talk about all that much, which are the lies in the book, the lies that derail us, the lies that mislead us, the lies that take us off track, the lies about productivity. And these to me are really important because I remember reading this for the first time, and thinking I've been lied to for a really long time. And these lies that take us off track were things that I had been implementing and things that I would tell people I was so proud of about myself, not realizing that they were actually getting in the way of my ultimate potential.

And the first is that multitasking is a lie. And I think for pretty much anyone who lives a big life, we at some point have probably pride in ourselves on the ability to multitask, the ability to handle a million things at once, not realizing that this is quite simply a lie. Multitasking is ineffective and actually inhibits you from getting the thing that you need to get done completed as quickly as you could. And if doing -- and Gary always says, if doing the most important thing is the most important thing, why would we be doing anything else? If doing the most important thing is the most important thing, why would we be doing anything else? And I always think about this question when I find myself starting to multitask.

And in today's world, we are constantly berated by what I call the digital deluge. It is so easy to get distracted and it is so easy to multitask. And I think that you have to be better than ever at ensuring that you don't do this. And you have to be better than ever at protecting yourself when you're in a time block and protecting yourself when you're in productivity.

Because I don't know about you, Chris, but at any given time, my phone is going off. I don't wear an Apple watch because I don't know how y'all handle it with all the notifications going off on that thing. I would not be able to stay focused ever, but I turned off all notifications on my phone. I turned them off on my computer. Because I know that I am easily distractible, and I will start multitasking. And the challenge becomes anyone who's experienced going through a really important task, the minute that you get interrupted, and you have to shift your attention, you're already off track.

Even if you tell the person, I'll call you back, or I don't have a minute right now or whatever it is, I always give the example of if you're reading a really important email or writing a really important email and something or somebody interrupts you, you don't go right back to wherever you just were. You have to start at the beginning and reorient yourself and get back on track. We call it the squirrel. Like after the squirrel interrupts you, you then have to reorient and get back on track. And it's going to cost you so much more time than it would have had you just stayed on track, had you just had a time block where you didn't get interrupted during that period.

So we think we're not multitasking when that happens, but we actually are. It was interesting. I was in a training, a corporate training not too long ago. And I asked this question, how many of you are great multitaskers? And we don't tell them at the beginning that it's always a trap, right? We're asking them this so that we can share the lies. But how many of you, I said are great multitaskers, a bunch of them raised their hands. And I said, how many of you are great at making sure that you don't get interrupted by what we call the got a minutes?

I.E., somebody comes into your office or calls you if you're virtual and says, “Do you got a minute? Do you got a minute?” And one of them raised their hand, one of the executives and said, “I'm great at not handling the got a minutes.” And I said, awesome. Tell me more about how you do that. And he said, “Well, if they come in and ask me if I have a minute, then I just tell them I don't have a minute right now. You can come back at this time.” And I said, well, that's better than spending all the time. But at the end of the day, you're still being interrupted. You still just got distracted and you're still multitasking because whatever you were doing in that moment got interrupted and you're going to have to reorient and go back to it. And so whatever the task is, is going to take twice as long as it could have had you just stayed focused.

So we always say that when you're trying to do two things at once, you cannot and will not do either of those things well. So if you think multitasking is an effective way to get more done, you're just quite simply have it backwards. And it's an effective way to get less done. Ultimately, you're not going to get as much as you could get done as fast as you could get it done. It's merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.

Chris Dixon:

So true. And there's two things I'll say about that. And one is I've found people can't -- once you go through it, they can conceptually understand. They're like, yeah, I see that, but it's hard to really weigh how much of an impact it is. And so we've done a fun exercise with people. And if you guys are listening, feel free to give us a shout, but we've done this exercise where you write the letters A through Z, like ABC, all 26 letters of the alphabet, then underneath that, right, the numbers 1 through 26.

