Order of Man - The Disciplined Pursuit of Less ｜ Greg McKeown

00:00:00.000 In a world where everyone and everything is clamoring for your attention, it is becoming

00:00:04.200 increasingly difficult to focus on the vital few as opposed to the trivial many. My guest today,

00:00:10.040 Greg McKeown, the New York Times bestselling author of Essentialism, makes the case for why

00:00:14.400 less can actually be more. We talk about how to eliminate distractions, the criteria for measuring

00:00:20.160 what tasks you should actually focus on, how to establish proper boundaries, and why every man

00:00:25.740 should take on the disciplined pursuit of less. You're a man of action. You live life to the

00:00:30.820 fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back

00:00:36.360 up one more time. Every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.

00:00:43.920 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,

00:00:49.040 and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:00:53.120 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and founder of this

00:00:58.200 podcast, The Order of Man. You know what this is all about. This podcast, this movement, the blog,

00:01:03.860 everything that we're doing is an effort to restore masculinity. We're restoring it. We're reclaiming

00:01:11.560 it in a society that I think seems to be more effeminate, that seems to be moving away from

00:01:16.340 masculinity, that villainizes what it means to be a man. We are trying to be a pillar, a beacon of movement

00:01:22.700 of thousands and thousands and millions of men across the planet, banding together, working

00:01:28.160 together to become better fathers, better husbands, better business owners, community leaders,

00:01:33.660 whatever the focus is that you have as a man. My goal is to give you the tools, the resources,

00:01:38.980 the guidance, the direction, the focus, the accountability, everything that you might need

00:01:43.180 in order to fulfill your calling as a man.

00:01:46.400 So guys, what we're doing each and every week is we are interviewing some of the world's

00:01:49.440 most successful men. I've got a great one lined up for you today. A man that I have respected

00:01:54.060 for a very long time, Greg McEwen, the author of Essentialism. I know a lot of you guys have

00:01:59.440 read this book. A lot of you guys have recommended this book over the years to me. I've got it sitting

00:02:03.740 here in my library and I'm honored to have him on the show. Now, before I do get into that

00:02:07.600 interview, just want to make a quick announcement. I've been talking about Origin, Maine over the past,

00:02:12.800 I would say roughly two months now. If you haven't checked them out, you don't know what

00:02:16.800 they're up to. I would just encourage you after this podcast to go over to originmaine.com

00:02:21.560 slash order of man and just take a look at their story. All right. They have training gear,

00:02:27.400 lifestyle apparel, a nutritional supplemental line. Of course, all that stuff's wonderful,

00:02:31.620 but I want you to check out their story. Everything they're doing is made in America 1.00

00:02:36.740 without compromise. They're bringing manufacturing back to America. They're employing people. They're

00:02:42.200 stepping up in their community as men and providers. All of the things that we believe in

00:02:46.580 and we talk about, that's why these guys are friends of mine. And that's why they're sponsoring

00:02:50.800 the show as well, because we believe very similarly about how a man shows up in his life, in his

00:02:57.240 community, in his family. And that's why we're working together. So guys, go check it out.

00:03:01.100 Originmaine.com slash order of man. I am now into a little bit of Brazilian jujitsu. I just started,

00:03:07.820 so I'm just getting started with that. I've got a gi from origin, some rash guards as well from origin.

00:03:12.220 And then I take their nutritional supplemental line, which is the Jocko line. So it's their

00:03:17.640 super krill. It's the joint warfare and it's their pre-workout discipline. So guys, again,

00:03:22.960 check it out. Originmaine.com slash order of man. And of course I've worked at a discount with them.

00:03:28.180 If you use the code order, all caps, O-R-D-E-R at checkout, you will get a discount when you use that

00:03:35.760 code. So again, guys, go check it out. I know that you'll think as highly of them as I do. Now guys,

00:03:40.880 let's just jump right into this today because I am excited to introduce you to this guest.

00:03:45.480 Again, his name is Greg McKeown. He is a man who probably needs no introduction for many of you.

00:03:52.280 If you're familiar with his work at all, you've likely read his New York Times bestselling book,

00:03:56.920 Essentialism, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. He makes the case for why each of us should strive

00:04:03.080 to focus on the few things that actually matter as opposed to all of the nonsense and the trivial

00:04:08.680 garbage and everything else that we can bog ourselves down with. He's spoken all over the

00:04:13.440 world at industry conferences, huge companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, all reach

00:04:18.940 out to him for consulting, even governments, including a personal invitation from the Prince

00:04:23.860 of Norway to speak there. Pretty cool stuff. So needless to say, this is a man who knows what

00:04:28.680 he's talking about when it comes to doing less, but ultimately producing more. And that's what all of

00:04:34.800 us should be striving for. So guys, take some notes if you can hit replay if you can, or you have to

00:04:39.780 later, if you're working out or doing something like that, but sit back, relax, enjoy the show.

00:04:43.480 And let's see what we can implement in our own lives to help us be much more efficient.

00:04:48.860 Greg, thanks for joining me on the show today. I'm so looking forward to having this conversation.

00:04:52.020 It's been a long time in the works and you've been on my radar for a long time. So I'm honored to

00:04:55.580 be talking with you finally. It's my pleasure, Ryan. Thank you for your patience,

00:04:59.980 persistence, and I hope that we have a great conversation.

00:05:02.740 Yeah. If there's one thing I am, it's persistent. Everything else is hit or miss,

00:05:06.160 but persistence is one thing I feel like I'm fairly good at. And it's required for getting

00:05:11.700 into contact with guys like yourself and just putting yourself out in the world and trying

00:05:15.560 to get this message heard for sure. I appreciate that you've done it.

00:05:18.280 Before we hit record, we were talking about this premise and this notion of essentialism,

00:05:22.500 which is as a book that you've written. When was the book published? I should have looked at that.

00:05:26.020 When was the book published? It was published in April of 2014.

00:05:29.960 2014. Right. Okay. And so what we were talking about is how over the past three,

00:05:35.300 four years, this idea of essentialism has not gone away. In fact, if anything,

00:05:40.900 and what you had mentioned that it's more relevant four years later than it was when you wrote the

00:05:45.140 book, can you explain the premise of essentialism? And then we'll talk about why this is so critical.

00:05:49.900 essentialism is the antidote to a problem. And the problem is that when individuals or teams or

00:06:01.440 organizations or in these societies become successful, there's this huge increase of

00:06:07.700 options and opportunities that can distract them from the clarity that led to success in the first

00:06:14.420 place. And so we experienced this in different ways, but some of the ways that we experienced it

00:06:22.160 is in this extreme busyness that we see around us where people have so many options and so many

00:06:28.020 opportunities. They might not think of them in those words. They might just think about them as

00:06:31.700 demands and interruptions and disruptions. It's endless emails. It's endless tweets, news updates.

