The One Thing

I want you to imagine an iceberg. If you’re like most people, you probably imagine this big piece of ice coming out of the sea, but that’s just the tip. What we know is that the tip is just the minority or the iceberg — the majority lies beneath the surface.What most people focus on in their life is productivity: The actions they take and the results that they get. And when we’re not getting the results that we desire, we tend to ask ourselves, “How do I change my activities?” But we can’t truly be productive if we don’t understand what our priorities are, so this leads to a vicious cycle of unproductivity and frustration.Today, we share the incredible story of how one mom got clear on her purpose and started to line up what she did with why she did it. Tricia Brouwers is an executive with a mortgage company and a practice leader of The ONE Thing. She is also the mother of a very impressive young man who is living with autism. You are going to hear about their journey of going from a world of life that was so

Have you ever found yourself wondering how you can get others to start living The ONE Thing? Whether it would be possible for your company to start reflecting this in their culture?So many people have reached out and say that they love The ONE Thing, but that they could never get their boss on board, that their company would never get behind it.Your company’s culture starts with you and our guest today is an example of that. Ed Nottingham is inside human resources at a Fortune 100, he has zero direct reports, and he loved the ideas of The ONE Thing and wanted to start living it as an individual. He never thought this would work inside his company, but it’s become a major initiative there. We’re going to walk through the steps of what this looked like so that you — as an individual — can begin to empower others to live The ONE Thing.In this episode, we continuously point to two models we use: The GPS and the 411. If you would like to get a copy of those, visit the1thing.com/resources to download the templates

How is it that, when we all have the same amount of time, some of us achieve extraordinary things while others are simply ordinary?Everybody knows how to set goals, but what we need to figure out is how to have a relationship with them. How do you stay in touch with the things that you said are important? It’s tough to do, but there’s a simple practice that will help you stay in contact with the things that are important.We’ve previously talked about how to stop spending your time and start investing it. This happens when you create a model for your time, and the best model you can create for your time is time blocking. It’s so simple most people ignore it, but simplicity is how we get things done.If you would like to use The ONE Thing Planner to create a time model, we still have some available at the1thing.com/amazon.In this episode, you will learn...[08:35] How to get clear on your lead domino every day[13:33] Getting clear about where you are going and why it’s important[20:00] Blocking your vacations for

Have you ever felt just... overwhelmed? Like there was just so much on your plate that you genuinely couldn’t see how you could get it all done?It’s in these moments when our systems — our models — have failed. At any time we are hitting the ceiling of our achievement, we are missing something. We’re either missing a person in the form of a mentor, coach, or new hire, or we’re missing a model or system.Most people, without realizing it, spend their time instead of investing it. They don’t have an expectation for a return on investment from what’s on their calendar or planner. But there is a better way, a better model you can use to get more done and avoid overwhelm. So, in this episode, we’re going to teach you how to create a relationship with your goals that invests your time, allowing you to more easily achieve extraordinary results.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/podcast.In this episode, you will learn...[05:58] Moving from E to P[10:18] 3 things we suggest for time bl

Getting tired of putting in hours of work without seeing the results you want?We all feel overwhelmed sometimes. Work, hobbies, side projects, family life — it’s hard to keep it all balanced, and we don’t want to have to give things up, either. If you want to live a big life, you have to start honing in on the ONE thing you need to get done to achieve your goals.P.J. Mellana is a practice leader. He has embarked on a journey of living the ONE thing himself, has chosen to hold himself accountable to those principles, and has turned around and empowered other people to live it — not just in his organization, but with his kids. In this episode, P.J. shares how he started living The ONE Thing, how he lived the tools, and how he went on a 66-day challenge to form a power habit, not just for himself but for his 3 kids as well.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/podcast.In this episode, you will learn...[03:26] What makes it the right time to start living the ONE thing[07:55] Le

Do you wish there was someone in your world willing to hold you accountable? Most of us want someone in our life who has a vision of what’s possible for us and is willing to take a stand for our greatness, even when we’re fighting for our limitations. Tim Beverlin found that person – and he found it in the form of a five-year-old girl. In this episode, Tim shares his own 66-day journey so you can see what it looks like to leverage accountability and form that first power habit – and how weaving purpose into all of this can take your results to an even higher level.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/podcast.In this episode, you will learn...[02:00] What it’s like on day 66 of a 66-day challenge.[04:00] How your children can support you and keep you more accountable (and how you can help them live The ONE Thing).[13:35] How enlisting support from your children can bring a sense of purpose to a 66-day challenge.[18:20] What you can do to bring a counterbalance to the s

Are you the goal setter in your relationship?Over the past few years, we’ve noticed a common challenge at our Couples Goal Setting Retreats: in most relationships, one person is a goal setter and the other is not, one person is open to trying anything and the other is a skeptic.There’s nothing wrong with healthy skepticism, but it’s also important to examine how your natural state can influence your ability — and your partner’s ability — to grow. So, with this natural divide in almost every relationship, how can a couple grow together? Dave Hollis, author of the upcoming Get Out of Your Own Way: A Skeptic's Guide to Growth and Fulfillment and co-host of RISE Together, shares what happened when his partner (past guest Rachel Hollis) started her personal growth journey. While she gained personal momentum, he felt unfulfilled and overcome with fear — and until he confronted the fact that who he was getting further and further away from who he wanted to be, he was stuck. Listen to learn how Dave got out of his o

