Jay Papasan:
A lot of people are gonna tell you, if you wanna achieve big things that you need to do a lot. You need to think big, you need to act big. And we’re here to tell you, it’s actually just the opposite.
Last year, we took hundreds, over 400 business owners, entrepreneurs, through an eight-week program to help them identify their one thing, their first domino, and achieve a new level of success. And we tracked them. We looked at their results, we looked at their reviews, we watched them for nine straight weeks, followed their progress, surveyed it along the way, and we just studied it.
A year of experimenting and data, we figured out the answers. People paid thousands for this, but I want to give them to you. The people who had the most success weren’t the ones who were just the most motivated. It weren’t the ones who had the most talent. It weren’t the ones who just prepared to work the hardest and the longest hours. The people who had the most success over the course of the year, out of that 400 specifically, were the people who did five specific things.
That’s what this episode’s about. Those five steps that you can take that will make your success not only bigger and bolder, but more likely.
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I’m Jay Papasan, and this is The ONE Thing, your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results.
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We usually start every year the same way. We’re excited about our prospects. We have big goals and big visions. Some of you might even start the year on fire. You’re excited. You’re telling the world about everything that you’re going to get done. And somewhere along the line – and we’ve documented it again and again on this podcast – life happens. Your kid gets sick, something happens at work, the boat decides to go in the other direction, the market goes south, who knows what it is, but life happens. And suddenly, you lose your momentum, and you look up, and you’re right back in that familiar place where you feel busy, you feel distracted, and you feel like you’re not making the progress that you could.
It’s not that you have a motivation problem. It’s not that you have a discipline problem. It’s all about design. How are we approaching this thing? What are the key things that we’re going to do along the way? It’s not about a lot of the big things we see or we read about. It’s just about five simple things.
So, what works instead? 400 people went through our program called The First Domino. And we walked them through eight weeks, like an hour a week, pretty simple process, walked them through a series of steps. And what we saw is that the people who were consistently achieving throughout all of these cohorts were the ones who had the clearest idea of what their first domino was, the one thing that mattered during this period of time, and they surrounded it with these five practices.
So, I keep saying first domino, and I want to define it, because a lot of people have seen it in the book. It’s probably the most Instagrammed page where you see a two-inch domino will knock over a three-inch domino will knock over a four-and-a-half-inch domino. And you look up just 18 dominoes into it, you’ve got one as tall as the Leaning Tower, then you’ve got one as tall as the Eiffel Tower. And before you get to 57, to go all the way to the moon.
It’s really crazy to think that small things can add up and get really big, really fast. It looks like nothing’s happening until it’s going so big, you can’t understand it at all. It just blows your mind.
So, what is that first domino? How do we define it? Because I can tell you so many high achievers ignore it. They assume that small domino is way too small, and they run right past it. So, here’s the definition, I’m gonna read it. “Your first domino is the small, meaningful action that initiates momentum towards your goal. It’s often simple, deceptively simple, but it creates a powerful chain reaction.” So, again, it’s about the beginning of the momentum. The first small, meaningful action that you’re taking that kind of unlocks this chain reaction.
And almost always, when we find it, it’s farther upstream from our outcomes than we ever imagined. Again, high achievers were like, “That’s too small. What do you mean? I can do a lot more than that.” But it’s got to be small enough, so that even on our worst days, we don’t fail. Those days that you just don’t want to do it, where we are distracted, it’s still small enough that we can go, “Oops. Oh, my gosh, I forgot it,” but you still can make it happen. And it’s those days, actually, that can be the most meaningful. You made that small bit of progress, you did not interrupt your momentum, and you feel the progress, and you start to build confidence as you go.
So, let’s break down these five practices, and we’ll start with number one. And it’s about alignment.
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So, principle one is align. You are going to align your goals with the things that actually matter to you. You’ve heard us talk about it a lot on this podcast, core values, your purpose. Core values is probably what I’m gonna talk about the most because it’s the fastest thing that we can get to, and it’s what we teach in the first domino. We can, in about 30 minutes, get you to identify your top three core values and use them like a compass.
Here’s the thing. You come out of the blocks on January 1, you’ve got big goals, they are not born in alignment with our core values. You can have goals that are in a direction that you’re interested, things that you want, revenue goals that you as a business owner, you want to achieve. What you haven’t done is figured out beyond the fuzziness of things, like into the specifics of why that actually matters. Why does that matter to you? Do you understand it? How does that actually align?
