The Art of Manliness - How to Make Your Life More Effortless

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast when we're failing

00:00:11.700 to do the things that are most important in our lives the typical diagnosis of the problem is to

00:00:15.660 believe we're simply not working hard enough and the typical solution well is to put in more effort

00:00:19.780 apply more discipline and grind it out my guests would say that we're thinking about both the root

00:00:24.400 and the remedy of the issue in the wrong way his name is greg mckeown and he's the author of the

00:00:28.240 bestseller essentialism as well as his latest book effortless make it easier to do what matters most

00:00:33.140 today on the show greg shares how he came to realize that life isn't just about focusing on

00:00:37.180 the essentials but making those essential things the easy things we discuss why it is that we

00:00:41.520 commonly make things harder than they need to be and while the right thing can be hard just because

00:00:46.020 something is hard doesn't make it the right thing we then discuss the role that emotions like gratitude

00:00:50.720 play in making things feel more effortless why you need to have a clear vision of what being done

00:00:54.800 looks like including having done for the day list how to overcome the difficulty of getting started

00:00:58.820 with things through microburst of action and how to keep going with them using a sustainable pace

00:01:03.040 marked by upper and lower bounds and we end our conversation with how seeking an effortless state

00:01:07.200 applies to one's spiritual life along the way greg shares stories from history in his own life

00:01:11.380 as to what it means to get your goals using a more effortless path after the show's over check out

00:01:15.800 our show notes at aom.is slash effortless greg mcewen welcome back to the show it's great to be with

00:01:34.360 you thank you so we had you on the show back in 2017 to talk about your book essentialism that's

00:01:39.980 episode number 331 for those who want to check it out you've got a new book out called effortless

00:01:44.660 and in this book you know in essentialism you tried the whole idea of that is that you had to

00:01:50.020 pare down what you do to the what you think is the most essential because by doing that you can

00:01:55.000 actually get more done because you're focusing on what's really important and you've been preaching

00:01:59.220 that your entire career you did that in your own life but then a few years ago you reached this point

00:02:04.820 in your own life where you felt overwhelmed despite winnowing everything all the projects in your life to

00:02:11.300 the most essential so what happened there well i just got to a point where i was feeling

00:02:19.600 that the metaphor of the big rocks which i'm sure you're familiar with started to just just crack a

00:02:29.480 little bit for me so the the big rocks theory says well if you put the big rocks in to a container

00:02:35.020 first and then the small rocks and then the sand it all fits you know like that but if you put the

00:02:41.500 order wrong if you put all the sand in the small rocks and then the big rocks then it doesn't fit

00:02:45.720 it's a geometric problem and if you get the order right it works in other words if you put the essential

00:02:50.800 things in first and then the the less essential and then leave the the non-essential either out

00:02:56.940 altogether or at the end it all works but i found in my life in addition to becoming the father of

00:03:03.200 essentialism i was now the father to four children growing responsibilities more selective than i'd ever

00:03:08.460 been i found myself faced with the question what happens if you have too many big rocks and in the

00:03:17.180 midst of that we then have a family crisis where one of my daughters eve goes from the picture of health

00:03:25.960 to suddenly having an undiagnosed but discombobulating what turned out to be neurological disease

00:03:33.900 and that just just pushed everything over the edge there's there's no room for all these rocks what do

00:03:40.820 you do now and the journey that followed in our lives i outlined in the book but also i have the chance

00:03:48.140 to codify it it's not just about doing the right things of course that's important of course that's

00:03:55.580 essential you've also got to do them in the right way so essentialism is about prioritization still

00:04:03.300 completely believe that vital first step but you've also got to if i had to summarize in one word the new

00:04:10.280 book i would say simplification you have to remove all of the unnecessarily complicated ways you're going

00:04:17.720 about the work that you're doing that that is that is so key in being able to be successful at what

00:04:25.360 matters most even with the you know great challenges that come along that gets in the way of doing

00:04:31.180 that no so i'm a big i've been a big fan of that the rock metaphor the jar in the rock metaphor but as

00:04:36.900 you explained in this book and you just discussed right now something that happens you don't take an

00:04:41.100 account for sometimes the size of the rocks change right so they they're all still important but

00:04:46.480 sometimes like in your case your family rock became really big because you had to deal with

00:04:51.800 your daughter's health issue but you still have to like you have you have a career you have you have

00:04:56.980 a job people are depending upon you you need to that's still an important rock so sometimes it doesn't

00:05:02.140 work you can't you can't fit them all in because the size of the rocks have changed well and what it

00:05:08.280 you're really faced with in that situation is you can either put some of those big rocks down

00:05:14.280 which is suboptimal and a lot of people do they say okay well i'll just put my health down someone

00:05:19.660 just said that to me the other day well right now so much is going on i'm just not going to worry about

00:05:24.120 health so they're eating terribly they're not exercising and so on and and in one sense you is

00:05:29.820 is very i'm sympathetic to that because uh you know i understand how challenging and hard life can be

00:05:36.220 on the other hand if you're putting down the essential rocks they're still essential and so

