“Greg McKeon is a business strategist and the New York Times bestselling author of Essentialism and Effortless. The basis of his ideas is the ability to determine priorities and perform important tasks casually and easily. The most difficult periods of life taught McKeon this. The writer spoke about one of these challenges and the conclusions drawn from it at the CEO Summit 2024 from Forbes Amazon invests […]”, — write: businessua.com.ua
Greg McKeon is a business strategist and the New York Times bestselling author of Essentialism and Effortless. At the heart of his ideas is the ability to set priorities and carry out the important ones things are casual and easy. The most difficult periods of life taught McKeon this. The writer spoke about one of these challenges and the conclusions drawn from it at the CEO Summit 2024 from Forbes
Amazon is investing billions of dollars in AI, robots and machine learning. What are the principles and rules governing the company?
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When my daughter Eva was 14 years old, she suddenly changed. The girl, who never shut up, laughed a lot and was very energetic, began to answer all questions in one word. A huge range of emotions, to which my wife and I were accustomed, replaced the monotonous mood.
At first we thought that this behavior was quite age appropriate. But the symptoms worsened, and within a few months Eva began to lose other cognitive functions. She could eat one dish for hours. She could write at most three letters in two minutes.
We went to neurologist after neurologist – no one could explain what was going on. I remember how a doctor with 35 years of experience looked at the test results (they were within normal limits) and just shrugged his shoulders. It was suffering.
During that period, I realized that the principles of essentialism can be especially useful during the most difficult periods of our lives. We can learn the most important lessons from emergencies. This is what happened to us and Eve.
When faced with a problem, we were so consumed with worry and stress that we could not function properly. We couldn’t make good decisions: fear and anxiety prevented us from seeing what was essential.
I tried to radically change my attitude to the situation. It was not easy, but in the end I came to the idea: this test is not happening with Eve, but for Eve. Not with our family, but for our family. As soon as we looked at it as a learning opportunity, our fortunes changed. The situation was the same, but we got out of the constant darkness and started laughing together again, going for walks, playing.
This cognitive change allowed my wife to distinguish among all possible solutions the one that was the main, correct one. She found a doctor with a reputation for getting to the bottom of things quickly. The main problem was that the nearest record to him was nine months away.
Anna, my wife, called the hospital and insisted, “If someone else cancels their appointment, I want you to call me right away. We will leave all our affairs and come.” So we managed to get to Dr. Sanger after a month, instead of eight to nine months, when it would have been too late.
On the day of the visit, the doctor was delayed for hours. I started to get frustrated, but my wife convinced me again: Sanger is clearly patient-centered. That’s how she saw the situation.
When the doctor finally arrived, he had a whole team of people with him. One assistant was filming, another was reading preliminary medical reports, and Sanger himself was completely focused on Eve. It seemed that nothing really existed for him except her.
The doctor gave our daughter a dopamine pill and told her to come back in an hour. When we came again, I saw no change in Eve. She was the same faded version of herself. But he saw something. Immediately he looked at us and said: I suggest immediate hospitalization of Eva and treatment of encephalitis, that is, inflammation of the brain.
The daughter was immediately hospitalized. Then I went back to the doctor and asked him what he saw. As it turned out, it was the speed of the blink of an eye. After the dopamine, she improved a little, blinking faster. It’s still hard for me to fathom how much my daughter’s life changed because of that moment.
Eva underwent treatment. There were complications, there were challenges, but now she is doing well again. The daughter returned to us.
Thanks to this situation, I became convinced that there are certain things and certain people that are tens, hundreds and thousands of times more important than everything else in life. Our life’s work is to wade through the noise and chaos and find these things, to “connect the dots.”
In the midst of this musing, I became friends with a man named Eric Newton, who recently became a guest on my podcast. Eric’s wife died of cancer. He wrote a story about the last six weeks of her life, when she suddenly went from being normally friendly with people to very deep.
She said, “What I regret is that I didn’t build deep enough relationships with the people who mattered to me.” Faced with the fact that life was almost over, she stopped swimming on a safe surface and allowed herself to be brave, frank, vulnerable.
According to Newton, during those six weeks, their relationship reached a level of intimacy that he could not have imagined before. Now he believes that the only thing that makes sense in the face of death is deep relationships with the people who matter most in your life.
I know that business leaders have a whole set of responsibilities. But my point is that you can make choices about the things and relationships that matter most. And remove everything that gets in the way.
The reigning world heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk prepared for the fight with Tyson Fury using the principles of essentialism. He traveled with the book to Saudi Arabia and talked about it after the fight: During training, essentialism helped him achieve the level of focus he needed to win.
This is further proof that essentialism matters most when the stakes are highest.
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