Greg McKeown - Ask yourself "What if this could be effortless?"

Hello and welcome to Wiley on Business with Authors. A podcast where we talk with the authors that business leaders are reading. It's a known fact that highly successful leaders are generally voracious readers, and that a great book can be one of the most efficient proxies for experience. My name is Jake Wiley and over my nearly two decades of business experience and client service, owning a business, as well as being a CFO, I've had the opportunity to see the direct impact great books, and thought leaders have had on business successes. I've had the incredible fortune to be able to sit down and chat with the authors of the books, the leaders we look up to are reading and share some of the backstory and insights that led to these thought provoking books directly with you. Today, I'm thrilled to share a conversation with Greg McEwen whose books have made a substantial impact on my life in the way I prioritize and handle tasks. Greg is a speaker, best selling author and the host of the popular podcast what's essential, and if you like what you hear today, please check that out. He's been covered in the New York Times Fast Company fortune, Politico and Inc, has been interviewed on NPR, NBC Fox, the Steve Harvey show, is among the most popular bloggers on LinkedIn. He's also a young leader for World Economic Forum. And we Cubans New York Times best selling book essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of less has sold more than a million copies worldwide. Today, you're going to hear a discussion about his new book, effortless, make it easier to do what matters most. Originally from London, England, he now lives in California with his wife, Anna, and their four children. Well, Greg, thank you so much for joining me today. I've had the opportunity, and I appreciate you giving me a an advanced copy of effortless Yeah, read a centralism. I've read effortless, I can't wait to get into the conversation today. But you know, one, I know that you've got the book launch coming up. That's really important. There's a lot going on in your world. So one, thanks for making the time. But you know, to why don't you tell us a little bit about the book launch? When when we can get it in where we can get it?

Oh, no, I appreciate that. Jake, it's great to be with you. Yeah, effortless is a is a passionate project for me. Because of what everybody's going through right now. I was just talking to a CEO of a large tech company. And he literally just summarized it. He said, everyone's burned out. And here we are more than a year into COVID at the time of our conversation. And it doesn't matter what your status was, before you have used up internal reserves, to be able to make it through this year. If you're a solo entrepreneur, you've had to likely you have hustled to pivot your business or just to keep it going while you've got new challenges. Maybe you've dealt with home education you've dealt with such short more uncertainty than before. And and even if you have a team, same thing as a whole set of stresses and pressures that that means for them and for everyone, in an environment where everybody's burned out, what you don't need to do is try to just double down what you've done previously. And so a lot of people think that's what they need to do. And and really effortless is an attempt at trying to share some practices and principles I learned through actually the most agonizing experience of my life. You know, how we can make it a bit easier to do what matters most. And I mean, people can, you know, it's available at the time of they're listening to this, it will be out maybe just barely out 27th of April. And and people can get it everywhere that they they get their books, and just finished the audio for it. So it's going to be available in audio as well. I read it. And if that's a good idea, sorry. may have been better not to but there it is. It's been done for good or ill. And I'm just delighted to be with you to be sharing this with people. Because I think it has the power of relevancy right now.

That's great. So by the time you're hearing this, the book is out. Amazon, audible everywhere that you can get books. It's it's out there for you. So I guess let's, let's take a step back into the past, right? So you started this journey with essentialism. And yeah, we can get into that because I love that book, too. But one, I guess, how did essentialism start, you know, how did you get the I guess the courage or the the Moxie to go out there and write this book? And then to I guess the follow on question is like, how does that lead into effortless?

Yeah, I mean, there is a personal journey that connects it all together. I mean, the the key moment when I really when looking back that essentialism was born, was when I got an email from my boss at the time said, Look, Friday between one and 2pm would be a very bad time for your wife to have a baby. Because I needed to be at this client meeting and she was expecting otherwise that Be an even stranger email to receive. But, you know, Friday, we're in the hospital adores, has been born in the early hours, the middle of the night. And instead of being focused on what was clearly the most essential thing in that moment what the priority was, I felt torn. I've got my laptop out my phone out, I'm trying to keep everyone happy. I'm trying to do it all, do it do both. And so to my shame, I went to the meeting. And I mean, even afterwards, I remember being I remember my manager saying, Look at the client will respect you for the choice you just made. And I'm not sure that they did. You know, I don't share the data. I'm not sure the look on their faces, events that sorts of respect. But even if they did, it is clear in hindsight that I made a fool's bargain, I violated something much more important for something much less important. And and that was sort of the birth of this is why do we, why do we act in this way? And what can we do to be able to take responsibility for the prioritization of our life, what I learned from the experience was really this that if you don't prioritize your life, someone else will. And and so it's been, it's been, you know, the listening, it's been like an unparalleled multi year listening tour, since essentialism came out, to be able to speak with literally 1000s of people 10s of 1000s, perhaps now about what really is essential to them. And what gets in the way, what makes it hard for them to live their life around the things that they believe and state that they believe are the most important things in their life. And so that's been a remarkable opportunity. And it's also come itself with with new lessons.