Who is winning in the fight for your attention?Our attention is incredibly valuable — but the smartest designers in the world are creating applications and technology focused on ONE thing: getting your attention for as long as possible. It’s easy to give our attention to the shiny packaging and notifications that are right in front of us... but what becomes possible when we own our attention?Anthony Ongaro got tired of all the distractions, so he developed a new approach called Break The Twitch, which helps people regain focus and act purposefully in the moment. You can’t form a new habit if you can’t give it attention for weeks on end, so the advice you’ll hear in this episode is critical for anyone who wants to live The ONE Thing.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/podcast.In this episode, you will learn...[3:40] When addiction is the new marketing, what can we do?[8:05] What is “The Twitch?”[12:45] How you can break the email twitch[18:00] How to break The Twitch sequential

Do you want to live a life by design?Well, we don’t decide our future — we decide our habits and our habits decide our future. That’s why our ONE thing is providing you with the tools and resources necessary to get clarity on your goals and form habits that stick.To this end, we’ve been working closely with the members of our Living Your ONE Thing Community to support them as they go through a 66-Day Challenge. So, instead of interviewing a bestselling author on our webinar series this month, we decided to share what’s working for them and some of the best practices that will set you up for success when you start your own 66-Day Challenge.If you would like the additional support of a community that is going on a 66-Day Challenge with you, consider checking out Living Your ONE Thing. You can learn more at the1thing.com/habits.We recorded this conversation as part of our monthly ONE Thing webinar series. Every month, we feature an incredible author so that you can learn directly from them and ask questions. If

Do you consider yourself to be a goal setter?Most people do, and every new year, people set goals in droves, but they struggle to have a relationship with those goals. And as we go back home and go back to our jobs after the holidays, a lot of us fall into the same old routines. But it’s not your fault — the way the majority of people manage their time is outdated.But there is a new way — a better way — to have a relationship with your goals and manage your time, and that’s what you’re going to learn about in this episode.Get started now with the free Start Using Your 411 training course. And if you’re looking for some more robust training, you will want to try the Get Results With Your 411 foundational course, which will also show you how to introduce the 411 to your team.In this episode, you will learn...-[1:30] Why it’s not your fault that you never learned how to properly set goals-[10:30] Why you don’t need to know what your top priority is before you create your first 411-[23:15] What a couple’s goal-s

If you want to change your life, you have to get honest with yourself.What’s working? What isn’t working? Who’s bringing you forward and who’s bringing you back? Candid self-reflection can reveal things you wish weren’t there, but knowing what you’re dealing with makes big change possible.Our guest, Grace Vroom, knew something had to give; there were countless areas of her life that she wanted to improve, but it was only after getting honest about her addiction to alcohol that she started to make any progress. Sobriety felt like such a daunting must-do on Grace’s self-improvement to-do list that she didn’t know how to start and she didn’t think she could sustain it. As you listen to this episode, we challenge you to pay close attention to what her lead domino was — it was so small that it might surprise you.The Living Your ONE Thing community is kicking off 2020 with a community-wide 66-day challenge. If you want to form a power habit that sticks, you can start for FREE at the1thing.com/community.In this epis

If habits decide your future and you decide your habits, what are the habits you can acquire today that will help you create your ideal future?We want to help you form the power habits that will help you achieve extraordinary results, in every area of your life. That’s why we wrote The ONE Thing, that’s why we created the Living Your ONE Thing Community, and that’s why we’re sharing this conversation with someone who has built a career focused on helping others create better habits, make better decisions, and live better lives.James Clear is the author of Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones and he will share how you can become the architect of your habits, rather than continue to be a victim of them.Starting Jan. 1, 2020, we will be kicking off a Living Your ONE Thing 66-Day Challenge exclusively for members. If you want to put James’ advice into action and form a power habit that sticks, we want to offer you support. You can start for FREE at the1thing.com/community.

Do you know everything that you need to know about forming a habit?More than 20,000 people have downloaded the 66-Day Calendar from the1thing.com and we’ve shepherded more than 4,000 people through a 66-Day challenge through our Time Blocking Mastery Course — and what we’ve found is that there are some very common myths around forming a habit.And if you aren’t aware of what these myths are, then you simply won’t be as successful. So, in this episode, we sit down with someone who’s embarked on quite a few 66-Day Challenges, Jeff Gray, and we dive into some of the mistakes he made and the lessons he learned along the way — lessons that were absolutely vital to achieving the success he has today.Starting Jan. 1, 2020, we will be kicking off a Living Your ONE Thing 66-Day Challenge exclusively for members. We will be pouring into our community so that everyone can start the new year with a power habit that sticks, and we invite you to join us. You can start for FREE at the1thing.com/community.In this episode, you