And then what you do is then on the second round, have them alternate, right? A1, B2, C3, and go through and switch between, and you measure the time it takes for each, and it's nearly double the amount of time. And then you have fun with it and start interrupting people as they're trying to count and sing the ABCs in their head and it all falls apart, right? And they just can't keep it together. So it's a fun way to kind of demonstrate how that shared attention like the got a minutes, like really do impact your productivity.

And the other thing I'll say is that it's really hard. You called out the technology. I mean, you're competing against the biggest organizations in the world and the history of the world from a value perspective that is their sole business model is to compete for your attention. So you're fighting an uphill battle. So the thing that you should try to do is just be better. Like if you got one time block per day that you're like, hey, this is my most important work and it's for an hour, maybe just don't multitask then and see if you can improve from there. So don't bite off more than you can chew. No one's going to be perfect. And try to conceptualize how much of an impact that really has.

Nikki Miller:

Well, and at the end of the day, and to your point, just set yourself up for success. I know for me, if a notification comes on my phone, I'm going to look at it. Like I have no self-control. Whatever that notification is, whatever app or text or call or whatever it is, I'm going to look at it. So I just put my phone on do not disturb. I mean, the beauty is that yes, we're, like I said, we're in the digital deluge and we're constantly being competed against for our attention. And yet, we also have tools within these devices to ensure that we stay on track and to make it so that it's less likely that we're going to get interrupted. So you have to know thyself and know that if you're easily distracted, or if you know that notification comes up, that you're going to look at it, just remove the obstacle for yourself.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. So you can help keep yourself accountable because lesson number five is that accountability is your ally and accountability is your friend. And this is something I've learned and seen, and there's a tendency, I think, at times to shy away from accountability, either consciously or subconsciously. But if you can flip that and seek forms of accountability, that's the best way that I've seen to help you stay attached to and on track over time, and there's different ways to do that.

And we talk about accountability, we're talking about someone or something that can help keep you responsible, that can help keep you aware of what you've said and not go periods of time without revisiting your plan or forming a habit or something like that. And some different forms might be people, groups, partners, right? You can be in groups that have like-minded goals that are working on similar things that they can help you stay accountable or an accountability partner.

And one of the absolute best ways, especially in a system like goal setting, and what we teach is to have a coach. I mean, coaches, you're hiring them to do that. That's their job. And you can fire them if they're not good at it. And so you can find one that really fits your needs and a model that you like. But coaches are a wonderful way to help you get clear on what you want and help you stay on track and be accountable.

There's tools. We love the 411 and GPS. Those two tools are, they're designed to help with accountability and clarity. So you can write your plan down and see it and be accountable to the things you say you're going to do to yourself and bring someone else that there's a single source of truth that they can see those goals. And then I'd say like technology, right? Habit trackers, calendars, AI tools that integrate with calendars now. I mean, there's a lot of stuff depending on how fancy you want to get that can help you stay accountable.

But ultimately, what you're trying to create with this is what we call is having a rhythm of accountability that is in harmony with your goals that you're trying to be in this rhythm. And that is like, I like to say, like the kind of rigor and routine that surrounds your reflection, your planning, your daily, weekly, monthly actions that you can check in on your plan and your goals and course correct and make those small changes.

Nikki Miller:

I love this one, Chris, because I think that most people shy away from accountability because it feels not friendly, right? And when somebody is going to hold us accountable, it doesn't feel good. But really, this is just a way of checking in on your progress. That's the way I interpret accountability. How do you check in on your progress? And how do you build an environment around yourself to ensure that you're not lying to yourself? Because it's easy for us to let ourselves off.

And so this is where, to your point, getting a coach is so important. And I would just offer that if you're going to have an accountability partner, just don't make it your spouse or someone who's really close to you. I always tell the story of -- I remember when I was trying to build the habit of waking up earlier. And my coach was on board and my goal was to wake up at 4:30 every morning and that alarm would go off and my husband would roll over and he would say, “Oh, you work so hard. Like you can sleep if you're still tired.” I'm like, no, you are not the accountability partner that I need.