I love you know, one of the things that you do really well in both of the books, right, as you tell this personal story of how it connects for you. And it really resonated like so effortless. I'm sorry, essentialism actually resonated with me on the first one where you tell the story about having to make this choice and you made the wrong choice. Yeah, and I've done it myself, right, I was we have, we have twin daughters, they were born premature. And as a result, like their lungs develop late. And like one of them caught a really bad cold, we had to go the hospital was in the hospital for a week. And the most important thing was being there for my daughter, that I was over in the corner, you know, taking calls, and trying to you know, keep up and make people feel like, oh, no matter what, you know, Jake's gonna be there for us. Right? Yeah. And it just, you know, it's one of those things. It's like a tuning fork, right? It just resonated with me where it's like, you're right, you know, I totally made the wrong choice. And I put the wrong things in the wrong order. And it just made me really think about that. And then, you know, let's flash forward to two effortless, no similar story where, okay, you've gone through this essentialism, you know what's important, right? You defined it. And then you, you found that you're still working yourself to death? And your question. Yeah, I mean, is that?

Yeah, well, I mean, the, when I was traveling, you know, one of the entrepreneurs I was working, working with raise this idea of, and we've heard it before the the big rocks theory. And really, this is a pretty good summary of essentialism, in the big rocks theory is if you take a container, and you put in the sand first, and then you put the small pebbles in, and then the big rocks, it doesn't fit as a geometric problem, right? Is it doesn't, it just doesn't fit if you do it that way. If you if you take the same size container, but you change the order, you put the big rocks in first, then the small rocks, then the sand, then it fits. And it's a metaphor, because the big rocks are, you know, looking after yourself protecting the asset. That is you. It's looking after the most important relationships of your life. It's making trade offs between projects, so that you can pursue just a few that you think will be the highest contribution that you can make. And that's the idea and that's the logic flow. But they got to a point in my life where I thought, you know, this, I still believe this. But I could see some cracks in the theory. I could experience it, I could feel it, I was being more selective than I'd ever been. I wasn't writing another book for a start. You're supposed to write one every 18 months, you know, especially if the if the book is successful, the last book you did is successful. Then he opens up all the doors, it's just ready people are ready to go. But I was not doing that. I had stopped teaching the you know, put on hold the class. I was co created at Stanford, the D school they're designing life essentially. I mean, I love doing that. But you know, put that aside with this workshop. business as a demand for that, nope, we're not going to do that. I mean, these are fairly major career, you know, selectivity where you're seeing no and keeping it aside. But still, it felt like, yeah, the still what, let's put it in the mess for, what do you do, if there are too many big rocks? Right? That's a different kind of problem. And in the midst of thinking about that, I have a family crisis that comes up we could talk about later, but, but that just suddenly pushes it all over the edge. And and you say, okay, to go forward, I have only a few choices, I can either drop some of the big rocks, right, you say it's essential, but I'm still not doing, we're not going to invest in that relationship, not gonna invest in your health, not going to invest in these important projects that you want to make a contribution, or even just provide for your family and so on. Like, you could get rid of those. Or you've got to find another way. If you can't, if you're dealing with what's only essential, and you're already working as hard as you can, and it's not enough, then you've got to find an easier, different, better way. And that pursuit, and dealing with that multi year family crisis was the opportunity to discover that it isn't just about whether you're doing the right things. It's are you doing it in the right way? And I found that there was tremendous opportunity there. where, you know, I found myself feeling a bit like, you know, I don't know, like a weightlifter who's lifting with his back or, or, you know, a baker's needing everything by hand. Right? You suddenly discovered that there's a different way? What if there's a better way? What if there's an easier way to go about the things that are essential? And that has been, you know, that's unlocked a whole new mindset, a whole new skill set that I think, I think can be really beneficial?

You, you talk about in the book, and I think this is worth discussing, if you're willing, it's really like flipping the mindset and like asking the question a different way. Would you mind sharing that?

Well, there's there's several opportunities in the book for this, but one that I think destroyed, right from the start, and effortless inversion. Most of us ask questions, but the questions are back in the back of our head, we're not really conscious of the questions we're asking. And so it's like, there's this perpetual Google Search going on. And it's giving us answers. And we're reading the answers. If there's no question is, if this is just what is. Yeah. And so for example, for the for the hit squad, which was what one of my brothers Justin refers to, this is the hard working, intelligent, talented group of people, right, that's the hit squad for that group of people. They tend to say, What if I want better results? If I want to double my results as an entrepreneur? Well, it's obvious I have to just double my work ethic, right? If I if I put in double the hours, if I put in, you know, more effort, that's how I'll get better results. And and there's a certain fairness inherent in that idea. But really, what I have found is that is that effort and reward are not linearly related. That is, you've got to unlock them as one way to unlock them the fastest way, and it's so simple, it almost will feel too simple. But it's just to ask a new question. And this is the question, What if this could be effortless, right? So let's just put these two books together. So essentialism is like rethinking, prioritization. effortless, is rethinking, you know, simplification, right. And you can ask two questions right now everybody listening this watching this, can ask these two questions. What is something that is incredibly important? essential? Actually, Jake, you could do it right now. You game. You we go. We just go live on this. We'll do it right now. We're going to allow you to answer this question. Yes. Okay. Yep. Yeah. What is something essential to you? It's very important. You know, that if you did it, it would be a game changer for you. I mean, it would really move the needle, you know, it would, man that would be amazing. If I could get this thing done. Right. You're not doing it yet. But you want what comes to mind? What what's the first thought?

