Greg McKeown—Exploring The Art Of Essentialism

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I am super pumped for today's guest because he has really been one of those few authors that has really moved the needle in my life in so many ways. But before we talk to our guest, I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co hosts. You know him, you love him, the brain, the professor, Scott Todd. From Scott to landmodo.com and most importantly, if not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, posting domination.com thelandgeek Scott Todd. How are you?

Mark? I'm great. How are you?

I'm great. I'm great. Let's, let's just get into it because this is gonna be a really fascinating conversation with one of my favorite authors of one of my favorite books that I always Recommend. It's Greg McCune from Greg McCune.com, the New York Times best selling author of essentialism. If you don't know about Greg McCune, I'm just gonna put on my anchorman voice. He's a big deal. And it is one of my favorite books. But essentially the book Essentialism and Greg, I'll let you kind of fill it in, is it's not just one of those how to books. It's a way of living. It's a lens of how to see the world. Greg McCune, welcome.

It's awfully good to be with you. Thank you.

Thank you. So let's just talk about, let's just rewind the tape a little bit. And so before you started with becoming an author and a speaker and starting this, you know, arguably an essentialism movement, what were you doing before that?

Well, you sort of had to go back quite a ways before I was doing anything to do with that. I was, I was born in London, England and grew up there. And I remember visiting some friends in the United States about 20 years ago almost. And when I was visiting, somebody said, oh, if you do decide to stay in America, then you should come and do whatever. Which I wasn't actually considering at the time, but something about their question was quite forceful. And so I left with this question, okay, what would you do if you could do anything? What if you didn't have to do what you're doing? And I made this list of all these answers about what I would do if I could do anything. And I'm suddenly looking at this list of answers and I notice not what I'VE written down. But what I haven't written down, I noticed that law school not on my list, which is important because I was at the time at law school. And so I had to make this, you know, decision as to what to do now that I sort of saw this disconnect. And what was on the piece of paper was to teach, to write. And out of that came a series of questions. And so there was this, this juxtaposition. I call my parents, my father answers the phone. I mean, what would you say, parenthetically, if you'd been my father on the phone? I'm curious, what would you say? Your son's calling you from halfway around the world, he's brained idea, he's going to quit law school. What would you say?

Scott, what would you say?

Well, I don't know that my response would be the typical parents response, only because.

So you get to be my dad. So don't tell me what you would say, just tell me. Scott, you're my dad. Go.

Yeah, I would say, look, you got to chase your dreams, whatever they are. You got to do the stuff that's going to be happy. And whether it's a college degree and being an attorney or being a teacher or whatever it is, being an authority, whatever is going to happy. But you have to.

So dad, I can quit law school? Is that what you're telling me?

If, if that is your dream, to not pursue law, that's what you can do.

So that's a yes?

That's a yes.

No way. I'm saying, I'm saying, son, stay in, stay in law school. It's, it's a, look, it's a backup degree. It's the second best degree you can get after md Go and do these things you want to do, but get your JD and then if it all goes to hell, at least you can always do something with that degree. It's a way of thinking.

It's a backup.

It's a backup plan.

Okay, so, so, so my uncle Mark is on the phone, which is, which is odd that I would have both of them on the phone, but. But that's how it works sometimes in my family. So Mark's there and I say to you, I said, but the thing is, Mark, I feel I'm going in the wrong direction.

Okay, well, if you feel like you're going in the wrong direction, I will support you. But I am, as a overprotective uncle, I do, I am a little scared for you, but you could always go back to law school.

But you're both in favor. Thank you very much. I could hang up the phone. This. This is. This would be a good conversation to have. This is not the conversation I had with my father. So actually, my father. My father listened to me, which isn't entirely like him, but he would just sort of hear me out. And, and, and so I sort of shared some of these things, and then he became quite Churchillian about the whole thing, you know, Son, son, you know what we've always told you. What do you think that he thinks he always told me? By the way?

I'm thinking that he's thinking he's always told you, like, you got to go to school and get a. Get a good education to get a good job.

Yeah, that's right. What he always told me was go to law school. But in this moment, he seemed to sort of forget all of that. He said. And then, because all Englishmen quote Shakespeare over tea and crumpets for breakfast in the morning, he pulls this line straight out of Hamlet. This is his response. He says. And he says, well, we've always told you to thine own self be true. That's the advice I've always given you. He'd never said that to me in his whole life. But. But it doesn't really matter because in this moment, that was good advice. Okay, so the short and bad is that law school was out. And that is an answer to your question as to what I was doing before I got into teaching and writing. But it also answers a different question, which is, you know, why is it that this is the subject that I have been drawn to, and one of the questions that grew out of that brainstorm on that piece of paper these almost 20 years ago was that, you know what? Before I get to the question, I want to put the question into context, and I want to ask it this way. Either of you runners? Are you runners? I'm not.

I mean, you know, if. If I'm late for something, I fuel somebody.