00:06:37.940 It's people wanting things. It's comparison that we have in social media. But in the end,

00:06:43.620 what it all amounts to is what Jim Collins has called the undisciplined pursuit of more.

00:06:49.080 You know, as I said, that experience is in busyness, you know, where people feel busy,

00:06:52.980 but not productive. It's also when people feel stretched too thin at work or at home and in

00:06:58.760 any of the things they're trying to pursue. It's felt when they sometimes do have a sense of what

00:07:05.200 they want their day to be, but it just is hijacked by other people's agenda of various kinds.

00:07:10.840 This is the problem. So essentialism is a book that I wrote, a philosophy that I named,

00:07:16.180 a practical philosophy for responding to that problem. It's the antidote to that disease. It's

00:07:24.100 an attempt at being. So if the problem is the undisciplined pursuit of more, then the antidote is

00:07:29.260 the disciplined pursuit of less. I really can appreciate and respect this. I know over the past three

00:07:34.940 years as order of man has really grown, what I thought I wanted was not entirely what I wanted.

00:07:40.920 When I, when I started, I want to be connected and I wanted to be influential and I wanted to have

00:07:47.400 opportunities and I wanted to be able to grow what we're doing. And what I didn't realize at the time,

00:07:52.760 as I was getting this thing launched is how taxing and demanding that can be with the things that

00:07:59.840 aren't necessarily important. But like you said, they're just distractions versus me being

00:08:04.500 hyper-focused on the mission of helping men become better men. How do you determine then

00:08:09.760 what is going to be worth pursuing and what isn't in the face of so many opportunities we'll call them

00:08:16.580 or distractions, however you want to term it? Well, there's really three things that

00:08:21.680 somebody needs to learn to become an essentialist. We need to learn to explore. Yeah. That's creating

00:08:29.840 space to explore so that we can discern between the vital few and the trivial many. We have to

00:08:36.280 create that space in our environment. The environment has become so successful, really.

00:08:42.320 Modern society has produced so many options, so much opportunity that it drowns out even our ability

00:08:47.940 to discern those things. So that's the first thing. Explore what is essential. We can talk about how to do

00:08:53.680 that in a moment. Number two is to learn how to eliminate the non-essentials, to do it as gracefully

00:08:59.360 as possible, to do that in a wise and consistent way. And then third is to execute on the things we've

00:09:06.000 identified as truly important, but not just to execute the way that sometimes people talk about

00:09:10.660 execution, not this sort of very forced, last minute, very high stress experience, but actually

00:09:15.540 in an almost effortless way so that you build a system that makes the essential activities as

00:09:21.880 routine as possible, that builds momentum around those things that matter most. And so those are

00:09:27.200 really sort of the three practices of essentialism to explore, eliminate, and to execute. That's the

00:09:32.940 conceptual explanation of what we need to do. I know for me, one of the things that I've experienced,

00:09:38.660 and I'm really looking forward to breaking each of these down. One of the things that I've

00:09:41.880 experienced is I've tried to implement what you've taught into my work and my life.

00:09:47.140 Sometimes it becomes maybe monotonous and boring. And we see some of these opportunities that present

00:09:53.620 themselves or distractions. And we think, well, this is exciting. This is a thrill. This is something

00:09:58.020 new. So from my perspective, a lot of the times, the reason people cling onto these distractions is

00:10:04.520 because it is thrilling and it is exciting. Do you see that too? Or is there something in addition to this?

00:10:09.380 There are things in addition, but we can start with that one. I mean, this distinction between

00:10:14.260 whether something's exciting versus whether something is essential is non-trivial. There's

00:10:20.120 almost not a day that goes by where I'm not doing one activity that I think is important. Maybe I'm

00:10:25.840 researching something for something I'm writing or something I'm curious and understanding, and I'm

00:10:30.860 pursuing that journey. But along the way, something exciting comes along. That doesn't mean it's inherently

00:10:35.560 bad, of course. But to be aware, is this really the right direction? Am I really working on the

00:10:41.440 things that matter most right now? Or is it just a shiny object? You know, an illustration of the

00:10:46.440 problem was described by Winston Churchill. He said there are five stages in writing a book. And in the

00:10:52.120 first phase, it's a play thing. And in the final stage, it's a tyrant.

00:10:56.300 I can definitely see how that's the case. We just came out with my first book, and I would agree

00:11:00.360 with that. Absolutely. I'm sure you do fully understand those stages. And the fact is,

00:11:05.220 is that many things, not just writing a book, many things are like what he just described.

00:11:09.860 They're play things at first. So they're just exciting. They may not be important. They may

00:11:15.340 just have the excitement that goes along with something new. I think there's a place for

00:11:19.580 exploration. In fact, I think that essentialists explore more than non-essentialists, ironically.

00:11:24.800 And that's because they are exploring broadly. But then once they've identified what's important,

00:11:30.740 then they're going deeply. What I think always is to say, am I pursuing this because it's exciting?

00:11:35.940 Or am I pursuing this because it's essential? And often we do know, especially if we just say,

00:11:41.220 okay, hold on, let me turn off the phone. Let me turn off the computer. Let me close this. Let me

00:11:44.840 close my eyes. Let me pause even for just half a moment and say, what's important now? What really

00:11:52.880 should I be doing? Now, sometimes when people ask themselves that question, it isn't clear.

00:11:57.900 I think often it is actually. I think just the pause will often bring something clearly to mind.

00:12:02.840 But if it's not, then we have to do more of an exploration, meaning we have to create more space

00:12:06.900 than just that momentary pause. One of the things I think that is really helpful is to create a personal

00:12:13.740 quarterly offsite where you really step away from your life in a more formal way and you look long-term.

00:12:21.460 And by long-term, I mean, I mean, really, really long-term. I mean, most times when people think

00:12:26.520 long-term, they think, well, even 90 days or a year or five years or 10 years, of course, 10 years is

00:12:32.360 very long-term. But I think sometimes we ought to, as part of our quarterly process, we ought to think

00:12:39.560 like beyond ourselves, meaning like a hundred years into the future and to say, okay, well, after I'm

00:12:45.460 gone, what will matter? Suddenly, so many of the proximate things in our lives will fade away

00:12:53.380 into nothingness. We just go, of course they won't matter. So much of this noise will not matter a

00:12:59.180 hundred years from now. But some of them will. A few of them will. In my life, and this is just me,

00:13:05.520 I'm not trying to dictate what other people value and what they see as important. But for my life,

00:13:10.540 I can see that the way I treat my son, my daughters today, the time I spend with them,

00:13:16.560 the investment I make in them and being present, being there for them, even just a small interaction

00:13:22.040 with them. Over time, those small inputs can make an impact a hundred years from now. And that doesn't

00:13:28.540 mean that a hundred years from now, my great-great-grandkids will remember me. That doesn't

00:13:32.280 matter. But the impact will be there because my children will be healthier than they would

