Speakers

Greg McKeown, Anna McKeown 

Greg McKeown     

Let’s do some introductions. This is my wife Anna. And she’s, you know, uber talented. Amazing. We’ve been married 20 years. She’s put up with me that long, which is not effortless. And just wicked, super talented. But in addition to all of that, like just the wisest person I know never make a bad decision. If I’ve been able to run it pass down it and talk about it which convention might be exhausting for her. We’re raising our four children together. She’s an actress by training first year of our marriage, in fact was traveling around North America and with her is the actress and talented in that regard as well. Anyway, that is Anna. So nice. Thank you for joining me today.

Anna McKeown     

My pleasure and It’s a privilege to introduce this guy who I am guessing most of you have heard of. We’ve got author, New York Times bestselling author Greg McKeown. And it’s just been wonderful to be married to you for 20 years and to bounce off ideas off each other and to watch you work so hard, although that is probably not the right to work effortlessly. No, but to work hard at his research and writing and hope that these hope that tonight will be a pleasure for all of you.

Greg McKeown

So let’s just kick this off with a little poll question. I’ll pop up here in just a moment for you all. And just as I want you to just, you know, answer this question. Simple question. Do you ever feel as though you’re running faster, but not moving any closer to your goals? Yes or no to that? Do you ever feel that?

Anna McKeown     

Yes, I do.

Greg McKeown     

Before when we were talking about this, though, you said something different? You said, Yes. What did you say about this?

Anna McKeown     

I said, there are times I feel like I couldn’t work any harder. Or like I’m I’m running as fast as I can already. And I’m not getting any closer to my goals.

Greg McKeown     

Which I think is a slightly different, a slightly different thing. Liz down here answered yes, you can just vote right there in the actual question. In fact, let’s just get the answers up from this should pop up here in just a moment. Here we go. That’s good. It’s actually is it comforting that 97% said yes. Because if only 3% of people said yes, then you’re probably in the wrong place or something. Or I’ve just written an irrelevant book, which isn’t, which neither of those would be good.

97% they feel this. And I do as well we’ll get to that in a moment. So let’s ask one more question, second poll. Coming up here. You know what to do now? We’ve seen the answers here. But the poll will come up here. The things that ever seem harder than they used to be for you. Could be a whole variety of reasons. Take a moment, yes or no? I asked you this as well, before we started, what did you say to this? I said, do you ever feel things out of these for us that you are definitely yes.

Anna McKeown     

Yes, I was a definite yes. Because I mean, I’m going to be speaking from a mom’s point of view. And I don’t like the framing exactly of it being harder. But you bet after you know, having kids or multiple children and you know, you have your life before that’s can be very free. And you get to choose how you spend your time. And then you start a family and you have someone else that you’re now considering and then you have children.

Greg McKeown     

You said even getting ready in the morning is harder than it used to be. There’s always somebody wants something one of the children comes in or me like a fifth child. He needs these things as well.

Anna McKeown   

Yeah, so I’m going to start out by asking Greg some questions.

Greg McKeown     

Not being very good here and reading the answers here and so I won’t do that. I’ll answer your questions

Anna McKeown   

They’re really good though.

Greg McKeown     

Okay. We will come to these the I love these answers. Keep them coming in. We’ll get to them. Yes. What do you got for me?

Anna McKeown     

Well, can we talk about why you wrote effortless? I definitely have kind of my view of why you wrote effortless but um, but will you share with us all?

Greg McKeown     

Um, why do you think I wrote it? This isn’t actually my favorite question. But but it is an important question to get to the white. Why do you think?

Anna McKeown     

For me, you wrote it for me. You’ve seen we’ve been married 20 years, I’ve definitely had my I had my periods of feeling burnt out and feeling like, I can’t essentialize any further. I’m just I feel like I’m just doing what is essential and still feeling overwhelmed. And eventually, at times feeling burnt out.

