A short motivational talk by George Kao urging listeners to stop overthinking and reduce overwhelm by consciously choosing the single best option available and ignoring other possibilities. He repeats the slogan “Do the best, ignore the rest,” gives concrete applications (email triage, reading choices, task prioritization), and rebuts FOMO by emphasizing presence and focus.
Do you ever feel like you have too much to do, you have too many things to read, you have too much on your plate, you've got too many people that you could connect with, you've got too many projects you could possibly do, opportunities you could pursue, ideas that you could realize. Well, my encouragement today for you is to do the best, ignore the rest. One of the biggest wastes of our time, our life, our energy, is in spinning our wheels. And we spin our, when I say spin our wheels, I mean we've got things we could do and we don't do it because we're not sure it's the right path, the right decision, the best thing we could be doing right now. We don't even think about, about these things consciously. Which is why I'm asking you, inviting you, to bring it to the conscious mind so you can make a decision, make a commitment, and then move forward. Because the way to actually make progress in your life is not to survey every possible opportunity, every possible possibility, and then deciding what's best. It's looking at what is already in your view, what is already calling to you and doing the best and ignoring the rest. And so a couple of ways we could apply this, right? You're looking at your email inbox, your email inbox is full and you're like, you just get overwhelmed looking at this. Open, do the best, ignore the rest. Open just the most important emails, respond to them and ignore the rest. You can probably archive the rest and be fine with it or delete it. If you are picking which book to read, do the best. If you can read 10 books this year or each year, you're reading more than most average adults are reading, right? So read the best, ignore the rest. When you're reading a book, you don't have to read every page, read the best pages and ignore the rest and move on with your life. If you're choosing what tasks to do, instead of feeling, I've got so much on a plate, whenever you think that I invite you to remember my voice, do the best, ignore the rest. Just do what you currently with your power of prioritization, what you believe is the best and ignore the rest. Because the way we move forward in our life is to continue to honing our powers of prioritization, our ability to select. And the only way you can really practice that is by selecting, by choosing what is the best and ignoring the rest. You're not, no, none of us are perfect at it. But you've got to use what skill you have already. Now select what is the best and ignore the rest. And if you do that, you'll shore up your energy. You'll plug up those energy leaks so that you don't worry. Should I be doing that? Should I be doing this? Should I be pursuing this business or this niche? Choose the best, ignore the rest until further notice. And when you come to another crossroads, choose the best, decide the best, do the best, and ignore the rest. One of the challenges, of course, of doing this is what people call fomo, the fear of missing out, which is that, well, what if I choose this path? Well, then I'm not choosing all the other paths. And those other paths could be better for me. Let me give you this encouragement. The most important place in the world, in the universe, right now for you, is where you are right now, doing whatever it is you are doing right now. And this is true in every moment of your life. The center of your universe, is you at any moment. Forget the fear of missing out. You're not missing out as long as you pay attention to your life. Do the best, ignore the rest until the next video. I wish you well.
