The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

“The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results” This book is a quick and fantastic read. The synopsis here is about the author putting forward facts, stories, situations and techniques on why one must focus only on one thing at a time and why this achieves better, superior and steadfast results. Taking the proverb “ A bird in hand is worth two in the bush” to a whole new level 🙂

As a Technical Program Manager my entire work day is primarily juggling several duties and tasks. That’s simply the nature of the job. Having said that, I do agree that prioritizing and focusing on things makes life better. A lot of what Gary talks about can be used both for personal and professional growth.

He talks about the domino effect of taking account of your bigger goals and making smaller, more achievable goals and tackling one goal at a time. He goes on to describe how a single domino is capable of bringing down another domino that is actually 50 percent larger in size.

There are also a lot of inspirational quotes from several people. Like this one –

He goes on to say that we have this perception that everything we are doing matters equally and that it is absolutely one of the primary reasons for our failure. Gary quotes “ Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Equality of tasks is a lie and understanding this is the basis of all great decisions. There were instances while reading the book where I felt what he was putting forth not a grand revelation but a simple fact. However, he does offer a great non- refutable perspective.   

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into smaller manageable tasks and then starting on the first one.”

Goal setting & breaking things down.

Coming back to the core concept that this book explains- it’s all about figuring out what that one thing is that we need to do now and how we  have to protect and focus on it. 

It’s a quick read and I must say it’s certainly worth your time !

See you around.

Mario Gerard