Greg McKeown     

It wouldn’t be good that would if you if you if I’d come home, and I’d said, darling, here is a book I wrote for you. So that you won’t be so burned out all the time. I don’t know that that would have gone very well. I mean, there is some truth to it, though. Because, I mean, I actually think you are a better essentialist than I am. Actually, I don’t really think there’s much. You’re not even going to discuss that isn’t really a debating point. You are, you weigh up what we’re doing much more carefully and wisely. And so you know, you are, as I say, I think you’re a solid essentialist. And I’m still just an aspiring essentialist. But, but I would say I would say that despite that it is true that I saw you a  regularly, times when you would sort of be doing the right things, but still be burned out by the end of the day and then still carry on going. And we just not that great at really relaxing and having a time to end the day’s work. But I’m a little awkward going too far down this path because I really think yes, I mean, I wrote it for you. But I definitely also wrote it for me. Because I mean, even right, after essentialism came out, that changed everything. There was a lot of opportunity that came from that being you know, the father of essentialism, opened up a lot of opportunity and things I wanted to do. Traveling and a travel with one of the children most of the time and wanted to be with the children. I’ve been father of four children, that’s more essential than anything to do with essentialism. But that growing responsibilities, I really got to a point where I remember somebody, an entrepreneur said to me, well everyone’s heard this before, but they said, Oh, you know, essentialism is a bit like the big rocks theory, right? And we’ve all heard this. So this is where you’ve got a container. And if you put in the sand first, and then the small stones, and then the big rocks, and it doesn’t fit.

Anna McKeown     

Right, and these are symbolic.

Greg McKeown     

They’re symbolic, right? The small, you know, the big rocks are your health, your most important relationships, the most important essential projects you want to do. I mean, that’s kind of what the big rocks symbol. And then the alternative approach is if you put the big rocks in first and the small rocks, then the sand if you get the order, right, then it fits. And I have been longtime believer in that. I don’t think its especially bad way to think about essentialism. But where it shifted, for me, was when I started to sense a little bit cracks in the theory, where I said, Well, yeah, but that’s all very well. But what happens if you have just too many big rocks? And you can see that visually, if you Okay, eagerly, I’m putting in the big rocks, this is all going to work, but it doesn’t work. Because you put the big rocks in, it still goes over the container. And that’s just the theory. Right? Okay, so maybe the theory does can’t work at every, you know, scenario, there’s an exception to it. But my life felt like an exception to it. And I started saying, Well, I’m more selective I’ve ever been. I’m trying to strip away the non-essential out of my life. And I’m certainly not saying I ever got that perfect, but, but I felt like I was making more progress than I’d ever made in it. And I still felt the responsibilities of growing. And so I found myself caught between what do you do, do you give up on the big rocks? Do you let go of essential things? What do you do, what’s the alternative? And in the midst of that, we don’t need to get all into it just now maybe. But in the midst of that, I get a phone call while I’m traveling. And it’s Jack on the phone, our son, and he’s on your phone, which grabbed my attention. He never calls on your phone, and he’s on video camera, which is also surprising. And he’s talking in his pale face and he’s just trying to explain what’s going on. And he even I hear you in the background saying turn around the camera and literally, he was going through a massive tonic clonic seizure. And I just thought in a sense just like that, that was just like the deal breaker is it like, what do you do now that you’ve suddenly got this great big rock? The crisis is added. I mean, adrenaline gets you through the first moments, the red eye flight, you know, back home to be here to try and support family and so on. But it just started, it sort of blew open the need for something more. When you’re dealing with a situation, when you’re dealing with life, you have essentials, but they themselves are too much. So I wrote it for you, I wrote it for me, but also, I wrote it for the essentialist tribe, which I sort of just have to assume is really, you know, that is who is here today. You are among the most interested in supporting, enthusiastic tribe of essentialism. And, and so I really wrote it for you. And it turns out to have been more timely than I could ever have imagined because of pandemic, that people are highly engaged. Yeah, focused on what matters. But still on the edge of burnout or way past it. That’s who essentialism is for. That is why, effortless. I wrote effortless. Don’t write two books with sound start with an E. I do need to make that mistake all the time. That’s why I wrote effortless. That’s the answer.

Anna McKeown     

Thank you. Can you tell us one or two ways that the effortless is working in our lives today? Especially during the pandemic or in regard to career, these things?

