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REMASTERED: The ONE Thing, with Jay Papasan (Productivity, Discipline, Mindset, Author) · The Action Catalyst

• 0:00
  Host: Jay Papasan is at Keller Inc, which is the publishing arm
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  of Keller Williams Realty. And getting a chance to talk with
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  Jay is excited because Jay is also Gary Keller's, co author.
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  And they've written several best selling books, including The
• 0:27
  Millionaire Real Estate Investor, which was a New York
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  Times bestseller. And then the one thing and the one thing was
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  a number one, or is a number one Wall Street Journal, business
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  best seller, Jay is the co author. He's here with us now he
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  is one of the most powerful people in real estate and just
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  an awesome, awesome guy. So Jay, thanks for being here.
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  Jay Papasan: Thanks for having me.
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  Host: So if people haven't heard of the one thing, can you like?
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  What is the main premise kind of overall concept in a nutshell?
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  Jay Papasan: We wanted to explore, you know how people get
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  extraordinary results. Not average, but extraordinary.
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  What's an approach that we can take for that? And for us, it
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  was about focus, but we tried to come at it from a new angle. How
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  do you identify the one thing, right? What's the one thing I
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  can do such that by doing it, everything else is easier or
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  unnecessary? What's the one thing I can do such that by
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  doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary? You're
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  looking for the biggest lever in July, to achieve your goals. And
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  we wanted to help people identify that and then implement
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  that day.
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  Host: In the one thing, Jay, you know, kind of the opening part
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  of the book, you talk about the lies of productivity.
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  Jay Papasan: Before we talk about what we want you to do, we
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  often say what do we have to get out of your head. And in this
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  book, we call do the lies. And the first lie, which we felt
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  like was the number one was this idea that everything matters
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  equally. And I actually don't think people argue that or
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  express it, in fact that way, and it's because our to do list
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  or to fool, our calendars are kind of overflowing. I've had
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  moments in my life where I was literally mapping out my days in
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  15 minute increments. And there are a lot of people who feel
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  that way, we have a lot of opportunity to do stuff. And
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  we've have a lot of obligation. And I kind of compare the way we
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  operate. With so many things kind of stressing us out the
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  need to do them all, to like being a character in the BR
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  movie that runs up the stairs, instead of out the front door,
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  we make really bad decisions to spend our time. And so the
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  antidote to that that first line was essentially, you know, we
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  want you to launch your day by identifying the things that you
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  could do, and then identify the handful that you really should
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  do, and then prioritize them for one to whatever. And that's line
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  number one, the second why people have a lot, they're
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  looking at all the things they might have to do. The other
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  thing, they're really tempted in this day and age to do with
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  multitasking. And we make a strong argument that
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  multitasking is a lie. And the big crux there is that, in
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  reality, when we think we're multitasking, researchers call
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  it switch tasking. If they call anything in their research or
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  multitasking, it's just in the headlines so they can get it in
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  print. But they call it switch tasking, because what actually
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  happens is, we're doing our work. And then we decide to
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  switch. And that's instantaneous. It's like
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  squirrel. Oh, we're off to the next thing. The thing that they
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  realize challenged us is when you switch tasks your brain has
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  to reorient to the new role for the game. And there's a lag. If
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  you've ever been like writing a really complex email, and maybe
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  your spouse walks in and starts talking to you, you know,
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  they're talking to you. You can hear words in the air, but you
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  actually don't comprehend them. And you say, Oh, I'm sorry, what
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  were you saying? You repeat that? That's that lag time. And
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  every time we switch between screens, you know, stopping our
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  emails to pick up a phone call, we experienced this lag time.
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  And researchers believe about a quarter of our day 28% is lost
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  to this and we're not even aware of it. It's a huge loss. I mean,
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  as an employer, I look, wow, I have five employees when I might
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  need four. If they were all just being efficient with your time.
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  There's just tons of research out there that the funny one
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  that always kind of, you know, people say this is making me
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  smarter or whatever, you know, I can do all these things. There's
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  a guy in the College of New London, and he did research into
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  IQ test. And he compared the results of people who were
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  focusing even compared the results of people who were
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  having to multitask. They had to juggle emails and phone calls.