00:05:40.760 it begs the question well is there an easier way to achieve what's essential maybe there's a way that

00:05:49.660 you can say well let's not be so perfectionist about it let's not over engineer this maybe

00:05:55.160 there's a simpler path to being able to do the things that are essential so you can actually

00:06:00.780 achieve them and you don't just have to put them down and that's one of the driving points that i

00:06:06.000 explore in this new book okay so in effortless you lay out a game plan for creating an upwardly positive

00:06:11.000 cycle which you call being in an effortless state i mean this effortless state tends to produce

00:06:15.200 effortless action which tends to produce effortless results so you know achieving this effortless state

00:06:20.160 is an important foundation i mean that's where the positive cycle starts so you describe this

00:06:25.040 effortless state as being physically rested uh emotionally unburdened and mentally energized where

00:06:30.600 you're aware of you're in the present you know what's important you're able to bring all your

00:06:34.800 intelligence all your faculties all your capabilities in that moment and you're you know like what is the

00:06:40.620 most important thing you need to focus on in that moment so that's the ideal state you know everything

00:06:45.360 just feels easier the effortless state but most people operate most of the time from a very different

00:06:50.200 state you know it's marked by frustration burnout suffering everything just feels harder than it needs

00:06:56.200 to be so let's talk about why that is like why aren't more people trying to do things in a more

00:07:00.780 effortless way and why do we make things harder than they need to be

00:07:04.280 we've been sold a bill of goods about this partially with a sort of puritan undertone

00:07:14.520 where we have been taught that good essential right way of doing things is the hard way and that the easy

00:07:26.460 way is inherently not the right way it's the wrong way and of course there are times that is true but

00:07:36.700 it means that we have for many of us many overachievers distrust the easy and pursue sort of just more

00:07:46.940 self-sacrifice more exhaustion because that is that's the only correct path and so we leave all this low

00:07:55.160 hanging fruit these alternative strategies that you know could you make the essential things the

00:08:03.320 easiest things in your life you know what would happen if you could do that i was just coaching

00:08:09.620 somebody through a process i said what's something that's essential for you that you're under investing

00:08:13.540 in and he said well eating you know just eating healthy i'm just not doing that is you know really

00:08:20.160 matters to me i can for longevity it matters for overall health for for just you know my my being

00:08:26.660 able to achieve the other things i want right now in my life i mean for all these reasons we just take

00:08:31.760 him through a few simple questions well you know how could we make this effortless we just tried to

00:08:36.720 invert it using a different question instead of how can you work harder to achieve this how could

00:08:42.600 we make the task 10x f but you know more more effortless and and we spent just about 10 minutes talking

00:08:51.300 through it we identify well you know really all that needs to happen for him is he wants food

00:08:57.120 a lunch that's healthy delivered to him 11 30 or 12 each day because normally he's hungry ben but

00:09:04.360 he doesn't eat until he's so hungry he just eats fast food and that's the predictable pattern so i said what

00:09:11.480 could you do to make that happen what's the first obvious step well just go online you know go to

00:09:17.400 google that would be the first obvious step and search for an app that could deliver food i said okay

00:09:23.780 if you did that what could you do in 10 minutes if you did microburst any this awkward pause he says

00:09:29.960 i think i could do everything i think i could get the app i think i could put my credit card information in

00:09:36.140 choose the meals choose when to arrive have it all set up i think the whole thing is 10 minutes i said

00:09:41.460 how long have you struggled with the problem 10 years so we we have a 10 it took 10 minutes to come

00:09:48.180 up with a 10 minute plan that will solve a problem that he's been struggling through for 10 years

00:09:54.140 that's the an example of what i observed if if people are so focused on well if it's essential it must be

00:10:04.460 hard it traps them to feel overwhelmed by the problem than just to give up on it almost before they've

00:10:09.820 begun if you can invert the situation by asking a different question how could we make this effortless

00:10:16.500 suddenly you open yourself to new solutions sometimes so simple it's hard to believe but

00:10:24.040 they work and they allow people to achieve the results that they have struggled with for years

00:10:29.560 and years before if you can make it 10x easier then you can get 10x the results for the same amount of

00:10:36.440 effort i can imagine this um you know thinking things are hard as sort of a barometer of what

00:10:43.040 is good and essential is also can also get people off track say i've i've done this my own life i think

00:10:48.340 well this is hard hard things are good therefore i need to be doing this hard thing even though i

00:10:54.660 probably don't even need to be doing that thing it's not even essential yeah i i mean as soon as you say

00:11:01.320 hard equals good you can set yourself up for a lot of misery patrick mcginnis was the i just had him on

00:11:12.920 the uh on the what's essential podcast and he he's the person who first put the word fomo into print

00:11:19.140 and now it's in the dictionary so that's that's pretty great bragging rights and but he told me a story

00:11:25.120 of when he was just working harder and harder all the time as an investment banker and everybody i

00:11:34.340 mean he's he's he remember he said one time he was so sick that he had to leave a board meeting three

00:11:41.140 times to throw up in the bathroom he looked green and yet still he felt like got to it's you know hard

00:11:48.160 is good you've got to that therefore self-sacrificial you know is is always better and it ended up almost