So ultimately you want to have an accountability partner that’s going to hold you to the standard that you want to be held to, to hold you to the goals that you have, that, number one, you're not going to get mad at them. It's not going to upend your relationship if they hold you to what you said you wanted to do. And also, that they're going to help cut through some of your excuses or some of the reasons that you might not want to do it and help you stay accountable to those goals. So find someone who's really going to be your ally in that way.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, accountability is your ally. It is a tool, a piece of leverage that you can use to propel you towards your goals.

Nikki Miller:

For sure. And I'm going to take us back to another lie because sometimes when we talk about this principle of accountability, we think about and interpret that we have to live this life of the ultimate discipline that we have to be accountable all the time.

And we always offer that it's only where it matters. And when you get clarity on what matters, then you have to get clarity on where to spend your time and how to spend your time. And this brings us to the lie that's been the most impactful in my life. The -- rather I should say the undoing of the lie that's been most impactful is the lie of a balanced life.

And I don't know about you, Chris, but I can't tell you how often, especially this time of year, we're in the holiday season and I'm seeing all my relatives and invariably, someone will say to me something to the effect of you need more balance in your life. And balance simply implies that everything matters equally. And the truth is, it just quite simply doesn't. And I think as your life grows and gets bigger, this becomes an even more important principle to come back to. I can tell you for sure that I'm so grateful that I had this book and that I had these principles before I had my daughter, because the idea of balance has become even more pressurized now that I have a family.

And the truth is, balance is bunk, and it's an unattainable pipe dream. And the quest for balance between work and life and all the other things that we want to achieve as we've come to think of it, it's just a losing proposition. And frankly, and from my perspective can be a really destructive and harmful one, because it will lead us to feel like we're always failing. Because again, balance is this idea that everything matters equally, and it just doesn't. And balance is an illusion and trying to achieve that is just going to make you crazy, right? Like it's just going to make you feel like you're constantly failing, which is a great way to not try at all to completely give up on what you want to do.

And the book talks about that the question isn't ever really to go out of balance. The question is, do we go short, or do we go long? Because the principle is that we are almost always out of balance. We are never going to be completely balanced. We are never going to have every part of our life getting equal attention at any given time, nor should we, by the way. So the question is, do we go short or do we go long?

And the principle in the book is that in our personal life, we want to go short. In other words, we're going to have short periods of time where we're out of balance. And the example I always give here is that you and I both have to travel a bit for work. And I know we both make it a priority to spend time with our families, with our spouses, for me, with my daughter. And if I have to travel for work that week, I'm going to make sure that because I missed a few dinners or because I missed a few days with the family, I'm going to make sure that when I get back that I spend extra time more than I usually would have in order to get back into balance, right?

And I always say it's okay if we're going on a trip for a few days and then get back in balance when we get back. But if I left for six months, then I don't think my relationships would look the same when I got back. And then in our professional life, we make peace with the fact that extraordinary results usually requires that we go out of balance for a long period of time. In other words, if I work on something for six months in work and I'm upset that results didn't come to fruition, most people who have an experience in business are probably going to say, “Well, come back to us in a couple of years and then we'll talk”, right? So work or extraordinary results in our business life is usually going to require that we're out of balance that we're working on the same thing for a long time.

And I always tell people that at the end of the day, the magic never happens in the middle. Magic happens in the extremes. And again, the question isn't whether we go out of balance is, do we go short? Do we go long? And in which area are we going to do that? So when we say we're out of balance, what we're referring to is a sense that our priorities that matter to us, something is being underserved. And so when you feel that way, then it's just important that you swing the pendulum to the other side and get back and balance in that thing.

But the problem is that when you focus on what's really important, when you've clearly identified what your one thing is, something is almost always going to be underserved. Almost always. You are always going to be out of balance somewhere. So trying to pressure yourself to remain completely in balance is just unachievable. And you're going to make yourself crazy by trying to do it. So focus on what matters most and intentionally choose to be out of balance in the areas that matter. And that's how you achieve the extraordinary.

