MINDSET ZONE

When we hear the words “mindset limitations” we often think about our beliefs, conscious or unconscious, that constrain the way we see, think, and feel the world around us. These beliefs affect our present reality and also impact what we can envision for the future and the possibilities we chose to explore. Often, we are not aware of these limitations. They are mindset blind spots and as such, they are hidden. Sometimes, others can see them, but we don't. It often takes many painful life circumstances to expose them and give us the impetus to change. Visual blind spots are great metaphors for our mindset limitations. When we are driving and look into the side-view mirrors, we know there is a blind spot that remains, a zone around the car that we have to turn our head to see. The eye blind spot is even more amazing. Our eyes have a natural blind spot, the area where the optic nerve exits the eye, that doesn’t have light receptors so, we cannot see any images that fall on that spot. When I first learned about the eye blind spot, I wondered why so many of us never become aware of it. We usually view with both eyes, so one eye sees the information that falls into the other eye's blind spot, and even when we look at something only with one eye, our brain fills in the missing information – our brain tricks us to see what is supposed to be there. Just google “blind spot test” to find easy-to-follow experiments that expose our visual blind spots. It’s truly awe-inspiring how our brain can fill in the information that’s supposed to be there. One of my biggest mindset limitations was the belief that one of the noblest goals in life was to pursue happiness. That was the goal I aspired to and was proud of. I consider myself an optimist by nature, always trying to see the silver lining in people and life circumstances. I focus on the positive, and wholeheartedly embrace the study of positive psychology, speaking about it, teaching it, even doing a podcast where most of the topics are about how to cultivate positivity. I only very recently realized my blind spot around the concept of pursuing happiness.  If I have this as a goal, by definition I'm always pursuing it, and therefore not enjoying, not being fully happy. This is a great strategy to keep detached from feelings, rationalizing everything, and being dissociated from the present moment. When I started to see my own blind spot, I started to see the possibility of choosing happiness at almost every step of the way. Happiness doesn't need to be a goal; it can be a way of being. Choosing to make lemonade out of lemons, adding some sugar (positivity), and enjoying drinking it! Yes, I was doing lemonade before, but not giving myself permission to flavor it or enjoy it. I started to understand why I admired people like Victor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, and the kids playing in the rumbles of a war-destroyed city. I used to ask myself how could they smile? Viktor Frankl survived the Nazi concentration camps, where his mother, father, brother, and wife were all killed. Afterward, he wrote “Man's Search for Meaning,” and created Logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy that is focused on the search for meaning. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Frankl’s grandson, Alexander Vesely, who describes him as a really interesting person, funny and witty, with a positive energy that would fill the room. I truly admire Viktor Frankl’s zest for life and his belief in the potential in us all. Nelson Mandela is another inspiring human being. He spent twenty-seven years in prison fighting apartheid in South Africa. He is known for winning the Nobel Peace Prize and for having a fantastic sense of humor. My own personal hero, my husband’s grandmother, Armen Melikian lived through the Armenia genocide in 1915–only she and her mother in her family of ten survived the killing and expulsion of the Armenian population from Turkey. She came to the United States in 1923, married, and endured the Great Depression with a young son. Only 4'10" in height, full of energy, and with a dynamic personality and biting sense of humor. On her 100th birthday, surrounded by family and friends, she grabbed the microphone and told one of her favorite jokes. All these amazing people had such difficult life circumstances, yet they seized every opportunity to enjoy living. I had to overcome two bouts with cancer to learn that pursuing happiness is a fallacy. During my first go-around with cancer, I was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, a rare form of cancer (representing 1 to 5% of all breast cancers) with a 5-year survival rate of 41%. Six years later, I’m healthy and strong and choosing to be happy. Grateful for the advances in medical treatments, I embraced my healing journey with all my strengths. At the time my mindset was, I can beat this with all my might, my strength, and determination. I came to understand, first-hand, what it is to fight cancer. I did it, I won the battle.  