00:11:58.580 discombobulating his whole life and but he was at the point you know before the the breakthrough where

00:12:06.040 he he said if someone wasn't working long hours their job must not be very important

00:12:13.040 so so he'd completely gone to that point where just hard equals good and this is this is you'd think

00:12:22.800 you didn't have to teach this to people you'd think now this is maybe so obvious but i found you

00:12:30.400 absolutely do especially to overachievers to the hit squad the people who are hard-working

00:12:36.560 intelligent and talented they've taken a true principle and gone way too far with it and just

00:12:44.540 to be clear you're not you're not saying uh avoid hard things completely hard things can push us

00:12:50.980 beyond our comfort zone and give us to a next level we need to get to but the the i guess the challenge

00:12:55.220 is figuring out whether this hard thing has some sort of return on investment or if it actually

00:13:00.720 costs you is detrimental to your return on investment well i think one of the things i'm

00:13:07.040 advocating is that we pay attention to our return on effort you know our roe so that we make sure that

00:13:16.220 we aren't using up this limited resource in a way that doesn't actually produce great results i'm not

00:13:25.100 saying don't try to do the things that seem hard or impossible i'm saying if you can start to work in a

00:13:33.440 different way you can achieve impossible things you can do extraordinary things whereas in right now you

00:13:41.560 might be struggling just even stay afloat and so that to me is the value proposition of effortless is that

00:13:48.660 is that the the impossible can become achievable then doable then attainable then done and then

00:13:58.200 flowing to you i mean it's it's it's it's a big shift once you start to orchestrate your life about

00:14:05.740 in a way that results flow to you rather than only when you put in the effort all right so this first

00:14:12.080 step of achieving the effortless state then is overcoming this bias that we have this puritan streak

00:14:16.740 that we have where if it's not hard then you're doing something wrong instead invert that and say

00:14:22.800 what would how could i make this easier so if you're this could you can apply this in any aspect of your

00:14:28.280 life your family life whether it's like trying to organize how to get kids different places if you're

00:14:33.840 at work there's some sort of you know procedure that just mucks things up all the time or if you're

00:14:39.620 a part of a church there's just this constant reoccurring problem like instead of asking you know how do we

00:14:45.960 how do we do the same thing we've always done but more efficiently just say now what would like what

00:14:50.900 would it look like if this was just a lot easier to do and you'd be surprised the answers you'd get

00:14:55.320 that reminds me of a manager that i was talking to about these ideas this is someone who's normally up

00:15:01.400 till 4 a.m in the morning doing various projects pushing herself to and well past the rejuvenating

00:15:09.340 sustainable level she's the kind of person who feels guilty even if she eats lunch and you know she

00:15:18.840 really feels that more and more sacrifice is the only way for her to to be able to be successful

00:15:27.080 so i said look let's invert it let's ask a different question and the next time that she was asked to do a 0.94

00:15:34.620 project she works at a university the professor calls says look i'd like you to video my whole

00:15:40.440 semester in my class and she is just ready she's well oiled you know mental pattern to be able to 1.00

00:15:51.640 to go into action to overachieve to to overexert she's imagining well i'll get a whole team a videography 0.96

00:16:00.600 team there we'll do multiple angles we'll edit them all together we'll have intros and outros and

00:16:05.600 graphics and music and he'll be wowed by this and she remembers the coaching is how could this be

00:16:12.660 effortless let's really get clear what does done look like for him how what is the the small what

00:16:21.420 really is a solution if i don't jump in with all of this and it turns out that this is just for

00:16:28.460 one student who's going to miss a few classes because of an athletic commitment so the solution

00:16:34.960 they come up with on the phone in about 10 minutes of a conversation is is that another student in the

00:16:41.300 class will just video it on an iphone and send it to him anytime he's going to miss the professor's

00:16:46.440 happy totally delighted with that solution hadn't thought about it either and suddenly she has saved

00:16:52.040 four months for herself and for her whole team just instantly just so and that really was like the

00:17:00.260 breakthrough for her a tipping point that there was this whole world of a way of working that was

00:17:07.540 unfamiliar to her not one that she had actually developed competency in and by just asking a

00:17:15.020 different question by getting into a different mindset she could start to unlock this this this

00:17:20.540 alternative and incredibly valuable approach to the work that she thinks matters so much

00:17:27.040 another factor that you argue plays a role in achieving this effortless state are our emotions

00:17:33.080 so what role do our emotions play in making something feel hard or harder or easier

00:17:39.460 when my when i mentioned earlier that my daughter became suddenly very ill

00:17:47.740 it really was a tremendous challenge because she went from being articulate energized humorous

00:17:58.560 always physically highly active on the rock climbing team i mean just so much good going on in her life

00:18:06.400 reading constantly writing in a journal all of this to suddenly just imagine someone going

00:18:13.260 really just turning it really slow so that it took her two minutes to write her own name

00:18:22.820 there was no emotion left in her she's very monotone she would answer in only one word sentences 0.98

00:18:29.420 and and she was fast on the path to becoming fully comatose and and falling into a coma and all this