Now, a lot of people are like, “Ugh, this core values crap again, Jay. Why do you keep talking about it? It’s the soft work. This doesn’t feel like real work.” It’s actually, I believe, the most meaningful work that you’re going to do. It’s all about laying that foundation of the design. When you understand how your goals for the year align with who you’re becoming, who you want to be, the future that you truly see for yourself, everything happens easier. What you’re actually doing is removing all the little bits of friction that you’re gonna feel down the path and the derailments that happen when you don’t do this work.
So many years, people look up and it feels like they’re running in circles. They keep stumbling around the same place. It’s not because they don’t have discipline, because they’re not motivated, because they’re not talented, all of those things. It’s because they’re actually out of alignment. And if you remember my episode with Dr. Robyne, when we act and behave outside of our core values long enough, that is one of the biggest, fastest determiners of reaching burnout of anything that we do. So it’s not light work. This is not airy -fairy stuff. This is actually foundational stuff, which is why we’re starting there.
So, common mistakes people make. They just throw something on paper, “Here’s my mission statement. Here’s why this is important.” And they’re often using values that they believe the world wants them to have or they think they should have. And I’ve given examples after example on this. Like, my number one core value is not family, even though it kind of pained me to realize that it wasn’t my number one. Actually, there’s something bigger ahead of it. And a lot of times, that’s how we express our love, our devotion to our family, is through a higher calling. And they are connected. And we’re not betraying that value. It’s actually very, very connected. But that clarity gives us the ability to know what we should be saying yes to. It becomes, ultimately, our compass.
So, the first step is, you know what? Everybody else can just go poof, right? Forget about them. What is it that you want? It’s crazy how many successful people are striving and running and racing forward. And if you really got them to slow down, they cannot exactly explain why they want to go where they’re going or why it’s important to them. They just need another target. They need to be in motion. They need to be running for the next goalpost because they need to run through them. And that’s not enough, folks. That is, again, the path to burnout. It’s busyness, it’s everything that gets between us and actually having an extraordinary life.
So, you’ve got to get really clear, so that your goals, when they come out, you can compare them to your core values. So, that’s really what I want you to do. Look at your goals that you’ve set for the year and ask the question based on who I’m becoming, where I’m ultimately going, what’s really, really important to me. And if you’ve not done the core values exercise, this is a good opportunity to go download the free resource and do it. We’ll put it in the podcast notes for you. But like, figure it out. Why are these things important to you? Try to connect them to your higher calling, whatever that might be.
For me, it’s impact, family, and abundance. I’ve said it millions of times. When I can connect all three of those to a goal, get out of the way because I am gonna be highly motivated beyond just kind of the sugar rush at the beginning of the year. I’m gonna be highly motivated for a very long time because it’s very fundamentally important to me to get there. And I will try to find a how for where I want to go. I may not know today, but I’ll ask a bigger question because I know it’s that important to me. I want you to pressure test your goals for the year against your values. Why is this important to me? Try to articulate your answers and get as clear as you can.
And it can’t just be, because I want more money, because I want a bigger house. There’s a reason you want those things. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting those things, but there’s usually a bigger, more important reason that will give you better and longer fuel underneath it.
So, alignment does not slow you down. It actually will speed you up in the long run. Take a minute, just like you’re getting in the car on a road trip. Plug in the destination. You need a map. You need to know where you’re going and what the route will be. This is the same thing. Alignment. Why are we pursuing these goals? Figure it out up front. That’s step number one. Align.
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Principle number two is the people who were really successful last year, the 400 or so that we saw, the ones that really, really knocked it out of the park, they found alignment. They understood how their goals connected to their values. And number two, they focused. I know it’s a boring word, but what we’re really saying here is you’re gonna simplify, simplify, and then simplify some more. Instead of all of the things that will make that goal happen, we’re gonna focus on that first domino.
The first domino is that small, meaningful action that leads to momentum often ignites momentum towards your goal. What happens is, a lot of times, just like the domino fall, we’re looking for the thing that builds that momentum, ignites it, so that you get the chain reaction, right? What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary? The thing that does that is often the first domino. But we have to be really careful that we’re not jumping ahead 20 dominoes into our domino run. That’s what most high achievers will do.
So, what is that first meaningful momentum building action that we can take day in and day out that will signal progress, build confidence and build momentum towards our goal? It feels really small in the short run, but I’ll tell you again and again that people surprise themselves with how much they will accomplish on the other side.
So, think about it, I wanna lose weight. A lot of times, we overcomplicate it. We say, we’re going to go to the gym. We’re going to do a diet. We’re going to manage what we eat. We’re going to manage what we drink. All of the things that, often, are people doing right now while they’re listening to this in January. You’ve got a 16-point plan for being healthy. But almost always when we work with people and find success, it starts so much smaller.