Two years later, when I was allowing myself to relax and start to enjoy life again, I found another cancer on my left breast. This time a more common type that represents 70 to 80% of all breast cancers, Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. I embraced my healing journey and treatments again, but my mindset had shifted. I realized that feeling betrayed by my body–and going to war against it–wasn’t the most effective way to heal it. I decided to embrace what was my current reality and treat my body like the amazing ally it was to help me get through to the other side….and perhaps most importantly I decided to stop the “When… Then…” cycles, I chose to learn how to flavor happiness. Even in the midst of cancer, I decided to make the best out of it. For instance, for the chemo, I requested to be seated in the treatment chair in front of the window with magnificent views of the Arizona desert. When all the food tasted like cardboard, I still set the table nicely to enjoy dinners with my family. We even created a ritual of sharing what we are grateful for that day before we start eating. Nowadays, when my 12 years old daughter’s best friend dines with us, my daughter loves to try to list as many thankfulness items as possible, and that truly makes my heart sing. The COVID19 pandemic has been an awakening to so many of us. Yes, some are still holding their breath waiting for life to go back to normal. Others dealt with “lockdowns” by communing with nature, rediscovering a latent creativity, writing that book, picking up that paintbrush, enjoying that favorite room in the house, or embracing extended time with family. Whatever your circumstances: What mindset limitations did these crazy times reveal to you? Were blind spots exposed to light? What can you learn about yourself, the ones around you, and the world? Can you train yourself to focus on the good stuff? Can you train yourself to enjoy, to flavor every bit of the good stuff? What strengths can you develop to help you be more resilient? What inspiring action can you take to be happier and live a more meaningful life? “Happiness doesn't need to be a goal; it can be a way of being.” Ana Melikian, Ph.D.

Life is two days, and the first we spend waking up. This phrase from a Portuguese song I loved to listen to in the 90s sums up one of my favorite mantras, and like any good chorus, it's worth repeating: Life is two days, and the first we spend waking up. When we become aware of this, what do we do? Do we finally express what we believe and start writing our own scripts, or do we  keep trying to meet other people's expectations? How can we live more fully and more positively  in this world? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself. I'm probably halfway through my journey; I feel alive, and awake, and I’m embracing the freedom of this constraint. What exactly do I mean? Well, at my age–roughly mid-life–I see a lot of people around me lamenting the lost day they spent “waking up.” They feel they’ve wasted time and they carry this attitude into their futures creating more of the same. If you have got one day left, are you going to waste it lamenting the day that is gone? What if you looked at having only one day as a constraint that brings freedom? Yes, constraints can bring freedom. If you’re in the productivity world, then you’ve probably heard about Parkinson's law, the idea that work expands to fill the resources available for its completion. We see this play out very clearly with deadlines. If the deadline is three weeks from now, we stretch out the work. If the deadline is three days from now, we get the project finished in that time frame. A very precise and clear time constraint can be a great antidote to procrastination, perfectionism, or paralysis by over-analysis. No more postponing it into the next day–we just get it done. No more unrealistic standards that keep being updated as soon as we almost reach them. No more overthinking everything, gather all possible information in the universe before you start to implement it. Deadlines are extremely effective because wanting to meet them forces us to manage our anxieties, plan our schedules accordingly, find the courage to do the work and push it out into the world. When we realize that we have spent half of our lives half-awake, we can choose to be more daring and use the limited time we have to do what really matters most. And yes, there are other constraints besides time – money, skills, materials, space, laws, geography, technology, health – and they also can be used to make things happen more effectively and creatively. As the saying goes, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Or limoncello :) In the corporate world, the Theory Of Constraints or TOC is a well-known management paradigm. It argues that any goal-oriented system has constraints that can be identified and used to improve the overall results. And, many would say that the underlying power of Theory Of Constraints flows from its ability to generate a strong focus on what really matters most. To get back to our lives, we can transform constraints into growth and freedom. Constraints don't necessarily limit us; in fact, they can expand possibilities. More often than not, the problem is not the constraint itself, it’s our reaction to the constraint that results in what seems like a contracted choice. That said, when we learn to change our mindsets around constraints, we can also learn to press the pause button, and choose our response more purposefully. As the quote that Stephen Covey attributes