00:18:39.460 while the neurologists that we're meeting with cannot even give us the beginning of a diagnosis

00:18:44.480 and this is over let's say a four month period and every day the capability is being lost so

00:18:51.840 in the midst of this challenge what suddenly became clear to me was that there were two paths

00:18:59.000 two ways of dealing with this there's a sort of a visual that came to me and i realized that we

00:19:05.160 could either take this inherently hard situation and make it harder and heavier or we could take

00:19:15.100 this inherently difficult challenging situation and make it lighter and easier and it sounds so obvious

00:19:20.840 well of course i guess you choose the second path but for lots of reasons actually the first is the

00:19:25.600 one that we thought we needed to take because it matters so much this has to be brutal this has to

00:19:30.640 be you know that we should forget everything else we should put all the other big rocks down

00:19:35.380 and lots of people do that when they're faced with crisis and so it it's not it's it's quite easy for me to

00:19:44.100 imagine operating with that problem in a way that you know that breaks our health that turns our family

00:19:52.480 culture toxic that weakens or damages or even breaks you know my marriage with anna because you

00:19:59.940 you deal with the trial in such a heavy way you become more and more obsessed and more depressed and more

00:20:07.300 powerless and there's a downward spiral to that and we began to feel what that would feel like at the

00:20:15.360 very beginning certainly enough to sense that there were these two paths what does the other path look

00:20:20.480 like it doesn't mean ignoring the problem it doesn't mean pretending it's not there it doesn't mean

00:20:26.600 not feeling anything i mean we definitely wept through this experience at times but it also meant that

00:20:34.560 we would that we would find things to be grateful for anything and talk about it loudly it meant that we

00:20:44.600 would still build on our culture so that the feeling in the home was lighter and more hopeful

00:20:53.800 we'd still get around the piano and sing we'd still read together we'd still eat together we'd still laugh

00:20:59.920 together we'd still we still pray together we would still you know well we would still trust trust in

00:21:08.920 god trust in a future that not take a path that's so heavy and so downward spiral and what we noticed

00:21:14.920 was that as we did this there was almost this almost a magical force at play it was so fast that that we

00:21:21.960 just could see hope and feel hope even when there was no external evidence of it we could feel that

00:21:28.100 that was real and so it kept us going and and because of that we were able to discern better which

00:21:37.040 things not to do and which things to do which neurologists to work with and not and so on

00:21:40.820 and it just was a key element of why things seem to start working in a situation where something was

00:21:48.240 so clearly not working it's been about two and a half years now there have been so many ups and downs

00:21:53.940 along the journey treatments that worked and then and then and then didn't and uh symptoms that came

00:22:00.120 back and so on and we've gone through this whole cycle and and as of this conversation she's doing

00:22:04.920 she's doing really well and she's thriving again and she's and she's you know physically mentally

00:22:10.460 emotionally doing so well but if we had taken the heavier path i literally think it could have

00:22:18.060 it could easily have uh taken us down on a path that that both burned us all out and didn't achieve

00:22:27.040 the results we're gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors and now back to the show

00:22:33.760 so another aspect too to making things easier is it's important to have a clear vision of what

00:22:40.400 done looks like why is that important for achieving the effortless state one of my favorite stories

00:22:47.420 in the research for effortless is the story of the vasa the vasa is this huge ornate ship

00:22:56.840 that was commissioned by gustav ii the king of sweden he wanted to upgrade his armada of ships

00:23:03.420 wanted to protect his people from a growing naval power all the powers that were surrounding them at

00:23:08.560 the time i mean he thought this was i mean this is of the utmost importance this is essential to him

00:23:12.940 and and one could certainly argue that he was right about that but how did he go about it unfortunately

00:23:18.240 did not have a clear vision of what the final product would look like in other words he just kept

00:23:24.360 changing his vision so at first you know first he wanted the thing to be 120 feet long and all the

00:23:32.760 lumber had been cut to the specifications but as soon as the shipbuilder had completed that the king

00:23:38.860 changed his mind it needed to be 135 feet long so all of the wood had to be redone at first he wanted

00:23:45.440 it to be 32 cannons in a single row then he asked 36 cannons in two rows plus 12 other small cannons 48

00:23:52.720 mortars 10 more smaller caliber weapons this is this tremendous effort from 400 people to make it all

00:24:00.200 happen but then even as they approached completion the king changed his mind again now it's 64 large

00:24:07.780 cannons and the stress of the news is said to have killed the shipbuilder henrik from a fatal heart

00:24:14.660 attack his second in command is suddenly put in charge the budgets continue to escalate the effort

00:24:21.080 continues to expand and the king just keeps changing his end goal in an utterly non-essential addition

00:24:29.000 for a gunship he asked for 700 ornate sculptures which would take a team of sculptors you know more

00:24:38.560 than two years to complete they added to all the sides the bulwark everything and so it is we're now

00:24:45.520 1628 and the vasa leaves stockholm for its maiden voyage still unfinished and before it's been tested

00:24:56.820 because the king has had time to create some celebration invite foreign diplomats all of this