00:13:37.080 otherwise have been. I can teach them, impact them. I can model for them what it is to be a

00:13:41.800 father, to be a man to them. And they can do that. They can lead their own children and grandchildren

00:13:47.140 well and so on. And so you can see that there are small things that we can do in the here and now that

00:13:52.700 impact a very long time into the future. So I find one of the practices for doing that is this

00:13:59.700 personal course, the offsite, step away, see the big picture, see what really matters over the very

00:14:04.840 long run, and then start to come back to that in the moment. Suddenly, I have something, a point of

00:14:12.580 clarity that I can use to compare whatever exciting thing has just come across my desk, whatever the

00:14:19.300 news article is, whatever the interesting thing of the moment is. I can say, okay, that is interesting,

00:14:23.940 but is it more important than the thing I've identified when I was calm and focused on the personal

00:14:29.420 course on the offsite? Is it more important than that? And it's easy to see them. No, I know what

00:14:35.220 things matter most. And I will then be able to get back on track, which I have to do multiple times a

00:14:39.960 day, back on track with the things that matter most. Yeah, I actually had this exercise introduced

00:14:45.960 to me from a friend. And what she had said is just ask yourself in any given moment, whether what you're

00:14:52.020 doing or what you're stressing about or what you're thinking about is going to matter next week.

00:14:56.760 And I think that simple, and this is a simplified version of what you're talking about, but I think

00:15:01.580 that simple question will eliminate probably 80% of the things that are occupying your mind at any

00:15:06.980 given moment throughout your day. Yeah, I think you're right about that. And I think it's an

00:15:11.020 evidence. The fact that even taking the question to one week from now helps for better discernment

00:15:17.700 illustrates how far from good discernment we have gone without really meaning to.

00:15:26.760 I mean, the idea that one week has become a sort of long-term thinking, longer-term thinking than we

00:15:33.540 often do, it evidences the challenge. And I think it's true. So even though as I've gone for this

00:15:38.660 intentionally extreme example and still believe in, I think it shows how often people are working

00:15:45.320 literally minute to minute, email to email, reaction to reaction. And so if that way of living,

00:15:52.640 what we could call the way of the non-essentialist, if it's working for someone, if it's producing high

00:15:59.060 quality relationships, if it's producing breakthrough results in things that really matter, if it's

00:16:04.740 helping somebody to discover and identify and live by their highest points of contribution,

00:16:09.100 if it's doing those things that I just described, keep doing it. You know, ignore me, ignore the research

00:16:15.820 I've done, ignore it all. But on the basis that non-essentialism, this reactive, quite compulsive

00:16:22.100 way of living, on the basis that it might not be living up to its promise, that it might not be

00:16:28.400 producing the deep relationships with the people that matter most, the breakthroughs of contribution

00:16:34.680 that we hope to make personally, professionally, in the world at large, on the basis that it isn't

00:16:39.960 delivering what it promises to deliver, then maybe we question it. Maybe we say, well, maybe that way

00:16:46.460 isn't the way. Maybe we've been sold a bill of goods. I can certainly see that's the case because

00:16:52.620 I think there's a lot of people who are listening to this podcast who know that maybe something's off

00:16:57.620 in their life and know that they're not producing the results when it comes to the relationships or

00:17:02.680 their bank account or the businesses they're starting or the physique that they're trying to obtain.

00:17:07.400 And I know for me that this has been a huge step in the right direction. I do want to go to something

00:17:13.640 that you had said, which was, which was fascinating and a little counterintuitive for me, as you said

00:17:17.740 that essentialists explore more broadly. So I guess my question to that is, does that mean then they

00:17:25.940 know how to get to a, yes, let's continue to move forward or no, this is not essential. And they learn how

00:17:32.700 to shut it off quicker. Like how can somebody who's an essentialist explore more broadly yet get deeper

00:17:38.720 work done? Think about Warren Buffett. There's a few things that are curious about, you know,

00:17:44.360 the most successful investor in history. How did he do it? How does he approach it? So he had an

00:17:48.980 intention even before he was known, before he was successful, he understood something. He said,

00:17:53.260 I cannot possibly be right like a thousand times. I can't be, I'm not going to be right that many

00:17:58.360 times. So he said, therefore, I'm going to try to do my research broadly until I identify something

00:18:07.660 that is a, such a clear yes meets all the criteria that I'm really looking for. Then I'm going to go

00:18:15.240 big and I'm going to hold onto that investment for the long run. And that was his strategy. This is the

00:18:21.880 phrase. He said, our investment strategy, this is, I, this like almost gives me chills when I hear it

00:18:28.780 still, not because of the investment implications, just for the life implications. He says, our

00:18:32.960 investment strategy borders on lethargy. That means that what he's doing is he recognizes I can only be

00:18:40.020 right a few times. Therefore, those few times will matter so much. It's worth taking the time to do the

00:18:46.700 full exploration so that I'm going to be in the process basically of saying no to almost everything.

00:18:54.400 In fact, that's what he said. He's quoted as having said the difference between successful people and very

00:18:59.280 successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything. And that's not because he or

00:19:04.800 they are being jerks. It's because you go, let's look at this option. This is an interesting thing. Let's look at it. 0.99

00:19:10.580 Let's hold it up. Let's admire it. Let's think about, no, that's not it. Let's move on to the next one. This

00:19:15.540 could be it. And this is what Berkshire Hathaway is fundamentally doing. This is their, in a sense,

00:19:21.200 is their core competency, is the constant exploration of possible investments, but with a

00:19:27.480 very high and precise set of criteria for what will yield a yes. And when it's yes, it's a big yes,

00:19:35.660 it's all in, and it's there for a very long time. They're not trying to do quick turnaround profit.

00:19:42.060 They're not trying to just do, you know, we'll come in there, change all your management, make it

00:19:45.920 all happen, throw it out and sell it again. They go, we're looking for people who are already great

00:19:50.120 at managing. We don't want to mess with them. We're going to select really, really well.

00:19:55.580 And so that's an illustration. I mean, it is now a matter of fact, right? Then it was a matter of

00:20:01.120 philosophy for him. Now, in hindsight, it's a matter of fact that 90% of his fortune can be traced back to

00:20:07.220 about 10 investment decisions. So now we see, well, that happened. That was true. That was based

00:20:13.680 in correct assumption. And the assumption was that there are a few things that are exceptionally

00:20:20.000 valuable, and almost everything else is noise. In this case, it's not worth investing in.

00:20:27.860 And so therefore, if that is true, if the world is established not in approximately equal investments,

00:20:34.420 but in fact, some are incredibly valuable, and most of them are not, then you are justified

00:20:40.380 in the first of the essentialist practices. You're justified in creating an inordinate amount of time

00:20:47.060 in exploration, in considering, in pondering, in reflecting, in asking questions, in doing some

00:20:53.480 research, in thinking through things. All of that is justified because what you need to do is identify

00:20:58.360 those few things, very, very few things that really matter. And then you go big on them,

00:21:04.160 and you go on for the long run. And so that's kind of the, you know, an example, a case study for

00:21:10.560 someone that applied this, you know, applied essentialist thinking and practices to tremendous

00:21:16.080 breakthrough success. And you can see that he was exploring more, but committing to fewer things.

