Transcript & Summary: Becoming an Essentialist

[00:00] most of the stuff that's going on is not vital it's a trivial many versus the final few and I think it's not just one more thing to figure out what those vital few things are it is the work of life Gregg McEwen is the author of the New York Times best-selling book essentialism the disciplined pursuit of less in the book Gregg describes an approach similar to minimalism that gets us to ask the right questions about where we're spending our time energy and effort this is my edited conversation with Gregg about his essentialist [00:32] philosophy the myth of success and why small consistent steps far outweigh the alternative you can get the full one-hour interview on patreon enjoy [00:45] Gregg thanks so much for being here really excited to talk with you talking about the crossover between less and ambition so how can we do more with less before we delve too deep into that tell me a little bit about the work you do right now give me a little bit of an introduction I wrote the book essentialism this is about the disciplined continual perpetual pursuit of less but better I love how you just framed it as less but with ambition it's it's about how to figure out what is essential eliminate what's not and [01:30] create a system for making it as effortless as possible to do what you've identified as being very important when I look at our culture I would say in America but I'm sure it's spread pretty far there is this work hard hustle grind it out busyness that is promoted and in a lot of ways people they enjoy attaching this label to themselves I'm so busy I'm just overwhelmed with all this stuff that I have to do how do you view our hustle culture today and is that something that as you would describe as [02:10] when I first came to America I would ask people how they are and who this is we're talking almost 20 years ago and they would say you know they'd say I'm great great it was almost like I'm American of course I'm great and and I liked him I like this sort of inherent optimism and positivity I connected to that I related to that but if you ask people now as often as not when you ask them how they are now the first word will be busy I'm busy I'm so busy I'm good I'm good but I'm busy I'm busy busy with this whole [02:45] flavors are busy and so I do think that something has changed it's not just in our own mind something as significant has changed and even in those years I think we've from being connected to hyper-connected and that that's not a small change in the human condition it shifts from a place where sometimes we had information overload yes we've had that for a long time but we're now in a state of opinion overload and so this is particularly the kind of busyness that I think is is most potentially harmful is where we're busy [03:22] not because we just have a sense of internal mission that matters a sense of contribution that we want to make in the world it's that we're busy because other people are busy we're doing things because other people are doing stuff we see them on social media oh that person's doing this thing they're in that place they're pursuing this idea and so keeping up with the Joneses has been a deep part of human nature I'm sure forever but when you add into it this hyper connection this hyper comparison then I think it gets to the [03:55] point where people do feel pretty crazy all the time so that people feel busy but not productive they feel stretched too thin at work or at home but they don't feel a sense of accomplishment with it they feel instead a can't a constant sense of other people hijacking their agenda you know and so and this is the this is the problem problem isn't that you have a lot to do that's it and it la it's obviously a very busy place this is the perfect moment for it's not just that you have a lot to do it's it's that you're being [04:35] defined by this constant reactive comparison this I think is really the issue it's a it's a badge of honor for a lot of people the I remember when I was getting started out as a filmmaker and a lot of the people that I surrounded myself with who I thought were good mentors talked about how they will sleep when they're dead that working hard is the most important thing that if they only got four to five hours of sleep or less that's okay because they got the job done that you can smile and be happy [05:08] once you have the money once you have the success is this something that you've seen because you've worked with a lot of startup and tech companies this kind of culture is it heightened there in in certain environments where maybe it's entrepreneurial driven or people are trying to create something for themselves yes I mean I think that I mean this is where I first observed the phenomenon which is that working with Silicon Valley companies I noticed that you know in the early days of a company they would be maybe have a state of [05:40] clarity a certain clarity a sense of this is what we're trying to do and this is who we are and this is who we aren't and this is what we're not trying to do and so they would have that clarity if they got that clarity it would drive success and with the success would come an increase of options and opportunities and that sounds like the right problem to have that whole pants and everything I just described but it did in fact turn out to be a problem if all of that opportunity those options if it pulls you in to what Jim cons is [06:13] called the undisciplined pursuit of more and if these companies would fall into that problem they would start to plateau in their progress or start to fail altogether now that's true for companies and it's also true for individuals the same pattern the same problem and so what I found was a sort of paradox of success that success if let allowed to be undisciplined would I'm a catalyst for failure and that that undermines everything you've got people who are driven capable curious they've got all the things perhaps they need to [06:48] be able to break through to the next level but they don't and but it's because of this pattern and so that's why essentialism subtitle is the disciplined pursuit of less it's because it's an antidote to that problem that's the whole idea and that we can become essentialists before we have to before we start to fail altogether before we see that we've given up all the things that mattered most for all the things that mattered least you can act upon your life and upon your desire to make a contribution and and become more [07:21] discerning so that you can go from a level of success and contribution to an even higher level of contribution in the book you say it's the disciplined pursuit of less but better yeah it's a really important distinction and I think that there are some people perhaps Gary Vaynerchuk who I haven't sat down to talk with yet who would likely say it's the pursuit of more but better as in we don't have to do less we can if we find out our path well we're really passionate about we can work even harder to get there is that something and this [07:58] is just my assumption of maybe where his views are at I could be totally wrong but I think this is probably something that a lot of people would identify with it's something that I identify with being somebody who is incredibly passionate about filmmaking and oftentimes stretching myself too thin starting to work on weekends working nights even though I have the freedom to choose not to do that how do you view that mentality of trying to fit even more in when we know exactly what we should be working on I mean one [08:26] of the responses that I have to that is if non-essential ISM meaning if the undisciplined pursuit of more is working for someone keep doing it if it's producing the results it promises well then carry on ignore everything I'm saying so if non-essential ism is producing breakthrough contribution really meaningful relationships satisfying life happiness in the moment and a sense of mission for the future I mean if it's delivering on those things keep doing it the problem is that non-essential ISM doesn't for most [09:02] people and I might even say anybody deliver on its promise so so what it actually produces is short term you can prove it sort of present a short term burst of activity but it quickly becomes a diminishing return right so if you do the 5 hours a night yeah you can do 5 hours a night you can do that for a few nights but there's a point at which the discernment level starts to go down the joy level ghost starts to go down and if your joy and discernment starts to go down it means that you have less ability [09:36] to pick the right next project and so very quickly you are falling into the pattern of plateauing yes you're doing more you do do lots of things and they're all interesting to you but you actually what you're not noticing is that you're starting to lose the edge that you absolutely require you must have in order to discern the next big level of contribution I mean I can I can speak to this in my in my own life in a variety of ways but it you know one of the experiences that led me to really focus on this subject in this book was [10:07] that I mean you know I got an email from my colleague at the time said look Friday would be a very bad time for your wife they have a baby because I need you to be at this client meeting between 1:00 and 2:00 heylook and I'm sure they were joking and yet somehow I took it as a responsibility of burden you know I've got to navigate this balance this Friday comes along that is when we're in the hospital my wife just had our daughter where were instead of being focused I allow another passion another interest [10:42] to confuse it and so I go to my shame to the meeting and even if some great thing had come from that meeting which in fact it didn't surely and clearly I made a fool's bargain what I learned from that lesson is the simplest idea which is if you don't prioritize your life someone else will and that's that idea of being heightened awareness of what the priority is and making sure that we aren't just busy pursuing lots of things but that we are creating space to actually pause and discern and make sure that we're sleeping enough so that [11:21] our discernment is intact so that we can keep on figuring out what is the most important contribution I can make and so that's what I'm saying I say there's an inherent trade-off when people are just I'm so interested in them so guys I'm gonna do more of everything yeah there's an advantage to that for a time perhaps but you're giving up something along the way as well and you have to be careful about what you're giving up because otherwise you wake up one day and you say my goodness I've done all these [11:50] different things but I basically lost my way I don't know what it is anymore that I want to do and you're so consumed and you've been so consumed and this happens for years for people's