So honestly, the first thought is for it's my health. Right? Okay. And it's what do I eat? Right. Okay. Okay, so is that is that a fair?

Is that a fair way to do it perfectly fine on so yeah, okay. So what that tells me what I'm not tells me what I sort of carry from that story is that you'd like to eat better. That's the obvious, but I also sense the way you said it. Like, I've been wanting to do this for a while, yep. You know, like, I'm a bit frustrated about this. Because there's not like information gap. Or, you know, look, I eat a bit healthier. If I eat a lot healthier, my life is a lot better. Can you put in your own words, just for a second, why that matters so much to you. You said it was essential. You said it was a game changer? Why does it matter so much to you to solve this?

It matters because I know that if I make a simple change in what I do, and then really, most most importantly, the decisions that I I make, and then when I make those decisions, I can live a much better life, right? I can have more energy, you know, I can have more time during the day, like there's just so much more that I can do by taking control of what I eat. Okay, so

you said what you told me was energy and time, you're like, my life gets better. And the specific tissues, our energy and time? Why does that matter to you? Like, what is it you? If you if you can eat better? What does it lead to? What is the thing that you just feel like? It would just make this so much better? more enjoyable? More? achievement? What what what? Beyond the energy and time? Like, go deeper? Why?

Why? So I have I have four children? Okay. And, you know, I put in a lot of effort every day into work. Yep. And typically, like when I wind down, I'm pretty much done. You know, like, we do dinner and like we do that, but I don't have the energy levels that I want to be able to engage with my kids and my family at it. As much as I could, you know, like, Am I outside throwing the ball? As much as I should know, right? You know, am I just hanging out and just trying to like deikun recuperate from the day? Yes. That's why it's important to me.

Yeah. What you just told me and I think everybody listening to this, can sympathize with this, because it's a very COVID kind of challenge as well, is that by the end of the work day, there's nothing left to give. You know, you go to say, Yeah, my most important people in my life don't get very much from me, not compared to how much I wish was there not compared to how much I even feel for them. But when you go to feel you try to live out that value, it's not that you don't value it even. It's just like there isn't any any energy left. That's it. So the gap isn't a gap of intent. It's not a motivation is not even an effort. It's energy gap. There's not enough energy to do what I actually value. This is what I hear you saying? You got it. Give me one level more why it matters. Like, why does having energy for your children, your wife, your family? Why does that matter? So much to you?

So, great question. We're going deep here. I thought I was asking the questions today. But thank you. When I think about my legacy, right, yeah, it's interesting. So I turned 40 in a week. So by the time this podcast is out, I'll be 40. And that's, that's a number that makes you kind of reflect a little bit. Yes. And when I think about the legacy that I want to leave for my kids, is really to show them what's possible. You know, it's easy to just get caught up in the day to day activities and just do it. But what's truly possible in life, if you really go after it, and you know, what I noticed is that if I don't have the energy, I'm not living that, right. I'm not I'm not exuding you know, the legacy that eventually that I want them to look and be like, wow, dad did it. He was great to us. He was out there talking to people. He did some amazing things like so can we, huh. And that's, you know, that's, you know, they call it a midlife crisis. But it's become really obvious lately. That it's so important for me to like, take control of my life before you know, it just keeps going the way it's going.

Yeah, you've just you've just identified to to deeper points still. And you call it legacy. But you really you're talking about it's not just it's not just how you remembered. It's completing a mission. Yep, fully is I have a mission one, I want to really kill it with my children. I mean, I just want them to know that I they were the most important thing and he was here for me and there was time for me and and and he laughed with me and played with me and had memories to get and all of that richness that is vital to you and to you want to make a contribution that kind of makes them proud that gives them a sense of what's possible for their life that they go, you know what He showed us how to live, he showed us that He loved us. But he also showed us how to live and make a contribution in the world that can inspire me, you know, for my whole life, and I can pass it on and so on. So these are like, we're not talking about now peripheral values. We're talking about the very heart of the heart of it. Yes, yes. We should do this more often. All right, this is this is all under what I would scope question one. I know I asked a few questions, but it's still in category one. The question I asked at the beginning was what's essential, that's just vitally important, that would make all the difference. you've explained as why it matters. And so one Now, the second category, there's only two categories is really this question. How can we make it effortless? Right. Right. How can we make this goal effortless for you? Let me just go through a few sort of sub questions for you. Sure. One, what is done look like? Like, how do you know? When you're not? I don't mean? Oh, I'm perfect on food I'm perfect. On? I mean, it's really about energy. It's not just food. But let's let's go back to food, because it's the one you started with? What would success look like? How would you know when you're going, Hey, listen, I'm not perfect, but I feel good about it. Now. Give me as specifically as possible.

Okay, you're probably gonna chew this one up, too. But if it was planned, and ahead of time, right, and, and I didn't have to think about it. And I think the point about it is, is that when left to make a decision, at a poor decision making, you know, time in my day, I make the wrong decision. But I would know ahead of time, if it's like, Hey, here's the meals, they're planned out. They're done. I don't even have to think about it.