So. So, okay, so that would. So. So, Mark, you're saying if you. If you're like something, you're right. So let's. Let's just say you and I have a race, and let's say that. That despite your. What you're saying, you are, you know, you turn out to be significantly better than me. And you. You win the race, which almost certainly you would. And. And you win this race with me significantly 50 yards ahead of me at the end of the race. And so we race a second time. And in the second race is a Little different because you get all the advantage of the first race and, you know, so you're 50 yards ahead of me at the beginning of that second race. Does that make sense? And then you win again by an additional 50 yards. So at the end of the second race, you're another 50 yards ahead of me. So how many yards are you ahead of me at the end of the second race?

I'm 100 yards ahead of you, right?

100 yards. Yes. Well done. Five points for Gryffindor. You got that right. And you get to. And we race a third time. You're 100 yards ahead of me. Now, I'll give Scott the question here. Scott, what is the approximate percentage chance that Mark's going to win the third race? Approximate? Just don't overthink it.

Go like 99.9%.

99.9%. It's like almost 100%, which really is a little rude, Scott. It's a little rude because he's seen.

Me run and I could definitely twist my ankle.

But it's rude to me because he's saying. He's saying there's really almost no scenario on planet Earth in which I could win. He's not being rude, actually. Of course, I'm just being silly. It's what would happen. It's what will happen. But now that's all context. The question that grew out of that brainstorm is this. Why is it that otherwise successful people and organizations don't continue to be successful? Why don't they break through the next level of success? In fact, because, as in this race, if you are successful, if you're ahead, and if you use that being ahead and keep adding it to further being ahead, you should keep on winning it. In fact, in one sense, you should win indefinitely. And yet this is why this question has been so interesting to me. That's not what happens. What should happen doesn't happen. So successful people and organizations don't continue to be successful. That's not what the data shows. So it becomes an interesting question as to why that is. And all the people listening to this can wrestle with this themselves. But let's just talk about companies for a second. Can you think of why this is that they don't continue to be successful? What are your thoughts about that, Mark?

Well, you know, I'm thinking of disruption. So, you know, let's just take Kodak as an example. Right? I mean, they were so far ahead. So, so far ahead. And they even had the digital technology. They were ahead in that. But the culture kept saying, no, we're going to be the best this in film and it is superior to digital, even though digital is, is was going to disrupt them. So for my thinking, when companies stop innovating or they become in a way complacent, I think they can, they can be disrupted. Is that a good answer, Greg? I'm a little nervous now.

Yeah, well, I wasn't looking for only a particular answer. I think that's a terrific way. Way of thinking about it. I mean, I mean, what that reminds me of is one of my friends once pointed out to me that, that success traps are harder to get out of than failure traps. And I thought that was a very interesting insight because really so much has been written in the, you know, researched and then in the popular press as well. So much has been written about success and almost none of it has been written about what to do once you are successful. And yet success itself seems to be a real challenge, whether it's because of, you know, exactly the Kodak situation or other varieties at the same, the same basic challenge. And so I noticed a pattern working with Silicon Valley companies, which was this, that in the early days they were very clear about what they were trying to do, sort of a stage of clarity. And their clarity led to success and the success breed of options and opportunities, which sounds like the right problem to have. But it did in fact turn out to be a problem if it led to what Jim Collins has called the undisciplined pursuit of more. And really that becomes the enemy of our story. The undisciplined pursuit of more is, I mean, the Codex situation. It's the undisciplined pursuit of more of what we currently know and what we're currently getting paid to do. So it's a particular kind of undisciplined approach. But there are many other examples of other companies that just started proliferating into so many different things. And actually it's very understandable as to why they would do it. They don't have to be unintelligent managers to operate in this way. They just have to say, do we have the resources to go after this opportunity and can it be successful? And if the answers to those questions, those sensible questions, is yes, they could end up doing it, but the investment in all the good opportunities ends up proliferating so much the focus of the organization that you aren't, you lose the clarity that drove this success engine in the first place. And so success, I have found, to my surprise, can become a catalyst for failure.

Success can become a catalyst for failure. And Greg, while you were telling this story, the undisciplined pursuit of more and, you know, the central sort of theme of essentialism, and there's, you know, so many more tenants that we can go into, it made me think of one of my favorite companies, one of my favorite restaurants of all time. And now, Scott Todd. Don't judge, Greg. Don't judge. It's In N Out Burger. Because I live in Phoenix where there's In N Out burgers and they're in California, Nevada. But if you look at In N Out burger, they only serve like five items. But they do really, really well. And they've been doing this since the 40s. They, you know, the, the owner is watching McDonald's grow, they're watching that menu grow, they're watching Wendy's and all this competition, but they just stuck to these five items. In fact, I think the only item they've added in the past few years is coffee. And the only items they've ever switched, I think, were Coke and Pepsi. Greg, is that a good example of a company that has taken essentialism to the extreme?

