You can do anything, but not everything

[celebra la vida]

You can do anything, but not everything

“You can do anything, but not everything.” ~ David Allen

Whenever I hear or read a quote that rings a bell with whatever I’m having problems with, it immediately feels like a revelation. I suddenly hear what I wish I have heard long before. But even if I did, would it ring a bell back then? Who knows. Either way, it arrived, and when it did – it was welcome and understood in my mind. The truth always rings a bell. We try to turn a blind eye to it and fool ourselves, but deep down we know it when we hear it.


David Allen, the guy who said “You can do anything, but not everything” is the author of the famous productivity book Getting Things Done, it’s a well known book for personal productivity, but to be honest, I didn’t find it useful. It gives you a lot of hacks on how you can do more things more efficiently, but it doesn’t focus you on the concept of doing less. I didn’t manage to finish reading this book because it just wasn’t for me. It didn’t ring a bell, not even close as “you can do anything, but not everything.”

But another thing did. Probably the 3 books that changed me the most in the past couple of months and helped me shift gears a bit, tough still not “curing” me from multi-tasking completely, but significantly improving my focus. The 3 books are The Power of Doing Less by Fergus O’Conell (a less known, brilliant little book), Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy, and The ONE Thing by Gary Keller. These 3 books talk about the same thing and they are all less known gems, especially The Power of Doing Less. Reading these three books changed my way of thinking more than any other “productivity” book out there. The best productivity is less productivity and more of doing what matters, usually just one thing. What led me to seek more productivity books and finally stumbling upon these 3, is the frustration I’ve had the last five years.

The last five years have been both a blessing and a struggle. A blessing because I enjoyed a lot, and a struggle because I’ve fought against myself, against nature. I can’t do more than one thing at a time, yet I tried to do everything – at the same time. I have laser like focus, when doing just one thing. As soon as it’s more than one, I’m lost. Ripped apart. Both in my mind and body. The body and mind are connected more than we can imagine. Both need to be fit for success. When one is weak, the other suffers too.

A few times in life I managed to grab my focus. And look at just One thing. Not three, two, five, just one. As a teen I got into my mind that I want to learn everything about women, psychology, attraction. And I did just that. Everything else in my life was irrelevant. For a few years that’s the only thing I thought about, until I reached a level that I was one hundred percent happy and satisfied with my ability to attract the opposite sex. I knew what to say, how to behave, actually, I didn’t need to act, I made myself into an attractive person by giving myself completely to it. When I was completely happy with this one aspect of my life, I moved to another. I was athletic, but skinny and weak. For over a year and a half, the only thing that mattered in my life was the gym. I didn’t think of anything else until I got the body I wanted. 24 hours a day I was thinking of bodybuilding. Nothing else mattered until I reached a level I was happy with. I was completely confident about myself physical and I could move on to something else. Money. I wanted to be ”loaded” with money. Actually, it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted freedom. Financial liberty, independence, to do what I want when I want it.

For the next year or two, nothing else existed in my life. I kept working out to maintain a level of fitness I needed – but not because of being fit, only because I knew that a healthy body was necessary for me to achieve my financial goals. Nothing else existed in my mind other than making money. I was just a kid. In my first year of university. I was 19 years old. And I started making a lot of money. Money kids my age could only dream of. Not millions. But more money than I needed. I had laser like focus. My progress was phenomenal, whenever I did only one thing and one alone. I dropped out of university, I couldn’t invest my time into something that ”might” bring me money sometime in the future, the kind of money I was already making without a degree of any kind. I thought I was a genius. What’s next? I look great, I’m super-confident, and I can do whatever I want since I’m financially independent and free. I can live anywhere I want too.

What do you do with this kind of freedom? What’s next? When at a young age, thanks to laser like focus, you achieve so much. When you have definiteness of purpose. When clarity is in front of you, you get to where you want. You don’t waste your time on anything else, because you know exactly what you want and you visualize yourself constantly at your destination.