Chris Dixon:

Well said. I mean, I don't have too much more to add to that other than I'll say that this one was something, it took me a little while to wrap my head around and to be able to share with others in a way that I felt like I had a deep enough understanding. And I think you did a wonderful job articulating. And for me, it was everything you said and just knowing that you can't have everything in balance.

And if you're aware of that, then you can be intentional about when you send things out of balance and when you counterbalance back the other direction and just being conscious of like, hey, listen, I'm going to go hard on the work side for the next couple of weeks, and I know that that means I'm going to have to do something different after that in my personal life and my goals that I have with my friends or family or whatever you got going on there. So it's just being intentional about how you counterbalance, not balance everything perfect.

Nikki Miller:

And I also think don't be afraid to just be in communication with your loved ones about this or with your work family about this. I don't think that it's ever going to be a negative to have this conversation very intentionally with the people around you. And the beauty of working in our environment is that we all speak the same language. So it's easy for us to say, hey, I'm out of balance in this area of my life so maybe I'm going to cut out a little bit early this day. Or I am going to intentionally be out of balance because we have this big project that needs to be brought to fruition or whatever it might be.

I know I've had many a time with my family where I say, hey, for this period of time, I'm going to be a little bit out of balance because these priorities at work are important and they're on a timeline and I'll make sure that I get back into balance with all of you. So the importance of this is that you teach the people around you this language so that you can very openly have a conversation and prepare everyone around you too.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely, very well said. Should we shift over lesson number seven?

Nikki Miller:

Let's do it.

Chris Dixon:

All right. So this one for me has been a constant reminder. And I have a natural tendency to want to overcomplicate things or just make them, I think, more, what I would like to say, like, dynamic, but I think it's just overcomplicating. And I've seen this show up a lot with teaching The ONE Thing.

Nikki Miller:

But dynamic sounds much better.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, yeah, right. We'll just continue to lie to myself that that's what it is. But the idea here is it's intended to be and should be simple. It is called the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results for a reason. And there is a huge temptation as you apply these concepts in the tools, especially to want to make them more complicated than they should be. And there's intellectual rabbit holes kind of littered all throughout. And you got to watch out because you're going to, depending on your personality or even how you integrate this into your own workflow, you may want to make it more complicated than it's supposed to be.

And simplicity is key. It's supposed to be simple. You've got a million complicated things. The idea is the clarity is the simple part. You're just trying to figure out what is that one thing, like the focusing question which we're going to talk about here soon to get that clarity on, like, what is the one thing that I can do that will make everything else easier. And I think that's just something that's really important.

You've got like the 411, it's a goal work back tool that helps you just say crystal clear on the most important things. It's not a project management tool, right? It is not Asana or like these other, whatever, you name your top 10 project management tools, like you've seen that attempts to try to make it more than it is, and it gets way too complicated, and you lose the essence of the importance of simplicity. And so I think that's just really important to call out when you're implementing The ONE Thing principles or the tools that surround our world is it's intended to be and should be simple.

Nikki Miller:

Well, at the end of the day, complexity is the enemy of execution. The more complicated you make it, the more places you have to hide from doing it. And I always ask myself when something isn't happening in business, I'll often ask myself, what action am I avoiding by making this more complicated than it actually is? That often just becomes our way to not actually bring something to the finish line. And I've come to understand that people who have true mastery of something are the people who can conceptualize and articulate it extremely simply.

Chris Dixon:

That's a great point because sometimes you kind of have to battle through the complexity because that's your mind's way of trying to figure things out to get to the simplicity, but just know that your aim should be to create the simplicity and avoid where possible adding in things that don't need to be there because that's probably your mechanisms trying to kick back in or your habits or those things and you're trying to pile on all the other stuff that doesn't need to be there.