Yes, I think it is. And I think there's actually many companies out there that have applied elements of essentialism. You know, what we're talking about when we think about essentialism is the antidote to this problem, this undisciplined pursuit of more. And the antidote is the disciplined pursuit of less but better. So that you are really thoughtful about all the different options you have and you only select the things that really seem to be the right ones. And you know, you're doing what the intelligent but cond manager is not doing. So the intelligent cond manager is saying, look, if we just do a bit of everything and all of these things because they have the resources, then we'll be successful, unaware that they're sort of. That they're more likely to die as a company from indigestion than from starvation. And so, which isn't my phrase, by the way, that's. That was, that was Bill Packard at hp. That was his fear for the company. And of course, that's exactly what we have seen happen in the years since he and his co founder were leading their organization is this huge, tremendous proliferation of products and ideas and so on. Well, what's the ultimate thing? Well, suddenly you couldn't manage the company. It just became too unwieldy. What was the attempted solution at this? Cut the company in half. That is brutal to your culture, to your way of working. Get rid of tens of Thousands of people. That's the cost of this. And yet you're sort of trying to do this heart bypass surgery in an effort to write all of these undisciplined choices all along the way, saying, with the diet metaphor, you know, instead of managing what they were eating all the way along and having a disciplined diet, they're eating too much. They're going after everything. And the cost of that is actually enormous. It's enormous to the health of the company. It's enormous to the health of the culture. It's enormous to all those people that were negatively impacted by this one big attempt at trying to correct this, this diet, this dietary problem. So, so, so, yes, I mean, I think, I think in and out is an example of a company that has somehow deep down had in their culture a sense of we don't want to be everything that everybody else is. That's not what we're trying to be. We're not trying to out McDonald's. McDonald's. We're not trying to be everything to everyone. And so, you know, the advantage of that. There's many advantages to essentialism, but one of them is that, is that your chance of longevity is much greater because you don't die of indigestion. You can continue to last for the long run. You can be, you know. Let me ask you this very interesting question along, along the lines of what we're talking about. So if you could, you know, if you could put a doll, if you could go back to 1972, a time machine, back to 1972, you bring with you the $500 with you, and, and you get to put each of those dollars in, in. In each of the S P 500 companies in 1972. And you hold that dollar constant for the next 30 years. The question is, which company would give you the return is the biggest return on your investment over that 30 year period. What are your thoughts on that? What would you predict?

Scott?

I would. I would probably put my money, knowing what I know now, I'd probably put my money in the Coca Cola company.

Oh, well done. It's not the right answer, really. I was thinking. It's good, though. It's good. Give me another one. Give me another one.

I was thinking one of the big oil companies like Exxon. Exxon.

It's a good thought, but no. Scott, here's another.

All right, I'll go for another one. I'm gonna go for. I will go for 1972. I. I'm gonna go for Disney.

That's a good Guess, but not the right one. Really. Yeah. And we could go on for a long time, I suspect, before we would come to the correct answer. You can carry on if you like. Give me another one. Give me one more.

No, no, no, I, I, I'm, I'm dying to know now.

One more, Mark.

One more.

One more. One more guess.

Go on. Yes.

Boy, Coke was such a good one. Exxon, Disney, 1972. IBM.

Ah, no, no, not IBM, not Microsoft, not Apple. I mean, not Google. It was round. None of the tech companies, you know, certainly not any of the traditional tech companies. Not. We could go through so many of the big companies, the known companies, that what you might think. None of those. Answer. The answer is Southwest Airlines. Wow. And so the question is, the question is, well, how did they do it? Did they do it through proliferation of products and services? Did they try and outdo Continental? Do they try and be all things to all people? And of course we know the answer is no. I mean, up until recently, there were literally no international flights at all, which is the normal, traditional way to make money in an airline. You're going after the high cost, high profitable international market, the business class international market, which is highly competitive space. And they didn't even have any, not to anywhere. And still, of course, you can't go Southwest to most of the world. I mean, it's still just Mexico and Canada, if I understand the current update. And so there was an incredibly disciplined but still innovative approach that they were using throughout that time. What's equally interesting, so we could describe that as an essentialist strategy. What's equally interesting is that for the first few years of their existence, the other companies are sort of laughing at them. You know, they don't know what an airline is. Look at this small thing. It's doing hub to hub. You're only doing this one single airline, I mean, airplane. You know, this is not how you do it. You guys are, you know, you're cowboys. You don't know what you're doing. And so it went for several years. Despite that. LAUGHTER There's a story that's told at Southwest. It's told in their law. It's hard to identify if it's really true, but it at least names their culture and their sense of themselves, that someone who was very unhappy with their experience flying with Southwest wrote a number of letters to the founder, Herb Kelleher, and after six or seven of these letters, apparently he responded with a letter and he said, look, I have a suggestion for you. You, sorry that you've had the experience you've had. But what I recommend to you is that you should go and fly Continental because we're never going to be that. That's not what we are. That's not who we are. So they have this sense of we are, we are these things and we're not trying to be other things. We review that, we consider it. We're innovative, we're trying to do the 15 minute turnaround, we're trying all sorts of things to try and work out how to do this right. But we're not trying to be like everybody else. And so simultaneously, let me just give you a tiny bit more of the story, which is that after 10 years of this, suddenly they are demonstratively profitable and Continental finally has had enough of them taking away their profits. And so they decide that they will take on Southwest. But instead of creating a new organization or business entity or even a separate division within their organization, they just did it like a classic straddle strategy. We'll just do both. They called the service Continental Light. And so you'd call the same number for whichever, whether you wanted Continental or Continental Light. So what it turned out was all the incentive systems were all messed up because you're getting the wrong kind of level of service for the amount that you're paying. And they set records for a number of complaints per day. I mean, in the airline industry, so that's really saying something. And they lost $150 million and eventually fired the CEO. So that's what came of the straddle strategy. But that is a quintessential non essentialist strategy. You've got Southwest versus Continental and we can see the results. Yeah.