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  Well, they took an IQ test and very hilariously, He compared
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  them to people who were stoned. You know, nobody was surprised
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  that on average, the people who were focused scored 11 points
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  higher than the other two groups, they were shocked that
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  the people who were stoned, on average scored six IQ points
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  higher than the people who are multitasking. So I could go
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  through six ways, we don't need to go there. It costs you time,
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  it makes you dumb, and you're just less effective. So we
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  really tried to get people, if not stop multitasking all the
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  time. When you're doing your main thing, you're one thing, at
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  least that multitasking, then, if I was actually more focused,
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  when I was at work, that I have more time with my family, I
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  think there's a real human cost that I think about, and it makes
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  me a little bit sad, you know, the economic cost is one thing,
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  but what's the cost to my family if I'm working late every day,
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  just because I'm not being as effective as I could be. So the
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  next few slides are just little after July. And then willpower
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  is always on, we'll call the why. And what we tried to break
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  out two things, discipline, one of the meanings for it, is
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  training yourself to do something until it's so that you
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  will, when I was giving my welding talk in Nashville, a guy
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  showed up an hour and 15 minutes early, and I went up to him and
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  I said, Oh, wow, you win the early bird award, you know, are
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  you with the team? And he has no, but I'm just here. I'm
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  always early, it's a habit. I knew that habit word. And I'm
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  like, Dude, you know, tell me more. And it turns out that he
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  had done a Greenbrae. He did, I was nervous for almost two
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  decades. But he's been in it for 15 years. And he said, I was
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  trying to show up early and observe. And I just can't shake
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  the habit. Everywhere we go, we're early, we're early to
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  dinner to the movies, it drives my wife crazy. And I love that
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  because it's a perfect illustration that in our sense,
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  and when we were building our construct, we really wanted to
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  hit on this idea that being disciplined all the time, which
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  we go into and willpower, there is some science about how you
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  there is an ebb and flow to your we often call this one that I'm
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  going to call willpower. But this other definition is, if you
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  know what your one thing is, the very next thing you would want
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  to do is make a habit. Because if that became habitual, you
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  work to build the habit, and then the habit would work for
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  you. And kind of the big aha we had here was that when we looked
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  at the research, like how long does it actually take to form a
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  habit, most people conventionally believe it takes
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  either 21 or 30 days. But the most recent research we found,
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  they had asked, I think over 200 graduate students to take on a
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  new health habit, anything from drinking a glass of water to
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  quitting smoking, whatever they wanted. And for a year, they
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  followed them around and said, Did you do it? Yes or no? And
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  how hard was it every single day. And what they discovered is
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  that on average, around 66 days is when it got as easy as it was
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  ever going to get. So it takes us about three times as long as
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  most people think to form a habit, even on average, we want
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  to at least keep our foot on that pedal right for that long.
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  And so that was the discipline thing.
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  Host: So clarify the willpower part. So then what's what what's
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  the distinction? What would you call willpower?
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  Jay Papasan: So we dove into the science of you know, how we say
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  yes to what we need to do, and how we say no to everything
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  else. But the researchers, the scientists, right, the guys in
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  the lab coats, we're calling it willpower. And they define that
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  as the power to say yes to what you need to do, if I'm on a
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  diet, I mean, you know, carrot sticks and hummus and no to
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  everything else, so no nachos for me. And both of those they
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  measure it literally take energy out of your system. And kind of
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  shockingly, your brain is 1/50 of your body mass, and it takes
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  up 1/5 of all of the energy you consume. It's the hungriest
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  organ in your body after the liver. And so literally, if you
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  make a decision, you know, I am wearing black shoes today in a
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  black tie that little tiny decision, they can measure the
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  glucose in your bloodstream will drop. But there's things that
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  require a lot more power, like I'm going to focus on this task,
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  I'm not going to go play on Twitter, I'm going to focus on
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  my work, I'm not going to go hang out by the coffee machine,
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  saying no to those temptations or saying yes actually uses a
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  lot of energy. And that was our big aha Is that what you're
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  calling discipline in what we're calling willpower is actually
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  really fragile. It's a lot more like the battery on an old
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  phone, it's always going to zero and it's plugged in all the
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  time. So for us our big highs you tend to have the most in the
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  morning. That's what it's always highest. And you can replenish
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  it by eating properly. So we tell you give willpower the time
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  of day and feed it. It's not that you're you know, willpower
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  is hungry. I think about kids, right? You have a kid a young
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  child, what is the mom do for a young child every day around
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  three o'clock. At snack that's like an essential thing that
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  come up from school. The first thing they do when they outgrow
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  the nap, they get both when they hit certain age, they get a
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  snack. They've used up all of their discipline at school
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  sitting in their chair straight walking in line waiting. And so
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  we tell you make it a habit in the morning, right you're one
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  thing do it in the morning and you naturally have the willpower
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  to say yes to it. And then throughout the day if you've
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  looked in my office, I've got power bars, I've got nuts. I've
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  got foods that are high in protein and complex
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  carbohydrates to get I want my brain out have all that
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  discipline or willpower it needs throughout the day. And those
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  tend to feed your bloodstream for long periods of time versus
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  just slacking it sugar, that we wanted to talk about making
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  things a habit and managing that discipline willpower thing
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  throughout the day itself. I've kind of observed, like, you
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  know, open floor plans have been kind of all the rage. And
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  they've looked at some of these and I do foster more creativity,
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  but they haven't necessarily fostered more productivity. And
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  my theory, and it's not been mentioned yet is, if I'm in an
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  open office, and I'm in an environment full of
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  distractions, I'm using a lot of my willpower to focus on the
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  task at hand. And you know, we have noise cancelling headsets
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  in our office, in the cubes, people literally put up like
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  shower curtains and they do all kinds of things to try to get
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  more focused so that they have to the distractions take less of
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  a toll. But I do think that, you know, an environment is one of
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  the things that I became aware of is your environment, support
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  your work and your focus? Because that can say no to all
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  that stuff can be really tough.
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  Host: So how do I know what my one thing is? And I know that
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  kind of comes back to the premise that we started with,
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  but do you have any, like practical ideas for how to find
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  the thing that by doing it, everything else becomes easier
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  or or not necessary?
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  Jay Papasan: On the simplest level, we want people to put
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  down the book and ask that question, what's the one thing I
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  can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier,
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  unnecessary. And for a fair number of people, they kind of
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  know what it is, and they feel guilty for not doing it. They
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  just haven't been told that you know what, you're smart enough
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  to know your own answers. For those that are still struggling.
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  And I find especially a lot of younger people. Maybe people go
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  through transition. It's the idea of thinking, what's my big
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  reason for being here? And then you work backwards to and what
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  do I need to be doing right now?
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  Host: I love it. Well, Jay, thank you for making the time
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  here. Thank you so much, Jay, for being here.
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  Jay Papasan: Thanks.