469: See What Really Matters, with Greg McKeown
Coaching for Leaders
Dave Stachowiak
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2020
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Greg McKeown: Essentialism
Greg McKeown is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less*. His book is frequently listed as #1 Time Management book on Amazon and challenges the core assumptions about achievement to get to the essence of what really drives success.
His writing has appeared in or been covered by The New York Times, Fast Company, Fortune, HuffPost, and many others. He is among the most popular bloggers for the Harvard Business Review and LinkedIn’s Influencers group: averaging a million views a month.
In this conversation, Greg and I discuss why success can be such a poor teacher and how to avoid what Jim Collins calls, “The undisciplined pursuit of more.” We explore how the principles of journalism can help us arrive at what’s essential and why journaling may be the place to start.
Key Points
Being a journalist of your own life will force you to stop hyper-focusing on all the minor details and see the bigger picture.
- Success is a poor teacher and may lead to the undisciplined pursuit of more.
- Essentialists listen for what is not being explicitly stated. They read between the lines.
- Nonessentialists hear what is loud. Essentialists listen for the signal in the noise.
- Journaling is a useful practice to begin reviewing what is coming up in your life and discovering the leads you may be missing.
- Make time every 90 days to review and determine what’s next.
Resources Mentioned
- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less* by Greg McKeown
- Essentialism podcast
- Simple Productivity: How to Accomplish More With Less with Greg McKeown
Book Notes
Download my highlights from Essentialism in PDF format (free membership required).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Success gives us options to do more, but what about when those options become overwhelming? |
| 0:07.0 | On this episode, the author of Essentialism, Greg McEwen, on how to see what really matters. |
| 0:13.0 | This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 469. |
| 0:17.0 | Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential. maximizing human potential. |
| 0:29.0 | Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is coaching for leaders and I'm your host Dave Stahoviac. |
| 0:34.0 | Leaders aren't born. |
| 0:35.7 | They're made. |
| 0:36.6 | And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom |
| 0:39.7 | through insightful conversation. |
| 0:42.4 | How do you decide what really matters? insightful conversation. |
| 0:42.6 | How do you decide what really matters? |
| 0:46.4 | Maybe even more importantly, how do you see what really matters? |
| 0:49.2 | Today's guest is an expert at helping people to figure out what's essential. |
| 0:53.4 | I'm so glad to welcome to the show today, Greg McEwen. |
| 0:56.2 | He has dedicated his career to discovering why some people and teams |
| 1:00.8 | break through to the next level and others don't. He's the author of the New York Times and Wall Street |
| 1:05.7 | Journal bestseller Essentialism, the Discipline Pursuit of Less. His book is |
| 1:10.3 | frequently listed as the number one time management book on Amazon and challenges the core assumptions about achievement to get to the essence of what really drives success. |
| 1:19.0 | His writing has appeared in or been covered by the New York Times, Fast Company, Fortune, Huffington Post, and many others. |
| 1:26.0 | He's among the most popular bloggers for the Harvard Business Review and LinkedIn influencers group averaging a million views a month. |
| 1:33.5 | Greg, I'm so glad to welcome you to the show. |
| 1:36.0 | Dave, it's such a pleasure to be with you. |
... |
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