00:25:03.800 the pageantry and so as the ship sails away the gun ports were open so that they could fire a salute to

00:25:11.580 the dignitaries on the shore a gust of wind catches the sails of the ship causing this massive vessel to

00:25:17.340 tilt to one side and as the can is tipped into the sea water suddenly enters through the gun ports

00:25:25.920 so despite a strenuous all-out effort on the crew to just try and get this water out save the ship

00:25:33.500 everything tragically it goes down 53 crew members with it and and this is all within three quarters

00:25:43.240 of a mile from shore so the most expensive naval project in sweden's history you know sails less

00:25:49.760 than one mile before being buried in the sea and really all because they just did not you know that

00:25:55.940 king did not ever actually define what done looks like so it's sounds like such an obvious thing but

00:26:04.780 many of us set goals in a way that is not dissimilar to how gustav ii approached it where

00:26:11.840 we're very vague we say okay well i want to lose weight but that that's not that that is not what done

00:26:18.320 looks like what does done look like oh well what done looks like might be i look down at the weighing

00:26:23.300 scale and see number 177 staring back at me like that's what done looks like and as soon as you can

00:26:29.960 create done that clearly it sets a precise signal to our brains to to produce that outcome you know

00:26:39.060 you could say oh i want to walk more that is very different than reach 10 000 steps a day on my fitbit

00:26:45.280 for 14 days in a row that's what done looks like we can say read more books it's so vague instead you

00:26:51.060 say on my digital book reader it will say finished next to war and peace and so on it's about getting

00:26:58.300 so clear about what done looks like that you remove all of these extra extra complexities all of this

00:27:07.360 tinkering that we that we add on and and what it also helps us to do another maybe application of the

00:27:16.000 same question is to make a done for the day list so that you actually look at it and you say okay

00:27:22.040 i cannot do everything on my to-do list no one can but if we have a done for the day list that you say

00:27:27.660 okay today once i have completed these things i am done and those things are precise it allows us to

00:27:33.700 have a boundary that is so necessary in a world where right now people you know so many people are in

00:27:40.120 this sort of zoom eat sleep repeat life where nothing ends the day doesn't end and you don't

00:27:45.080 even know what day it is because they flow into each other it's so important to re-embrace you know

00:27:52.000 this question this strategy what does done look like how did you do that with your daughter's health

00:27:58.400 issues because like that's something where it's like what what does done look like there every day

00:28:03.080 well that's a it's a great question i mean what done looked like for us with eve as a whole was

00:28:10.140 that she would be completely healed that she would miss nothing like that she would lose out on nothing

00:28:15.860 and that wasn't just something that we just chose entirely because that's what we wanted although of

00:28:22.140 course we did it was in the it was in the investment in in getting back to a a state of of clarity

00:28:31.840 where we could really sort of sense even spiritually what what was possible that we felt that this was

00:28:39.300 possible that this is what could happen in the future and so we just said okay well we don't know

00:28:44.140 how long it will take we have no control over that we're in this for the long run and so you know i mean

00:28:51.620 what it would mean would be i mean it's just the same as making any other to-do list it's just saying

00:28:56.100 okay what what can we do today to help what's the next step and in fact that's that's its own

00:29:03.600 chapter in the book and it's its own strategy is just to say look what's the first obvious action

00:29:08.540 that we can take you know what is next rather than worrying about with eve particularly rather than

00:29:16.640 worrying about all the things we couldn't control which was almost everything to do with this situation

00:29:21.340 we would say instead of worrying about the thousandth step here well what happens if this

00:29:25.880 and that the other not what's the next right step and and that that took some discernment

00:29:34.000 it was really important actually to create space to discern to be peaceful to be able to receive sort

00:29:43.760 of revelatory moments where it happened to anna i remember we were going to do all of this

00:29:50.280 alternative medicine you know we were perfectly you know believe that the that there can be health

00:29:56.160 benefits to anyone by by looking at those part you know those options and try to in our lives

00:30:01.600 but there was this whole path and i remember her coming to me as she was just getting really trying

00:30:06.800 to discern the right path forward and the right way to do this i just feel like i don't need to do any

00:30:12.080 of that we're going to put all of that on hold and so just freed her up to be able to then discern 0.81

00:30:17.440 and i remember also coming one day and saying i've been pondering this thinking about it and

00:30:21.540 i think there's this one neurologist that we need to go and see he had a nine month waiting list

00:30:28.640 but that's the focus and we really felt that that was what we needed to to then focus on and see what

00:30:37.240 we could do to bring it about and i'm open to say pray specifically for that miracle and it did come

00:30:43.340 that he suddenly had an opening 30 days later instead of nine months later and he was he was

00:30:49.260 the the really the main breakthrough uh for being able to help eve he came and he treated the whole

00:30:55.320 situation differently brought a whole team with him he took a very particular approach to the medicine

00:31:00.240 instead of saying okay we're going to get a full diagnosis and then treat he said we can there are

00:31:05.620 things you can do to treat in order to diagnose and we're going to act in order to learn not worry

00:31:10.780 about the perfect treatment system but take action and we'll we'll we'll learn right then

