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Posted almost 8 years ago

There Can Be Only ONE

I’m a huge fan of the business book, The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. It’s one of the books Brandon Turner says changed his life and co-author Jay Papasan was featured on the BP podcast.

Perhaps I watched too many episodes of “The Highlander”, but I’m confused by hearing people say they can’t pick just one. They’d like to name several ONE things. I’d suggest if you can't pick just one then you aren’t focusing on meta-skills then. Let’s get meta. The skills beneath the skills.

My one year goal was to establish powerful habits. The first ONE thing I set out to do was to eliminate my sugar binges. What does this have to do with my real estate goals? Everything!

Turns out, when I eat sugar I’ve got a few issues. The first is that sugar seems more like a legal drug. After just one bite my body screams for more! One mouthful of sugar is never enough and pretty soon I’ve had more than just a smakerel.

The second big challenge when I eat sugar is that my self control decreases. The property appraisal can’t be scheduled until when? The lender needs another 20 documents by tomorrow and my first born child? In real estate, as in life, stuff happens. Keeping your emotional response as level as possible helps. I don’t want to be the one throwing the tantrum simply because I ate chocolate after lunch.

A funny thing happened once I eliminated most of the sugar. I discovered that the gal in my head who talks non-stop turns into a moron when I eat sugar. “I can’t” becomes her refrain. Anything and everything I can do to help the nonstop chatter in my head be more “can do” has far reaching results.

What ONE thing can I do such that by doing it everything else becomes easier or unnecessary? I can reduce my sugar consumption. Funny thing is that helps me with all my goals: my real estate goals, fitness goals, goals as a mother, wife, and friend. Isn’t that the point of picking just ONE thing? So I spent a full two months working on significantly reducing my sugar consumption.

If you can’t pick just one, then you’ve stopped too early at identifying your ONE thing. Go one more step. Dig deeper.  Get meta if you have to. In the end, there can be only one. 


Comments (2)

  1. Thanks for reading!  I agree, focus works much better.


  2. Thanks for sharing this post. Doing ONE thing is really much better than many unfocused, unproductive things