The One Thing: The Surprising Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
By Gary Keller
ISBN 9781848549258

Started: May 28th, 2024 – Finished: June 8th, 2024
225 pages of content; 239 total

Why I choose to read this book?

It was a #1 bestseller in the self-help section for business topics for productivity, #1 best seller for Wallstreet Journal, and New York Times. The author is the CEO of Keller-Williams Realty, who brought the company – started as a small Texas based company – to an international renown real estate agency. It goes without saying he must be doing something right have something valuable to say about what worked for him. I took Mr. Santos advice and vowed to use my time in prison to acquire knowledge of better strategies for success than the limited ones that lead me a stray.

What I learned from reading this book?

“Everyone accepts that limited resources must be managed, yet we fail to recognize that Willpower is one of them. We act as though our supply of Willpower were endless.” pg 65

“Willpower has a limited battery life… because you have limited supply, each act of will creates a win-lose scenario where winning in an immediate situation through willpower makes you more likely to lose later because you have less of it.” pg 65

“Purpose, meaning, significance – these are what make a successful life… Extraordinary results require focused attention and time. Time on one thing means time away from another. This makes balance impossible.” pg 73

“In your efforts to attend to all things, everything gets shortchanged and nothing gets its due.” pg 74

“To achieve an extraordinary result you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands. This requires getting extremely out of balance in relation to all other work issues.” pg 81

“To be able to address your priorities outside of work, be clear about your most important work priority so you can get it done. Then go home and be clear about your priorities there so you can get back to work.” pg 82

“I discovered that we can’t manage time, and that the key to success isn’t in all the things we do but in the handful of things we do well.” pg 100

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one – Mark Twain.” pg 103

“What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” pg 106

“Obviously, you can drive yourself nuts analyzing every little aspect of everything start with the big stuff and see where it takes you.” pg 113

“Because I want my life to matter, I approached each area by doing what matters most in it.” pg 113

“What’s the one thing I can do today for [whatever you want] such that by doing it everything else will be easier or even unnecessary?” pg 117

“Until my ONE Thing is done – everything else is a distraction.” p 117

“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures – F.M. Alexander.” pg 119

“Gary, you’re smart. but people have lived before you. You’re not the first person to dream big, so you’d be wise to study what others have learned first and then build you actions on the back of their lessons.” pg 125

“The research and experience of others is the best place to start looking for your answer. ” pg 125

“Think big and specific”

“One of our biggest challenges is making sure our life’s purpose doesn’t become a ‘beggars bowl’, a bottomless pit of desire continually searching for the next thing that will make us happy. That’s a losing proposition.” pg 141

“There can only be ONE. Your most important priority is the ONE thing you can do right now that will help you achieve what matters most to you. Your top priority – you ONE THING.” pg 154

“Goal set to the now. Knowing your future goal is how you begin. Identifying the steps you need to accomplish along the way keeps your thinking clear while you uncover the right priority you need to accomplish now.” pg 155

“Put pen to paper. Write your goals down and keep them close.” pg 155

“Time blocking harnesses your energy and centers it on your most important work. It’s productivities greatest power tool. ” pg 159

“Resting is as important as working.” pg 164

“The key to making this work is to block time as early in your day as you possibly can. Give yourself 30 mins to an hour to take care of morning priority, then move to your one thing. My Recommendation is to block out 4 hours for your one thing a day.” pg 174

“Protect your time block at all costs.” pg 174

“The people who achieve extraordinary results don’t achieve them by working more hours. They achieve them by getting more done in the hours they work. Time blocking is one thing; productive time blocking is another.” pg 174

“Take ownership of your outcomes. If extraordinary results are what you want, being a victim won’t work. Change occurs only when you’re accountable. So stay out of the passenger seat and always choose the driver’s side.” pg 189

“Find a coach. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who achieves extraordinary results without one.” pg 189

“The art of saying yes is, by default, the art of saying no. Saying yes to everyone is the same as saying yes to nothing. ” pg 192

“Each additional obligation chips away at your effectiveness at everything you try. So the more things you do, the less successful you are at any one of them. .You can’t please everyone, so don’t try. In fact, when you try, the one person you absolutely won’t please is yourself.” pg 193

“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.” pg 207

How the book would contribute to my success upon release?

This book helps to remind me that when trying to master or learn to be successful at any ONE thing you have to dedicate time blocks to working on the one thing standing in your way to achieving whatever you are looking to achieve. Finding what that ONE THING is means choosing a big and specific goal and breaking it down into smaller more achievable task. While trying to rebuild my life on the outside I need to remember how to select my actions based on the one thing principle and not to feel guilty when I have to close myself off to distractions during my time blocks.

Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend
by Casey Tefertiller
ISBN: 0-471-28362-2 Copyright 1997

I began reading this book May 16th and finished it May 28th. 403 Pages with only 344 pages of content, the others were sources.

Why I chose to read this book?
The book is based in Tombstone, Arizona which is close to Phoenix where I’m being housed so I wanted to learn more about the history of Arizona and its orgins. I also wanted to understand some of the key players that helped shape the culture. Lastly, I enjoyed reading about the cattle trail rides and the pioneering of the west frontier thru other authors like Ralph Compton’s Trail series so the biography of the infamous Wyatt Earp seemed like an interesting read.

What I learned from reading this book?
“It is a classically American Story: The town complains about crime, the police overreact, and the citizenry turns against the law enforcers. It has been played out time and again in US history and the pattern keeps repeating” p. 161

“The Earps had their defenders, who made equally articulate arguments on the need to preserve order so that laws can thrive. This is one of human kinds oldest questions and has long inspired debate in many civilized societies. The sage of Wyatt Earp in Tombstone is engaging on several different levels. First and most importantly, is the overriding issue of law verus order, with the Earps defending public safety over legal principle. This is the question of how a just man responds to an unjust society, and it is a question that continued long after the gunfire ceased in the Arizona backcountry”. p 249

How the book would contribute to my success upon release?
This book served as a good way to view the honorable efforts of law enforcement and how sometimes when the laws in place don’t maintain order in a just and fair way tensions can get high and chaos will ensue. It taught me how important having respect fot the law is and being mindful of the need to obey laws and the judicial process to ensure power dont corrupt either sides – the enforcers or enforced.

Having integrity and honor even when no one is lookig holds great value because while you think no one is looking, someone is. Your reputation and consistency is a direct reflection and deflection of true charater interpretation. Karma or earned repect with a perpetuated success that follows.

I also learned that gambling is such that, taking changes – in the case of Wyatt and so many other gamblers – success comes and goes with gambling. Investing in long-term success has smaller immediate results but lasting consistency which steadily is more valuable than the violatility of taking chances – like selling drugs. We must know the value of risks versus rewards and knowing when something is too good to be true (in my case making a lot of quick money)to be aware – it most likely is not true (will not last for long periods of time). Knowing how to evaluate when a loss is a loss and to fold them. In the business term, a sunk cost – alludes to the fact that just because you have invested so much money in something that makes you want to spend more to realize it when is actuality it would accrue more additional debt trying to recover the losses.