Nikki Miller:

Well, and you were right. I'm going to take simplicity to my next favorite principle, which is the focusing question. And the focusing question I think is often misinterpreted. For those that haven't read the book or don't remember what it is, the focusing question is what is the one thing that I could do such that by doing it would make everything else easier or unnecessary.

And I remember when I first read this, and I just battled The ONE Thing, Chris. Just like everybody does when they read this the first time they're like, no, it can't be one thing. And I remember I ran into Gary. I was at a training at KW and I ran into Gary at the hall and I looked around and I said, Gary, it's just you and me. Nobody else is around. I promise I will hold the secret forever. But there's no way that you just do one thing all day. And he said, you're right. And I was like, I knew it. I knew it couldn't just be one thing. And he said, it's never just one thing, it's one thing at a time. And that helped me understand that this focusing question allows us to quite simply ask what's the most important thing right now, or what's the most important thing in this category.

And the example he gave me, is he said, when I get home, I'm not asking what's the one thing I could do at work such that by doing it makes everything else easier or necessary? I might ask when I walk through the door, what's the one thing I could do with my wife such that by doing it makes everything else about our relationship easier or necessary? Well, I'm going to walk in and I'm going to do this to make sure she knows she's loved and valued. What's the one thing I could do with my dog such that by doing it lets my dog know that they're the most important thing.

So this focusing question just allows us to very simply cut through all the noise and get clarity on what matters most in whatever that area is. And like I said, it's never going to be just one thing forever. It's one thing at a time. And I think a lot of people get stuck on this in The ONE Thing that they think, I can't just put a line in the sand about one thing forever. And I say, it's not, it's just one thing at a time to get clarity in whatever matters most in that area. And this could be, what's the one thing in my personal life or what's the one thing in my finances.

And by the way, this is intended to give you a very simple answer. If your goal is to save money, you could ask yourself, what's the one thing I could do such that by doing it would help me to save a thousand dollars a month, that it might be I need to save 10 percent of my paycheck and have that directly go to my savings. That could be your very simple answer. I don't know what it will be for you, but ultimately this focusing question works in every area of your life.

And I always say that life is the ultimate question, and the quality of our answer is going to be directly determined by the quality of the questions that we ask. So if we ask the wrong questions, we're going to get the wrong answer. If you ask, how can I do everything? You're going to get the wrong answer. If you ask, what is the one thing I could do, then you're going to get a very simple, very clear answer. And usually, it's going to be the most impactful one.

And anyone who really dreams of living an uncommon life, an extraordinary life is eventually going to discover that in order to get there, you have no choice but to seek an uncommon approach to it. And this is an uncommon approach. Most people are asking, how can I do all the things? And we're telling you, you should be asking how you can focus enough to identify what matters most. What's the one thing you could do?

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. I think it's so powerful. If nothing else, you just, even in the simplest form of this question, you just ask, like, what's the one thing I want to take away from this meeting? Or what's the one thing when you start a meeting that we want to take away from this meeting or accomplish? And you just create alignment amongst a group of people around a common goal.

Now, if you can ask this question in relation to an already determined bigger set of goals, or your own goals, or this process of goal setting to the now, it becomes incredibly powerful, because then you're saying, like, hey, all right, I know my goal for the year. I know my goal for the month in relation to that goal for the year. I know my goal for the week in relation to the month in the year. So based on that, I'm starting my day today. What's the one thing I need to accomplish today to be on track for the week? And now you are cooking with gas, right? You are in a whole different category of alignment with your ultimate success. And I think even in the smallest form, it's powerful, but if you can do it the way I just described, you are really set up for success.

Nikki Miller:

I think, like I said, if you can work backwards and you can just keep asking yourself the focusing question, just like you just did. I mean, this is really just our process of goal setting to the now. It's the same idea. It's what's the one thing we can do such that by doing it, we know we're on track. And so this question becomes so powerful because if you can keep narrowing your focus, if you're having trouble identifying what matters most, you just use this question. You just keep narrowing your focus. What's the one thing? What's the one thing? And eventually you'll get to, this is what matters most. And this is what I could do that would have the biggest impact.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. Another great segue. We didn't even plan this, but lesson number nine, you, for me, you know the answer. And 9 times out of 10, you are clear. In your head, you just may not realize or you're aware of what the answer is, what you need to focus on and how you're going to do it. And this is something I've learned in my own experience, but also from doing a lot of coaching in and around The ONE Thing and training and it's like the answer is in there.