Greg McKeown     

Um, yeah, I mean, I mean, I’ve thought about various ways we’ve done this. I mean, I will tell you just right off the money just even this morning, you did something that really made me think that effortless was becoming a part of our vernacular and a lifestyle. And that was really why I was stressed about something. I don’t know what it was now. But I just said, Yeah, I’ve got this. Oh, I remember what it was now. But I’ve got this project. I’m trying to get it done. It’s really essential is really important, but I’m feeling a bit stressed out about it. And you said, you remember what you said?

Anna McKeown     

Oh, yeah, said how can you make this effortless? It’s really brilliant because I can just put it right back on him. So it’s actually a really, it’s a it’s a helpful paradigm shift?

Greg McKeown     

Well, that’s what it is, is if you can, it’s not like and I would hate for anyone to think that I think we think that our lives are now effortless. Everything is effortless. No, you if your life is effortless, you don’t need this book. You know, if your life is effortless, you don’t need to write this book. You write it, you pursue it, because life isn’t. And that’s, that’s why there’s a need for it. Because life is hard. And so now, but here’s the thing, is that there’s a tendency for us to make essential projects, essential work, essential responsibilities, harder than they need to be, more complex than they need to be. And so and the reason we do that, I think is because we’re asking questions that other people put in our heads, like other paradigms, ways of thinking like, well, the more important thing is, the harder it has to be. Right like that. That’s a one idea that’s back there. One question, were sort of asking, Well, if I want better results, then how can I work harder at them? And so asking a new question, like you did with me this morning, when you just introduced the question you you’re sending  like a new question into the back of your mind into the Google of your brain and it starts looking for answers as soon as you asked it. Suddenly moment I’m like, I’m not sure quite but oh, here’s an idea. Oh, I could involve this person. They could help me to do it. What if I didn’t have the big perfectionist view I have of this project where I need it to be a 30-page project. What if it’s a four-page project? What if I can just you know sit down and just work on it a little bit right now and not worry about I need to find a whole day to work on it. And so I like not be so perfectionist, overthinking overworking, overdoing in my thought about it, suddenly it became easier.

Anna McKeown     

Yeah. It reminds me of someone I really admire. He was he was my brother’s Scoutmaster for many years. And I ran into him later and we had young kids and he just he just had great kids and was a great person and, like, what’s the best advice that you know you’ve ever been given? Or, you know, you feel like is the is the best advice you’ve ever given? And he said, never force anything. And I have pondered that little saying so many times in my life because I have found so many times when I’m trying to force something and inevitably breaks even like the actual physical thing will break or the relationship will break or whatever you know, I’m involved with and so I feel like effortless is an answer to the tendency and the impulse to try and force our force those important things in our life to work or to, you know, to get it all done in that forceful way. It’s a, you know, it’s a paradigm shift like you’re saying, of, yep, thinking differently about it.

Greg McKeown     

I think that story, actually, I haven’t thought about that in a while. But I feel like in a sense, that was one of the very early seeds for effortless, is just that inverted thought, just don’t force anything. If you’re forcing something, you just stop doing that, find a different way to do it. Now, I’m riffing on that a bit. But I just had a conversation just yesterday with the special ops soldier, right? And you’ve been in military for years. He’s, he’s out now he’s transitioned out of it back into civilian life. And we’re talking about this. I mean, you think about anywhere, that would be more scripted, in, you know, literally the phrase, embrace the suck, do the hardest thing. I mean, like that, that is a soldier’s life. And he’d raised into these elite ranks of the special ops. And so we’re talking about this, like, when is working harder the answer? And when is asking, Is there an effortless way the answer? Because both have their place. And he shared this story, he said one time. He’s deployed into Iraq and Afghanistan. And he’s often now in a situation where they need to their team needs to get in through a metal door. And they, what they normally do is they put explosives on the hinges, and they just blow like, like a hole in the wall. And in a sense, that’s effective. And then you can get in, but there are like high costs to it too. One is the noise that suddenly everyone in the neighborhood, people that might not want you to be there, suddenly a drawn attention is brought to you. There’s the damage to the actual property, it’s not ideal for anybody. There’s the risk involved, that people can get hurt inside or the soldiers themselves. So there’s all of this going on, right? This is the this is the unintended consequence of that approach. And instead, on his team, one of his other members on his team was the son of a carpenter. And he said, Look, if you could just get me a little hydraulic drill, I could just get these hinges off in like half a second with no damage to anybody or anything. And we can go in there. And so that’s just like a tiny illustration of what we’re talking about here. But just asking the question, is there a different way to do it? Is there a more effortless way to approach this is a question that, I mean, I don’t know how many hundreds of times now, I’ve asked that question now that sort of have it in our repertoire. But it’s still not enough times. Because it’s like, just like today. And yesterday, literally probably every day, you asked me that question right now. And I asked myself often, and this is one of the simplest things that I think people can do to apply effortless.