Maybe it’s getting to bed at a certain time. Maybe it’s just drinking a certain number of glasses of water. If you remember Sarah’s story, she lost over 100 pounds. Where did it start? By drinking enough water. That unlocked everything for her. She started to see progress from this really simple thing that she wasn’t actually doing before, but she made habitual in that moment, and that started a chain reaction of momentum and confidence that transformed her physical being. She is a different person now. And frankly, it’s not just physical. Imagine the confidence you feel when you make that change happen in your life, right? That is agency. That is belief in oneself. That’s what happens. And it starts surprisingly small, not the big fireworks kind of actions. It’s the foundations over fireworks that we’re talking about here.
So, they’re going to do too big or they’re going to say, “Okay, I hear you, Jay. I hear you, Gary. It’s the small things that matter. I’m going to do a first domino. It’s going to feel small to me, but it is going to be that meaningful thing. But I’m not just going to do one thing. I’m going to do it in all seven of the things I’m doing.” And what happens there is it gets complex, and they get caught up trying to build momentum around multiple things at the same time. Even if it feels like they’re in the same category, in our impatience to make so many things happen at once, we actually make nothing happens. So, that’s just a fact. Start small.
I actually had one lady, very successful, ran a law firm up in Dallas. She’s talking, she’s like, “This book doesn’t work.” And I was like, “Well, tell me about your experience.” “Well, I went through the seven circles. I thought about my spiritual, my health, my physical. I went through all of these different areas. And I set big goals for each of them. I worked them backwards, and I did them all at the same time, and it fell apart.” And I’m like, “It’s not called The Seven Things. It’s called The ONE Thing. One thing at a time.” And I know it feels so slow when you think about it, but I promise you, again and again, we see that people actually get there faster. They don’t have to stop and start. They just build momentum. And then, they start adding two and adding two over time. With the momentum in place, it’s easier to add more than you think as you go. You just have to wait until you’ve built the habit, and you do it again and again and again.
Amazing process. It’s simpler than you think, but don’t fall for that, “Well, I’m gonna act small, Jay, but I’m gonna do a lot of small things,” because that’s the same thing. You’re just dividing your focus, your resources, your energy, and your attention, and it adds up to less than you think when you divide it down.
So, finally, they confuse the outcome with the behavior that leads to it. See, lots of people in goal setting, “Hey, I’m gonna lower my stress.” “So great, what are you gonna do?” “Well, I don’t know.” “Well, then, how are you going to achieve it?” So, whatever it is, “I’m going to lose weight,” “I’m going to add revenue,” you’ve got to work it back to an actual activity. I know it sounds super basic, but you’d be surprised how many people, very successful people, often, when they actually frame their goals out, it’s all about the outcome versus working backwards to the activity that drives it.
That’s the core idea of the first domino. We have to go find it. So, what I want you to do is get clear about your goal. You’ve already got it aligned. You’ve got it in alignment out there and start going upstream. In order for that goal to happen, what are the things that would have to be true? I’m gonna add $100,000 in revenue to my business. Great, but what would have to be true? Well, we would have had good customer retention. Great, you write that down. We would have to be adding new customers worth X amount of money every year. Great, you start listing those things out and you start identifying, well, of those, what matters? And you go upstream a little bit further. What would have to be true for that outcome to happen? That process is how you work your way upstream from the outcome, and you just have to keep going.
So, literally, we help someone transform their physique. It wasn’t about getting up and going to the gym five days a week. That would be the way, and it’s an activity. “Hey, I’m gonna hit the gym for one hour, five days a week.” “Great, awesome.” What actually the first domino was for this individual in one of our actual first dominoes was their first domino was to lay their gym clothes out the night before. Why? Because it doesn’t matter if it was on our calendar to go to their gym five days a week. What they discovered was, if they got out of bed, brushed their teeth and, right there, waiting for them, without any decisions left to be made, they just had to throw on their sweats, put on those gym shoes, grab their keys and walk out the door. They removed the friction between their intention and their action.
So, they took it out of the way. They don’t have to have discipline that day. They don’t have to think about it. They would literally have to stumble over the clothes to avoid going to the gym. So, that became the trick. Might not be it for you, but I’ll tell you, it’s been something that I’ve seen show up a lot of times.