Mm hmm. Right. Okay. I really like that, you know, it's like, it's like a double effortless answer, actually. Because what you're saying is, I would know that I was making progress, because I wouldn't even have to think about this. That's exactly right. I mean, in primary form of effort, but what we mean by that word, we think we know what we mean when we say that, but but really more tangible description of effort is mental exertion. And when you have to think about something, that's effort, and the key, there's nothing wrong with effort at all. I'm in favor of FM. But it's a limited resource, you've only got so much of it. And so this is why, by the time we get sometimes to like 11 o'clock in the day, with such in such decision fatigue, right, just a different word for being exhausted, right? We just, we just used up our effort in making decision after decision after decision. And so then, of course, by the time maybe it's not, maybe it's not 11. Maybe it's by the time it's two, you haven't eaten and you go, Okay, well, I'm just I mean, something. Yep. And that's something is probably, you can correct me is probably fast food or is probably, you know, that's what's available. That's, that's easy in that moment. And so you go for something else. That's not that's not actually healthy isn't actually good for you. That sounds about right. Yeah. I

mean, I've got a house full of four kids under the age of 10. Like the food that's sitting around is not ideal for me.

Well, you're saying there, yeah, there's like this, like, there's a lot of easy food. Yep. That hand, but it isn't, it isn't the great food for you. Okay. So we I think we have it in terms of that answer. And that is that the plan, the meals are planned ahead. You don't have to think about it. Done. It is, you know, it's going to be that you know what, it isn't advanced, and you're fine to eat that. But you don't want to wait until you're hungry to then be thinking and looking in the fridge and looking in the freezer and seeing what's around and then just eating whatever that is. That's what that's what I hear from you. Yep. Um, let me just put the big question back to you for a second like, like, what, when I break it down here, what is the first obvious thing that you need to do to start moving towards this solution? Like, you got a basic solution. Now you can, I think, visualize that with you. I know what that looks like. But try and work back with me to the very first obvious step that a lot of people when they're trying to achieve something that's been hard for them in the past hasn't happened yet. Think about the 50 steps involved? Or even the 10 steps involved? And it just is overwhelming enough? Yeah. Okay, I can't get back to that. I got to get to the next email. I got to do the next task. And I just want to say Forget it, forget step. 10, or 10,000 was the first obvious step you can take what's your thought on that?

Well, now that we're really thinking about it, it's probably finding a meal delivery service. It already has food prepped.

Okay, so it's fine. Is that if we just stopped this conversation right now? Could you do that? What would the what what would you do? What would you actually do next? Google search. Right meal delivery services for keto? Right, that's my right. So we now have the first task, right? The first task is open, open Google and search for meal delivery service. Yep. That I mean, that is we're actually pretty close, right there. Yep. to, to at least illustrate what we're talking about here. Yep. Know what is essential. We know why it matters. And then we move to the second theme. And that focus of this book, which you know, the new book is, how do you make it effortless? Yep. Don't make it don't think that we have to the more important thing is the harder it has to be. Yep. Lots of people have that basic premise. What you're offering here is one tiny first object, you know, first action, you know how to do it. The only thing I want to add really right now about this is one of my favorite ideas that came from the research for the book is called a microburst, which is that you literally set a timer for 10 minutes. Okay. And at the end, so you know, the first action, but you also know, the first action isn't isn't the whole solution. We all know that. So you say, Okay, I know what the very first obvious action is. Got that. And we know what success looks like, we've got that. I'm going to set a timer for 10 minutes at the end of 10 minutes. I'm done with this. But today, we were okay. What can I get done? Starting with that first obvious action within 10 minutes is a microburst. I love it. Because, you know, what can you achieve within 10 minutes on this? What do you think is the answer to that, by the way, we've got first obvious action, but what's the What can you achieve in 10 minutes on this goal?

I mean, honestly, I think zooming that I could probably solve this problem, actually think that in 10 minutes of searching, you know, with a little bit of review, reading, you know, you could I could find a meal delivery service that meets my needs, then I put my credit card in. And this thing would show up at my door, at some point in the very near future, I think, I think all of that's possible in 10 minutes.

Yeah, I think it might be. I mean, if you had to reduce that goal, you could just say, literally, I have found it, and I've put my credit card in go. And so I achieved that part of it. And I know that there's one more microburst, which is maybe selecting the food for this week, I wouldn't worry about trying to solve it forever. Unless it really is natural for you to do that. And you can find, but I mean, I love that you're willing to do that. Thank you for being willing, and being vulnerable enough to do it. And to have an unusual kind of podcast conversation to get there. What you just said at the end to me is priceless. And you literally said, I think we could do it. I think I could solve it in 10 minutes. Yep. Let me just ask you, how long have you been thinking about the problem? Oh, now 20 years? That's right. I have things like that, by the way, I don't want to sound at all one up about this conversation. Because I happen to have been having a coaching conversation. There are things in my life now that I cannot believe I have lived with the so long, right? And, and and this is not unusual. You're saying that people will have something that bothers them for for literally 20 years, or sometimes longer? Yep. And when you actually use the effortless question, and a few little questions, what is done look like? What's the first obvious action? And what can you do within the first 10 minutes microburst? Man, it's so liberating, you take it all, from the vague from the overwhelming. And so it's not always that people are working so hard and get exhausted and give up. There's a different kind of problem we often have with the essential activities in our life. And it's that we think something is going to be overwhelming. Yep. And it's like, it's a bit like, you know, if somebody is doing a slide presentation, and they have like, 500 words on the slide, we don't read 400 words and give up. You do the pre scan. You're like, am I ever gonna read that? No, I'm never gonna read that. Right. And the same for many of the essential activities in our lives. We think I really need to eat better. Am I ever going to do all those things that I owe that Oh, that stuff that I think that's going to meet require? No, I'm never gonna do it. And we give up even So then we're in this very awful state of like, I'm, I've jumped to something else that I perceive as easier, but I feel guilty for not having done the thing I had and it goes on and on for years and years with that, that burden, when you can just dismantle the false assumption that essential things have to be hard. Have to be over whelming and the fastest way I know as I said, as a summary question is how can this be effortless? goes to asking the question, releases answers. And we've just obviously had an example of that here. So thank you.