Anna McKeown     

I love it. I love love. Love it. All right, I’m gonna ask you another question. Now you’re ready? Tell me some maybe that’s really hard for you, that you’re still working on to make effortless?

Greg McKeown     

When I think about that, when you ask that question, just now I think there’s a lot of things. I mean, even one thing does this doesn’t sound much. But just even playing tennis with my son, Jack’s like all into that right now suddenly enthusiastic about it comes to ask me about it pretty much multiple times a day now, which I want. It’s not like I don’t resent most of the time. I don’t resent how persistent he is. Because like, that’s what you want from your teenage son is that he wants to spend time with you wants to play wants to go do tennis, and it can it’s a good the right problem to have. But it’s still a problem, if it just creates stress for me, stress for him. And I did think today about this, like, how can we just make this effortless? You want to do it and it’s essential so it fits the right things. But how can we do it in the right way so it’s just easier for everyone. So that was one of the things that I think the only thing we really need to do. So only thing because it’s been there are multiple steps, this is just set, put it on the calendar, right actually time block it so he knows when he can expect it. Probably on the days he isn’t going to, you know, going to play tennis at the, you know, the community center, maybe on the other on the other days, but set a time. And to do that, you and I need to have a proper calendar meeting every week. So that’s that that those, those are the things that if we did those two things, yeah, then it would be it would become effortless. Yeah. And that would be better for everyone involved, because the task is still the same, the output still the same, but you just put in way less effort, emotional. You know, effort is mental exertion. And we want as little mental exertion as possible to achieve a thing so that you free up mental capacity for the next thing that you want to work on and make progress on.

Anna McKeown     

it helps Jack to not, you know, feel like he’s interrupting and to have something he can count on. So it’s a win win. Definitely, if we can get that.

Greg McKeown     

Yes, it becomes easier and actually a better result. Yeah. Because instead of it feeling like yes, you finally do it but there were some sort of withdrawals along the way for everyone involved. You get a you get the thing done. And it was better on the relationship in the journey. So anyway, that’s one thing that comes to mind.

Anna McKeown     

All right. Well, if you were to leave this group with one parting word, what would what is one thing, you’d encourage others to try to make, to try doing to make more essential activities, let’s say it more enjoyable?

Greg McKeown   

There’s a lot of people who separate what is like, the work from the stuff that’s fun and playful and you’re enjoying, and they start to really think about it as different.  There’s hard work, doing the essential things and then there’s the sort of the trivial stuff that’s easy and fun. Work hard. Play hard is two different worlds. But I think there is a lot of power in trying to take the things that are important but could be can feel like drudgery and actually marry them with things that are enjoyable that you do anyway that you enjoy doing. I think of a success story. There are loads of failure stories in my life and all lives. But I think there’s one that was actually pretty interesting. We have a pretty good ritual around eating dinner ever. Pretty much every night. Not every night but pretty well. And we’ll do things like, you know, we’ll toast each other at the beginning of the meal, like actually like what’s gone, right. And we’ll try and make it as positive as we can, which I think is important with for teenagers at home, and I think that goes, you know, sometimes better than others. But I think that’s a pretty positive ritual. The challenge was after the meal was done, and you have the inevitable dinner cleanup, which like basic, nobody wants to do that. So it’s important it’s a something is maintenance item. If you don’t do it, you have problems. So you, you know, you need to get it done. But what would happen is they would just be like gone.

Anna McKeown     

Yeah, it was amazing. They are so skilled that just disappearing.