00:31:15.780 and so and so it was it was this pattern that helped us make progress you know rather than being

00:31:24.580 completely overburdened with the journey another aspect that makes things harder than they need to be

00:31:31.240 besides thinking that it has to be hard for it to be good is we just have people have a hard time

00:31:36.600 getting started or they don't even know how to get started why do you think that is like why do you

00:31:41.560 think that sometimes it's often the the thing that keeps people from taking action is that first step

00:31:45.680 and then how do you make the first step easier i i think that i think that we're so in our heads

00:31:53.420 that we forget that all we actually have when it comes to execution is this moment neuroscientists and

00:32:05.560 psychologists have done cycles on trying to study now you know what we mean by the term now and

00:32:13.860 for a long time it's just been in the realm of philosophers you know now is this you know we all

00:32:18.880 live in the now and we've heard that idea but they've measured it and found it's between two to

00:32:23.640 three seconds yes everything is really the next two to three seconds you can't take any action other

00:32:30.260 than in this next two to three seconds and so it's about trying to get your head back into this moment

00:32:36.000 and say okay fine you want to do a thousand things there's all sorts of things you want to do

00:32:41.080 but you actually live here and this is the only place you can take action so what can you do in the next few

00:32:50.140 seconds to move this forward what can you do immediately and of necessity that means taking

00:32:57.800 a small step a single step the next thing and it's literally something i mean it's you know it's what

00:33:03.340 you can do with your hands with your body i mean you have to do something in this moment an example of

00:33:09.220 this i love is from when netflix was you know just a brainchild of reed hastings he's imagining

00:33:18.140 what netflix is today having video that's downloaded you know all over the world so you

00:33:25.540 just don't even need a blockbuster but he knows that the technology is nowhere close yet he knows

00:33:30.940 it's going to be 10 plus years before even literally the the digital pipes are large enough to be able to

00:33:36.760 download video at this speed and so he could have just spent you know he could have put all of that

00:33:43.940 energy into i don't know i guess making plans and and forecasting and trying to raise hundreds of

00:33:49.620 millions of dollars or i mean but instead he said okay hold on what is the first actual step i could

00:33:55.460 take in this moment and what the options are available to me right now and he and his co-founder

00:34:02.320 said okay well maybe we could just go right now buy a cd take it to the post office and mail it to

00:34:10.240 ourselves just to even see if there's a if there's a version of what we're trying to do that's possible

00:34:15.220 with our current technology and so that's exactly what they did that was the first step and the next

00:34:20.060 day they found yes it has safely arrived not scratched not broken so maybe we have an idea it was never

00:34:27.840 the big dream isn't to have cds delivered to people's homes that's just preliminary but this is the

00:34:34.460 the california role of our idea this is the entry point and and so and so it's it's to me it's a it's

00:34:44.320 a really vital part to discover what your minimum viable not minimum viable product is but your minimum

00:34:52.680 viable action that we don't have to be so overwhelmed by essential projects if we can name

00:34:59.740 the first obvious step then we avoid spending too much mental energy thinking about the fifth seventh

00:35:07.360 or 23rd steps you know it doesn't really matter if your project involves 10 steps of 10 000 you know

00:35:13.720 when you adopt this strategy all you have to do is focus on the very next step and having identified

00:35:20.540 literally what is the next step you then can build on that quickly by saying okay well what can you do in

00:35:25.640 a magic you know micro burst first step and then you say okay if i can add to that 10 minutes so for

00:35:32.800 example you say okay the the project is i want to remove the cluster from my garage and the first

00:35:38.680 obvious action might be literally just find the broom i mean it's not it doesn't sound amazing but it's the

00:35:44.880 next thing you need to do and what can you do in a microburst where you can sweep out the shed and move

00:35:48.940 the bikes into the shed that's what you can do in 10 minutes that's a real example from my life

00:35:53.980 you know you could say okay i want to launch a product that's the project but your first obvious

00:35:59.000 action is open and some you know cloud-based document of some kind to put the ideas in you don't have to

00:36:06.380 worry about all the 50th step and the 100th that are so overwhelming that people don't get there

00:36:12.120 what can you do in microburst in 10 minutes you can brainstorm your product features that's a

00:36:18.640 an achievable amount the advantage of doing this is that as soon as you identify the next obvious

00:36:26.220 action and what you can do in a microburst is that i've seen it many times and experienced it too

00:36:32.580 as soon as you identify you relax your body relaxes and the thought comes i can do that i can do that

00:36:41.740 that is an achievable next step and so our belief goes up our confidence goes up because we're not

00:36:50.240 focused on all the things we can't yet do we're not focused on vague things you cannot as david allen

00:36:57.820 puts it you cannot do a project all you can do is the next obvious step of the project and this is

00:37:07.100 very liberating because as soon as you start taking that step you actually start to see progress and

00:37:12.680 you're not wasting cycles on worrying about not taking progress you've actually done something

00:37:17.420 about it okay let's say you get going you take that first step and you're you know you've basically

00:37:22.300 what what i like about this idea of take the first step and like you're reducing the stakes you call it

