“Live more spontaneously – you don’t need to neatly wrap up each detail of your life.”
(Dr. Wayne W. Dyer[1])
I love The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to become all they are capable of becoming with the gifts they have been given.
It has so many jewels of wisdom from many of my favorites too. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Arnold H. Glasow, Dr. Martin Seligman, Peter Drucker, Alexander Graham Bell, George Halas and Mark Twain. I was so inspired so often while reading it that my highlighted passages came to nearly 2,000 words in total, most of which I tweeted from my Kindle using the hash tag, Ideas for #HappyLiving.
Gary and Jay’s philosophy of life closely matches that of my own. In fact, they write about applying The One Thing principles to “the important areas of my life: my spiritual life, physical health, personal life, key relationships, job, business, and financial life.” In my book, The Belief Road Map, I write about my philosophies for the Seven Foundations of Health: physical fitness, mental fitness, spiritual fitness, financial fitness, love, adventure and significance.
The authors of The One Thing teach the reader about the importance of reflection and spending time on the things that are most important to you. I wrote similarly about reflection, marking time and making time in the post, Making Time for Life’s Wonders. Gary and Jay share how taking complete ownership is critical to creating a successful life. In Turning Inspiration into Action, I say the first step on the journey to your absolute best life is accepting personal responsibility. They stress the importance of doing work you love and I couldn’t agree more. In fact, My Philosophy on Significance and Leaving Your Mark has two components: doing something you love and creating something of value to others. While I have been writing about and working on these tools for happy living in my own life, I still learned a lot as I read Gary and Jay’s unique views on each one.
They also reminded me just how important awareness and the Pareto principle of prioritizing are for creating a more meaningful, successful and happy life (and marriage). In one lesson, they ‘re-taught’ me the importance of slowing down, being aware, and paying attention to the cherished glass balls of my life. I shared my response to this teaching in Why Must I Keep Re-learning Important Life Lessons?
The BIGGEST takeaway for me though, was their idea of making peace with chaos. They write, “Accept chaos. Recognize that pursuing your ONE Thing moves other things to the back burner. Loose ends can feel like snares, creating tangles in your path. This kind of chaos is unavoidable. Make peace with it. Learn to deal with it. The success you have accomplishing your ONE Thing will continually prove you made the right decision.” Wow – what a great lesson!!
I have really taken this to heart. In fact, it is the centerpiece of my business and life planning now. I realized that if I reflect on, identify, and take care of the most important things, the little, annoying distractions won’t really matter. So now, I’ve made peace with the fact that my desk and inbox are messier than before, as I focus most of my time and attention on the next Big Thing To Come.
[Tweet “”The BIGGEST takeaway for me, was @garykeller + @jaypapasan’s idea of making peace with chaos. ” – @mattgersper”]
My Philosophy on Why We’re Here is to become all we are capable of becoming with the gifts we are given so that we are able to give to others, lift them, and help them become all they are capable of becoming with the gifts they are given. This book is helping me to live that philosophy… and it’ll help you too!!
Thank you Gary and Jay for writing such an important book!!
Follow Gary and Jay…
[1] Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao
Image via Unsplash | This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you click and then purchase we will receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for reading & supporting Happy Living!