to Viktor Frankl, so well says: "In between stimulus and response there is a space, in that space lies our power to choose our response, in our response lies our growth and our freedom." Back to the chorus: Life is two days, and the first we spend waking up. If you are like me, maybe you wonder, I have had several awakenings in my life, then I find myself awakening again. Don't I ever learn? Be gentle with yourself. We are always learning and hopefully always awakening to new possibilities–new opportunities to press the pause button and choose growth and freedom. I like to see our continuous awakenings from the perspective of an ancient story called the Dichotomy paradox. This is one of Zeno's conundrum that goes something like this: Suppose you want to walk to the end of a path. Before you can get there, you must get halfway there. Before you can get halfway there, you must get a quarter of the way there. Before traveling a quarter, you must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on. This argument is called the "Dichotomy" because it involves repeatedly splitting a distance into two parts, and you can carry it on until the infinite and not moving at all. Thus this paradox led Zeno to argue that all motion must be an illusion. Is your head spinning a little? Good. That's what paradoxes do. Tons of philosophers, more clever and knowledgeable than I am, have engaged on this paradox, and trust me, their arguments would make your head spin even more. I like to apply the dichotomy argument differently. If life is two days, and the first we spend waking up, the next day can be split into two parts, allowing us time for a new awakening and time to apply what we learn and repeat this formula until our last breath. Why not? We are always awakening to new possibilities–new opportunities to press the pause button and choose our response more purposefully. Are you with me? Resource links: Zeno's paradoxes Theory of Constraints Parkinson’s Law: Get More Done by Giving Yourself Less Time to Do Things

All you need is love. You hear these words and you think of the famous Beatle's song. Relax, I will not start singing it. I have many talents but singing is not one of them. Yet I love to sing when I'm alone. It makes me feel alive and it can change my mood quickly. You probably have songs that make you smile, others that make you sad, others that energize you or relax you. Music is powerful, and often it affects us without our awareness. When we are watching a movie, we are not necessarily aware of the soundtrack but it totally makes the experience. Back in the day, I bought many movie soundtracks to replay some of the emotions and feelings of the movie. “Eye of the Tiger" from Rocky...can we even count how many workouts that song has helped? During my teens and twenties, I used to listen to music daily. I would wake up with my alarm radio synced to my favorite rock station. I would have music playing in the background as I was getting ready for the day, while driving, or relaxing. So often I danced or exercised to the sound of music. When my heart was broken I would cry listening to Sinead O’Connor’s "Nothing Compares to You" and bring myself back together again singing along at the top of my lungs (alone) to Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive." When my daughter was born, I rocked her to sleep to old lullabies and Portuguese folk songs that I didn’t even know I remembered. But, recently, I became aware that I don't listen to music that often anymore, and that made me sad. I don’t want to live my life like a movie without a soundtrack. I want the full experience. Music can make us feel alive. Music can help us heal our feelings, even our minds.  Music therapy, anyone? Music can lift us up when we need it most, it can energize us, help us process emotions, and yes, shift our mindsets too. After thinking about this for a while, I watched a TED talk about music and emotion through time, where Michael Tilson Thomas traces the development of music from ancient times until today, and he says something that really captured my imagination. I’m going to read from the transcript: “And the chords, it turned out, were capable of representing incredible varieties of emotions. And the basic chords were the ones we still have with us, the triads, either the major one, which we think is happy, or the minor one, which we perceive as sad. But what's the actual difference between these two chords? It's just these two notes in the middle. It's either E natural, and 659 vibrations per second, or E flat, at 622. So the big difference between human happiness and sadness? 