00:37:27.040 failing cheaply right so like you just do something that if you fail it's not going to cost you much time

00:37:32.300 money or status like getting a broom that's not a big fail if you fail to do that but let's say you

00:37:38.240 do all those things you get going something that people run into is they get a project going in their

00:37:44.320 work or in their life and then for some reason there's a tendency for things just to get more and

00:37:49.240 more complex as you go and then things start becoming a slog so how do you prevent that from happening

00:37:56.860 and how do you keep the momentum going that you had when you first started well i think that what's

00:38:04.180 vital is to achieve the effortless pace that is to have an upper bound and a lower bound to your

00:38:12.300 behavior it's easy when we start to get moving on something to overdo it we're highly motivated and we go

00:38:20.300 big but the cost of that is that the next day it's already overwhelming and so we don't actually

00:38:28.800 have a sustainable pace and as soon as you don't have something sustainable you're the results you're

00:38:35.080 going to get are far worse you don't get any of the compounding benefits of of actually achieving

00:38:40.620 consistency intimacy is a completely different game to consistency a story that some people are

00:38:48.540 familiar with but i went back and read some of the original sources for this is the great it was

00:38:54.480 it was in the great age of exploration in the early years of the 20th century where the most sought

00:39:00.900 after goal in the world was to reach the south pole it had never been done in all of recorded human

00:39:07.360 history not by the vikings not by the royal navy and all of its power and prowess but in november 1911

00:39:15.300 you have the rivals for the pole two different teams who are going to try and make the 1500 mile

00:39:21.840 race a race of life and death really one team returns victorious and the other team would not

00:39:28.560 return if you read the journals you find that that they just had a completely different experience

00:39:34.800 the first team the british team on the good weather days would drive their team to total exhaustion

00:39:42.020 just as just go as far as you can it's good weather we've got to make the most of it let's

00:39:46.500 push it force it on the bad weather days they were partially because of how exhausted they were

00:39:53.300 hunkered down and he would write his complaints in his journal i remember one time he wrote our luck

00:39:59.140 in weather is preposterous it makes me feel a little bitter to contrast such weather with

00:40:04.000 that experience by our predecessors on another he wrote i doubt if any party could travel in such weather

00:40:10.200 i mean by the way he had better weather conditions than his predecessors he just didn't

00:40:16.020 realize that or believe it and and there was one party who could deliver in that same weather

00:40:23.580 conditions and that's the competing team the norwegian team he wrote in his journal separately

00:40:31.420 it's been an unpleasant day storm drift frostbite but we have advanced 13 miles closer to our goal

00:40:37.680 so what's what's going on here the plot thickens because as the norwegian team gets within three

00:40:45.060 miles no not three miles excuse me within 45 miles of the south pole with a perfect weather day

00:40:53.060 he could push and force it right here at the end he could have said okay we don't even know where our

00:41:01.060 competitors are they could be ahead of us for all we know and they could have just pushed and forced

00:41:06.860 at that moment but even then he averaged 15 miles a day took him three days and averaged 15 miles

00:41:15.480 that was his rule the beginning of this he said good weather days bad weather days we're going 15 miles

00:41:21.660 and that pace proved absolutely critical to both being victorious but also

00:41:31.480 also for sustainability they survived they've got all the way to the south pole and made it safely all

00:41:38.980 the way back and then get this which i find so breathtaking i find it shocking what a terrific

00:41:47.140 biographies that was written about this experience cat said that the norwegian team

00:41:54.180 reached their destination and here's the phrase without particular effort

00:42:00.140 that's roland hunford by the way and his book is just fascinating on this race to the south pole

00:42:07.260 but without particular effort what what a shocking thing to say he accomplished a feat that no one

00:42:15.520 had done for millennia and and and i don't think he was saying of course that no every day was easy

00:42:21.840 that isn't the point but nevertheless to use that language to describe an experience under the harshest

00:42:29.280 conditions imaginable is to me really fascinating and so by the way the other team the british team

00:42:37.180 arrived uh arrived 34 days later uh their intermittent approach had had cost them time energy it had left

00:42:47.220 them absolutely exhausted and on their way home they they all they all unfortunately died but that's what

00:42:54.920 we're talking about here when we say effortless pace is to is to be aware of the the false economy of

00:43:01.040 trying to power through and and what we can do of course we're not going to the south pole

00:43:07.080 but we can all create you know upper bounds to whatever we do so i just took up swimming again

00:43:16.500 the community pool had been closed through the pandemic it's open again the last time i swam i

00:43:22.500 swam 100 lengths and it was tempting to just try and go and do that the first day but i realized well

00:43:28.840 yeah but if i do that without having you know being out of out of cycle for a while i'm not going to

00:43:34.700 enjoy it chances are i'll tail off in my in my in my work so instead say okay upper bound 40 lengths

00:43:43.060 so i'm still going to go i want to go at least two times a week i want to go at least 40 lengths so

00:43:48.440 those are my those are my lower and upper bounds but that means that now here we are a month on and

00:43:53.680 i'm still swimming that's that's the benefit you want sustainability you want consistency

00:43:59.220 if somebody says okay i want to hit my sales numbers fine have a lower bound never call less