One of our other participants was really trying to wake up early. I’ll tell my own version of this afterwards. And they kept saying, “I want to recapture my mornings. I know that that’s when I can control my time. I can control my focus. That’s where I’m going to actually be able to do my one thing.” They have this first domino, which is the activity that led to the result. Well, maybe it was writing a novel. Maybe it was working on a business plan. Maybe it was doing, I can’t remember the details right now, they were going to do this activity in the morning. That’s why they wanted to get up. Well, going upstream from doing the activity in the morning, they actually had to go to bed on time.
So, you’d go all the way. So, it felt like it had nothing to do with the actual goal, the activity or the outcome. But the thing that unlocked their success was, you know what? Closing the book, shutting down the TV, going to bed at the right time allowed them to wake up, have energy and focus, and actually conquer that next domino. It was probably the third domino, not the first domino, that was the activity that mounted up for their success. So, a lot of times it’s just one-off.
I too, right, used to be a late sleeper, and I was going to bed late. I’m a writer. Like I would go and I would stay up late, and that’s when I would do most of my writing. It was also early in our marriage when I got me-time. You do all the social stuff. I’m an introvert. I like to be in the house by myself. We had a cat back then. It would just be me and the cat on the couch watching a show or reading a book. But you know what? If you’re trying to recapture your mornings, just like this other individual, if you’re closing the book or turning off the TV after midnight, you’re not rolling out of bed at 5:30. And if you do, you’re not going to accomplish much.
So, thankfully, we had our first son, Gus, and I volunteered or was volunteered – I will say it proactively, that I did it, but it might’ve been a little bit of both – to do morning bottle duty. And Gus effectively trained me to wake up early in the morning, often before 6 a.m. And it became something so regular, and it was also something I looked forward to, that I actually trained myself where it’s actually hard for me to sleep past about 6 a. m. unless I’m sick or something really big’s going on.
And the key there, I remember I was talking to our late writer, Dave Jinks, that worked with us. He’s like, “Jay, don’t worry about the different things.” He wanted me to try to make sure that I got up at the same time every day as much as I could. So, whether Gus wakes you up or not, you’re going to set an alarm and you’re going to get up at this time because if you get up at the same time every day, eventually your body will have to shut down. And if you’re looking forward to the morning, you will eventually want to go to bed and they’ll start to cycle.
And sure enough, didn’t take but a few weeks, maybe seven or eight weeks, kind of worked my way through the progress. I was getting up every day, whether I was awakened or not by my child. I was getting ready. I knew it was going to happen within 30 or 40 minutes, but man, I kind of liked it. Wow, I got to get a cup of coffee before there was a crying baby, all of the things. Over time, I got to where, you know what, it’s 9:45, we probably should be angling towards bed. Back then, going to bed early meant probably like going to bed at 10 and reading till 11. It was still earlier. Today, it’s even earlier than that.
So, upstream, that’s your takeaway. For the first domino, what would have to be true of the outcome you seek for that to happen? And you just keep working your way upstream until you get to the logical conclusion. And I would ask you to test it. Can you go a little further? Can you go a little further? Because often, surprisingly, it’s something like, just go to bed on time, man, and then you’ll get up and write the novel or start the business. It might be one domino or two ahead or upstream than you imagine.
So, step number two, we’ve aligned. Now, we’re gonna focus, we’re gonna simplify, identify that first domino. Before I share with you number three, let’s take a quick break, and then we’ll see you on the other side.
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All right, welcome back, folks. We’ve aligned. We have focused, we found that first domino. Now, it’s time to time block. And frankly, this is kind of where your calendar and your goals connect, and that is where a lot of the magic happens. It’s actually, in my thinking, kind of the shortest one that we have to explain and unpack.
If you’ve read the book or been listening to the podcast, you know what time blocking is. Time blocking is not making appointments necessarily to see other people, it’s not just scheduling things like a birthday party. A time block in our language, you’ve identified a priority, and you are making an appointment with yourself to do your most important work.
The most important time blocks are gonna be first, your rest, taking time off. And number two, whatever your one thing is, that first domino, that’s gonna get absolute first priority on your calendar. And if you can begin your year with clarity, you can start to make the rest of your calendar fit around it. That’s the key. So, time blocking, just simple, simple definition, making an appointment with yourself to do your most important work.
A lot of times people will prioritize time. head. A lot of really successful people can walk around with a lot of to-dos and priorities in their head. The second thing they do is they might actually just write them down. And if you’ve read the book, you know that we’re not against completely to-do lists but we want them to be success lists. To-do lists are just a list of stuff that we’re gonna do. We need to put it in priority. The problem with our heads is that we’re imperfect, and we’re never gonna remember exactly what the priority is, unless we’ve had tons of practice doing this when that new opportunity shows up.
