In this weekly book‑review video, Dan Willis of millennialmotivator.ca evaluates Gary Keller’s The One Thing for entrepreneurs and small‑business owners. He begins by introducing the series and his channel’s focus on practical business advice. Willis then outlines the book’s main drawback: a perceived hypocrisy where the first half preaches a singular, non‑multitaskable focus, while the second half expands that principle to a separate “one thing” for every life domain, diluting the original message. He contrasts this with Simon Sinek’s Why, noting the latter’s clearer purpose‑driven approach. Willis praises the book’s strengths, highlighting its abundant, high‑quality diagrams, concise, easily digestible chapters, and overall visual appeal that aid comprehension. He shares personal relevance, describing how he applies singular focus in his own entrepreneurial and family life. Ultimately, Willis does not recommend the book for most readers, suggesting it may only be worthwhile for visual learners or if an abridged, diagram‑focused edition were released. He concludes by asking viewers for suggestions on his next read and encourages subscription.
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Gary Keller's The One Thing. This was the read for the week. Was it worth it? Let's find out. Welcome back, guys. I'm Dan Willis of millennialmotivator.ca, and I am here with the book of the week. Book of the week was The One Thing by Gary Keller, guys. This one is out there. It's highly recommended. I love that part of the purchase went to hurricane relief, but we're gonna take a look at the pros, the cons, and then ultimately whether or not I thought this book was worthwhile. Now, just for you guys that are new to the channel, this is not an everyday thing. This is once a week we're gonna do a book review on here. Typically, this channel is entrepreneur videos, videos for entrepreneurs and small businesses helping you learn how to create, engage, and and inspire your customers. So if you're new to the channel, go ahead and click that subscribe button and the bell over here, and you'll get your updates. I do videos Monday through Saturday, so there's always new content coming out, always new ideas flowing for you to help grow your business. Without further ado though, let's hit it up. Let's hear what this book is all about. Okay, let's start off with the cons, okay guys? Now I know that often people like to do, I guess I should just, Put this up here in the background. I know often, guys, people just like to get right into, well, I really like this about the book. For me, I like to finish with that, so we'll start with the cons. The issue with the one thing is that the book ultimately is a bit hypocritical. And here's what I mean by that. When you start into this book, he is adamant in the first half of the book That nobody is capable of multitasking. You can't do it. And I'm not completely opposed to that concept. I'm a firm advocate of if you're gonna do something, do it. Just do the one thing that you're doing, focus on it, do it well. Don't try to do 10 things at once. So I'm there with him on that. But the stress in the first half of the book is this: create a focus to a singular thing and push everything in your life aside If it's not that one thing, okay? And we're not talking— and it has an air and a ring to it that's very similar to Simon Sinek's What's Your Why, right? The big difference between the two is this: Simon Sinek's What's Your Why makes a point of telling us your why is a purposeful meaning that should be laced through every avenue and aspect of your life. The one thing is really a goal objective. It's not, it's not a meaning. It's not purposeful. It's a task objective. It's an, it's an action objective. I need to go do this, and I'm gonna work my way back and create this plan to do it. And that's all well and good, creating a plan to get to your goal. I'm not opposed to that. What I am opposed to is the singular focus on this goal. That's the only thing I'm gonna head towards, and everything else can move out of the way. And the reason why I'm opposed to this is the hypocrisy between the first part of the book and the second part of the book. Okay, if that was his statement, that was it. I wouldn't dock a book for that, that he's consistent with that message throughout. The reality is, as soon as you hit the second half of the book, he extends his message from a singular vision and focus to, but you should have one thing for every avenue of your life. So have a one thing for your physical life, your spiritual life, your business life, your professional life, your Your entrepreneur life, your your wife life, your kid life, your dog life, your and ultimately what I hear when he says that when he makes that shift from the beginning where he has a firm adamant statement of you can only do this and then this sudden shift to do it all have a one thing for twelve things you've lost me you've lost the message it's no longer consistent so. The biggest con to The One Thing is this: it's not one thing. Despite the big One Thing on the book, much like the COVID it says one thing, but there's a whole bunch of other things on it. That's the book. The book is one thing for everything. Now, the pros of the book, guys. Let me give you the pros. It wasn't a terrible