Gary Keller Quotes

Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls-- family, health, friends, integrity-- are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.

People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” —F. M. Alexander

Multitasking is a lie

Your next step is simple. You are the first domino.

A life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets.

It is not that we have too little time to do all the things we need to do , it is that we feel the need to do too many things in the time we have.

Extraordinary results happen only when you give the best you have to become the best you can be at your most important work.

Success is actually a short race—a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.

you can become successful with less discipline than you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.

You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.

The path of mastering something is the combination of not only doing the best you can do at it, but also doing it the best it can be done.

a different result requires doing something different.

Don’t let small thinking cut your life down to size. Think big, aim high, act bold. And see just how big you can blow up your life.

One of the most empowering moments of my life came when I realized that life is a question and how we live it is our answer.

The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.

the majority of what you want will come from the minority of what you do.

Voltaire once wrote, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” Sir

You can do two things at once, but you can't focus effectively on two things at once.

Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.” —John Carmack

We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.” —Robert Brault

Even if you’re sure you can win, be careful that you can live with what you lose.

What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.

So, if you want to get the most out of your day, do your most important work—your ONE Thing—early, before your willpower is drawn down. Since your self-control will be sapped throughout the day, use it when it’s at full strength on what matters most.

success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.

Anyone who dreams of an uncommon life eventually discovers there is no choice but to seek an uncommon approach to living it.

Long hours spent checking off a to-do list and ending the day with a full trash can and a clean desk are not virtuous and have nothing to do with success. Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list—a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results. To-do lists tend to be long; success lists are short. One pulls you in all directions; the other aims you in a specific direction. One is a disorganized directory and the other is an organized directive. If a list isn’t built around success, then that’s not where it takes you. If your to-do list contains everything, then it’s probably taking you everywhere but where you really want to go.

Juggling is an illusion. ... In reality, the balls are being independently caught and thrown in rapid succession. ... It is actually task switching.

Success demands singleness of purpose. You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects. It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results. The ONE Thing shows up time and again in the lives of the successful because it’s a fundamental truth. More than anything else, expertise tracks with hours invested. The pursuit of mastery bears gifts. When people look back on their lives, it is the things they have not done that generate the greatest regret...People’s actions may be troublesome initially; it is their inactions that plague them most with long-term feelings of regret. Make sure every day you do what matters most. When you know what matters most, everything makes sense. When you don’t know what matters most, anything makes sense.

Task switching exacts a cost few realize they are even paying.

Not everything matters equally, and success isn’t a game won by whoever does the most. Yet that is exactly how most play it on a daily basis.

Big is bad is a lie. It’s quite possibly the worst lie of all, for if you fear big success, you’ll either avoid it or sabotage your efforts to achieve it.

Until my ONE Thing is done—everything else is a distraction.

They allow purpose to be the guiding force in determining the priority that drives their actions.

To be financially wealthy you must have a purpose for your life. In other words, without purpose, you’ll never know when you have enough money, and you can never be financially wealthy.

Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls—family, health, friends, integrity—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.

When everything feels urgent and important, everything seems equal. We become active and busy, but this doesn’t actually move us any closer to success. Activity is often unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business.

There is no failure. You win or you learn. Either one is okay.

You must be single-minded. Drive for the one thing on which you have decided.” —General George S. Patton

When you strive for greatness, chaos is guaranteed to show up.

Leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results.

extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.

If everyone has the same number of hours in the day, why do some people seem to get so much more done than others? How do they do more, achieve more, earn more, have more? If time is the currency of achievement, then why are some able to cash in their allotment for more chips than others? The answer is they make getting to the heart of things the heart of their approach. They go small. Going small is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It’s recognizing that not all things matter equally and finding the things that matter most. It’s a tighter way to connect what you do with what you want. It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.

Think as big as you possibly can and base what you do, how you do it, and who you do it with on succeeding at that level. It just might take you more than your lifetime to run into the walls of a box this big.

when you can see mastery as a path you go down instead of a destination you arrive at, it starts to feel accessible and attainable.

Don't fear big. Fear mediocrity. Fear waste. Fear the lack of living to your fullest

The reason we shouldn’t pursue balance is that the magic never happens in the middle; magic happens at the extremes.