00:21:21.840 This makes complete sense. Now, I was looking forward to talking with you about this, because I

00:21:25.820 imagine that you get a significant amount of requests for your time and attention for podcast

00:21:33.160 appearances, for writing articles and doing video videos and all kinds of stuff. And the question

00:21:39.480 I wanted to ask is, what were your criteria for choosing to come on this podcast? Because I think

00:21:45.580 that would help us see where you're coming from and how you're making decisions based on what's going

00:21:49.760 to be best in your interest and your endeavors. Well, first of all, of course, the audience that

00:21:54.680 you're speaking to and what you're trying to accomplish is intent that aligns with intent that I have.

00:21:59.060 So that matters. But I think to understand, you know, this decision, we have to look more broadly

00:22:04.180 at sort of the portfolio of my professional work, and what things I am not doing broader,

00:22:09.380 more broadly. So for example, the biggest strategic trade off I've made over the last few years,

00:22:15.120 since essentialism came out is not to write another book. Depending on your experience writing,

00:22:20.020 you may understand it or not understand it. But for me, that's been much harder than writing

00:22:24.280 another book would have been. I'm motivated to write another book, I want to write another book,

00:22:28.340 I have many things I would like to say many things I think that are good, and worthwhile worthy. But

00:22:33.740 there is a clearer sense that I should be trading that off in favor of something else. It's a long,

00:22:39.560 long journey is nothing helpful to announce about it other than what I feel I should be doing as an

00:22:44.760 essentialist television show. So that's the trade off. So for me, and the trade off is simple,

00:22:51.120 because in the sense that if I were to just jump into another book, then I'd be consumed with it.

00:22:57.100 You know, for me, it's a sort of a three-year journey minimum of researching it, writing it,

00:23:01.340 trying to find the right articulation of ideas, you know, the right language, positioning,

00:23:05.980 I mean, all this matters to me in doing it right. Then of course, there's the editing process,

00:23:10.920 there's the publishing process, there's the marketing process, there's the trying to help to actually

00:23:15.020 have an impact and people who understand it and implement it. I mean, this is an enormous

00:23:19.180 commitment. And if I were to do that right now, this other intent would just, I think it would

00:23:24.440 just fall off and disappear. And so I would have to pick it up again years from now, and begin again

00:23:30.040 where I am today. So there's an example of something I, and to get there, I have wrestled

00:23:34.900 with that. I mean, I've gone through many book ideas, I have ideas that I think are compelling

00:23:39.320 ideas, I think that they, you know, maybe will be written one day, maybe almost certainly will be

00:23:43.960 written one day, but not now. And not, not yet. For me, that's been a disciplined process. And so

00:23:50.260 in that story, right, maybe that sounds like a luxury story. Well, do you want to write another

00:23:53.880 book and do a TV show? Certainly it's a first world problem. But nevertheless, I hope in that story for

00:23:59.140 people listening, they can say, right, that this was something that was a want to do item.

00:24:05.100 This was something that was good and checked a lot of the boxes to write another book. And by the way,

00:24:09.960 essentialism has been more successful than I or the publisher expected it to be. So that means

00:24:15.080 that they're eager to do it, that they would, you know, I'm sure pay more than they would for the

00:24:19.940 first book. All of that incentivizes you to do something. But there's a clarity, a voice of

00:24:25.740 clarity I had to really spend time to get to and to be clear about that is taking me on a different

00:24:31.260 direction. That's the kind of decision making difference we're talking about here. Success can

00:24:36.660 produce its own trap. In fact, I have a friend who says that success traps are harder to get out of

00:24:42.620 than failure traps. And success traps incentivize you. That's my analysis of his statement is that

00:24:48.060 success traps incentivize you to continue going down a certain path. Failure traps at least

00:24:52.780 incentivize you to change. And so in this case, although it sounds innocent enough, but even a

00:24:59.340 positive thing, write another book, keep writing books, write a book every couple of years. There's a lot

00:25:03.480 of authors that do. And they're very happy with that journey. I feel the need to get to clarity

00:25:10.300 again. What is the right thing to do? Not what does the publisher want? Not what does my excellent

00:25:15.280 agent want? Not what do even the readers want? You know, I have a pretty good sense of a book or two

00:25:21.020 that I think, you know, readers that cared about essentialism would like me to write. That's not the

00:25:26.120 right criteria. The criteria is what's the right thing to do? Get back to clarity. Hear that internal

00:25:31.220 voice. Get to be sure. Get to be 10 out of 10 sure if you possibly can be, or at least 9 out of 10

00:25:37.200 sure. And then pursue it with obsession. As somebody said, wrote in a book recently, I really

00:25:43.240 enjoy this principle. It's from a book called Great at Work. And the principle is first less than

00:25:48.280 obsess. Go through the journey of exploration. Eliminate the non-essential so that you have

00:25:52.700 identified the less but better options you're going to pursue. And then obsess about them. You say,

00:25:57.360 this is it. For me, it's now TV show or bust. And I think there'll be a lot of bust. But that's okay.

00:26:04.580 If you know the direction is right, you can keep pursuing. And maybe the end result will be just

00:26:08.580 failure. And that's what you have. And that would be okay. Because the whole time, I would know that

00:26:14.980 I was pursuing what felt clear and right to do. And of course, you know, hopefully, you know, I've not

00:26:20.760 been set up to fail. The voice of conscience is speaking clearly and to be successful. And then I'll have

00:26:26.380 the satisfaction of having done what I felt was the right thing to do. When I mean the way of the

00:26:31.360 essentials, this is what I mean by that phrasing. The way is to get to that voice of clarity again

00:26:37.580 and again. I think what I'm extracting from this, in addition to everything that you just mentioned,

00:26:42.200 is also this level of intentionality. And that's what I'm taking away from the story is that you are

00:26:47.200 very clear. You are very deliberate. You are very intentional. Like that last line that you said about

00:26:51.680 bust, there'll probably be a lot of busts. And that's okay, you know, because you've got that focus

00:26:55.820 in your intentional about where you want to go. Now, for the sake of time, and we could talk about

00:27:00.040 this a very long time, I want to move on to this next component, which is eliminate. And I think

00:27:04.240 this is where people have a very, very difficult problem, probably because they don't want to be

00:27:09.820 viewed as mean or off-putting by saying no to something or turning somebody away. I know I have

00:27:16.880 certainly run across that. And I'm really curious how you do this. And I think the term you use,

00:27:22.320 maybe I'm wrong, was with grace or class, being able to turn some of these things away.