lives and then they were why aren't I even doing this and they got they got disconnected and that's the risk I mean success is a very poor teacher that's what Bill Gates said anyway right he should know that's an interesting person to say that so we shouldn't let success dictate the next thing we do we should let conscience and [12:19] our internal you know clarity be the guide but to allow that to be the guide we have to behave in a variety of ways to make sure that we can even hear it amidst all the noise and is all the passionate projects and that to me is a much better guide in a much better way to ensure that we actually get utilized for our best and highest use rather than just the latest interesting project how do we say no to things because saying no is really uncomfortable saying yes feels good when somebody says hey like we'd [12:50] love to grab coffee and pick your brain or just chat a little bit but saying yes leaves you feeling good leaves them feeling good for the short term in the long term then when it comes to that day when you have to meet up with them you're like oh I'm already so busy I don't have time to do this so how do we tack fully say no to people I actually do the first you have to accept is that we are saying no all the time and everybody is what we are not aware of is that we are saying no so we're just saying no in an in a in [13:24] a you know compulsive way every time I check email I'm saying no to something every time I you know randomly go on social media or on you know on YouTube which is its own kind of social media every time you get pulled into some binging watching something you're saying no to stuff and so in a sense we're quite good at saying though we just don't use the words no and so we have to in a way apply that same logic to more important projects more important work so that we just pause before saying yeah I'm gonna do that we pause before going [14:05] on social media I mean yes we have to learn how to be able to communicate to other people and maybe we'll get back to that but but I actually think the first thing we need to learn about saying though is is is just within ourselves do you find that sometimes you need to sprint that you need to maybe put in a little bit more hours or tip the scale in one direction to finish a project or do you find that generally your balance is is in check well I think that I think that what you I think my experience and [14:36] my expectation is that unexpected things will come up like that is what my experience has taught me you think it will be like X but really there will be things you didn't plan for and that's exactly why you have to create buffer in the system that's why you should not take on every project you think you can do even if you're interested even if it's aligned even if and I can name so many things like that to me that I've just gone I mean example executive coaching I mean coaching I mean there's a real demand for essentialism coaching [15:10] and I have requests in all sorts of ways for that and I could list a whole line of other kinds of products and services that people will proactively ask for and I feel tempted by all of them because I want to make a difference because it aligns with so many of the things that I want to do but if I were to say yes to all of them I would be violating the thing I've observed in all of my life which is that there will be unexpected things so you start the coaching you start o provide some coaching to a few people yeah but that [15:42] takes twice as long three times as long as you really thought it would you gotta prepare for you to think about it you gonna they cancel on you multiple times you cancel on everything's everything comes up and suddenly what you thought was X is really three X of time and energy in fact I have a CEO friend who says to me that he takes every time and budget estimate and multiplies it by PI and I thought he was exaggerating at first but I found that to be really accurate and so so I think the key is [16:12] not to say well do I push extra in those moments or not well yeah I mean if you want to get the thing done you're bound to have to push harder than you thought it's to make sure you're not taking on so many things that when you do that you're pushing out things that are far more important but less urgent to you so so it's by me I didn't write a book for like at least two years now since the publisher was ready to the agents ready to I'm even ready to but no it doesn't feel right show restraint two years [16:42] that's hard to not do it but it means that now when I've just come to the point where I feel ready to do it and the timing feels right you know I didn't ruin relationships for the last two years and I could have damaged any number of relationships in my family if I just said yeah I want to do it in there ready let's do it let's add another whole huge project so I think the key is how do not have those projects in the first place be careful what you take on don't take it on just because you can don't take it [17:10] on just because it's good make sure it's the right thing at the right time for the right reasons then when you get to execution there's buffer built in so you can actually spend the extra time you need to to me it feels like there's a lot in common with finances and creating a security fund that's like the first thing the first step that Dave Ramsey and everybody talks about if you're trying to head towards financial into and