So, people are going to ask us to do other things. And if we’re not clear on our priorities, we’re not gonna cut through those waves. We’re not gonna break through those and keep focused on the thing that matters most. We have to have a process. And time blocking, I believe, is the simplest process. I figured out my one thing, it’s in alignment with where I’m going, it’s gonna go on my calendar, and it’s gonna be the most important thing every single day.
That is the thing that I’m gonna live or die on, that hill that I will live or die. Did I do the thing? Did I get my 10 ,000 steps? Did I read my 30 pages? It might be really small today or it might be big later. Your running habit, it might start with a mile a day today. It might be, “I’ve got to get my half-marathon this Saturday,” in a few months or a few years. That’s what it looks like. But it becomes the priority. That activity that is keeping and building your momentum towards your ultimate goals.
So, the other thing is they let the urgent kind of swallow the important. And so, we have lots of things that come at us fast. We don’t know how to buy time. We’ll cover that in the next one. But how we navigate all of the people asking us to do more things, how we feel about it, whether it’s FOMO or those other emotions, we have to be clear. Do I know what my number one is? Have I put it in my calendar, so that it is the thing that shouts the loudest?
So, what I want you to do, you’ve identified your first domino, I want you to open up your calendar and make regular appointments, repeating appointments, hopefully at the same time, hopefully early in the day. Things tend to go off the rails later in the day. And the likelihood of it happening goes up every single hour until everybody leaves work. So, early in the day matters is also when, as you know, we have the most willpower to say yes. So, protect those early hours. That’s when we want you to time block your first domino and get it done. Make everything else revolve around it. That goes on first. Okay. So, after I’ve done my first domino, then I get to do everything else.
And then kind of our mantra is goals before phones. I’ve talked about it. It’s probably the most impactful habit we give people. Every day, before you can get on your phone on social, in your email, in your text, remind yourself of your goal, or in this case, your first domino. What is the thing that I’ve got to get done today? Great. Fix that in your mind because, now, you know what you’ve said yes to, so you don’t have to worry so much about when other people ask you things.
So, here’s some things that other people said. So, this is not my words, my experience. These are people in the First Domino. I used to think my calendar clients, coworkers were in charge of my day. After the First Domino, I feel like I’m in charge of my time. I used to prioritize in my head. Now, I defend the specific times I do my most important task. I used to struggle with time blocking and my own anxiety. I know it would be very hard for me to focus. Now, I do my time blocking first thing in the morning and my phone is on airplane mode. No anxiety. I got the company to approve time blocks, great, made institutional change, way to go, and create signs for people across the organization, “Hey, do not disturb, I’m doing my one thing.” We used to ship those in the book if you’ve been around here for a long time. Finally, I made more progress in writing my book than they had in the last decade.
So, lots of people have figured this out. They do those first two steps. It goes on their calendar. Because it’s aligned, because it’s focused, it’s not five hours in the beginning. It’s usually 30 minutes or maybe an hour. It’s a highly focused first domino activity. They’re able to protect it, start building momentum. And these are the people who don’t get derailed. I just cannot overestimate how important it is to focus on momentum and not having it interrupted.
All right, that’s the first three. Let’s go to number four.
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So number four is defend. The secret – it’s not even secret – the number one skill in success is learning how to say no. I’ve done whole podcast episodes on it. It is a supremely important skill because you’ve got alignment, you’ve figured out your first domino, you’ve got it on your calendar. Now, you have to defend it. Defending the focus and the clarity you found, once you get it, it doesn’t just stick around. The world doesn’t stop throwing stuff at you, whether it’s opportunities or obligations. And you have to learn how to triage your time. You have to learn how to make things go away and keep the important things in focus.
So, if you don’t know your priorities, you’ll never defend them. If you don’t defend them, I promise you, you will start living other people’s priorities who are able to get you to say yes. So, at the end of the day, if you want to live your own life, your own version of extraordinary, you have to identify those priorities, you have to then defend them over time, so that you can build momentum, confidence, and I keep coming back to agency.