So, I mean, Greg, you know, I'll tell you that you've really impacted my life. The book came out in 2014 or 15.

Is that 14?

14. Okay. So I think I'd read it in 14 or 15. And since then, and Scott will, will verify this, I. I look like a total slacker and I feel guilty about it. I wake up, I don't check email, I meditate, I take a long walk. I spend a lot of my time. I think I work three days a week, Mondays and Fridays. I don't have any calls. I just take that time to think. And after reading Essentialism, it gave me permission to find space to escape for me to sort of discern the essential few from the trivial many. So Scott and I will see opportunities all the time in other real estate niches. We only focus on land and we've only focused on land. We Say no to a lot of really good opportunities so that we can spend time where we can make the highest contribution. And it's a very difficult way to live. When my neighbors look, you know, productive and I look like a total slacker. How, how does someone reconcile with this inner conflict? I mean, what would you say to somebody that, that is doing that because the ro like you don't know you're gonna get an ROI on it?

Well, I think, I think I want to say this, which is I want to make sure that essentialism doesn't get turned into something that it isn't. So essentialism is not, and I'm not saying this is what you're doing either. But essentialism is not saying no to things without thinking about it. Non essentialism is saying yes to things without really thinking about about it. But essentialism isn't saying no to things without thinking about it. That's not the opposite. The opposite of the undisciplined pursuit of the non essential is the disciplined pursuit of the essential. If you simply say no to everything, then what you produce is noism. And I didn't write a book called noism. So the distinction is to pursue in a disciplined way, in a driven, curious, sure, passionate way, what is essential. And you're making trade offs with the non essentials in your life. Now it may be that you are doing that in the description that you gave. I'm generally hold off in leaning in my own values into other people's trade offs. Essentialism assumes that you have to make trade offs. Non essentialism assumes that you don't. Non essentialism has the disadvantage of being completely false. It is in fact totally a lie. So you have to make trade offs. So your neighbors are making trade offs, you are making trade offs. Essentialism assumes that normality. So the question is, are you focused on the things that you feel are most meaningful and are most right? You know, the right things at the right time for the right reasons. And I think that that is something that can only really be answered in, in sort of internal clarity. And that you're taking this time that you're saying you're taking, which is fantastic, to think about that, to ponder and to be in place and to be able to listen, to go, yes, I am where I need to be and I'm doing the things I'm supposed to be doing. And I feel that sense of peace and centeredness, that this is the right path. That's what essentialism is. It isn't about doing more things, it's about doing More of the right things. And so it's a high conscience, high discernment approach to decision making, whether it's in the organizational context or as you've helpfully taken us to the personal context. In the end, it's the, in the end, it's the same that, that's what you're trying to do. So the question I would have for you is, do you feel like your life is full of meaning and that you are focused on the things that really matter most? That's the question for you?

Yeah, absolutely. And once I, you know, I think Essentialism is one of those books that I need to read every quarter because I'll find myself saying yes to things I really don't want to do out of guilt. It just happened to me with one of my buddies, kids, he wants to go to Harvard. So he starts a nonprofit and he asked me, hey, do you want to be on the board of directors? And I just automatically said, yes, of course I want to help you right now. I've made this commitment every quarter for these board of director meetings that is not essential to my life. Greg?

Yeah, it's, it's, you know, one of my favorite ideas is not, is not an essentialism, but, but is the idea of the five minute favor, which is that when we can help somebody and it's a high, it's a high value to them and we can do it within five minutes. You know, I feel like at least my own life, especially if I can schedule those together and that I have a, you know, that's a high leverage way of serving and making a contribution. So I like to do that, but I distinguish that between things that are repeated, continual, long term commitments. And I have to be very careful. And this is why, this is why it's not to be unhelpful. Essentialism is not to be unhelpful. It is to help people to make their highest point of contribution. And so we can test it this way. In fact, I want to test it. I want one of you to be, we'll do it quickly, but I want to have one of you be volunteer.