00:27:27.540 First of all, you have identified what I think people's primary concern is when they think about

00:27:32.340 eliminating things. They're concerned about the social impact that will have on their relationships

00:27:36.860 and so on. I think they're right to be concerned about that. Let's look at elimination a little more

00:27:41.280 broadly. First of all, let's not start with saying no to important things for important people in our

00:27:49.860 lives, including people maybe in a professional environment. Maybe your boss's boss has identified

00:27:55.260 something as being really important. Let's not start the journey by saying, no, I'm not doing

00:28:00.320 that, you know, in the back of our mind. I'm an essentialist now. So I say no to everything that's

00:28:03.920 not essential. Sure. Yeah, this can be taken to the extreme, I imagine.

00:28:08.960 And people seem to go to the extreme in their mind when they hear the word elimination.

00:28:12.520 I think it's because of the social anxiety around this sort of a problem. And I'm always keen to point

00:28:16.940 out that I didn't write a book called noism. I wrote a book called essentialism. So the first

00:28:21.380 thing really, really is to identify what's essential. You've got to go back to that.

00:28:24.900 Second thing is go for the low-hanging fruit. Don't go for the most strange thing, the toughest

00:28:30.280 no that you can think of. Start with the low-hanging fruit. People listening today can identify. I mean,

00:28:35.960 I ask groups when I'm doing keynotes, I'll ask groups and they can do it real time. They can tell me

00:28:40.760 things that are obvious non-essentials in their lives. You know, obvious non-essentials. I mean,

00:28:46.320 one of the first ones people will talk about is social media. Now, social media, in my experience,

00:28:51.000 and most of technology, makes a good servant but a poor master. And too often, these things

00:28:55.400 actually are being the master. You can go onto your phone, certainly an iPhone, you can go on

00:28:59.960 and look under settings and you can see how much time you've spent on different apps over the last

00:29:05.000 week. That's a wake-up call for a lot of people. You know, they find that, oh, I've spent two, three,

00:29:09.660 four hours on news. Why am I spending that? I can get the news update in two minutes a day if I just

00:29:14.860 am disciplined about that. You can get three, four hours back and ask for one app.

00:29:19.280 What about Facebook? What's it worth to you? Now, some people say, oh, I'm not spending as much time

00:29:23.720 on Facebook. Yeah, but if you're spending 20 minutes, 30 minutes, could there be a better use

00:29:27.720 of that? I once decided to give up Facebook. I've got lots of failure stories. This happens to be a

00:29:32.340 success story. I was spending about 20 minutes a week on Facebook. And I thought, is that the best

00:29:37.460 use of my time? And I gave it up. And instead, I called my grandfather once a week. I did that for,

00:29:42.160 I don't remember how long now, but it was more than a year. I think it was probably,

00:29:45.580 you know, a year and a half or a couple of years or maybe longer. Then he passed away.

00:29:49.800 What was the better use of the time? It's obvious, isn't it? I mean, really, 20 minutes a week on

00:29:54.320 Facebook or talking to my very good and very wise and impactful grandfather every week before he

00:30:00.660 passed away. I mean, so there's some obvious stuff. And I didn't have to get permission from

00:30:05.140 anybody. And I didn't have to hurt any relationships in order to make that trade off. Start with a low

00:30:10.000 hanging fruit. Look on the phone. Where are you spending time on the apps? Look at the ESPN time.

00:30:14.760 You like a good game? I like a good game. But is it really worth all the time that we're sometimes

00:30:19.760 spending on this stuff? So start with the obvious things. Steal back an hour, two hours. You might

00:30:25.660 find 10 hours a week of just really bloated time. I spent an experiment for a week just recently.

00:30:32.220 No television. I traveled. And I thought, I'm just not doing any television. No Netflix,

00:30:36.560 no TV, no anything. I'm on the plane. I mean, sometimes on the plane, it's easy to watch a movie.

00:30:41.720 You know, movies you wouldn't even watch. B-movies you wouldn't watch. But you take the time there.

00:30:45.200 No movies. So instead, I was listening to an audible book while I was eating lunch. And I was

00:30:50.480 listening to an audible book. I've been listening for some time to John Adams, the biography of John

00:30:54.960 Adams by David McCullough. And the section I read happened to be about the relationship between John

00:30:59.540 Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, when they were living in Paris. John Quincy Adams was mentoring and

00:31:04.280 tutoring him hours and hours a day and into the evenings and about that relationship. Of course,

00:31:10.260 they both went on to be presidents of the United States. John Quincy Adams went on to serve not just

00:31:14.580 as president, but later, if I recall, 18 years as a congressman after he was president. That's a very

00:31:19.640 unusual step to take, but it was about his contribution that he wanted to make. Learning about

00:31:23.960 that was a better use of my time than watching that movie. I'm illustrating that start with the low

00:31:29.900 hanging fruit, the stuff you have control over, the stuff you know is non-essential, the stuff you

00:31:34.880 know is not worth the investment, and trade it off for a higher value relationship, for a higher value

00:31:40.420 activity. Start there. Build muscle. Now, let's just give a little more as to what you can do next.

00:31:46.880 Next, read Essentialism. Read the book, but not on your own. That is born out of experience,

00:31:54.420 personally, and also with many, many people now all over the world trying to become essentialists.

00:31:59.580 Don't do it on your own. Get everyone you can to read it with you. You'll act so counter-culturally. 0.91

00:32:06.420 It's on me. I didn't realize how counter-cultural essentialism was. I knew it was counter-cultural.

00:32:13.020 It was much, much more so than I realized when I wrote the book. That means if somebody reads it and

00:32:18.700 they start applying it, they're going to be misunderstood because people are working out

00:32:24.440 of a non-essentialist mindset. You've got to get your whole team on board. You've got to get your

00:32:29.460 customers on board. You've got to go broad with this. If possible, literally, I'm working with a

00:32:34.180 company right now, the 4,000-person company, and the president is there. He's having everybody read it.

00:32:39.820 That's smart. Maybe that all sounds self-serving. Okay, fine. Well, it's not my intent,

00:32:44.760 but I can live with that judgment because I've learned that you do need to get the culture

00:32:50.860 to change. So you need to have a conversation change.

00:32:55.680 Let's be honest. There are all kinds of programs and courses, conferences, masterminds that you

00:33:02.360 could be part of. But the question is, which one or ones do you attend? Do you be part of?

00:33:07.620 And in the spirit of our discussion today, you can consume yourself with the learning process and

00:33:13.280 never move into the application, the execution process as Greg would refer to it as. And that's

00:33:19.380 where the iron council comes in. Our goal is, and always has been to bridge the gap between what we

00:33:26.280 as men know and what we actually do. And that's why you're going to get weekly challenges, monthly

00:33:32.660 assignments, and the chance to operate in 15-man battle teams with men who will hold you accountable

00:33:38.880 to what you say you're going to do. Of course, there's so much more to it. But again, in the

00:33:44.000 spirit of essentialism, if you're going to choose to be part of something, I would suggest that you

00:33:48.720 be part of something that is designed to actually move the needle rather than just talking about

00:33:53.880 moving the needle. If you want to learn more about what we're up to and lock in your seat at the table,

00:33:58.980 head to orderofman.com slash iron council. Again, that's orderofman.com slash iron council.