Yeah, no, that's, I mean, it's like, what here's, here's one of the things I loved about the book, too, is that not only you know, most of the books that I read, you know, there's, there's a lot of thought that goes into it, right? And then they're like, Oh, you need to do this. And it's like an exercise and you got to like, write and put the book down. I'm gonna go over here, I'm gonna do this, it's gonna take 20 minutes. I'm not gonna do that. I'm just gonna keep reading, right? Like, I just let me let me get what's next? You have some like charts in your book. That's like, here's some examples of some effortless thing. Hmm, like, how to pay your bills. You know, like, don't deal with that every month. I know, like, that just seems super obvious. But like, you gave enough examples that literally, I while I was reading the book, I just went and wrote, like, what are a bunch of things that I do every day, every day, or, you know, once a month, or that repeat that are just annoying. And here's, here's another example, like, and you'll appreciate this, because it's, it's already happened. Every day I wake up, you know, and I have to like, go work out. And then I figure out like, what am I gonna wear? Right? I've got a closet, and I've got a blue shirt. I've got check shirts, and I've got all these different things. And I sat down, I was like, well, could I make that easy? You know, like, this is the whole Mark Zuckerberg thing where he wears the hoodie every day. You know, like, I'm not that cool. Like, I can't get away with wearing a sweater every day. When I was like, well, I looked in my closet. I was like, You know what, I could wear a white button up shirt every day. It works, right? Like a white collar shirt works every single day. If I wear a blue shirt, but like I leave anyway, that blue shirt a lot. Nobody's ever mentioned that I wear this white shirt every day. They're always like, oh, you're dressed up for COVID? And I was like, Yeah, I don't even think about it anymore. And I mean, that is, that's so empowering. I don't you know what I mean? Like, I