So, we’ve said it in the book, this comes from Steve Job, every yes must be defended by a thousand no’s. It’s very, very powerful, but we need to get over the idea that saying no is a rejection. It is actually protection. We are not rejecting people. We are protecting our promises to ourselves. So, saying no, which is often going to be not now, nope, sorry, maybe another time. There’s a thousand ways to say no, folks. You hear it all the time. And sometimes, you’re disappointed. Take note, how did they say no to me? Let it be a game, how good you can become at this craft of delaying things into the future and deleting them from your life. We wanna say no. Maybe it’s gonna delegate it to other people. I’m not gonna do this. It’s a no for me, but you know what? Someone on my team’s gonna do it. As a business owner, you often have the ability to have other people do key tasks in your business. You’re responsible for them, but you don’t have to do them. And sometimes, we have to get out of our own way to actually grow.
So, don’t fall for FOMO. Don’t even worry about that. If you know what’s important to you, you won’t fear missing out on stuff that’s not. Figure out different ways to fill that bucket. If you just need to socialize, put it on your calendar. It’s a priority. And have that regular dose of gregariousness and fun in your life. You’re going to have your book club, you’re going to watch fantasy football, whatever it is for you, so that you don’t fall prey just because you need to be around people. Whatever that is for you. So, I don’t suffer from FOMO. I associate it with my people loving wife and others that really want to be social. They don’t want to miss out on the party. They don’t want to miss out on this.
The other thing is people fear missed opportunity. If they say no to this, will they get invited again? I will tell you from experience, the people who have the ability to make a lot of things happen in this world, they may not like those but they respect them. They like people, and they want to work and partner with people who have healthy boundaries. So, learning how to communicate it in a way that’s not offensive or personal. “Hey, I’m so sorry. I’ve made a commitment to my kids that I was going to coach their soccer team or I was going to be on the sidelines and I’m not going to be on my phone while I do it. I hope you understand. Can we do it at another time?” So, it’s a skill that you’re doing is deflecting these things so that your core commitments, your first domino can stay on track.
So, week seven of our process, we do an entire first domino session on the skills and arts and dark arts of saying no, and often without saying the word no itself. That’s a very direct way to do it. A lot of people actually like that directness. I tend to be indirect, but we’ll give you lots and lots of techniques if you happen to join us.
So, value-based decision-making is another thing. Hey, you can just simply pause. Can I think about it? I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Is that actually in alignment with where I’m going and the values that I hold dear? I know lots of people have been given huge opportunities, but when they took time to think about it, it was like, that sounds really cool, but I also think I won’t be happy. I am flattered at the invitation. I’m excited that they thought of me, but it is not for me. Thank you so much. And they declined. I’ve had people decline to me for opportunities. I didn’t love it, but I respected it, especially if it came from a value’s place.
So, I know one of our students, Yasi, she’s often tweeting or not tweeting, instagramming the podcast. So she’s probably listening to this right now. She went through our First Domino program. One of the skills we teach people is how to triage your time, how to protect those commitments. We call it the 7D Reset. It’s one of the ways we give people a lot of time back. And so, she went through our nine-week process. And then we used to do it at three o’clock on Thursdays.
And so, what I love about her story is that after the class was over, she just kept showing up, meeting with herself at that same time on Thursdays and going through that process, and she maintained her commitment to defend those original commitments. And if I’m remembering correctly, Yasi, and you can put it back on Instagram if I’m wrong, but I believe that you ended up carving out 11 hours a week and protecting that. That’s amazing. That’s like a day and a half a week from a very busy entrepreneur with multiple businesses, carving out a day and a half to focus on the things that actually mattered. That’s amazing.
So, we go in, we build the habit and the discipline of learning these skills, and if you keep doing it, you can not only keep the time you originally created free to do the things that are important, you can make more of it.
So, here’s some things from some other students, and I’ll just share, like, I thought working harder, doing more, and putting in more hours was the answer. But with First Domino, I was able to create space for the quiet and reflection. That quiet and reflection, by the way, is how we identify what matters. If we’re always moving, everything’s a blur. So, we do need to take moments to stop, reflect, how are we doing? How do we feel about it?
I used to react to things that crop up. Now, I know what needs to be done and I move forward. So, those impulses, I should, I should, I should go away. I love that. And then, this is maybe the victory of all. When we think of how many business owners, how many entrepreneurs, will keep doing and busyness and tasking themselves into burnout, I took two weeks off without my laptop on vacation. I love that. And how many people in desperation to go on vacation just end up on the beach with a laptop? I’ve been there and I’m sure you have. If you’re listening to this, we wanna avoid it. We need to have that clarity. We need to have those skills to defend our yeses. That’s what step four’s about.
We’ll knock off number five, and then we’ll wrap this episode up.
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Step five, commit. This is actually accountability, but I like the word commit because I was going with those good and imperative verbs. But commit, I want you to commit. And the ultimate form of commitment is to find accountability.
