Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
by Greg McKeown
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9:13
Author explains essentialism in interview with Matt D’Avella
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Mar, 2019
Spoiler:
Warning that “it’s difficult to overstate the unimportance of practically everything,” the author uses the metaphor of a coal mine versus a diamond mine to explain his philosophy. If everything is of equal importance to us (coal mine), we need only to shovel out as much coal as we possibly can, working as hard as we can for as long as we can. If some things are more important than others (diamonds), we need to focus in on those, giving them our attention, time, and energy, forgetting about the coal.
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Author, in talking head format, on how success breeds failure
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Spoiler:
The author says that with success, the few driving goals that led to that success get lost in a sea of distractions. He encourages us to learn to say “no,” gracefully but unapologetically, in order to preserve our energy and time for the things that matter. He gives examples of CEOs he interviewed for the book, all of whom had to learn to say no and to focus on the essential, making ever more valuable contributions in the process. He says that becoming an essentialist is not easy and is indeed “revolutionary.”
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Author does in-depth audience Q&A in Authors at Google format
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Spoiler:
Encouraging the audience of Google employees to have “courage, commitment, and a sense of unyielding, purposeful clarity,” the author poses questions about saying yes vs. no and expands on the answers he receives. He includes interesting tidbits such as the fact that the word “priority” was never used in the plural until only recently, and gives tips for eliminating the unessential from our lives. He asserts that focusing only on the essential leads to greater productivity and happiness.
27:37
Author interacts with audience to get to the heart of essentialism
46
1
Jul, 2018
Spoiler:
After sharing the story of how he quit law school to pursue his passion (teaching and writing), and the conversation in which he told his parents he had decided to quit, the author asks some questions of the audience and listens to their answers. One of these is “Why don’t successful companies continue to be successful?” He then reflects on Bill Gates’s comment that success is not a good teacher, and tells a story about Mahatma Gandhi, ending with four words from the only poem that Gandhi ever wrote: “reducing oneself to zero.”
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Greg McKeown is a highly sought-after global speaker who has addressed over 500 companies in 40 countries. He holds an MBA from Stanford, a Global Leadership certificate from Harvard, and is pursuing a doctorate at the University of Cambridge. As the founder and CEO of McKeown, Inc., a leadership and strategy agency based in California, his clients include Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Nike.
Other books by Greg McKeown
Publications
Harvard Business Review: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
The National: Book review: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
The Objective Standard: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Medium: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less — Book Summary
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