don't have to think about that example. I love that you did that. Because Because again, people sometimes think oh, I've got to make huge, you know, huge change, to make something that makes a difference. And it's not true. If we identify the things we do often, and make those things a little easier. So let me just put that conceptually in place for those that haven't had a chance to read effortless yet, which is everyone listening to this, you know, right out the gate, because it just came out, I think the day This will launch, the there's three concentric circles in the effortless model, effortless state is the beginning, we need to be physically rested, we need to try to rid ourselves of all of this, you know, the the anxious state, the exhausted state, the frustrated state, the worried state, just keep coming back to this moment to this, you know, to being able to be in this moment, try and clear off the rest is effortless, effortless action is what starts to follow naturally. That is you're trying to do the minimum amount of effort to get the result that you're looking for. But then the third and final circle is effortless results. And effortless results. For me personally, I think is the biggest single takeaway for the research process of effortless results isn't just getting a result effortlessly. What I think of it as the difference between linear results. That is you do something once and get a result once, that's just what you're saying right in the closet every day you go and then make a decision once and it doesn't seem like a big decision. But it takes up a piece of your energy to have to think about that each day versus a residual result, which your example is great for, you know, you've made the decision once and now you never have to think about it again, every day, it works for you. It makes that thing easier forever afterwards, the difference between linear results and effortless results that the difference between the power of perpetual results flowing to you. I mean, as an entrepreneur, this is it. This is the this is the big breakthrough. There's there's life before you start investing in residual results. And there's life afterwards. And I think they're not even it's like a completely different status. You're the most successful entrepreneurs or not, yeah, the billionaire is not working 1000 times harder than you. That's right. But forget the forget all the you've heard about the hustle culture and you hustle your way into the top. And that's how you're going. I'm not saying you don't have to work to achieve your goals. I'm just saying the people that are getting it, the people that are blowing it up, they're not working that much harder because you can't work that much harder. You can work harder than someone else. Of course you can. There's a real limit on the benefits of it. At some point you start to have, you know, you start to get even negative results you get to the point where where you're working so hard you burn yourself out and you're still aren't getting the results you want. Remember Thinking distinctly about this as a, as someone who cares about teaching, and wants to make a bigger impact and so on that that, you know, I'm in the same struggle. And I thought years ago, I was like, yeah, Oprah doesn't work. She doesn't work 1000 times harder than the next person she can't You can't write, she has 1,000x. That's not exaggerated, especially back when I was asking it. She has 1,000x impact. So that's clearly the way to scale your impact is what I really am interested in isn't just by working harder, you've got to think in terms of how do you achieve residual results? How do you make one decision? One time that flows to you again, and again and again. And one of the one of the things that you can do is you can work with the right people, you can hire the right people, if you hire one person, right, you get 100, maybe 1000 results will flow to you naturally, day after day after day finding the right people, it's when my favorite insights was was discovering. The Warren Buffett uses a rule for who he hires. And I call it now the three eyes because that alliterated integrity, number one, intelligence and initiative, and he adds that you've got to get them in the right order. Because if they don't have integrity, then the other two can hurt you. Right. But But this idea, I sorry, I'm now like riffing on this. But Steve Hall is a highly successful entrepreneur friend of mine. So we've got really into essentialism has been really helpful in in working now on effortless. He told me a story when he hired a basically a set CFO, someone who was going to handle maybe not the CFO, but somebody who's going to have a candle handle all their accounting, you know, work in their their dealership is a car dealership, mostly online car sales, right, as we were just being hugely excited to be hugely successful. Has this person and they find a $300,000 accounting error. And they think, well, it's probably not great. And she said, Oh, no, it's just an error. I've just made a mistake and whatever, whatever. And they said, Okay, well, we're just working, we're moving so fast, we're doing so much, we'll just, we'll just prop her up by having somebody kind of monitor her and so on. They knew they couldn't trust her. They knew they doubted the integrity. But they still said, you know, we'll just move forward. And it was just, you know, a few years later, she wouldn't take any, any holidays as a red flag. That's right, take any holidays, won't take any moment away. Books, and you she was forced to take a holiday, and you got to get out of here. And then they found that there was a $2 million, it grown to $2 million now. And no one ever cheat she like, you know, she texted everyone, okay, I quit my job. And no one's ever seen her. took the money ran. No one's seen her since she said that was the most painful lesson of not hiring right? You see, you hire the right person, or the wrong person, you get results. residually It isn't a one time thing. And so sometimes we make that decision really quick, while we're just gonna throw a post up days, I gotta get some help. I feel frustrated, I feel desperate. Of course, we do feel this. But if you get the right person in tech, high integrity, high intelligence high initiative, that's what he ended up doing. He said, we went through a thorough process, then we brought in executive recruiters, we interviewed everybody deeply, we wanted a really good cultural fit everything. And they finally found that person, I mean, then he said, from that point on, that whole area of the business was so effortless, all worked and loved working with them. It was EAS D, they've sold the business since turning a fortune 100 company and and this is the same employee has been promoted three times. That's the power of find the right person. And that's a residual result. It's an effortless, effortless result, it's worth a little more input to get this repeated, perpetual output.

Yeah. And I think what I really like about that story, and a lot of the conversations that I've had on the podcast, and really over my career, is that it's not a one plus one equals two thing, right? If, if I'm an entrepreneur, I'm slugging it out, I probably know how to do like, we'll use accounting isn't a good example. I can get through it. But when you hire the right person, it gets better. Right? It's not just replacing you. It's actually taking it and notching it up. So it's, it's not even just a residual return. It's an exponential return. And I think that like what you really hit on in that story, and then you really hit on in the book, is that like when you think about the effortless life, it's about stacking all of these things up, right? Like you keep finding them and you keep stacking them up. So instead of saying like, here's my one output today, tomorrow, I effortless this, this process And now it's two, and three, and then four, and then it starts stacking up and it becomes amazing. So going back to the Oprah example. 1,000x contribution is only possible by stacking these effortless, you know, this whole effortless concept. And it's amazing. I mean, it truly is amazing. And it's so spot on with everybody that I've ever talked to. That's done it. They figured it out. And they're like, What do I do? I've got to multiply my vision.

You used a great word that for what it is, I had somebody who helped me do some research for the book was a terrific just, I mean, just been a great it's named Jonathan Cohen. It was was such a great addition to Team effortless, on this project made made it materially better, and was a delight, just delight to work with I mean, it was Oh, those three things that we've just been talking about. And and he said his his view, that if you, the way he thinks about it, is that if you have essentialism plus effortless, it creates a kind of multiplication effect. Yep. And I thought that I thought he was right about it. But you've just expressed it as well to anyone I've heard express it, that idea of stalking your effortless choices. And it's not because you just want an easy life. I mean, the book isn't forced it that's not even what the book is about at all. It's about how you make the highest, go to the next level of contribution, and higher and higher contribution. Because you have made the other things that already currently consume your life easier and easier. So you can be healthier, get better results, but not without without burning out. And actually keep going up the ladder of contribution. I don't mean just success, whatever, whatever designing contribution, you can make a bigger contribution. If you are consumed and buried with the current activities, you have, what you there's no space, it's not about motivation. You want to you want to mean that's that's who I think the book is for. It's people that are highly engaged, highly capable, but they're on the edge of exhaustion. They want to make a high contribution, but they've run out of energy, they've run out of space. What do you do then? Well, this is what you can do is I love what you're saying this the idea of effortless stacking i think is a great term.

