Greg McKeown on Essentialism

The Tim Ferriss Show with Tim Ferriss - Podcast Index
 
 In this conversation, Greg McKeown on Finding Your Purpose, a New York Times bestselling author and speaker known for his insights on effectiveness, discusses how to master essentialism in life. He explores the power of prioritization and meaningful connections, emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and creating a personal mission statement. Greg highlights the role of poetry in gaining clarity and advocates for intentionality in relationships amidst modern distractions. He also shares the benefits of movement, like walking, for enhancing wellness and fostering deeper conversations.

Highlights

• Episode notes

  1. Setting a clear essential intent for life is crucial to staying focused on what truly matters.
  2. Reflecting on schedules weekly and checking in with oneself during moments of feeling frantic or lost can help in staying centered.
  3. Creating a daily system involves implementing a 'one two three method' using pen and paper to focus on the most essential task, person, and action each day.
  4. Embracing self-transcendence over self-actualization is important for setting meaningful priorities and looking towards something greater than oneself. Time 0:00:00

• Admitting Being a Non-Essentialist Easily
  Summary:
  The speaker emphasizes the importance of setting a clear essential intent for life to stay centered on what truly matters.
  They highlight the constant need to readjust, comparing it to a flight constantly off track but reaching its destination by adjusting along the way. The speaker admits to being a non-essentialist easily, stating there are only two types of people in the world: those who are lost and know it, and those who are lost but don't realize it.
  Transcript:
  Speaker 1
  People the way that my binder works like the first section is all about direction sort of let's say essential intent for my whole life like what really really matters it's as succinct As possible it's a few pages in total that's always the place to begin right because I want to come back and get centered in what I have come to learn is closest approximation to the purpose Of it all and I literally have to come back to it right like you've heard the metaphor before but you know the idea of a flight is off track 90% of the time like an airplane literally only Gets to where it's supposed to get to at the time it's supposed to get there because it readjusts constantly along the way and and I feel like that myself so like for example I don't think That I'm better at being an essentialist than anybody else I think if there's any advantage I've had in that journey it's that I just really admit that I'm a non-essentialist easily And so it's this idea like there's only two kinds of people in the world there are people who are lost and there are people who know they are lost it's like I know how easily it is bleeding
  Speaker 2
  Lost huh never heard that that's good Time 0:20:00

• Sunday Morning Reflection and Daily Centering
  Summary:
  Reflecting on schedules every Sunday morning, and checking in with yourself during the week when feeling frantic or lost can help in getting centered and focusing on what truly matters in life, leading to a more intentional design of your day.
  Transcript:
  Speaker 1
  I'm looking that definitely I will look properly at those few pages once a week right like every Sunday morning I will look through that I will read through it all in the line schedules That's in your calendar yes Sunday morning that's right and but but then at other times through the week if I feel that sensation I know people feel this you know that just sort of feels A bit crazy it's feeling just a bit frenetic and frantic like what I just texted Anna yesterday like man in the morning I'm like man I just feel so lost and I don't mean for the last six months I mean for the last half hour what is I don't feels a loss right now okay that's right that's the signal go back get centered take a moment what really is the intent what matters in your life Okay now from that you know and then you start designing your day and I have some thoughts specifically Time 0:21:10

• Designing a Daily System
  Summary:
  Create a weekly routine to review important information, like on Sunday mornings.
  Throughout the week, pay attention to moments of feeling overwhelmed and take time to realign with your intentions. For daily planning, implement the 'one two three method' using pen and paper, focusing on the most essential task, person, and action for each day.
  Transcript:
  Speaker 1
  I'm looking that definitely I will look properly at those few pages once a week right like every Sunday morning I will look through that I will read through it all in the line schedules That's in your calendar yes Sunday morning that's right and but but then at other times through the week if I feel that sensation I know people feel this you know that just sort of feels A bit crazy it's feeling just a bit frenetic and frantic like what I just texted Anna yesterday like man in the morning I'm like man I just feel so lost and I don't mean for the last six months I mean for the last half hour what is I don't feels a loss right now okay that's right that's the signal go back get centered take a moment what really is the intent what matters in your life Okay now from that you know and then you start designing your day and I have some thoughts specifically about that but you know you're asking me the year process I guess you're asking My system so that's once a week okay so for per day let's get to that so I've come to call this the one two three method I do not do it every day man I wish I was doing it every day but I do it more Often than I don't do it and it's simply this and it has to be written down for me in paper and pen like not in technology free of technology and I try now more often than not to have this power Half an hour right like where I don't go to text an email or apps or my phone for the first 30 minutes and I do that I haven't been doing great at that recently but I still do that more often Than I don't and so in that then instead of doing that I'm in my planner and I'm literally writing okay what's the essential for today it's the one most essential today most important Person most important action for that person number two is I write Time 0:21:10

• Embrace Self-Transcendence over Self-Actualization
  Summary:
  Focusing on self-transcendence over self-actualization is crucial for those on the road less traveled.
  Operating in a top-down manner, looking towards something greater than oneself, is key to setting meaningful priorities. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as commonly understood, is outdated as before his death, he updated it to emphasize self-transcendence as the ultimate aspiration, yet this crucial amendment has been widely overlooked.
  Transcript:
  Speaker 2
  So anything else that comes to mind if you had to add something else to the answer of the question of what you see in some of the secular examples to seem to really be able to travel the road Less traveled in the way that we've been discussing it anything else come to mind it doesn't have to be specific to any type of patriarchal blessing like document or compass per se but But just someone who is in general good at operating kind of top down if that makes sense as opposed to like here are the thousand things that I could do in a reactive sense and then let me
  Speaker 1
  Try to pick a handful of those as my priorities people are very good at operating kind of top down it's hard way to get out of the thread that I'm on about this because because what I'm learning Is that I mean we've talked already about this idea of sort of the highest aspiration you're looking towards something bigger than you self transcending Maslow's hierarchy of needs Right is wrong it's wrong like Maslow said it was wrong and nobody updated the documentation oh I can't wait this is this is new to me all right yeah so he so before he died before Maslow Died he wrote a final book in which he updated his model and just no one I don't know why I don't know what was going on precisely but it just got ignored and some reason that model just is Is in every single psychology book that's ever been written and it's everywhere everywhere the highest need is self-actualization and he changed that before he died to self transcendence But that's the highest ideal and Time 0:50:34