So I'm going to volunteer, Scott, because. Very quiet this.

Okay, I'm going to volunteer.

Okay, good. Thank you, Scott. Okay, Scott, I want you to identify for me something right now. We're going to go through the three steps of essentialism. Explore, eliminate and execute right now, and quickly. The first question is, can you tell me something right now that is very important to you or essential, but is currently under invested in you? Believe it's really important. You feel it's important. You can discern that you already. But you know, also you can discern I'm not giving enough to it, I ought to be giving more to it. What's something that comes to mind for you?

Let's say growing up, growing my business brand, if you will. Right. Like expanding the business brand to like more publicity, etc.

Okay, so there's a marketing element here that you feel if you were doing that, that would be high leverage. Use of your time would make a difference to everything else you're doing. It would make other things easier to do and it would. But you're not doing it currently. This is what you're saying.

Exactly.

Okay. So that's what you want to do and that's why it matters. And let me just ask you this. What would success look like for you in terms of, you know, like, let's ask it. Time commitment per day. If you were spending how much time per day invested in figuring this out, at what point would you say, look, it might not be perfect, but I feel like I'm no longer under investing in this area. Per day commitment. What are we talking about?

Let's say minimal. An hour a day dedicated to, you know, like whether it's going on a podcast or figuring out some. Some public relations for my business. That would be right.

You're either doing the marketing work, you're doing the public relations work, or you're figuring out how to do that an hour per day. I totally get what you're describing. Okay, so now we have the an essential thing that's highly relevant to you. Underinvested in. This is step one. That's what it means to explore what is essential. You've identified it, we understand why it matters and we know what success looks like too, in a practical, daily way. So now we take step two. Step two is to eliminate the non essential. So the opposite question is, tell me something currently that you feel you are, that is unimportant, very unimportant even, or non essential that you are over investing in something. You say, look, I know this doesn't matter much. I know it does. I don't get a great return on my investment either in terms of joy per invested hour or resource or financial impact. It's just a waste of my time, but I know I still do it. It's still my habit. Tell me something on that side of the spectrum.

Please don't say co hosting this podcast.

No, no.

This is going to sound bad though, but this is part of my morning routine is I have an addiction to Reddit, honestly, like, yeah, right, Like I go and I will get my morning drink and I will sit there and I will like, I don't know, like dive into Reddit looking at different things. Waste honestly time being honest.

Totally. And I'm so glad that you're being honest about it because, because you're not alone in this. If anyone thinks that they're the only one doing it, I mean, it's, it's, you know, literally we all, we have the statistics, we have the information, we have the data on it. You know, this is what people are doing, whether it's Reddit or their social media app of choice or a combination of the two, or there's Netflix or. I mean, this is, we know where people are spending this additional time. So, but give me a sense of it. I mean, how, how much time are you spending on Reddit per day?

Let's say.

40.

40 minutes? An hour. 40 minutes to an hour.

Yeah. So I mean you could, you could prove, you could prove it to yourself right now. Like get, get an actual detailed thing, right? If you have, do you do it on your phone or do you do, you're checking on your phone on your laptop here?

Let's, let's see, I'll pull up my screen time here.

Do you only read it on your phone?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I like the app screen time. Let's see here. All right, okay, so far today, Reddit, 38 minutes.

Okay, so you're right at the point. 40 minute, Mark, like you thought.

And in the last seven days, six hours and 23 minutes.

So we're looking at almost an hour a day as you said. Right, you said exactly what you said. So 40 minutes, but it's kind of an hour and there you have it, right? We don't have to pretend that we don't even have to take a time log for some of these things that we're doing, especially the things that are most non essential that people most. I'll say it differently, people most often identify for me that they believe is non essential for them is almost always the first option is something technology wise, something on their phone, something that's, yeah, it's, it's fun and it's addictive, but really it's addictive, as you already said correctly. So now you, I mean, that's magic, right? You need an hour to do something that's high leverage and essential. And you have an hour that you, that you have habitually every day, almost every day. You're doing this. So you found the hour. So that's the magic, right? That's essentialism, is that you've got the essential thing and we've identified the thing that's non essential that you could trade off. You know, that's what Southwest is doing. They're making the trade off. That's what Continental wasn't doing, is that they weren't making the trade off. They said let's do both. And so the answer to you is don't do both, don't do Reddit. Plus, try to take this, this, create this hour. You actually make the trade off now, of course, of course. Probably don't want to do that very much. I mean there's right now you, in fact, prior to this call, you certainly didn't want to do that. At least the system in your life was certainly incentivizing the behavior that you were pursuing. Now the system is, this is now into step three. Step three is execute. It's execute what is essential. It's. But it's particularly this idea is to create a system that works when you feel undisciplined. So you create a system. That's the system is what creates the discipline, not you. If you just depend on you, then tomorrow morning, maybe your habits are all already one way and maybe you feel tired tomorrow morning. So it's just easier, easier to check Reddit than it is to work on this more ambiguous and more uncomfortable work of the marketing and PR work that you want to pursue. Plus Reddit is massively funding an existing system. They have built tons and tons of work into creating a system for you. So it's not neutral. It's not like you built the Reddit system. You didn't build the phone you're using. I mean, I assume you're using iPhone, right? So let's say that you are. So that's like Apple spent so much money, it's absurd amount building a system to make it effortless for you to be on Reddit or whatever other app to make it fun, pleasant, the interaction is easy, it's a touch interface. It goes with you everywhere. I mean, think of the amount of effort that was built into creating the current system that has you checking Reddit instead of working on the PR work that you want to work on that you had told me is more important. So now we have to try and build a system that works in your favor, that works in favor of what you've identified as being essential. And that's really the magic. And there's many elements to A system. I could ask you, for example, okay, who's an accountability partner? Who's somebody who can hold you accountable to making the trade off that we've just described? Name somebody for me.