it's save up a thousand dollars put it in a glass box underneath your bed [17:39] hide it away and make sure that you don't touch it unless there's an emergency and it creates a buffer and that's something that I did when I was pursuing a career creating original content I needed a buffer I needed to say okay I have a year's worth of living expenses in the bank now I feel much more confident free and flexible that I can pursue this without stress or anxiety and what you're saying is that we can do that same exact thing with time totally and it's exactly what one should do and I suspect it could be one of the items [18:12] on your checklist as you think through those first questions is not just am i interested passionate about this is it aligned but one more question if I do this will have buffer for the the other projects in my life that I've already identified as being essential and that's just one little thing that you say I won't think about it unless it's there I won't remember to ask that question but you build it into you build into remind yourself so that you slow down in the decision-making process yeah I mean [18:44] buffer I mean my children I play a game buffer game in the car where we we drive you know we'll drive from point A to point B and my goal is to never stop the car you know even for a stoplight so how do you do that you have to create a lot of distance between you and the car in front of you so that you can go slower that's fine but you never stop and that's me trying to teach them through a fun game the principle of buffer in our life I want to be able to make progress and when I make steady progress I don't [19:16] want to have huge starts and stops yeah it's the consistency that produces incredible breakthroughs and buffers keyed absolutely key to doing that imagine it takes a lot of patience to live like that yeah and I don't feel like a and it I don't feel especially patient I don't the actually I think that's probably you know among my main weaknesses but I have absolutely come to believe that the real kind I don't patience like you're not bothered about something real patience is purposeful purposeful waiting active waiting your [19:57] intent is still there but you're going to show like maybe an upper and lower bound on your behavior I'll give you an illustration of what I mean so so writing a journal a lot of people want to write a journal lots of people start very few people continue writing a journal why they want to do that's why they start this way they've bought it that's why they did it I mean the whole journal industry is like a bought books that never get written in so so there's two ways to approach it and one way the way the [20:32] nonessential approach it is by saying okay the first day I'm jumping into this I care about this so much I'm going to be so passionate about it and they don't think about buffer or anything like that for the futures and they just jump in and write three pages that first day completely like they blow out an hour a couple of hours doing whatever day two well I don't have don't have an hour than I have two hours I don't have half an hour built into this schedule every to be able to do this there's no way [20:56] they can do it day two so they - they're like ah I'll do it tomorrow and that's this almost over day three they've got to make up for two days there's no way they're gonna do it it's almost over before it begins so the essentialist way of doing that it says says okay knowing what we know about unexpected things we have to create buffer therefore I will write every day a tiny amount no more than five sentences no less than one sentence upper and lower bound and because my goal is to do this consistently for a [21:26] long time so you it's almost like the impatience the desire drives consistency once you have the right mindset and and let me just tell you what that looks like over a long period of time my when my grandfather died my Jewish grandfather died in New York and I went to his house right after that happened only way would English relative that made it to America I'm there I'm looking through everything what do I notice he's left behind nothing III don't even know properly who to invite to his funeral because because [22:00] they've just got like telephone books with member I don't know who's who I don't know if this person just is they I don't have just a plumber or if it's one of his good friends it's all in his head and it all went with him when my other grandfather passed away I was able to get a copy of a book that he'd been writing one sentence every two or three days for 50 years in one book that's that's to me that it's extraordinary to have to have that much accomplished through such a simple mechanism so that's what we're going for we want [22:36] consistency over the long run about something that really matters that's that's all into this principle of execution but the essentialist approach to execution it's a small amount over a long period of time rather than a big unexpected thing you know you do it you try and do it you force it and it doesn't last long the second thing that the first is so much more powerful and and more effortless than the second approach we talked a little bit about technology and social media and how it can become a [23:09] source of distraction for us and this is not something that's different than past technological advancements when books came around or radio or television people tend to be