00:34:04.620 You can do that after the show. In the meantime, let's head back to the conversation with Greg.

00:34:10.060 One of the things that people will ask me occasionally is about my sport teams. Like

00:34:14.960 who's your favorite football team or baseball team or whatever. And my response is, I don't have one.

00:34:19.860 I don't watch enough TV or sport outings to have a team. And the response usually is, you know,

00:34:27.360 it's okay to have fun every once in a while. It's okay to watch a game every once in a while,

00:34:31.540 to which I agree. I, I, I can't find fault in that except for I've decided that's unimportant

00:34:36.980 to me, but you're right. There is pushback even in that small example from culture that says,

00:34:42.460 oh, it's okay to take a load off. It's okay to do this. And while some people may think it's okay,

00:34:47.160 it's a decision I've decided that I'm not going to make.

00:34:50.520 It is interesting. We have to be careful because whenever we choose to be counter-cultural,

00:34:54.260 what is challenging for people is that they're going, well, I guess you think I'm doing something

00:34:58.280 wrong, but people are immediately defensive about something that's counter-cultural. See,

00:35:02.120 we have to do this with as much compassion and as least as little, uh, self-righteousness as

00:35:07.220 possible. I mean, I'm, I'm conscious of my need to improve in these things. I would add to it

00:35:11.920 something that I learned recently. I was speaking at an event and the person speaking after me,

00:35:16.060 who gave the research that shows that this language switch that I really like, they, they said that

00:35:21.620 if people use the language, look, I can't do X. That isn't quite what she said, of course,

00:35:26.040 but you know, sometimes we'll use that phrase, Oh, can you do this thing? I can't do that.

00:35:30.100 Produces one response in people. But if instead we say, Oh, I don't do that. It's a different

00:35:35.060 response. People respond more positively. They understand it better. You know, I recently gave

00:35:39.620 up sugar. It's a big thing for me. You know, ice cream was a definite one of my non-essential

00:35:43.860 low hanging fruit weaknesses. And so I'm about three months into it. I'd like to try and do it for

00:35:48.520 the year, but finishing up three months. Oh no, I don't do sugar. It's not, I can't, or I'm thinking

00:35:54.600 about it. I just don't take out the category. A mentor of mine from years ago used to describe

00:35:58.940 this to delete things by category. I thought that was wise and correct. Take whole sections

00:36:03.860 and just, I just don't do that anymore. The more you can get people to understand why you're

00:36:09.220 doing what you're doing, why, especially when you're changing something, why you're changing

00:36:13.660 it. Most people can cope with what people say, but the reason why they do it is what gets

00:36:18.640 us into trouble. People doubt our motives and intents. They think there are other reasons for

00:36:22.600 things. And so we have to be very clear about our intent. Look, I'm really trying to focus

00:36:26.520 on what really matters in my life right now. I'm trying to focus on what things really just

00:36:29.940 doesn't matter. This is why I'm trying to make these changes to do our best and being clear

00:36:34.500 about that. And that's a really good distinction. I imagine when you do that, you probably get

00:36:39.620 more buy-in from those people around you as well. And they may even support you to some degree

00:36:46.000 in that mission because you've decided, and that don't represents a level of decision-making

00:36:50.680 and intentionality like we were talking about earlier. And now that somebody knows why you're

00:36:56.020 doing what you're doing, they may look after you a little more or hold you a little more

00:37:00.160 accountable to those decisions and choices.

00:37:02.780 I've seen that in my life. Years ago, I decided I wouldn't swear. And I found that I had friends

00:37:08.160 all growing up, I'm talking like high school years, swore all the time, but they would just

00:37:13.940 stop swearing around me. And then somebody else, they'd say, oh, no, no, great. I wasn't asking

00:37:18.040 them to do that. I wasn't trying to put my value choice on them. I think you're right. If you make

00:37:22.920 a decision, it's not judgy, it's not preachy, that's not trying to tell other people what to do,

00:37:27.200 but I don't do this thing. I think there is some respect from some people. I mean, of course,

00:37:32.040 you can't control who's impacted unintentionally by things. But I think that if we're focused again

00:37:37.480 on trying to use this language, we can start to find that it empowers us as well, empowers other

00:37:44.060 people to support it. But it empowers us to go, I can choose this stuff. Now, of course, over time,

00:37:49.420 we do need to develop these skills to be able to negotiate with other people as gracefully as

00:37:53.740 possible. We've hardly touched that. We haven't touched it. But I still think there's so much

00:37:58.360 to be had in our own sphere of control that starting there is a great place to begin.

00:38:05.000 So let's sort this out. Let's just turn the TV way down. Do you know in the United States today,

00:38:09.140 the average American is still watching four hours of television a day?

00:38:13.700 That is so much TV. It sounds to me, it just sounds like so much TV.

00:38:17.940 It is so much TV, right? The question isn't, is TV good or not? So the question is, is what portion

00:38:23.920 of my time should I be spending doing that? So here's an exercise people can do that I think

00:38:28.180 is very simple, concrete exercise to post this conversation is just draw two circles on a piece

00:38:34.140 of paper in front of them. And the first circle is a pie chart. And it's like, how am I spending

00:38:38.880 my time right now? And you just divide up that pie chart the way you're spending your time. You

00:38:44.240 can go to whatever level of detail you want to, right? You can do it by just work, family, sleep,

00:38:49.660 but then you could go a lot narrower. Okay. How much time am I on my phone? How much time am I

00:38:53.660 on email? How much time am I working on these different activities? And you can do that just

00:38:58.020 in two minutes, kind of just a litmus test. I think I'd recommend that. But if someone wants to

00:39:02.180 go deeper, they can take a whole week and they can keep a time log and actually really discover

00:39:06.660 how am I spending this precious resource? And then in the second circle is how would I dream

00:39:12.760 to spend it? If I had total control of my life, how would I spend it? What would my ideal look like?

00:39:18.100 And I think that in that second instance, we're not looking for realistic. We're looking for a total

00:39:23.440 dream, an ideal state. And I think that then you have a before state and after state right before you,

00:39:30.520 a visual representation of it so that you can start saying, where can I start these adjustments?

00:39:34.840 Where can I make these new trade-offs so that I can move somewhere from where I am towards where I

00:39:42.280 would really most ideally like to be? Let's move on to this third component, which is execute. And

00:39:49.480 the thing that intrigues me about this, and of course, in the book as well, is you talk about making these

00:39:55.520 important things effortless. You talk about adding and implementing systems. Can you speak to me on that?