Mark, Mark can give me accountability.

Okay, so you, so Mark now here, and of course everybody listening can do it too. Now this is, But Mark can ask you every day, okay, have you, have you done it? Have you not done it? Okay, now you have accountability partner. That is necessary but insufficient. There's no way that's enough. So you build, you build something more and you say, you say, okay, what a reward that you can give yourself every day, that you don't check Reddit, but you do spend the hour on working on PR work. What's something that's fun for you, that you can give yourself a reward? It's going to be small, it's just fun. It's external. What's something that comes to mind?

I'll give myself an extra Diet Coke that day.

Okay, so there's a Diet Coke. When you say extra Diet Coke, that's an interesting answer. We could build something into that. We could build something into it. Like you don't get to have any Diet Coke until you have done that hour. So you only, you don't get any until, until you have completed that hour. So that, that would be a way to build in something without making it less healthy. Right? You're already drinking it, so now you use it as an incentive to. You don't have any until that's done. So that's, that's now step, you know, kind of piece number two of your system. Here's another thing. We need it, we need a negative motivation or a, or a, or a takeaway, something that you lose if you don't do this. And I have a suggestion for you. Unless you have something, I don't know.

Just the thought of taking away my Diet Coke and in a given day, until I do it, that's pretty punishing.

That's pretty punishing already.

You'd have to buy me a drone, Greg. No, I'm not doing it like a thousand dollar drone.

No. Well, let me ask you that now that you mentioned $1,000. Let me ask you this, Scott. What is this worth to you? So like, let's say that, let's say that you could, you could make the trade off we are describing here for the next three months, for a quarter. What is that in value terms to you? So if you could write a check, actually write a check to somebody for magically making this happen. So that three months from now, every day, you have made this trade off, what's it worth to you? Actual dollars and cents. I want to know how much the trade off is worth to you.

$50,000.

$50,000. That's a great number. You know, you've identified something clearly that you really think matters. So. So, okay, $50,000. So I have a suggestion which won't even cost you $1,000. It doesn't even have to cost you any money, but it might cost you $100. So that's how much I want you to put on the line. And this is what I want you to do, is that I want you to take the $100 challenge, which is that you take a $100 bill. You do it today, you put it up somewhere where it's visible. Visible at the office or visible at home? I don't know, it doesn't matter. But it's visible so other people can see it, and it stays there until the first day that you check Reddit without having spent one full hour on this PR and marketing work. On the first day that you do not make that trade off, the first day that you don't do that, you have to take the hundred dollars and rip it up and throw it away. Like, you get nothing for it. It just is shredded.

Just like flushing it down the toilet.

Yeah, it's. It's done. You. You have throwing it away. It's a hundred dollars. It's perfectly good, and you are absolutely getting rid of it. Now, you made an audible sound to that. What was the sound? It was like, ah. Oh, yeah. It hurt, right? That hurt.

It does. That would hurt. Yeah.

Yeah. And you said that this was worth $50,000 to you to make this change happen. And you can get it for the risk of $100. Right. Because you're not going to do it. You're going to make the trade off now. Now, I don't know that this system we've just identified is sufficient. It is a step in the right direction. Let me, let me just one more that comes to mind. Certainly eliminate Reddit from your phone. Right. You've got to make. You've got to make it harder to fall into the old pattern. So eliminate that today as well as, by the way, every single other app on your phone, and then bring back the apps, only the ones that are absolutely valuable, useful, necessary to you, vitally important. Now, there are apps for me, there are apps that are really useful to me, some that I don't use very often, but when I need Them when I'm traveling. I mean, I use various travel apps that are really useful to me. They further the work that I'm trying to pursue in my life. So I think technology is tremendously useful. Can be, but it's not. Most of the time it's not, because the system is not been built in our favor. So I think eliminate all the apps on your phone. Bring back only the ones that you absolutely think are essential. But Reddit cannot be one of them. At least until you've, you know, until you've done this. I mean, I say 90 days, but maybe it needs to be longer. How do you feel about that, eliminating Reddit?

