038: Essentialism by Greg McKeown

By: Ana Melikian | Posted in: Podcast Episodes | Friday, Jun 12, 2015 - 9:57pm

To conclude my series of podcast episodes about the importance of “Focusing”, I was honored to interview Greg McKeown, author of the New York Times Best Seller Book – Essentialism: the Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

Greg has taught at companies that include Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Salesforce, and Pixar.

He is also an amazing keynote speaker that I had the opportunity to meet at the ICON15– The InfusionSoft Annual Conference held in Phoenix, Arizona.

Here are some of the topics we spoke about:

What is “Essentialism”?
Information and opinion overload
Emails in mobile devices as a distraction
Discern between the vital few and the trivial many
Becoming an essentialist is not an event, it’s a process
Importance of pressing the pause button
Small changes produce big results
The power of a short breathing exercise
The paradox of success
Essentialism is not one more thing
Essentialism is a journey
Three Simple Daily Practices to Become an Essentialist:
1. Press the pause button – Breath slowly for 3 breaths
2. Top Six Priorities – Focus on the first one: The Priority
3. Write Down Five Successful Trade-offs and Celebrate that!