00:40:00.560 I mean, effortless is probably a little exaggeration. I still used it intentionally,

00:40:05.760 which is most times when people have a non-essentialist mindset, the very word

00:40:09.820 execution seems to imply something forced. Let's execute this thing. Let's get this thing done.

00:40:15.500 It's like, okay, we're going to stay up all night, call an all-nighter. I have a friend who's called

00:40:20.060 three all-nighters, I think, in the last month in their company that has become normalized.

00:40:25.000 This is not what I'm describing when I'm writing the way of the essentialist. The essentialist is still

00:40:29.280 going to work hard, but it's all about how can I use my limited supply of discipline to build systems

00:40:38.240 that work, that continue to support and embrace the things that matter most. For example, you could

00:40:46.240 make a choice to change your geography. You could change your home. You could change where you spend

00:40:51.600 your time. That's the kind of choice that you make at once. It's like one decision that makes a

00:40:55.580 thousand. The sugar thing is just a topical thing right now because it's new for me, but make the

00:41:01.100 decision once and be done with it so that it becomes routine and normalized. If I had to make

00:41:06.340 that decision every day, I would be eating ice cream just like I used to. I'd be eating just the

00:41:12.280 way I did before because I'd be exhausted by the end of the day. The key is to make the decision

00:41:16.740 so that then it's done. Build in the new habit that disrupts this. When I want to eat sugar,

00:41:21.880 I drink water, but I drink sparkling water. That, for some reason, is enough of an alternative

00:41:26.460 habit. You build all of that in so that it isn't painful every day to execute on something you've

00:41:32.460 identified. It actually becomes effortless or close to effortless. Eventually, it becomes that way.

00:41:38.740 I don't have to think about it each time and force it. I think this is exhausting to people. It creates

00:41:44.340 what psychologists have called decision fatigue. We're deciding and re-deciding and we're just swimming

00:41:49.640 upstream. I'm suggesting people will do, you will do, I will do what is easiest.

00:41:56.700 Yeah, you'll take the path of least resistance, certainly.

00:41:59.420 Build the path of least resistance to support the thing that you've identified as what matters most.

00:42:06.500 If somebody's going to take up exercise, we'll build the system. I stayed with some friends years

00:42:10.980 ago. He'd got a black belt in judo. The way he'd done that, the so-called effortless element of that,

00:42:17.720 was that three of them did it together. What that meant, they had this positive peer pressure.

00:42:23.100 Every single week, one of us didn't want to do it, but the other two did. You went along because

00:42:28.200 you've built the system, you've built the relationship support here to continue on with

00:42:32.380 it. They've all got their black belts when they wouldn't have done otherwise. That's an example of

00:42:36.820 what I'm saying. You construct a system, a routine, a relationship, an understanding. You build

00:42:42.560 something in place so that afterwards, you don't have to force it each time. You just have to go

00:42:49.660 with the system that you have built in your previous life. You're building something for

00:42:53.340 your future self to help them do it. Those are all illustrations of what I'm describing. It's

00:42:57.940 design a routine that you follow every day, the same exact routine. When you wake up, you do the

00:43:03.160 same three things every single day, and it doesn't include checking your phone. Build the routine

00:43:07.780 so that eventually that routine acts on you, but it's a routine that is healthy and positive and

00:43:14.220 supports what's essential. That's what I mean when I'm talking about execution.

00:43:18.580 And it's funny, once you implement these routines, it almost becomes strange when you don't do them.

00:43:24.180 You have those three or four things you do in the morning, and for whatever reason, that gets off

00:43:27.620 course, and then you just feel a little weird. You feel a little strange because something's missing.

00:43:32.740 You know, something's missing from your day that you don't normally do, and I think it becomes the

00:43:37.240 default. You divert back to that because you've built these systems in place.

00:43:41.360 Totally, and it's all about building. I mean, there's a book I read years ago that I don't even

00:43:46.240 remember that much about it, but the title is clever, and the basic premise is clever, and it's

00:43:49.820 The Automatic Millionaire. What I liked especially was the idea, you know, do you want to make the

00:43:55.940 things that matter to you as automatic as possible? You don't want essential things to happen only when

00:44:01.160 you happen to be listening to this podcast, only when you happen to be reading essentialism.

00:44:05.360 You want it to happen by default, and it can be so. Another thing for me that's been essential has

00:44:11.400 been writing a journal. I started that probably 20 years ago. You know, I'd be on again, off again,

00:44:17.460 which I think most people are when they write journals, and I think that, you know, this is

00:44:21.100 another example of effortless execution. What I think people do wrong is they get inspired.

00:44:25.880 Okay, I'm going to write a journal, and the first day they write three pages.

00:44:29.260 They write just pour out their soil, that's good, but the day two, they don't have an

00:44:33.380 hour and a half, two hours that they spend the first day, and so that's not built into

00:44:37.200 their system yet. They haven't built a routine around it, and so it's overwhelming, so they

00:44:41.200 don't do it day two. Day three, they've got to make up for two days now. Where is my four

00:44:45.240 hours? I don't have four hours, and so that's it. The habit's over before it begins, so I

00:44:49.460 recommend to people tiny, tiny change, but keep it going. This is how you build something into

00:44:54.980 the routine, so I suggest people write one sentence a day and no more. You don't just

00:44:59.900 have a rule that I'll do it. You have an upper rule, which is I won't write more than a sentence,

00:45:03.980 and you say, okay, that's it. You feel like writing more day one. Even day two, you're

00:45:08.420 like, well, I can do more than one sentence, but don't, because what you want is the routine.

00:45:13.060 What you want is to be doing it 30 days from now, 100 days from now, five years from now,

00:45:17.480 50 years from now. I've not missed a day now in more than seven years. One of the things

00:45:25.260 that inspired me was when my grandfather, I mentioned earlier on, passed away. Before

00:45:29.680 he did, I had got a copy of a journal that he'd been writing, one sentence every two or

00:45:36.920 three days for 50 years in one book. When my other grandfather passed away, there's no

00:45:43.380 equivalent book. There's so much missing in that story, because so much of what we experience,

00:45:49.700 the relationship we have, and what we've done goes with us if we don't write things down.