I would miss it. But you know what? It really is, just having the app on there is in fact, it is in fact the kind of the evil piece, right? Because, you know, like over the summer, I eliminated Facebook, the Facebook app from my phone, and all of a sudden, like, I was, I was in fact more productive. I felt less stressed out and I felt happier. And so the mere fact, like you said, that you have an app on your phone that can easily take you to this place is in fact kind of a negative. So I should delete it.

It's amazing what you just said. I mean, it's not surprising, but it's still amazing. What you just told me is that when you took off a Facebook app from your phone, you told me, you said, you said I was less stressed, happier and more productive. I mean, I tell you, you know, I know some of the folks over at Facebook and they should hear that. I think they do hear that, but they should hear that Facebook app was making you less happy, less productive and more stressed. Well, hold on. What kind of a product is this? Well, it doesn't matter as long as you're addicted. It doesn't matter to their business model that you're less happy or stressed or less productive as long as you're using it because they're selling you. Your eyeballs are being sold to their, to their, to whoever's spending their marketing dollars with them. Anyway, it's just an interesting aside, but how do you feel then about the bigger test, all apps off your phone and then you bring them back one by one as you actually realize, yes, that is vital to me. That was useful. That helps me. How do you feel about that?

Well, you know, Greg, I actually, I actually do that.

Right?

Because what I'll do is whenever I get a new phone, which is like annually, whenever I get a new phone, I never restore. I always bring as I needed, like do you? I need that app because we collect apps over time and then it becomes cluttered and I can't deal with it.

Yeah, that's a good way to do it. It's a nice kind of spring cleaning approach to it. So I can see that. Well, listen, let me just ask you one final question about the process we just went through. Again, for context, we did explore, eliminate, Execute. That's the pattern of how one becomes an essentialist over time. That is the discipline, pursuit of less but better. Explore what's essential, eliminate what's not, and create a system for making the trade off as easy as possible. So let me ask you this before the conversation. What is the, in your view, the percentage chance that you would have made this trade off like, that you would have actually started doing an hour a day of what you were of your marketing work and given up Reddit? What's the chance of that? Prior to this percentage chance, I would.

Say probably like 20%. I needed to really feel the pain.

Yeah. So 20%, good, we got it. That sounds about right to me. What does it feel like now? Like, what percentage is it with the system we've just described?

I think it, I think one, it was somebody telling me, like, hey, one, the way you framed it, right? Like it is, it is more important to do this than less to spend time on Reddit. You're, I mean, like, you didn't tell me that the way that you framed it, the way that you set it.

Up, it kind of see it clearer. But let me ask you this, so give me a percentage, give me a percentage. Like, what is the percentage chance that you feel like you would will actually make this trade off now and be able to do the essential instead of the non essential.

Why?

I'm gonna go with 80%.

Okay, 80%. Okay, so, so 80% is significant improvement. What it tells me is that there's more to go and the idea is to keep building the system. The last quarter of the book, Essentialism is about the different levers we can use to make execution as effortless as possible. And so you could go back to that and actually start developing more levers and more levers and better levers until you say, you know what, I'm like close to 100% now, or I'm 95% or least. Like, the highest probability is that I will continue with this. And that's the idea. We've made a, you know, we went from 20% likelihood to 80%. It's not bad for whatever it's been 15 minute conversation about it. It's actually really quite a significant improvement. But. But I would encourage you to go even further so that you just go, there's no way I'm not doing this when, when I feel sick, when I wake up exhausted, I'm still going to do this because the system is so strong and that's what you want it to be. On the good days, great. You're going to do it on the good days, you're going to do it when you remember why it matters to you. But on the bad day, you still need a system in place to help you do it. And although you say, I'm not going to do the drone, maybe you do the drone. Maybe that's the thing that gets you to 95%. You come up your brainstorming, you keep working, you build a system that stacks the debt in your favor. Anyway, there is an illustration for how you can take the concepts we've been talking about and turn it into like a practical strategy for life. And I think people listening will be able to see how they can do the same process.

That's beautiful, Greg.

Yeah, it's great. One of my favorite quotes from the book is the essentialist designs a routine that makes achieving what you have identified as as essential. The default position. Yes. In some instances, an essentialist still has to work hard, but with the right routine in place, each effort yields exponentially greater results. And I thought that was really, really powerful.