Yeah. And I mean, yeah, to that point, like if why this just really strikes a chord with me is that we talked about it when you when you were grilling me earlier is that I want my legacy to be for my kids. I don't like your grilling, no, it was great. I loved it, by the way, is what is possible, like what is possible, right? So if I think about and why like this, I've already taken a lot of these steps, right? Like I told you already have a list of 20 things that I've identified, just while I was reading the book is like I can do that. If I can take those out of my day to day life, right. And let's just say I can make 50 decisions a day, I'm just making up a number, you may actually know what they are. But I can't make 50. If I can take 20 of those things out of my life, then what I'm able to do is focus on what really makes me tick in where I'm creative. And that's where things really start to get interesting. And I realized reading your book, both like essentialism, and effortless now is like how to put this into play is that if I can figure out how to give the time that's necessary to the things that are really important and amazing to me, then what will come out of it will be fantastic. And what I realized like yeah, like I said, my midlife crisis here is that I'm realizing that like I'm letting so many days go by that I'm not making changes.

Yeah, I mean, I had a similar painful moment. Well, you actually single positive things, but but I had a slightly painful moment that when I thought what the ratio in my life between the activities I've invested in, that will give me a one time return. Versus the activities I've done that give me I mean, I'm not exaggerating when I say 100 times return or 1,000x return in terms of how often you'll get the result back. I just was like, I don't want to spend another minute working on linear, just get up you. You give that hour you get that result. I want to try and work out how I can change the ratio more and more where you're taking one time decision. It makes everything afterwards easier. It opens up possibilities that weren't there before. And then you can I mean even this question, how can I make it effortless? I think you can apply on so many layers and levels. So in one sense, I love the question because it's like so simple, easy. Just ask this question. Right? Right. It works. When I'm in my office, and I'm and I look around my office, I want to clean it up and I see the printer that's been sitting there for two weeks. I think I've got a, you know, I want to get rid of this. But then that's a little overwhelmed bubble of like, oh, but you know, but I've got to do I give it away? Do I sell it? Do I, you know, if I throw it away, where do I throw it? Because then you got to have like, you know, find a digital recycling poison. I don't know where that is. Right? All of that happens in like a heartbeat in my head. But it's all enough that I'm like, Okay, come back to that. I've already done that. I've done that cycle. 10 times. Yep. Every time I look at Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, move on to something else. And then in this time, this just, I'm like, Well, how could it be effortless? And as I think that I look up, and I see some workers that are outside, and I'm like, well, maybe they want it. And I to pick it up? Go out there, ask him? Do you want it? Yes, walk inside, pick it up, give it to them, within two minutes of asking the question, it is done, it is off, it is finished. That's the power of this question. You can apply it in that way. And so a very small micro level. But I still want to come back sort of where we, where we began, which is if you start with something essential and game changing, if you take something that seems impossible to you, you know, a 10x score, something remarkable, something that you just said like maybe that's at the edge of my belief of what is even possible, but you feel right about it. So it still has to be essential. It's not big for the sake of being big is important. But it's also big, the edge of possibility. And then you just ask the question, What if I could make one thing that could make efos? Well, what is an easier way of approaching this? It releases something in us of like, of creativity, and possibility. And you said something, a moment back, which I love is my absolute aspiration for the book is you said you said you said there will be 20 things and he said something like, I can do this, I could do this. And that's what happens when you start rewiring your mind away from harder and harder effort more and more exhaustion, more and more self sacrifice, to what if there's just a different way and to deal with what is an FHA, VA, you can use there's amazing possibilities and and, and and even in even, yeah, in big dramatic things. There's a there's a story I came across it didn't make it into the book. But exactly, but Seth Godin was a counseling an entrepreneur, who she'd been trying to pitch her games, like she's coming up with, like, you know, family games, that kind of thing to game companies for years. Right, she is pushing that boulder up the hill, and she is making almost no progress or pushes up one inch, then it falls back down. She has his effort. She's hard at this. She wants to do this. So it's it's just doing the right things. And he just says, Well, what if you're doing it in the wrong way? And his question to her was, was like, you know, can you push them? Can you push a boulder downhill? Like, what he meant was, is that just a different strategy here? Like, like, and his suggestion was, look, I'm in the publishing world. Why don't you try and create a game for the publishing industry because these game companies don't want you. They don't want to work with you. They don't need you. They don't need people like you. That's not their problem. They got lots of game ideas, they need something else. They try to, you know, scale the games they already have. But but then publishing, I think they might love you. And so she started she changed the strategy, just just that hook. And what she did was she created these like 52 card pocket packs, right. And it's like teach you things you can do on a rainy, you know, a rainy day with your kids 52 cars, but like all these things where she saw like 5 million sets of these, just overnight, she'd gone. She wasn't working harder. She just found a smarter, easier, better path. And this, I just think we so rarely asked the question, we so rarely work out this mindset. That is exceedingly low hanging fruit that we're missing. Because in fact, not only don't we ask the question, we missed trust the easy. Yep.