Greg McKeown     

Quietly like, what’s the word I’m looking for, like ninjas, something they would just like, it would just gone. And any like, what has happened is like a cat and mouse game, bring them back? Oh, no, Dad, I’m doing homework. On that seems reasonable. You know, I’m going to the bathroom. Okay, we go argue with that. And so I was like, Okay, how do we make it effortless?  And so what do we do? Well, we divided up the responsibilities. Actually, like nothing complicated. He just like sharpies.

Anna McKeown   

It’s the same thing every night. Same thing every night. So you don’t have to rethink, reevaluate, reassign, etc.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah, exactly. We like made it pretty fair between everybody

Anna McKeown   

Everybody was happy.

Greg McKeown     

We trained on it, you know, like, again next night, let’s read it again, like several days in a row, reading through it, making sure everyone understands what we’re doing, why we’re doing this this way,

Anna McKeown   

What a wiped off counter really looks like.

Greg McKeown     

Exactly. And then, and then like the day arrives, we’re going to do this for real. And let me just tell you what happened. I mean, it was so great. It was nothing. That’s what happened. Gone, everyone was gone exactly Ninja, you know, experiences back, and all gone again. And I’m like this, this is not work at all, like total fail. And that’s how it was until eldest Grace added. She took the fun thing and put it into what had been the drudgery before and made it into a ritual you just put on like karaoke.

Anna McKeown     

She had playlists, like, cool playlists that she enjoyed. And she started playing her playlists of music.

Greg McKeown     

And some of them were like, just Disney tracks too, but they’re like the real singalong Disney tracks, they don’t sound like you’re gonna sing them. But I am telling you when they went on at least does. And I reckon it’d be other people too. As soon as they go on the loud, you play it loud, and people start singing you get into out they are let it go. Exactly. And songs like that. And so and so once that happens, you start having this like a little party. And I know I’m not the only one. You know, we’re not the only family has ever done this. But it is an example. And so now In fact, you can go on Instagram, I shouldn’t say that. Now, we want to distract you in this moment. But you go on Instagram, because I thought no one’s gonna believe that this little party happens. It’s just true in book world, but not in real world. And so the other night, I wasn’t even helping them. But I could hear it happening. And I like quick ran out and just got like five seconds of them doing it just dancing away at all doing their jobs. They know what they’re doing. So the training still helped build it up and so on. But it was the tipping point of adding something joyful with something. And that’s where there’s 20 blocks of joy come in. So the idea, I started with that, and then I skipped it. But like, the idea is that you make a list. You did it we both did it. A list of what we did is 20 things you don’t have to do that many but 20 things that really bring us joy relaxation, that we you know, you have to think about it because sometimes

Anna McKeown   

I had to think about it, I had no idea.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah, we had to come up with things. And what you what you have, when you’re done with that is the things you would some of those things you would do anyway, you’re drawn to do them. And so you can start using them as like building blocks to combine with activities you’re not getting to that you wish you were. It’s like if you can find something that’s essential and enjoyable, then it does become, even if it’s not totally effortless, it is a lot easier. You start looking forward to doing it. Instead of always just Okay, we got to it’s drudgery. It’s hard, but it’s important. So we’re going to do it. Now. That’s all right, if you want to do it that way. But there’s other ways of doing it as well I think.

Anna McKeown     

Absolutely, and it’s never perfect, but we have lots of fun moments in the process.

Greg McKeown   

Yeah. And that’s and that’s the idea, isn’t it? Because it’s sort of lit Everything and lightens, lightens life’s inevitable burdens. And that’s what you’re what you’re really going for. Okay, here’s the bottom line. What is one thing that you really believe in, that’s a funny question, from the book Effortless. That implies that maybe you don’t really believe it or but that’s not what I’m saying. Just something that you go no, I really, this is for real. This works, you know, in your life from Effortless?

Anna McKeown     

Well, I believe that you can still achieve really great things in your life without burning yourself out. I feel like there’s, you know, maybe because there’s a lot of worship of heroics in our culture or, you know, something along those lines, where it’s like, the people we want to be like, or become have just, you know, got gotten so hard on, you know, or achieved the impossible or whatever.