The reason I achieved everything I wanted is because I did just one thing, not everything. Whenever you try to do ”everything” it is because you are not sure about what you want. What you want is not crystal clear to you, deep down, you’re not sure. I wanted millions – at least that’s what I thought. But I wasn’t ready for them. I felt bad. Do I actually deserve this much money? I went from arrogance to questioning my achievements, which were well deserved, I just didn’t know it then. How do I shoot higher than this? Where do I go from here? Things like this kept going in my mind.

I felt a bit lonely. I wasn’t quite sure how to behave with my sudden rise from my wish to my new reality. Now that I had all this freedom, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I thought I wanted millions, but what I truly wanted was just freedom. I didn’t need millions for that, I needed a constant stream of income that’s enough to enable me a free lifestyle, that’s what I wanted deep down and that’s what I achieved. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. Now that I had all this freedom, so many opportunities – I wanted to do everything. At once.

And that’s where things started going downhill. You feel like you can do anything and everything, so you go out there and try to conquer the world, all at once. I tried to ”diversify” and invested my time in a bunch of new projects that didn’t lead my far. I kept building several other businesses at the same time, some that had nothing do to with my strengths. I spread myself and my concentration. I moved to the other side of the world to learn one of the world’s hardest languages. And feeling inadequate without a university degree, I decided to go back to school ”just in case” so I have a plan B… just in case my business fails, for some reason.

You should never have a Plan B. The problem with a Plan B is that it diverts your focus from Plan A. I started worrying about things like ”what if my business falls apart out of a sudden…” and all these negative thoughts kept coming to my mind. Instead of thinking of growth I thought of stability. Now I started investing all my money, time and energy into Plan B’s, several. College, languages, new business ideas. Because of my success, everyone wanted to work with me. Some of my new projects worked out, some didn’t, either way, they all took so much time and energy. This all took a big toll on me. I started failing, more and more. Stagnating, ripped apart. I felt worse and worse. I was making progress in different areas, but too small to be significant enough. I felt as if I was slowly suffocating. Maybe I’m not a wunderkind after all. Maybe I was just lucky.

My health was getting worse. I was eating more and more junk food to fight the stress. I got lazy. Negative. Depressed. I was continually looking for ways to be more productive, maybe I’m doing something wrong. I’m mismanaging my money, or time. Or the people I work with. I should be more disciplined, I thought. I kept blaming myself. I’ve read countless more books. Nothing helped. I knew I bit off more than I could chew, but am I not superman? Am I not the best, the smartest?

Deep down I knew what I had to do. But I went too far. How can I go back now? How can I turn the table, change my direction? Get back on the fast track? I wasn’t doing bad. I just wasn’t doing good enough. I felt like I’m standing still. Time is passing. People I left in the dust, catching up. What’s wrong with me?

I knew what I needed to do, but I couldn’t find the courage. My confidence left me. Being the guy that was is just such a pain. I felt like I left myself down and all my efforts to lift myself up were fruitless. I couldn’t lie to myself. Who are you kidding? Bandaids are not the solution.

Einstein said that insanity is when you keep doing the same stuff but expect to get a different result. That’s what I was doing. The same shit, just different packaging. I tried to run faster on the wrong track. However fast I ran, I couldn’t figure that I was running in the wrong direction. ”When you’re not sure where you’re going – any road will get you there.”

Years passed. Then I read this quote somewhere… ”You can be anything, but not everything.” That felt just right. All my plan B’s were ripping me apart. The only thing that could help was a radical change in direction. Not another bandaid. Radical. I kept running into interesting books like The Power of Less that made me realize deeper how much tryting to do more was costing me. I was doing everything except what I was supposed to be doing. This what I’m doing right now. Writing.

When you are valuable, the most important thing you need to protect is your time and energy. The word ”No” is the word you’re missing most. You want to help everyone, you want to do everything, you are a selfless hero. In the end, everyone profits but you. Unfortunately, your good deeds are fast forgotten. Stop trying to please everyone. Be brutally radical. Say no.

I’m not saying you need to be an asshole to succeed, you don’t, but you have to be selfish, at least a bit. The hardest lesson for me was learning to say no. Not just to others. But to me.