Now, the question is whether or not you're going to be able to flush it out. And there's ways to do that but you have to become aware of the fact that you might be telling yourself a story and you need to be able to separate yourself from that story so that you can see things objectively and ask some good questions about it. But I think there's a really important thing here that there's not some, in most cases, there's not some elusive answer that you can't find that's not within you. It's there. You just got to unpack or pull some layers away so that you can see things for what they are.

Nikki Miller:

And at the end of the day, this is what a good coach does. I tell people often I get a little bit worried if somebody comes to me and says, well, my coach told me to do this, and my coach told me to do that. A great coach is never telling you to do anything. A great coach is asking you questions in order to help you identify what you believe the right path forward is on the way to where you want to be. Your coach can never give you that answer. They'll just help you ask -- they'll just help you by asking the right questions to uncover what you already know.

Chris Dixon:

Yep. Yeah. And one of the other three commitments that we referenced earlier, one, the path of mastery. Another one is moving from E to P, or moving from entrepreneurial to purposeful. And one component of making that transition is to leverage the models or skills or lessons learned from other people. And I think that's really true here, too, when you're thinking about, hey, if you've been trying to attack this problem the same way over and over again, and you're not able to get the answer you're looking for, you should probably try engaging in a model or a system that there's proven success, and find a way to help that kind of change your perspective or a coach.

We say this all the time, you could answer, you could have the same question in front of you and answer that question for yourself, write down the answer and then 30 minutes later, meet with a person, have them ask you the question and you would get a different perspective. It's just really interesting. So don't miss that opportunity.

Nikki Miller:

And I'll take this into our last lesson already, if you can believe it, which is part of the benefit of having someone to ask you the right questions is we talked about earlier, having someone to hold you accountable when life gets in the way and there really are four thieves of productivity that we talk about in the one thing that ultimately are going to take us off track. The first is the inability to say no. Second is the fear of chaos. Fourth is poor health habits. Excuse me. Third is poor health habits. And the last is environment doesn't support your goals.

I'm going to spend the most time on the first one, which is the inability to say no, because I think this is probably the one that gets in the way for most people, and I can tell you certainly got in the way for me. And Gary always says that one, yes has to be defended by a thousand nos. And in this world where we're highly visible and we're always available, it's easy for us to get sucked into the yeses. And we want to be everywhere and help everyone.

And ultimately, I offer to people as their life grows, that you have to just get comfortable making no a complete sentence. No is a complete sentence. Not every opportunity that comes your way, even if it sounds exciting is for you. And we're going to go right back to where you were earlier, which is you have to have clarity on where you want to go in order to ensure that your nos and yeses count. That's where you have to begin in this process. Otherwise, you don't know what to say yes to, and you don't know what to say no to at all.

But ultimately, once you have clarity on that, then you have to protect all of your yeses with your nos. And every time we say yes to something, it means that we're saying no to a lot of other things. And we can't please everybody so just don't try. Like we're not going to be able to say yes to everything, so don't try because ultimately, you'll end up letting everyone down anyway, because you won't be able to be everywhere at once and you're going to end up draining your own energy and your own power and saying yes to all of these things.

So ultimately, when we say yes to something, we need to understand that by saying yes, we need to understand what we're saying no to as well. And like I said before, I'll go back to no is just a complete sentence. It doesn't need to be no, because or no, I'm going to give you a lie about why I can't attend the party or go to the event or whatever. No is just no. If it's not right for you, the answer is no. And the beautiful thing about this, what I often share with people is that when you say no, you're not taking the seat from somebody who that would have been a heck yes for, right?

