Chapter 6.
Do the One Thing

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

—Peter F. Drucker

I can’t motivate others if I am not doing the right thing. And to keep myself in a relaxed and centered state, it’s important for me not to be scattered, distracted, or spread thin.

It’s important that I don’t race around thinking that I’ve got too much to do, because I don’t have too much to do. The truth is, there is only one thing to do, and that is the one thing I have chosen to do right now.

If I do that one thing as if it’s all I have to think about, it will be extremely well done and my relationship with any other person involved in that task will be better and more relaxed and full of trust than before.

A careful study of my past week shows me that I did a lot of things last week, and they all got done one thing at a time. In fact, even in my busiest time ever, I was only able to do one thing at a time, even though I stressed myself and other people out by always thinking of seven things at once so that when I talked to you all I could think about was the seven other people I needed to talk to. Sorry I seemed so disconnected to you when we talked. I apologize. And eventually all seven people felt that stress and that lack of attentiveness—that absolute lack of warmth.

A person who thinks that he or she should try to do more than one thing at a time produces fear, adrenaline, and anxiety in the human system, and others pick up on that. That does not warm people, and they eventually want to keep away from it, so your relationships suffer.

The mind entertains one thought at a time, and only one. Why fight it?

The greatest cause of feeling “swamped” and “overwhelmed” in life is caused by not being willing to slow down and embrace that one thing the mind can think of.

The greatest source of stress in the workplace is the mind’s attempt to carry many thoughts, many tasks, many future scenarios, many cares, many worries, and many concerns at once.

The mind can’t do that.

No mind can, not even Einstein’s mind could.

It can only carry one thing.

Therefore, from now on, I want to choose ONE THING from the list of things that need to be done, and then do that one thing as if that were the only thing. If it’s a phone call, then I need to slow down and relax and let myself be in a good, focused mood so that the phone call will be a complete experience, and the recipient and I can be upbeat afterward.

Recently we talked to Jason, a national sales manager who had just finished a brutal, long phone conference with his team. He spent the conference call nervously urging on his team to higher numbers and warning them that the team goals were not going to be met at the rate they were going. He had called the meeting because his own superiors had just called him to question him about his team’s poor performance.

Although Jason had been working 12-hour days, he felt he was falling behind in everything. On top of that, his superiors’ anxiety was then passed down to him. Because it was passed down into a hectic, disorganized mind, he freaked out and took it out on his team.

This is not motivation.

Motivation requires a calm, centered leader, focused on one thing, and only one thing.