Happiness happens when you have a bigger purpose than having more fulfills, which is why we say happiness happens on the way to fulfillment.

No one succeeds alone. No one.

It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?

only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with.

Where I’d had huge success, I had narrowed my concentration to one thing, and where my success varied, my focus had too.

Taking complete ownership of your outcomes by holding no one but yourself responsible for them is the most powerful thing you can do to drive your success.

The people we live with and work with on a daily basis deserve our full attention. When we give people segmented attention, piecemeal time, switching back and forth, the switching cost is higher than just the time involved. We end up damaging relationships.

Productivity isn’t about being a workhorse, keeping busy or burning the midnight oil... . It’s more about priorities, planning, and fiercely protecting your time.” —Margarita Tartakovsky

buying into The ONE Thing becomes difficult because we’ve unfortunately bought into too many others—and more often than not those “other things” muddle our thinking, misguide our actions, and sidetrack our success.

When we know something that needs to be done but isn’t currently getting done, we often say, “I just need more discipline.” Actually, we need the habit of doing it. And we need just enough discipline to build the habit.

Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.

It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.” — Og Mandino

Multitasking is a scam.

The truth is that things don’t matter equally and success is found in doing what matters most.

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” —Mark Twain

Equality is a lie. Understanding this is the basis of all great decisions.

When you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them.

Lily Tomlin once said, “The road to success is always under construction.

You do the right thing and then you do the next right thing. Over time it adds up, and the geometric potential of success is unleashed.

There can only be one most important thing. Many things may be important, but only one can be the most important.” —Ross Garber

Knocking out a hundred tasks for whatever the reason is a poor substitute for doing even one task that’s meaningful.

extraordinary success is sequential, not simultaneous. What starts out linear becomes geometric. You do the right thing and then you do the next right thing. Over time it adds up, and the geometric potential of success is unleashed. The domino effect applies to the big picture, like your work or your business, and it applies to the smallest moment in each day when you’re trying to decide what to do next.

Achievers operate differently. They have an eye for the essential. They pause just long enough to decide what matters and then allow what matters to drive their day. Achievers do sooner what others plan to do later and defer, perhaps indefinitely, what others do sooner. The difference isn’t in intent, but in right of way. Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.

Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.

Here’s what I found out: We overthink, overplan, and overanalyze our careers, our businesses, and our lives; that long hours are neither virtuous nor healthy; and that we usually succeed in spite of most of what we do, not because of it.

No one is self-made

purpose-driven priority.

be a maker in the morning and a manager in the afternoon.

Be like a postage stamp–stick to one thing until you get there.

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

the key to success isn’t in all the things we do but in the handful of things we do well.

We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.

Purpose is the straightest path to power and the ultimate source of personal strength—strength

People who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the only ones who do." - Apple Adv.

Thinking big is essential to extraordinary results. Success requires action, and action requires thought. But here’s the catch—the only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with. Make this connection, and the importance of how big you think begins to sink in.

Your talent and abilities are limited resources. Your time is finite. If you don’t make your life about what you say yes to, then it will almost certainly become what you intended to say no to.

When you see someone who has a lot of knowledge, they learned it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of skills, they developed them over time. When you see someone who has done a lot, they accomplished it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of money, they earned it over time. The key is over time. Success

Give each habit enough time. Stick with the discipline long enough for it to become routine. Habits, on average, take 66 days to form. Once a habit is solidly established, you can either build on that habit or, if appropriate, build another one.

My mom lived to be ninety-five. Every morning I would ask her, “Are you going to have a good day?” She would always answer, “I choose to have a good day. I don’t have enough days left in my life to have a bad one.” She was right, she didn’t. And neither do I!

When life happens, you can be either the author of your life or the victim of it. Those are your only two choices— accountable or unaccountable. This may sound harsh, but it’s true. Every day we choose one approach or the other, and the consequences follow us forever.

You need to be doing fewer things for effect instead of doing more things with side effects

While decisions tap our willpower, the food we eat is also a key player in our level of willpower.

If you don’t take care of your body, where will you live?” It

The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.

working at something until it regularly works for you.

Don't fear big. Fear mediocrity. Fear waste. Fear the lack of living to your fullest. When we fear big, we either consciously or subconsciously work against it. We either run toward lesser outcomes and opportunities or we simply run away from the big ones. If courage isn't the absence of fear, but moving past it, then thinking big isn't the absence of doubts, but moving past them. Only living big will let you experience your true life and work potential.