read. There's a lot of great stuff in this book. He goes out of his way to really make sure that there's a lot of charts, a lot of diagrams. I know when I'm reading, I absolutely love that stuff. I love the ability to visualize as I'm reading. Okay, so as far as the layout structure, the thought process of the book, and once you get past that hypocrisy of one thing and many things, it's actually quite a well-written book with a lot of great insight. Okay guys, so he walks you through this process of we allow things that Aren't worth our time to consume our time, which I know a lot of you guys have read in other motivational books. But this one does a really great job of demonstrating how proficient you can be when you have a singular focus. And I really love the second half of the book, actually. I love the second half of the book because as an entrepreneur who is a consultant, yet I run my own businesses, yet I have my own side hustles, I've got 7 kids, I've got a wife, I've got a community that I'm a part of, I have a church that I'm a part of. It's really crucial to me that I'm able to not multitask, but I am able to put priorities in priorities' place. And when I'm giving something an attention, a focus, that's where I'm at. So when I'm shooting this YouTube video, I'm not also playing on my phone, and I'm not parenting my kids, and my dog's over here being trained. I'm focusing singularly on what I'm doing right now. That's a priority. But at the end of the day, when I'm done, or when I'm done this YouTube video, I will move on to something else. It will receive my singular focus while I do it. I won't allow myself to be distracted by something else. I will dedicate that time and focus to it, which ultimately is the message on the second half of this book. The pros of the book are this: it's a great visual read, lots of diagrams, lots of visuals throughout the book, and they're not crappy visuals. They're really well done. I love the style of the book. The chapters are quick. They're concise. They're edible, and by edible, I mean that I was able to just plow through the book. I was able to read it really quickly. It didn't take a lot of— it wasn't super technical. It didn't require a lot of processing and where did this go and how do I feel about this. It really was able to be easily consumed. I could eat the book up. Vroom, done. One eating, done. It took me about 2.5 hours to read through the thing. I went back through for probably another half hour just to check out some of the details, but the reality is this. The pros of the book are it's easily edible, great visuals, When you get to the second half of the book, ignore that The One Thing is actually 10 things, and it's an excellent message. Alright guys, the moment of truth. Would I recommend you sit down and read The One Thing? I don't want to do a rating system here. I don't want to do the thumbs up or the 5 stars or any of that nonsense. Really, it just has to come down to would I recommend you read it or not. And in this case, guys, I think I wouldn't recommend that you go out and read it, and only for this reason. There are multiple other books that I feel do this message justice in a much better way. I already mentioned one of them, Simon Sinek's Why, which I'll put a link down in the comments below to it, is a phenomenal book that helps you do essentially what this book tried to do and fell short of. Simon Sinek's Why really helps you understand your purpose and then seek out your purpose in every avenue of your life, which I really feel is where Gary Keller was trying to go with this. He just couldn't hit it. It. Ultimately, guys, would I recommend this book? I wouldn't. I personally wouldn't recommend it. Now, I will say this though. Simon Sinek's Why did not come nearly as close as this one did to being proficient with visuals. If you're an extremely visual reader, you thrive on there being great imagery in what you're reading, this book may be worthwhile for you to pick up. I will put it in the comments below as well for you to check out if you're one of those visual readers that really likes to have diagrams to process and look through. It does have value as far as that goes. In fact, if he, if he had an abridged version of this, like we're talking a pocket-sized one— I don't have my little book here, but normally I've got like a little handheld book that's about this big, okay, about the size of this. If he put out a book that was about this big, okay, that had all of the diagrams from this in it, I would recommend you go get that. The diagrams in this book are exceptional, and if you are a visual learner, that's the only way I would recommend this book. So that's it. Gary Keller's The Why, guys. I hope you enjoyed the video. Question of the day is, what do you guys think I should read next? I do have a bunch of books on a list that I am gonna buy and, and have shipped here, and we're gonna do a book a week on the, on the channel. But I want to know, what is it that you guys want to read? What, what books have you heard about? What are great reads? What do you just want to hear my slant on? Let me know in the comments down below. And again, if you haven't clicked the subscribe button, go ahead and do that. I'll catch you guys tomorrow with another video, and thank you so much for watching.