37 freakin' vibrations.” End of quote. Small shift, big impact. So, lately, I started organizing playlists on Spotify. I have one titled “Memory lane” with songs that take me back in time, almost like a time machine. Another playlist is for bi-neural music like Hemi-Sync aimed to produce a state of coherence between the left and right brain hemispheres that we can use to facilitate deep relaxation, focused attention, deep sleep, meditation or other desired states. Or “Power songs” – my list of music to lift me up, songs from  Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” to “Firework” from Katy Perry, and “Happy” from Pharrell Williams. This playlist also includes a very special song I’ve created with an amazing singer-songwriter from Canada, Lowry. He has recorded 9 albums and along with hundreds of his own songs, has co-written hundreds of songs with other people, individually and in groups. Honestly, until I met him, I didn’t even think about the possibility of writing a song. I want my life to have a great soundtrack. Of course, we can select from thousands of great songs already out there in this universe, but there is something magical about the process of creating our own. I believe that at a certain age, we have to make a choice: Do we finally express what we believe and start writing our own scripts, or do we just keep going trying to meet other people’s expectations? For me that choice is clear, and I’m trying to walk my talk but, as you probably know, some days are harder than others. I get so caught up in the day-to-day I forget what it’s all for. I didn’t realize until I worked with Lowry that, I could write my own power song and play it whenever I need a reminder or a quick pick-me-up. Now I sing my PowerSong every morning – and anytime I want to re-energize and re-connect with my why. Singing is so physical. It gets me out of my head. It shifts my mindset and allows me to be more intentional, implementing, and enjoying the process too. As I promised, I’m not going to sing here, but I want to end today’s episode playing a version of my Power song titled “So lucky to be me” sang by Lowry himself. I hope this will inspire you to create your own playlist of songs that shift your mindset to expand possibilities.  Or maybe even hire Lowry to write one of your own. I’m brave enough to be the light, That sees the light in others. The sparkle that ignites the flame, so all of us can shine. From here to the horizon, I'm a beacon on the sea. I find join in every moment. I'm bright. I'm strong. I'm free. There's a wide world out there waiting! I'm so lucky to be me. Resource links: TED talk Music and Emotion Through Time - Michael Tilson Thomas Hemi-Sync.com More information about Lowry’s PowerSongs at PowerSongs.ca

Are negative emotions always bad? What are negative emotions? When something stirs us up in an unpleasant way, we can call it a negative emotion. We feel sad, fearful, mad. Let's think about situations that cause us to be fearful. Usually, it's something that can put us in danger. I remember many years ago, in a group adventure, we went rock rappelling. For those of you who don't know or who have never tried rock rappelling, you lower yourself down the side of a cliff using ropes. If done with care, it's quite safe. Anyway, we ended the day at this natural pool that you could jump into or rappel down to.    Oh, boy, when I looked downwards, I was afraid, and I asked myself: "Are you really sure you want to do this?" I understood the fear as self-preservation, I managed to rationalize it, and I jumped. It was terrific falling into the refreshing water–what a contrast between the fear and the joy! A radical emotional shift within seconds. Now let's consider a more common situation. If we are crossing a road, and we suddenly notice a car coming fast. We quickly react out of fear of being run over and bring ourselves to the safety of the sidewalk. We feel our hearts beating fast. We realize how close we've come to danger. We feel fear, a negative emotion that can be a good thing in this type of scenario, even a great thing because it allows our bodies to react quickly to save our lives. Yes, this is an example of how a negative emotion can be good. Fear is there to protect us from danger. The capacity to experience that emotion is there because it helped our ancestors to survive dangers. Negative emotions only become bad when we don't let them go. When we stay stuck in a negative emotional state, for instance, remaining all day long thinking about what could have been? Holding on to this kind of negativity is detrimental to us mentally and physically because we keep that state of high activation going without allowing our body to recover and relax. Consider another situation. Did you ever witness a kid being accused of something they didn't do? Something they consider an unjust accusation. Oh! They can get mad, even have an angry outburst, screaming, crying, kicking. Definitely not a pleasurable experience for anyone involved. Anger has that characteristic of energizing us to fight. For instance, if we witness someone we love (or even a stranger) being mistreated, we feel our heart racing, and we get in action mode to do something about it. In this case, anger can be a good thing. Of course, there are many occasions where anger can lead to awful consequences, such as violence, injuries, and harm. But this happens not because of the emotion itself. More often than not, it's because of how everyone involved reacts to their negative emotions. Let's consider yet another situation–sadness. When we lose a loved one, we feel sad. A totally normal emotion and I will argue, a healthy emotion that just shows how connected we are with significant others, and if those connections are broken, it hurts like hell. But it can also connect us to good memories of that relationship, with all we learn from that person, even energize our determination to keep their legacy alive. In that case, it