The Vital Few

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon this presentation:

Darren Hardy on the Secrets of Super Achievers.

The premise of the video is simple: few things matter. In a world with so much noise, it can be hard to focus. Human as we are, insecurity consumes us and we want to be like ‘that guy.’ The guy who can give a fantastic speech, the one who brings the crazy ideas, the one who presents like it is second nature to him. It would be great to be all that. I wish we all could

But we cannot.

In trying to be good at all those things, we end up being excellent at nothing and average at many; something you have probably heard before. We try to split our time to allocate learning many skills and fulfilling many agendas, some not your own, in our quest for happiness. We become overwhelmed and dissatisfied with ourselves but often cannot realize we are overworking ourselves for less gain than our effort.

There is a simpler way

What is your end goal? What do you want to be able to do? 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now what should you look like?

When you arrive at that you ask yourself, what skills would get me there? You need to be really specific at this point because a lot of things may seem necessary but are not. They may be good to have, but can be done without.

After finding out what skills you need, ask yourself: In this particular skills, what would make all the difference? What are the key things I need to master that make all the difference.

For example:

If you want to become a successful entrepreneur, you could identify having knowledge on building startups as an essential skill. You then ask yourself: When it comes to building a successful start up, what three things make the most difference? It could be learning how to pitch in 20 seconds, understanding a problem well and telling a story to a customer.

You then hone these skills like never before. Stay on them and rest assured that they would take you to your goal. You do not even have to do this alone. You can get in touch with successful people and get their views.

What about the rest? Delegate. Get into the habit of delegating and outsourcing. You do not need to do everything. If you would not pay a person so much to do a task then you don’t need to do it yourself.

Track your progress as you go and watch how to make leaps in effectiveness by just focusing on the vital few.

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