So, what nobody tells you about discipline, even selective discipline, is that if you rely on it too long, it will fail you. Discipline has a lifespan. We have good days, we have bad days, and if every day, we’re leaning into that willpower to make it happen, eventually, we’re going to wake up and it’s not going to be there. It was depleted by something else, something unexpected. And then, when we want it to do our most important work, even if it’s just that piece, that momentum-keeping piece today, it’s not there for us. And we get distracted and we don’t do it. And then, you can fall into the shame spiral, “Oh, I’m a bad person. I didn’t go to the gym three days in a row. Maybe I should just give up on that.” And it’s very easy to let little misses spiral into big misses because it’s in our heads.
So, accountability is one of the paths that we see to get through that. We don’t have to do it alone. We can do it with others. We can do it with a coach. We can do it in lots of different ways. So, what we want when we want something, we have to be willing to do the things it takes to get them. And our coach, Jordan Freed, his catchphrase around that, you unpack it, I want something, what am I willing to do in order to get it? What am I willing to not do in order to stay on track for it? Our willings have to match our wants. I want it, are you willing to do it?
And accountability is one of the ways that we’re like, you know what, I am committed, I am willing to do the things that may be uncomfortable, that may not feel good, that the world might say something bad about me, not true by the way, I’m gonna do those things because I’m truly committed to making this happen. It’s aligned. I know the first step. It’s on my calendar. I know how to protect it. And now, I’ve got to see it through to the end.
So, the things that we heard from people when they experienced the First Domino, doing it with a group, doing it with coaches in a group versus how they had been doing it is that they had thought all of the failures in the past groundhog year, starting every year with enthusiasm then seeing it fall apart again and again and again, they thought something was wrong with them. And so, one of the things that we see in the comments all the time is “I thought it was just me,” or “Ah, I don’t feel alone anymore.” And people who feel alone often will kind of beat themselves up with the shame stick. They’re like, “Ah, something’s wrong with me. Why can’t I do this?” So, one of the first gifts of doing it with others was they realized, “Hey, some people I look up to, really successful people are dealing with the same issues I am. So, it’s not about me. It’s just part of the journey.”
And that perspective, by the way, is massive. They also thought that discipline was the key. Discipline is important, which is why we only want to aim it at one thing at a time, but it also is something that gets depleted. If we rely on it alone, it will not be enough, which is why this is all about design. We are going to design, so that on the days where we don’t have willpower, we don’t have the focus or the energy, we have a design, a system, a fallback, so that still, we make progress and move forwards.
They keep it private. Huge mistake. People are needing help, and they are unable to ask for it. A lot of people feel that if they ask for help or say that they don’t know how to go forward, they don’t know what to do, they’re not sure as a leader, as a business owner, it means they’re not capable of being one. Guess what? If you got in a room and people were truly transparent, every single business owner you know, no matter how successful, has been there and they’ve been there a lot. That’s the nature of running a team, of leadership, of being an owner is you are going to be in lots and lots of periods of uncomfortable growth where you don’t know the answers and you will need help.
And the sooner you figure out that going to that place leads to the discovery, you’re not alone, it is not about you, and there are lots of people, the world is lining up to help you if you will just ask.
And finally, like the lone wolf stuff. There’s like this myth out there of the solopreneur or the genius entrepreneur, the founder, I could name names, but I don’t even want to put those people in that box even though they’re icons in themselves, but it’s just a misnomer. None of them do it alone. This idea that you can do it, you can grit and task and achieve effort, all of the things we do to kind of get on that hamster wheel, we can do it for periods of time, but the end result for people who try to do it alone is almost always burnout and disappointment.
So, what do we want you to do instead? Well, I want you to work with others. So, one of the ways I frame it, and I learned this again from my coach Jordan, he’s like, “Jay, If you had to bet $1,000 on who would actually have the best health outcomes, lose the most weight, whatever you want it to be, it’s one person who says, ‘I’ve downloaded from the internet, and I’ve read these books, I’ve got my program worked out, I’m going to go to the gym and I’m going to start my strength training.’ The next person says, ‘I’ve got my plan. I’ve got it downloaded. I’m going to go to the gym, but I’m buddying up. I’ve got a workout buddy and we’re going to do it together.’ That’s B. A is I’m doing it alone. B is I’m gonna do it with a pal. Number three, ‘Hey, I’ve got my plan. I’ve got my goals. And you know what? I’m gonna hire a trainer and I’m gonna meet them at the gym and we’re gonna work out together.’ Now, 90 days from now, who are you putting your money on? Which horse is gonna win that race?” If you’re honest, you know the person who has the least likely chance of success is the person who’s going it alone.
