PILLAR 15

Eating off One Plate at a Time

One of the misconceptions about personal development is that the more information you have, the better off you will be. That is a fallacy. In actuality, the more laser focused you are on certain information that complements where you want to go—even if it’s less information—the more successful you will be.

I cannot stress enough the importance of staying focused. In order to talk about staying focused and in position, let’s talk about something unexpected: food. I love food. There is nothing like the joy and satisfaction of a well-prepared meal. Let’s pretend that I love all types of foods so much that I decide to go to all of these restaurants on the same day. Soul, Mexican, Thai, Indian, Italian. I eat it all. The reality is that even if they are all five-star, high-quality restaurants, there is a 100 percent chance that I’m going to get sick. No matter how much I love it and want it, my body will start to reject the food. Even though the chefs at these restaurants may be at the top of their game and each dish is tastier than the last, I will never be able to enjoy all these restaurants in one day.

The same thing applies to learning new languages. If you’re struggling to learn five different languages at the exact same time, it’s because you’re focusing on too many languages and alphabets and vocabularies at once. Learn one well and then learn another and then another. The danger of learning too many things at one time leads to chaos because you aren’t able to give all your attention to one thing. You have to take time to digest it. You have to take time to appreciate it. To savor it. If you don’t, all that time and money you’ve spent will be wasted.

If you find yourself a victim to having too many self-development approaches, too many seminars, and too many voices in your head, I want you to slow down. Look down at your table. If you spend all your time and energy trying to absorb as many lessons as you can without actually being able to apply those lessons and see real change in your life, chances are, you are eating off too many plates at once. Take a step back and look at where you want to be in the moment and where you want to be in the near future. The rest can wait until you are able to focus on those two points.

For example, say you want to learn about leadership, how to invest in the stock market, how to manage employees, and how to grow your business. Of course, all of those are important, but only one is important now. If you are starting your own business, read about how to be a better CEO. Own that information while knowing that the next thing you need to know is how to manage your new employees. Your employees don’t care how you invest in the stock market. They don’t care how you are going to grow a business you just started. They care about your being the best CEO you can be and then being the best boss to them you can be. Sometimes you don’t even have to read an entire book to get what you need out of it. Pick and choose the chapters that apply, and go back to the other parts when you need them.

Holton Buggs has a unique way of looking at this idea. He told me once to think of a grocery store. When you go food shopping, you don’t go up and down the aisles, putting literally everything you see in your cart, right? That would be insane. You know what you want to eat, you make a list of what you need, and you buy just that and nothing else. You don’t get distracted and buy everything in the butcher’s window, every bag of chips, every type of fruit, and then every brand of pet food when you don’t even have a pet. Treat your mind like that grocery cart. Only take what you know you need, and leave everything else behind.

In order to really bring this visual home, I want you to imagine a funnel. Google the image if you have to. Anything that goes into the funnel has to complement your goal. Anything that has nothing to do with your goal cannot go into the funnel. If you stuff too many things in the narrow head of the funnel, it will get blocked. Not only will you not be able to do the things you need to do well, but you won’t even be able to do the extra things well either. It’s a lose-lose situation all around.

How can your goals make it through to the other side if the funnel is blocked? If your main goal is to be a writer but you also have a dog-walking business, a child-care business, and a meal-delivery service, I will tell you right now that you will never be a writer. The dogs, and the kids, and the food packages are clogging up your funnel. Not only will your writing career never take off, but you won’t even be able to focus on one job to make it lucrative. You will never be able to give any of these four things your everything because there are too many plates on your table. There are too many items in your grocery cart. There are too many things clogging your funnel.

Go inside your funnel, and pluck out anything that goes against your main goal. Go back to your lists from Pillars 5, 11, and 13. What foes might you have overlooked because they were disguised as productivity? If multiple businesses are pulling you out of position, they need to come out of the funnel. Anything that takes your goal out of your crosshairs needs to go. Take the temporary loss for the ultimate gain.

ACTION STEP

Write down everything you are doing that’s complementing where you want to go. If your goal is to master a certain skill, write down all the ways you are going to master that one skill. If your goal is to open a certain type of business, write down all the ways you are going to open that business.

The point of this exercise is to make your main goal your main source of income. Everything after that is extra. Say you want to become a master chef, for example, but your essential income is from a lawn mowing company. If this is the case, you now have to prioritize. If mowing lawns is taking away from becoming a chef, you have to eliminate that stream of income. “But, Johnny,” you may ask, “if the point of this book is to become a first-generation millionaire, why would I eliminate income?”

If your goal is to become a chef and you are unable to meet that goal because you are mowing lawns, then the lawn mowing is taking you away from your goal. It’s as simple as that. Remember, the very thing that is producing could be distracting you from your goal. Sometimes, you have to give up to get up. If you focus on becoming a chef, finding success in that field, and making the money you set out to make, you can then add the lawn mowing back in as an extra stream of income if you need to.

Every significant level of increase that I have ever accomplished in my life was directly attached to my ability to sacrifice and leave behind something that was holding me back in life. If I found I was eating off two plates at the same time, I pushed one plate aside and focused on the other with all my energy.

To this day, I eliminate any and everything that has the potential of hindering my progress as soon as I identify it as a foe to my goals. There are things in my life that I have eliminated for a season, but there are also things in my life that I have eliminated permanently, with zero chances of return. When I let those things go, I know that I am participating in my own rescue. In doing so, I know I am going from generational poverty to ultimately establishing myself as a first-generation millionaire.

PILLAR 15