Yeah, I was I was having a conversation earlier today with a mentor of mine. And we were talking about like old sayings like curiosity killed the cat, you can't teach new tricks. And, you know, then he kind of extrapolated to like, you know, when you have kids, you tell him like, Don't jump in the puddle. And he's like, all of these things that we learn over our life are kind of pushed down, right, and it's almost like momentum. And it was he was telling me this story about like, Oh, you know, like, the kid wants to know what happens when you jump in the puddle. You know, you as a parent, you're like, Don't jump in that puddle. You're gonna get dirty and messy and all these things. And you kind of push these things down. Right? And what it does is it it kind of weighs on you in the rest of your life. of like, well, this is how this is done. You go to work somewhere in there. This is how they do it. You know, like, you get bills, and this is how you pay them, you know, like, all you know, there's just so much inertia, I guess in life. And I what I think is really great about your question, and kind of like just ties in what he said to his question the question, start over. And just literally ask yourself, what if this could be easy? What would that look like? How would you make this effortless?

This is something you're saying that I'm actually dreading just just just looking for it. Because because there's a principle in effortless that we haven't covered that, I think is a great sort of note to kind of end within it's, it's a story about somebody who wanted to bring human powered flight into the world. So he has this for him, it's an essential vision, he feels like it's a really important responsibility. This is like, you know, years and years after, after the Wright brothers have successfully had, you know, cheap flight. It's only 10 years before Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong will walk on the moon. And he says, I mean, basically, what he's asking is for a is to create a bike with wings, you know, something that can be, and he has some specific things you have to achieve in order to win the 50,000 pound prize is the cream of prize. And what you have to do is you have to go around, think it's two mile, you know, figure eight loop, something like that, around these two poles, without any engine without any power. This is this is the achievement and he thinks it's going to be doable, but actually, it's not very doable, it proved seems to be because for 17 years, nobody achieves it. And, you know, then enter Paul MacCready, Paul, MacCready is not exactly an entrepreneur, but he's such a good metaphor for an entrepreneur. I mean, he's broke. And that's part of part of the success for him actually, a part of his The key to this is that he has no money. So it's like, it's like creativity before capital, right? He has to try and solve this problem, he needs the money for the prize, it's not just the glory of it, he needs that money to pay off this debt. And he also doesn't have any money to get a big team to get sophisticated in what he's doing. The teams that he's competing against, that is the same teams that have been at this for 17 years, all different teams that start and fail, a well funded, they have big, not just big budgets, but these huge, like beautiful planes, you know, wooden planes, slats, and and ribbed things and incredible talent, they've got so much going for them. And they just keep failing, they cannot do it. He comes along, he like has no team, he has his family. He gets his, his young son becomes his pilot. And he so staring at this problem one day, and he just has this clear moment, and he realizes I'm solving, everyone's trying to solve the wrong problem, right? Everyone's trying to solve the wrong problem, what they're doing is they're trying to solve a figure eight problem, fly around and so on build a machine that can do this, he said, the problem you have to solve is you have to be able to create a plane that can crash and be repaired cheaply, and be back in the F fast. He said that is actually the problem you have to solve. Everyone's focused on the wrong thing. Right. And with that, I'm that he creates this completely ugly. It's called gossamer albatross i think is the name of it. And they would, it would literally he said, we then go out and fly it. These is huge wingspan inspired by the Condor. These huge wings. So we've had that insight too. But this thing was ugly. It was it was he said this thing would crash aid, you just stick it, stick a broom handle back on the thing, right, put tape on it and launch it again. The advantage of that was that within one day, he might have four crashes for new flight range time learning about what went wrong. And he said that four times, he said and his competitors would crash and that might take them six months before they could try one more test. And so sometimes in one day, he would get more learning than they had in the totality of the life of their plane. And so it was like I think 323 test of his desk customer that they successfully get the full, you know, the full price, 50,000 pounds, and then I think a year maybe two years later, they get this second prize, 100,000 pounds. And that's for the person who can fly across the English Channel, or just by man powered a human powered flight. But underneath that is such an important principle for every entrepreneur, which is that what you want to do is make failing as cheap as possible. And if you can do that you can accelerate much more quickly because it's less costly, it's less hard to learn. So you want learning sized mistakes, right? Make it cheap, to make it cheap to fail, so that you can learn quickly and progress optimally.

That's I mean, I think that's a great way to close it out. Because it just, it just focuses on asking the question. And, you know, like, to your point is like the inertia of what everybody else is thinking about you. It's so easy to get caught up in. And when you ask the question, How can I make this effortless? Your brain actually does something different. And I can attest, like, I've had the book for a week, that it's made a change in my life, because I've looked at some of these things and say, like, how can I make that effortless? I mean, like I said, I was reading and I was coming up with things. And I was taking notes. It was one of the first time in my life where I felt like I could do that concurrently, with with my reading. And that was just I thought that was so powerful. And you know, to everybody that's listening, go get the book. It's so worth it. It's such a great story. And then if you haven't read a centralism, pick that one up, because that tells you where to start. Right like this is this is how you prioritize. You know what's essential. So, Greg, thank you. This has been a great conversation. It went in a different direction than I expected early on, and I loved it. Thank you. It's been my pleasure. Thank you. That concludes this week's show. Thanks for listening. Please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform or directly on the site. Your comments are truly appreciated, good, bad or indifferent, and we'll help make the show better. This is Jake Wiley with Wiley on business and we'll talk again two weeks