It’s important for you to accept this instead of fighting it. Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola warns us that “anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.” In other words, get used to it and get over it.

GOING SMALL If everyone has the same number of hours in a day, why do some people seem to get so much more done than others? How do they do more, achieve more, earn more, have more? If time is the currency of achievement, then why are some able to cash in their allotment for more chips than others? The answer is they make getting to the heart of things the heart of their approach. They go small.

It’s important to realize that on the journey to achieving big, you get bigger. Big requires growth, and by the time you arrive, you’re big too! What seemed an insurmountable mountain from a distance is just a small hill when you arrive—at least in proportion to the person you've become. Your thinking, your skills, your relationships, your sense of what is possible and what it takes all grow on the journey to big. As you experience big, you become big.

In one study, elite violinists had separated themselves from all others by each accumulating more than 10,000 hours of practice by age 20. Thus the rule. Many elite performers complete their journey in about ten years, which, if you do the math, is an average of about three hours of deliberate practice a day, every day, 365 days a year. Now, if your ONE Thing relates to work and you put in 250 workdays a year (five days a week for 50 weeks), to keep pace on your mastery journey you’ll need to average four hours a day. Sound familiar? It’s not a random number. That’s the amount of time you need to time block every day for your ONE Thing. More than anything else, expertise tracks with hours invested. Michelangelo once said, “If the people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem wonderful at all.” His point is obvious. Time on a task, over time, eventually beats talent every time. I’d say you can “book that,” but actually you should “block it.

As actor and comedian Lily Tomlin once said, “The road to success is always under construction.” So don’t allow yourself to be detoured from getting to your ONE Thing. Pave your way with the right people and place. BIG IDEAS Start saying “no.” Always remember that when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to everything else. It’s the essence of keeping a commitment. Start turning down other requests outright or saying, “No, for now” to distractions so that nothing detracts you from getting to your top priority. Learning to say no can and will liberate you. It’s how you’ll find the time for your ONE Thing. 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. Manage your energy. Don’t sacrifice your health by trying to take on too much. Your body is an amazing machine, but it doesn’t come with a warranty, you can’t trade it in, and repairs can be costly. It’s important to manage your energy so you can do what you must do, achieve what you want to achieve, and live the life you want to live. Take ownership of your environment. Make sure that the people around you and your physical surroundings support your goals. The right people in your life and the right physical environment on your daily path will support your efforts to get to your ONE Thing. When both are in alignment with your ONE Thing, they will supply the optimism and physical lift you need to make your ONE Thing happen. Screenwriter Leo Rosten pulled everything together for us when he said, “I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” Live with Purpose, Live by Priority, and Live for Productivity. Follow these three for the same reason you make the three commitments and avoid the four thieves—because you want to leave your mark. You want your life to matter. 18

What kind of regrets? For me, very few books cause tears, much less require a handkerchief, but Bronnie Ware’s 2012 book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying did both. Ware spent many years caring for those facing their own mortality. When she questioned the dying about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, Bronnie found that common themes surfaced again and again. The five most common were these: I wish that I’d let myself be happier—too late they realized happiness is a choice; I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends—too often they failed to give them the time and effort they deserved; I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings—too frequently shut mouths and shuttered feelings weighed too heavy to handle; I wish I hadn’t worked so hard—too much time spent making a living over building a life caused too much remorse. As tough as these were, one stood out above them all. The most common regret was this: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others expected of me. Half-filled dreams and unfulfilled hopes: this was the number-one regret expressed by the dying. As Ware put it, “Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.” Bronnie Ware’s observations aren’t hers alone. At the conclusion of their exhaustive research, Gilovich and Medvec in 1994 wrote, “When people look back on their lives, it is the things they have not done that generate the greatest regret.... People’s actions may be troublesome initially; it is their inactions that plague them most with long-term feelings of regret.” Honoring our hopes and pursuing productive lives through faith in our purpose and priorities is the message from our elders. From the wisest position they’ll ever have comes their clearest message. No regrets. So make sure every day you do what matters most. When you know what matters most, everything makes sense. When you don’t know what matters most, anything makes sense. The best lives aren’t led this way.