Yeah, I mean, I think part of what we just talked about illustrates why I think routine matters so much. And that's because. That's because if you can, if you build the system one time, it then acts upon you in the future. And so, so the same with routines. If you can, if you can build a routine and make that habitual. I mean, we already have routines. You know, Scott already has a routine. His routine includes Reddit. So all of us have these routines. I mean, we're incredibly routinized. Humans are incredibly routinized. We don't do everything new every day. We couldn't because we would face decision fatigue, as in fact, we often do if we tried to make every decision newly and freshly every day. There just isn't enough discipline in us to live like that. That's why when you travel to somewhat unusual, by the time you get to the hotel, you're feeling exhausted because you've had to make new decisions. Oh, how do I get to which as the hotel, where's the, you know, the driver, the car that, that, you know, food? Everything has to be Decided. So you use up your discipline capability earlier and easier now. That's what happens when we don't have, when we select when, when we allow routines to be default. We're watching, we're reading Reddit instead of working on the thing we want to work on. It's about constructing that routine, using the discipline not to do the task, but you use the discipline to build the routine to do the task. And that's, that's a very different approach and a very different kind of mindset, but that's the way to do it. That, that's, I mean, I remember one of the longest running CEO in Silicon Valley, he described his routine to me. I mean, he gets up at 6am exactly every day, same time, goes to the office, same time, brings a packed lunch every single day, same. So he doesn't have to spend the time and effort to figure out what am I going to do to eat today. It's just the same. And that's resolved. He wants as much routine so that he can use his discipline on the unusual things that he has to deal with. He wants to remove the clutter so that he can address the things that matter most as they come along in the day.

Yeah, I love it. And Greg, your mentorship, this podcast has been really, really valuable and I want to thank you so, so much. But we are at that time now where we want to put you on the spot and ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go right now, improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

I. Okay. Tip of the week is don't wait. The tip of the week is the next time you're feeling exhausted, stressed out, pushed to the limit, overwhelmed, reduce your time frame. So reduce it really significantly so you don't worry about what did I do yesterday and what did I say to that person, how did I deal with that thing? And I wish I'd been different. And don't fret about, oh, I've got three days from now, I've got to get on that plane, I got to go and do this thing, I gotta have that meeting. Just get in this exact moment, right in now, it's the tiniest fragment of time, and just go, okay, get, be present, be here in the now. And then simply ask the question, what's the most important thing to do next? And do it next. That's it. That is a simple tip that could take totally, that could take just a few seconds to do. Be present what's really the most important thing to do next and do it next? That tiny little thing you can do next. I just like a tiny window but if you, you can do that tremendous times of stress, you can still operate in a very positive and forward looking manner if you use that tip.

Yeah. Scott got me a little gift that says be here now on and I always look at on my desk and I might, I might get a little picture of you Greg, that just shows like a quote what's important now.

And I think there's this. I have been doing a lot of thoughts about this idea of taking control of the one thing we can take control of which is this moment. And so I'm particularly taken with this idea of not just being present. To be here now is totally right. I love that principle but I think it's necessary but insufficient. Be here now. Yes, but now. And what's next? It's now and anticipatory. What's the one little tiny thing I can do to positively improve the situation going forward? It's the next little thing I can do. So that's a forward leaning approach. And I've recently to say I've been testing it isn't quite the right way of saying it. There have been circumstances in my life that have tested me and I have used that principle and found it to be one of the few principles that really, really holds up under the really big tests of life.

Fantastic. Scott. Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Mark, I got this tip from you, so kudos to you for sharing this one and I'm going to steal it. I know it's not the one that you're going to use today. So it ties right into what we're talking about is everybody needs to go check out.

Adios Adios.

I knew you were gonna say adios AI. Adios AI. I'll let you explain it.

So Greg, I don't know if you know about this free app or web service called Adios AI but it basically stops your incoming emails. You schedule them to be delivered when you want and you can certainly if you have a oppressing email, you can check your email. But if you're somebody like me that was constantly chasing this dopamine hit and constantly checking email, looking for a good email. Audiostat AI is a great way to short circuit that reward. I can only check my email now twice a day, 10 o' clock and 4 o'. Clock. Unless I intentionally am expecting a very important email that I need to check earlier or later. That and since using it, it's been really helpful in having me break that unhappy cycle.

Love it.

So thanks, Scott, that's a great tip. Are you using it?

I am using it, yeah. So started about a few days ago and it is in fact great.

Fantastic. Well, my tip of the week is of course learn more about the Essentialism Life. It will move the needle in your life. The New York Times bestseller Essentialism, the Discipline Pursuit of Less. Go to Greg McCune.com I will have a link to it Greg McCune.com and really start focusing on the vital few things that are really going to allow you to make the highest contribution you possibly can in this very, very short life that we have. In fact, Greg, I actually have a death clock chrome tab that I thought you'd be very proud of. I've got like 10,700 days left and it just helps me focus what's most important.

I love it. What a sort of slightly evil but wonderful idea. The death clock.

The death clock. So I want to thank all the listeners and remind you the only way, the only way we're going to at the quality of guests like a Greg McCune is if you do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, you got to rate and you got to review the podcast, send us a screenshot of that review. To support thelangeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 Passive Income Launch kit. So please do that, Scott. Todd, are we good?

We're good.

Mark.

Greg, are we good?

We're good.

Alright. Well, Greg McCune, I want to thank you again. I want to thank all the listeners and just remind everybody, let freedom ring. Thanks everybody.