What does it look like to see The ONE Thing become part of the culture of an organization?The answer is different depending on what your organization looks like, but there’s one place where it always makes sense — sales! When salespeople are clear on their priorities, form habits around the activities that truly drive results, get clear on what they’re saying yes to, and learn how to say no to all of their distractions, it drives the overall revenue of the business and makes everything else easier or unnecessary. But what does it really look like to live The ONE Thing as a salesperson? To answer that question, we sit down with Jonathan Farber, who was able to use the principles of The ONE Thing to create models and systems that have had a transformative effect on his time and his organization’s revenue.If you want to put some of Jonathan’s lessons into action, check out our free Start Using Your 411 training course. And if you’re looking for some more robust training, you will want to try the Get Resul

What is the purpose of a goal?Most of us are taught that the purpose of a goal is to achieve a certain result. But Gary Keller says that the purpose of a goal is to be appropriate in the moment; a guiding light that will give you clarity on whether the actions you’re taking today are appropriate for the goals you want to achieve in the long run.That clarity is part of what makes a leader someone who you will want to follow, and every one of us is a leader, whether you have someone who reports to you or not. Because all leadership begins with self-leadership. So, how do you become the type of leader that you would follow? To help you answer that question, we’re sharing this conversation with Scott Miller, the Executive Vice President of Thought Leadership at FranklinCovey and the best-selling author of two books: Management Mess To Leadership Success and Everyone Deserves a Great Manager.We recorded this conversation as part of our monthly ONE Thing webinar series. Every month, we feature an incredible autho

Growing up, we all hear that it’s better to give than receive — and this is especially true when it comes to business relationships — but do your goals reflect that?Because we all know that, if you want to build a great business and a great career, it all comes down to the quality of our relationships. But when it comes to setting goals, most of us aren’t intentionally designed to ensure we build deep and meaningful relationships within our business or with the people we serve.But that also means, for most of us, there is a huge opportunity to grow our businesses! Because there are a number of simple things you can do, starting immediately, that will truly transform the depth of the relationships that you have — if you take consistent action over the next year. Patrick Galvin, the author of The Connector’s Way, joins the show to share the simple steps to building a business one relationship at a timeTo learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/podcast.In this episode, you will lea

When the smartest people in the world are designing apps to capture your attention, how do you choose mindfulness?It’s not a secret that we live in a culture that’s inundated with distractions, more so than ever in history, and that means we need some modern mindfulness techniques to block it all out and be more present.Luckily, Cory Allen will walk you through simple and clear ways to start getting present in the moment. You will learn how to be more mindful, reduce stress, and develop more mental clarity around what matters most to you — and our hope is that you will choose ONE thing that you can put in action immediately after listening to this episode.We recorded this conversation as part of our monthly ONE Thing webinar series. Every month, we feature an incredible author so that you can learn directly from them and ask questions. If you want to watch the second half of this interview or sign up for our next FREE monthly webinar, head over to the1thing.com/webinars.To learn more, and for the complete sho

Do you usually start your year with a financial goal?Most people do, whether that’s saving more money, getting on a budget, or increasing their net worth. Whatever it is, though, you have to do certain things in order to be successful.In this episode, Anthony ONeal shares the story of how he did everything he was told to do to pursue the American Dream — working hard in school to get into a good college so that he could get a good job — but then life happened. He got kicked out of school and ended up homeless, wondering if he was better off dead or alive. Today, you may know Anthony as one of the Dave Ramsey personalities or as the author of the Wall Street Journal #1 bestselling book Debt-Free Degree. Pay attention to the mindset he adopted, the strategies he used, and the choices he made — because if that worked for him, it’ll help you achieve whatever financial goal you have this year.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/podcast.In this episode, you will lear

Who is supporting you in achieving your goals?A lot of us are struggling with this silently, but few of us are willing to stand up and ask for help. We hear about our friends’ successes and we see them on social media, and it creates this unrealistic expectation of what the journey forward looks like.In this episode, we’re talking to two people who were willing to raise their hands and ask for help. Kristina Modares and Eric Mann are in a relationship, but they’re also both starting companies. So they got busy, their personal and business lives got chaotic, and they were experiencing some very real stress over the past year. But by coming together and leveraging the tools of The ONE Thing — and each other — they’re preparing to remain connected and grow together in 2020, regardless of what life throws their way.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/podcast.In this episode, you will learn...[3:30] What it looks like when you start engaging your individual goals as a team, even wh

Do you think of goal setting as something you do alone?Most of us, if we were taught how to set goals at all, were just taught tactics like using a calendar or planner. And as a result, most of us have been trying to succeed by ourselves for years. But we work in teams, we live with families, and we can all accomplish more if we acknowledge that no one succeeds alone.So, in this episode, we want to share a little bit more about our process for preparing for the Couples Goal Setting Retreating, the best practices that we’ve developed within our organization, and what’s worked for us.This is your last chance to sign up for the Couples Goal-Setting Retreat! Whether you attend as a couple, as business partners, as a team, or as an individual, we will have a track specific to you.In this episode, you will learn...-[3:00] The most common challenges that teams and organizations face when it comes to setting goals-[6:40] The purpose of a goal-[9:40] What goal setting should look like in organizations-[16:00] The role