00:44:04.220 than five sales a day for example but also have an upper bound never more than 10 calls a day

00:44:09.620 so that you can do it consistently yeah even with the writing over effortless you know the project is

00:44:15.900 to complete the first draft of a book okay that's a goal that i set at some point and you know the

00:44:21.620 lower bound will never write less than 500 words a day you have a lower bound but you also have an

00:44:26.660 upper bound no never more than a thousand words a day the upper bound is key for overachievers

00:44:32.880 because it helps them to not use up more energy than they can recuperate today that's what you want

00:44:43.660 you don't want to use up more energy today than you can recuperate today some days you you will make

00:44:49.000 exceptions to that but over the long run you've got to get back to approximately that pace otherwise

00:44:54.620 you'll become suboptimal in your performance and actually you won't achieve your breakthrough

00:45:00.000 performance and you'll still be burned out so it's an important it's an important approach for

00:45:05.600 sustaining momentum so you're a business consultant in this book effortless it's very

00:45:10.700 practical with these you know practical things you can do to make things effortless but as i was

00:45:14.620 reading the book and just even listening you know to our conversation it seems like underlying all

00:45:19.480 this there's like a a spiritual or philosophical component i mean even the epigraph of your book

00:45:24.960 you've got the matthew 11 30 where jesus says for my yoke is easy and my burden is light i mean how

00:45:31.260 would i don't know let me this is sort of meta but how would you describe the the philosophy or the

00:45:37.500 spirituality that's underlying this idea of effortlessness one of the ideas

00:45:44.180 that has been powerful to me spiritually is that i can either work hard with the world or easy with

00:45:54.680 the lord it's the idea that i can struggle and do it take a life which i think is inherently hard and

00:46:03.280 make it harder on my own being limited in my perspective or i can i can join with you know the most

00:46:12.980 powerful force in the world and and and and be strengthened be uplifted so that sometimes the

00:46:22.440 burdens themselves are the same as with eve but it doesn't feel so hard you you have strength to deal

00:46:31.540 with with the problems that inevitably come i do think that's a that's a key idea for for someone who's

00:46:40.580 listening who is christian i sometimes think about it this way that that there's a lot of christians

00:46:47.320 trying to it's like trying to be christian without christ or something where you say well i'm going to

00:46:53.760 try and do it all myself i will save myself i will sacrifice my way forward and and and that just isn't

00:47:02.620 actually the path i think is i think is a breathtaking injunction in scripture when jesus writes you know

00:47:13.260 my yoke is easy my burden is light is it is that what most people experience when they're going to

00:47:22.780 church is that what's what why isn't that the description that most people have when they think of

00:47:29.780 this and and and of course i don't want to limit the conversation explicitly to christianity either

00:47:37.740 this idea is that when you have deep meaning and you can tap into you know the the these these forces

00:47:46.860 around us that we're not doing it on our own anymore i i think is i think is is really powerful

00:47:55.120 it reminds me of a story that didn't make it into the book but i i love this story is of of a woman

00:48:02.580 who was with it was of a mother who was with her dying son in the hospital and she gets up next to him

00:48:09.600 to be close to him right at the end and he's not really fully in the here anymore but he's not fully

00:48:19.260 there either and in that moment he opens his eyes and he just says oh mom it's all so simple it's all

00:48:28.100 so simple and those were his last words and he died and that became a new soundtrack for her to

00:48:36.700 live by and for us if we want to take it it's all so simple and it comes with a question you know

00:48:42.980 how am i making life harder than it needs to be and when we have the answer to that we have something

00:48:50.840 deep and i think profound which is we know what to do next and what we do next matters so much more

00:48:58.400 than anything that's happened to us in the past no matter what pain we've gone through no matter what

00:49:04.700 mistakes we've made no matter what grievances we've had before no matter what what trouble has gone on

00:49:12.960 they pale in comparison of what we do next and so if we can if we can choose in the next moment

00:49:23.040 between either taking a step that makes life heavier or the part that makes things lighter

00:49:30.720 we are we are on our way i mean each moment gives us this opportunity each two and a half second moment

00:49:38.580 what can i do to make life lighter for me and for the people around me it becomes a a really

00:49:47.940 thrilling way to live it may be as simple it may be as easy as that well greg this has been a great

00:49:55.800 conversation where can people go to learn more about the book and your work i would encourage people

00:50:00.760 to go to essentialism.com where there's a whole academy that we've launched that helps people to be

00:50:08.480 really able to design a life that the essential things the most important things become as simple

00:50:16.060 and easy as possible so that they can do them consistently that's if there was one thing i would

00:50:21.140 just encourage people to do that fantastic well greg mckeon thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:50:25.000 thank you my guest today was greg mckeon he's the author of the book effortless it's available on

00:50:30.440 amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about his work at his website

00:50:34.400 greg mckeon.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash effortless where you find links

00:50:39.300 to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:50:41.240 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at

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00:51:24.860 aom podcast but put what you've heard into action

00:51:27.540 you

The Art of Manliness - June 14, 2021

How to Make Your Life More Effortless

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