So many business owners look up and they realize they’ve been caught in this cycle but they can break out. They can do it with others. They can do it with someone who’s paid to help them do it. Either way, that’s why people enroll in masterminds. That’s why people do groups. That’s why they do group coaching. That’s why they do training because they know if I go to that class and I sit in that seat, I will pay more attention than if I just tried to do it by myself.
So, you don’t need to do it alone. You should look up and ask the question, what’s the way because I’m committed that I’m most likely to keep the promises that I make to myself. That’s what we say accountability is. Accountability is how we keep the promises we make to ourselves. How can I be accountable to my goals and make it happen? Work through the process.
So, all the way back to the beginning. Number one, we want you, the people, the 400 that we studied, the people who had the greatest outcomes, step number one, they found alignment. They knew why their goals were important to them. They knew how it aligned with what was inside them and where they were going.
Step number two, they found alignment. found focus. They didn’t try to do everything. They looked up and they said, “This is the key thing that matters.” This is the first meaningful action that builds momentum towards a chain reaction, that first domino that we’re looking for.
Three, they’re going to time block it. They know it’s aligned. They know what that first domino is. They’re going to put it on their calendar. And they are going to make sure that that is the first most important meeting they have with themselves. Maybe not literally in the day, but it is the one in bold print every single day. They know what their most important meeting is. It is that time block to keep the promise they made to themselves.
Next, they’re going to defend it. They got it there. And I got to tell you, that’s like 75 % of the battle. Most of the research will say you’re three times more likely to succeed just by getting it on your calendar, but you still have to defend it over time. We’ve all gone through periods where we’ve been on track and then got knocked off. It is really hard to rebuild lost momentum, which is why we want to defend it so carefully.
And finally, if you’re really committed, you’re going to get accountability. You’re not going to try to do it all by yourself. If it matters to you, you will look up and say, “I’m going to do it with others.”
So, those are the five things. And when we looked up at the people who had the best possible outcomes out of 400 success stories, those were the biggest, the brightest. Those were the people that did those five things and all of them are available to you.
So, we normally end these with kind of a challenge, and I’m gonna do kind of a PSA. So, on January 14th, we’re opening up our third ever cohort of the First Domino. It is nine weeks, one hour a week, surrounded by coaches, by other high achievers. We’ve seen amazing outcomes. I think we’ve had maybe two or three refunds out of 400. We have all these guarantees, you’re gonna get four hours back. So, it’s a small investment of time in order to get clarity, alignment, you are able to work on and discover your first domino, and you’ll then put it on your calendar. You will then practice defending it. You’ll get all the training. We have a whole session. And then, over time, through the group and accountability, you’ll be so much more likely to achieve it because you’re not doing it alone. You’re doing it with others, and they’re there to support you.
And there’s all kinds of pop -up workshops. We always ask the right questions. What is it you most need this time? And we’ll do sideline bonus sessions to make sure people have what they need. So, right now, PSA, it’s available. Check it out. Go to the1thing.com/domino. That is where you can get all the information you need if that’s the commitment you want to make to yourself.
So we want you, as a challenge to – this is what I want you to do, I want you to go check out that page, but I want you to make the commitment that this year, you will try to do these five things. I want you to take the core of this episode, and make a commitment. That’s it, make a commitment to find that for yourself. You might find it through the First Domino, you might find it through other means. What I want is for you do that this year, so that this will be the year that you finally do whatever your fill in the blank is. That thing that you’ve been wanting to do, that has been escaping you, that you keep getting knocked, derailed, distracted from, this is the year that you can do it if you make those five commitments.
Again, if you wanna do it with us, it’s at the1thing.com/domino. Everything you need to know is there. And if not, you’ll be able to reach out to us. We’ll answer your questions, but I hope you’ll join us. I expect hundreds of high achievers and business owners will be joining us because they are committed to finding their first domino following these five steps, so that this is that year that they truly break out, and it becomes the year that they say, “That’s when it started.” I love to hear that. When that’s when it started, I adopted this approach. I stumbled forward a little bit, but once I found my rhythm, anything is possible.
Thanks for listening, folks. I will see you again next week.
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This podcast is for general informational purposes only. The views, thoughts and opinions of the guests represent those of the guests and not ProduKtive or Keller Williams Realty LLC and their affiliates and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, tax or other advice. This podcast is provided without any warranty or guarantee of its accuracy, completeness, timeliness or results from using the information.