Greg McKeown     

And I think it’s just heroics, I think what you just said to make sense, it’s a heroics if you get to worship heroics, it’s not that that’s totally bad. But if you start thinking that’s the only path to success is to do these crazy things, then you start to worship the heroics rather than achieving the thing some other way. Sorry I interrupted you.

Anna McKeown     

Did you know I, I welcome it. But um, yeah, but there is a lot of evidence out there, I feel like, you know, if we look around at the people in our lives, and the people who matter most to us that of achieving great things without burning out.

Greg McKeown     

I mean, that that’s it right there. I love that premise. I mean, that is the premise is it’s, it’s Did you, you don’t have to hold up burnout as a badge of honor. Just because occasionally you can point examples of people that achieved great things, by being burned out is in no way whatsoever, the same as saying the only way to achieve great things is to burn yourself out. That seems like the faultiest idea in my head right now that I’ve ever heard.

Anna McKeown     

Or that you have to sacrifice everything, you know, to, to just achieve that thing. Whereas with the effortless approach, if you make the most essential things effortless, then they’re still a part of your life. Even if you do you know, have you need to focus on school and do you know, a hard push for your final or something? You’re making the relationships in your life a priority and trying to make those as effortless as possible.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah, so you’re taking them seriously, you take responsibility for them, but you’re not adding to it, this burden from a false paradigm that says, if you if you’re not burned out, if you’re not exhausted, you’re not doing enough. You’re not doing it right. But here’s the thing. We’re all on the edge here. We’re all on the edge of it coming out. And I mostly want to thank you for being here for helping to get this thing going.

You are let me just say like this week, like you are the the I can’t remember the word now. I’m ruining everything. Now. The Well, you all have a tribe but but if you like to trim tap, that’s what I was. That’s what I was looking for. The trim tab is on these massive ships. The rudders are so large, they have a smaller rather, the moves the larger runner that moves the ship. And the name of that little smaller rather, you’ve heard this before is the trim tab. And, and you are trim tabs. And with essentialism, you would trim tabs. And now with effortless you trim tabs for this movement. So I just First of all, mostly, the big thing, the big message is thank you for being that thank you for sharing it. One of my favorite ideas is that a book is not an entirely dead thing that you that there’s a life in it. But it’s not a fully living thing either. Until you come along until a reader comes along. And they read it and they now the conversation starts to properly live. And then if you’re a trim tab where you actually share it with other people, there are people who have said, and this is not exaggeration, like there are people that have given the book to a dozen people to 100 people to I don’t want to overwhelming with it. But it’s overwhelmed me sometimes just to hear these things. And that’s what made the essentialism movement possible. And that’s exactly the same with effortless. So really, I suppose if I have a thing to ask tonight, is that you could just think about who are the people in your world who are highly engaged, but on the edge of exhaustion, who do you know that’s like that? And how can we help to make sure that they are reading effortless that they’re part of this, and we can actually do something about it because I’m serious about this part. I feel a serious responsibility. Because the world has a serious pain right now. If you if you pause, it’s like almost everybody’s in this category. So huge thank you to all of you. Thank you for all your engagement. Thank you to my beloved beautiful, amazing Anna.

Don’t you think we should do this more often with her. Should we have, and I would never, ever in a million years and certainly like I we’re gonna we’re gonna I want to be doing this. This is not her style at all, which is one of the reasons she’s so marvelous. But we’re so happy. Thank you for doing that. Thank you. And thank you to all of you.

Thank you very, very much. And we will we just, we’re just looking forward to a more effortless 2021 and a place that we can keep making a contribution. Anything to add to give us the final word.

Anna McKeown     

Final Word.

Greg McKeown   

Yeah, you did not want that.

Anna McKeown     

No, not at all. You’re so eloquent. No, thank you all. This has been such an enjoyable evening. Your comments have been so inspiring. And thanks for the question. Sorry, we didn’t get to more but thank you all.

Greg McKeown   

Yeah. And it went meaning to sound. We love you. We’re grateful for you, and we love you. And so I love you too.

Anna McKeown     

Take care everybody.

Greg McKeown   

Bye for now.

Greg McKeown

Credits:

  • Hosted by Greg McKeown
  • Produced by Greg McKeown Team
  • Executive Produced by Greg McKeown