Some people’s biggest problem is that they have no ideas. Other people, probably you, because you’re reading this… is that you have too many ideas. You want to do all of them. But you overestimate your capabilities. Everything you want to do will probably take 3 times as much time and will cost two times as much. You are a positive person, and positive people think unrealistically. Ideas are everywhere around you, that’s not the problem. The problem is execution. Getting it done. And the best way to protect yourself, from yourself, is to have fewer ideas and to focus all of your energy on what you are doing right now. The opportunity you have right now is your best opportunity. You are sitting on a gold mine and you’re wondering what other thing you could be doing. Distractions are everywhere, finding for your attention. And they’ll take it – if you let them.

It took me years to get back on the right path. And I’m still trying to find it. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t get the bullshit idea in your head that success is hard. It’s not. Success is easy if you are doing things right. Success doesn’t have to be a struggle. The mainstream idea is that you have to work 20 hours a day. Not true. You don’t. 2 hours per day on the rigth track will get you way further than 20 hours a day on the wrong track and the wrong tasks. Of course you have to work hard, but the idea that time spend being busy at work equals productivity is a lie.

Don’t buy into it. Deep down you know what you have to do. You’re just afraid of what will happen once you get there. You don’t think you deserve it. You’re not sure if you’ll be able to handle it. You’re not sure how other people will accept your success. You keep sabotaging yourself like a masochist.

The truth is that you should keep all your eggs in one basket. And then protect that basket and put more eggs in it. It’s much easier to put your eggs in one basket and take care of it than carry around a bunch of baskets with fewer eggs. You will fall. Hard. Diversification is a myth. Anyone that achieved anything did it by focusing on just one thing. They diversified only once they already got to the absolute top of whatever they are working on. That’s when they moved into other fields, and those moves where within the same field – something they could connect with whatever they were working on before. It wasn’t a diametrically opposite field. When a successful football player finishes his career, if he’s smart, he stays in football. He becomes a coach, or a manager, or invests in young talent, or sells players. He doesn’t go into politics or IT.

”You can do anything”… anything you want, you can achieve. If you put your mind to it and keep hammering on it until the end. ”but not everything…” as soon as you start on too many things, you start falling apart. I’ve seen this with my own eyes hundreds of times. Not only on my own example, but on people around me. Unfortunately, we like to make the same mistake, several times, before we learn our lesson. And even then, we forget quickly. This all comes because of lack of clarity of knowing exactly what you want.

You’ll never be able to do everything. Your endless to do list will never be complete and you’ll never be able to clean it up as fast as new things come in. You don’t need better time management. You need less management by saying no to more. Accept that you’ll never have the time to do everything. You have to make priorities and simply reject the rest. Otherwise you’ll never get to wherever you want to get.

The funny thing is, the world will forgive you. When you shine at one thing so brightly, all that you do wrong will be forgiven and forgotten because it is out of focus. All else you do will also be much easier once you shine at that one thing. Know something, one thing, and be the best at it. Have it as your characteristic. Be known for it. Make it your life. And suddenly everything gets better.

Money is just a byproduct of whatever value you are producing. When just focusing on the money, you don’t produce value. You’re not focused on the value that you can later exchange for money. Years ago I knew this, when I knew much less. That’s why I succeeded. Then when I wanted to do everything, I ended up with less and less, even though I felt I was working more, and more, and more.

When you are the best at one thing, people respect you more. You respect yourself more. You are more confident. And everything goes smoothly. The world opens its doors for you. The momentum you get increases. It’s the rule of life, when you have, you get more, and more. Everything works in your favor. That’s why the rich get richer, as money sticks to money. The fat get fatter because they have less energy, they get tired faster, and this makes them even more lazy with less willpower to do anything. The fit get fitter because they exercise more and more, their body demands it from them. And all of this is easy if you make it a habit.

To get everything you truly want, you can’t do everything. You have to do just one thing, and have the confidence to push it till the end. You have to be strong enough to stop yourself from doing more. And the best way to do that is to never being with things in the first place. Once you begin, you feel an obligation to push it through, then midway you realize you overestimated your capacity and feel frustrated.

Figure out what’s your one thing and stick to it. Don’t do anything else until you get to the absolute top of your field. It may take you ten years. Often less. But still, probably ten years if you want to be the best in whatever you’re doing.

See you there.