frightened of new technologies is there something different about social media and we even hinted at it at the beginning of the conversation with the busyness seems to be a little bit different than times past do you find social media what role do you use it in your life and and how do you recommend people approach this who perhaps want to be creators online [23:45] and they want to build a personal brand how do you do that without letting it the negative side come in yes so you know old technology literally all of it makes a good servant and a poor master and social media is no different in that than anything that came before but it takes time to develop the new skills and wisdom when a new technology comes in and so the risk is that we throw the baby out with the bathwater and that's happened before in you know in the decimal revolution you know so many gains made but so many things lost that [24:26] nobody was even looking at our thinking about and the same is true with social media so so so yes one has to look at what a what am i what do I want intentionally to get from it what is the what is the exchange value I'm willing to make for what benefit and I think if people use it consciously thoughtfully you know what you just described a moment ago you say okay YouTube's the plan channel I want to be on this SERPs the purposes I'm trying to achieve the other things a lot less so I think I can D invest in those items and I'm never [25:00] going to invest it just through buffer right this is a disciplined way of using that tool the undisciplined way of using the tool is just to get on there with barely a thought whether just generally generally I I want lots of followers and that's not what I think most people do I mean that's what if you if you look at other people's feeds that you often find on Twitter or LinkedIn on an Instagram just sort of a randomness to it what so how does anyone even gonna follow you how why would they follow you what [25:29] what's the message you're trying to share so I think figuring out you know you can't say everything to everyone so figuring out what is it I'm trying to say to the world what is my very tightly you know carefully curated message I'm trying to share and then you use the tools to be able to enable you to share that message and engage but I think the order really matters if you're just out there randomly doing it I think you'll get consumed by the noise rather than you be able to be an important voice of [26:01] clarity for people on there something you said in the book is that more effort doesn't always correlate to more results right so if somebody was looking to pursue an essentialist path looking to be more intentional with how they work how they spend their time what would you say to try to convince them to just slow down a little bit to make time for this to to focus and be deliberate the justification for slowing down becoming more deliberate becoming more focused is single and it's this if you really believe that a few things are [26:43] exceptionally valuable and most other things are noise then you will automatically spontaneously naturally start to change your behavior you start to say okay well what are those few things and you start to do everything we've talked about well if only a few things matter then I'll create space I'm going to start asking what are they what is essential and you're gonna start saying look if it's if it's non-essential I want to start eliminating it and getting rid of it and I'm gonna try and then create a system [27:17] that helps me to keep doing and focused on the things that really mess it and really a high leverage if you believe that it drives the behavior if you believe that all things are approximately of the same value then you it's like it's like you you're just shoveling coal you're in a Cove and you're just trying to get out as much as possible and your job is to get more and more of it and the way to do it is just to push more and more shovel more and more becoming an essentialist is like discovering that you use your whole life [27:48] and a coal mine you suddenly go it's not a coal mine I mean I mean a diamond mine here I was thinking it was all about just how much to get out and let's know it's about finding those things that are really precious and valuable and important and as soon as you suddenly wake up and you're in a dynamite you behavior shifts and that's the same this is the driver of becoming essentialist is to suddenly see you know if somebody else says not me it's it's difficult to overstate the unimportance of practically everything their ideas get [28:18] that get that new thinking in and and as soon as you start to look at the world through that lens you find yep that is if fact far closer to reality that most of the stuff that's going on is not vital it's a trivial many verses to fight a few and I think it's not just one more thing to figure out what those vital few things are it is the work of life figure out what they are eliminate what they aren't and build a system that protects and enables you to to pursue those things that you've said a moment you [28:55] know most important thank you so much for doing this thank you thanks for watching again if you want to get the full one hour unedited interview with Greg it's available at patreon.com slash Matt dia Bella Greg walks me through the practical steps of how to apply essentialism to my own life and perhaps yours as well see you next time [Music]