00:45:53.540 There's an illustration, again, of focusing on something that matters, something that matters,

00:45:57.820 in this case, 100 years from now. It's really going to last at the test of time, and the execution

00:46:03.580 is effortless. You want small, tiny, repeatable, continual execution of something that lasts a very

00:46:11.540 long time. We're not doing this, each new exciting thing comes along, and we go get consumed with that

00:46:17.820 for two days, and then forget everything else, and then we jump back onto something else. I've done

00:46:22.280 that before in my life. I've done it even since writing essentialism, ideas that I get all big on,

00:46:27.220 and then I realize, no, the steadiness, this path, the steady path on those things that are important

00:46:33.160 is so powerful and very calm. You don't have to get all crazy about it. You just have to do it

00:46:39.260 day after day after day. Well, Greg, this has been a really fascinating discussion,

00:46:43.940 and obviously, we can go on and on and really get more into depth in this, but I encourage the guys

00:46:48.760 to go pick up a copy. It's been around for about four years, but man, it is a great book and even

00:46:53.140 more relevant than it's been over the years. So, I do want to ask you a couple of questions as we

00:46:57.660 wind down. The first question is, what does it mean to be a man? To be a man means to live by

00:47:05.160 sets of principles, and to keep coming back to them when we fail, as we will, of gentleness,

00:47:11.980 of meekness. I could list a set of principles and characteristics that I think mean being a man,

00:47:18.060 but I'm just going to stop on meekness because that's a principle that is almost unused now.

00:47:22.540 I would think that most people wouldn't even have anything like a definition of it. They might think

00:47:26.700 it means something like weakness or that kind of thing, but I don't think people would even know.

00:47:30.240 It's not like a term we use. We use other words much more, but meekness. I was just shared this

00:47:35.740 by a very good friend of mine. Jade Coyle shared it with me. He'd heard someone else share it too,

00:47:40.060 but this is how the story goes. There's somebody taking a tour of a factory, and in the factory,

00:47:45.840 they're being given this tour. This is this kind of machine. This is that kind of machine.

00:47:49.000 He's explaining everything, and they said, this is the meek machine. This is a true story. It's a real

00:47:53.560 machine, and they call it the meek machine. That's not its official name. It's what they call it,

00:47:56.620 and they say, let me show you how it works. Now, this machine has a knife on it, like a knife.

00:48:01.660 I was the word I'm looking for. A blade, a huge blade. This thing is used for cutting straight

00:48:06.420 through massive metal objects. This thing can cut through a car effortlessly, just cut right through

00:48:12.260 it. He said, okay, give me your phone. The guy's a little hesitant, but he gives him his phone,

00:48:17.400 and he puts his phone right underneath the blade, goes over the computer, enters into the program,

00:48:22.240 and then this blade comes down fully, strong enough to cut through a car, and stops micromillimeters

00:48:29.700 from the phone. He said, that is why we call it the meek machine. It has all the power,

00:48:37.280 but all the restraint. That's what I think it means to be a man. It means to be powerful. It means to be

00:48:43.720 strong. It means to be courageous. It means to be able to protect, to be able to metaphorically wield

00:48:49.580 this blade. But it also means to have control over it, and to not be controlled by any of those

00:48:56.780 things. To certainly not have lizard brain, where we just let our ego and weakest emotions control

00:49:03.040 what we say and what we do. It means that this voice of conscience, this clarity, controls us.

00:49:09.940 We are servant to it. I think meekness would be to me. And I failed in that, oh, so many times.

00:49:16.320 Because I am sorry for the times I have lost my temper or just let my emotions get the better

00:49:21.640 of me. I want to come back to that as the ideal, because that's what it means to be a man to me.

00:49:26.660 Man, I really, really like that. I had never heard anything like that. I've had 160 men

00:49:31.220 now on the show and have not heard anything like that. But I wholeheartedly agree. That's an amazing

00:49:37.120 insight to what it means to be a man. Well, Greg, how do we connect with you? How do we learn more about

00:49:42.260 your work, pick up a copy of the book, and really figure out what it is you're up to?

00:49:46.360 You already said it. I just think people should start with the book. I just think you start with

00:49:50.820 it. You should get the people around you to read it. That's the beginning. I don't want to even add

00:49:54.600 anything that confuses to that. See if it might add something clarifying to your life, to your pursuit.

00:50:01.560 See if it might help discern out and cut out some of these non-essentials that will keep you from your

00:50:07.340 highest contribution in life. If it does that, then it's achieved the intent, the why for why

00:50:12.260 I spent the time to write it. Well, I can tell you, we used the book several months ago in our

00:50:17.300 brotherhood, the Iron Council, and we read it together. And I can tell you that what you're

00:50:21.300 saying about reading it together, going through it, holding each other accountable, and really doing

00:50:26.620 the work that the book lays out, doing it together was very, very valuable. So I wholeheartedly agree.

00:50:32.080 We'll make sure we link it up in the show notes so the guys can get it. Greg, I got to tell you,

00:50:35.740 I appreciate your work. I appreciate the work that you're doing, the words that you've written.

00:50:39.540 I have personally implemented it in my life and it has been a huge help, especially as

00:50:44.400 I get busier and I get consumed and my family grows and my community obligations increase and

00:50:50.460 the business grows. It's so important that we keep things essential. And I appreciate you

00:50:55.400 joining us today. Brian, thank you. What a pleasure it's been. Thank you.

00:50:59.960 Gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Greg. I know I did. I had been looking forward to

00:51:04.480 that one for a very long time. I was glad and honored, of course, to make it finally work.

00:51:09.600 And I know I'm walking away with a ton of information to improve my life, my family life,

00:51:15.280 my business, what we're doing here with Order of Man. And I couldn't be more happy about having

00:51:18.660 this conversation with Greg. I hope that you feel the same way. If you do, if you've learned some

00:51:23.360 information or new strategies or tactics that you're going to implement in your life, please reach out

00:51:28.700 to me or Greg on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, wherever you're doing the social media thing.

00:51:32.680 Just let us know. We like hearing from you guys. We want to know what you took away from the show,

00:51:37.440 how you're going to improve, how you're going to change, how you're going to enhance your own life

00:51:41.200 from the lessons that are being learned here on the Order of Man podcast. So guys, I am as always

00:51:47.780 grateful that you're tuning in. Make sure you check out the Iron Council. If you haven't done that

00:51:52.620 already, orderofman.com slash Iron Council. We'd love to have more of you over there. I think we just

00:51:57.720 cracked 400 members now. And of course, we'd love to have you there. We've got the resources and the

00:52:03.220 guidance and the direction and the tools that you need to level up your life and to produce more in

00:52:08.880 meaningful and significant ways to you. So check it out again, orderofman.com slash uprising. Check

00:52:14.460 out our partners and sponsors, originmain.com slash orderofman. See what they're up to. I know

00:52:20.500 you're going to be blown away with their story as I have been over the past several months as well.

00:52:23.800 But guys, I will leave you with that. Make sure you subscribe and rate and review the show if you

00:52:29.320 would. Subscribe because we've got some great interviews lined up that you are not going to

00:52:33.220 want to miss. So subscribe, share the show, rate and review all of that wonderful stuff. I appreciate

00:52:38.140 the support, guys. It means a lot to me. Until next week, take action and become the man you are meant to

00:52:43.380 be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life

00:52:49.880 and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the Order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - June 12, 2018

The Disciplined Pursuit of Less ｜ Greg McKeown

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