Ultimately, when you say no to the opportunity, that's not 100 percent right for you and isn't a heck yes for you, somebody out there that's a heck yes for them, you need to make sure that they're able to take that seat. So that when you find the opportunity that's a heck yes for you, you know that you can go into it with energy and with excitement and with both your feet in.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. The trick is, know your goals, right? You know the answer, we talked about this, leverage the focusing question, get clear on your goals, but also the things in the short term that you need to do that will roll up to your goals. That's getting into what we talked about in the beginning, which is having this mindset around the 20 percent. Know what those things are, that's the trick, because if you make an agreement with yourself that those are the things that you won't say no to, because they are going to get you to your goals, then you can let the water kind of run around those boulders in the stream for you. And then you can determine what you would say yes to beyond that. It doesn't mean that the 80 percent, the everything else, you're going to say no to all of it, but just make sure you don't say no to your priorities, and you can let the other things kind of fill in as they need. And that should help make you, the decision that you have to make around what to say yes and no to a lot easier because you're clear on your priorities. Everything else just kind of works its way in after that.

Nikki Miller:

Of course. And then one of the thieves of productivity is getting your environment in alignment with you, too. And this just isn't your physical environment. This is also the people around you. We often say no one succeeds alone and no one fails alone. So ultimately, you have to make sure that the people around you are in alignment with this language that you have and with the goals that you have and are going to be on board on your way to wherever it is that you want to go.

Chris Dixon:

Awesome. Well, let's bring it home. So these are the 10 lessons, life lessons that Nikki and I wanted to share with you guys from our experience in and around The ONE Thing. And just to pull those back together, the 20 percent approach, this is 80/20 rule applied to your whole life, that time spent is not the same as time well spent. Invest your time for the highest return on investment. Clarity itself is a journey, it's not a destination. The process of building this muscle and being able to dial up and get clarity is something that you just continue to work on over time. It's not something that will arrive and stay and you'll have ultimate clarity forever.

Multitasking is a lie. Believe it or not, can't do it all, can't do it all at once. And when you're working on your most important work, focus on your most important work. Try not to be distracted.

Accountability is your ally. Put accountability to work for you. A balanced life is a lie. You can't balance everything. Figure out how you can be intentional about counterbalancing on your priorities in intervals of time.

Lesson number seven, it's intended to be simple. It should be. Don't over complicate things. Doesn't mean it's always going to be easy, but it shouldn't be complicated. Nikki shared with us less than number eight, the focusing question. If you take nothing else from that, what's the one thing you need to do? Ask that question as frequently as you can to gain clarity, connect it to your goals if you can.

Lesson number nine. You know the answer. It's in there. Keep asking. You'll get it. It's not evading you. It's in there. You can get to it. And lesson number 10 was the fourth ease of productivity, specifically the inability to say no. Practice that. Nikki, any last thoughts from you?

Nikki Miller:

I would just hope that what everyone takes from this, we also talk about in the book that we want to be learning based as the foundation for our action plan. And I hope that what you'll hear from this today is that Chris and I have been training on this, coaching on this, and been using this in our own lives for a long time. And it takes time to conceptualize and to understand these principles. And the only way that you'll be able to do that is to use them in practical application. So don't be afraid to feel forward on them. Don't be afraid to use them and to look up and say that didn't work, or I failed at that. The only way you will get better at them, and the only way you will know how to actually use them in your life and how to apply them on your way to success is to begin.

Chris Dixon:

Well said. Hope you guys had a great time listening to the podcast. I hope you had a lot of great takeaways. Nikki, thanks so much.

Nikki Miller:

See you everybody next time.

Outro:

Thanks for listening to The ONE Thing podcast. If you're a bold risk taker who wants to dream big and achieve a higher level of success in your life or business, visit the1thing.com. There you'll find information on one-on-one coaching, our exclusive community membership program, and customized workshops that will help you get your team or organization aligned and rowing in the same direction.

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