can be a good thing too. My point is that negative emotions can be a good thing in certain circumstances. Negative emotions are part of our lives, and how we respond to them determines their goodness or badness. Toddlers wear their emotions on their skins. They go from laughing to crying in a New York minute. As we grow older, we can become so good at self-regulating our emotions that we become numb to feeling them. "Thick skin," we call it. But we can sweep too many emotions under the rug, and they will find ways to come out and cause trouble. Or we can reduce our emotional range, which once again can numb us and prevents us from feeling even the good things in our lives. This numbing can have dire consequences. Our bodies are wired for negative emotions. We're meant to feel them and quickly. It's like when we are eating and bite a hot spicy chili pepper. Oh, boy, we know what happened; we feel it in every cell in our body–well, at least in our mouth. Still, as human beings, we have this amazing capacity to numb ourselves to feel these strong emotions—quite incredible. The issue is that desensitization doesn't discriminate. It prevents us from perceiving the good stuff too. By nature, positive emotions are more subtle, like a nice meal with friends that we thoroughly enjoy but aren't totally aware of the bliss. If we are numbed, it much harder to feel the joy of the great things in our lives. We need to allow ourselves to feel the full spectrum of emotions. Can you imagine a good book without the emotional ups and downs? I don't want to imagine a good life without a wide breadth of emotions. Certainly, I don't want to stay stuck on the negative ones, and surely, I want to savor the positive emotions in my life. I want to be aware of my feelings. I want to be able to empathize with others. And I want to regulate my emotional state to choose my responses instead of just reacting to my emotions. What's more, I aspire to constructively manage all the feelings involved in my interpersonal relationships. Learning to embrace the full range of my emotions is a process, a journey of learning. I will fall, and I will get up again and again. And hopefully, like when I jumped into that pool in the river–and I allowed myself to embrace the fear–I will be rewarded by feeling stronger, freer, and more alive.

The power of restart! When your computer starts to misbehave or run slower, common advice is to shout it down and restart it. Many times we resist this advice. We have so much stuff open. We are afraid of missing something. It will take time. And we can go on and on with excuses. But we know that restart can be the most powerful action we can take. So, here I am restarting to record new episodes to the Mindset Zone podcast and rebroadcasting some of our most popular past content. Why did I take this long? What are my excuses? My business got very busy. I had to recover from cancer. We all had to learn how to cope with a pandemic. There are always good reasons. Yet, I'm so grateful for the reminders everywhere about the opportunities to start fresh: a New Year, a new month, a new week, a new day, a new hour, a new minute, a new breath. Why not? We can be equally great in coming up with excuses to restart now. So, what are you delaying to restart?

When I was preparing to interview Jordan Harbinger (now the host of The Jordan Harbinger Show, at the time the host of The Art of Charm podcast), I planned to focus this episode on overcoming blindspots. In fact, I begin by telling the story about my big blindspot in relation to the Top 50 iTunes podcast The Art of Charm that has more than 1.5 million downloads per month. Yet, the conversation with Jordan was so rich that I decided to rename the podcast. I changed it from "Overcoming Blindspots", to "Blindspots, First Impressions and People Skills." It’s about learning the art of charm with - the social dynamics expert and entrepreneur - Jordan Harbinger. We spoke about: My initial blindspot in regards to The Art of Charm podcast Importance of first impressions We can’t prevent people from judging us, yet, we have some control over first impressions How to manage how people perceive us The blank canvas analogy Importance of non-verbal communication Jordan’s blindspots Why Jordan decided to start his podcast more than a decade ago How Jordan learned how to master people skills Importance of the growth mindset The big takeaway is:You can learn people skills, even master them. Also, check:https://www.jordanharbinger.com/

I recorded this MINDSET ZONE episode, on the Fourth of July, Independence Day, in the US. We commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. This was when the American colonies declared themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, no longer part of the British Empire. Independence can be seen as self-government, self-determination, self-sufficiency, autonomy, and freedom. These are certainly inspiring values to live for. For my father, who passed away 6 years ago, independence was one of his core values. He raised me and always reminded me about the value of being independent. I’m grateful for this. Without doubt, being independent has been one guidepost I hold dear. Yet, I have to admit that when I hold this value above everything else, I limit my possibilities. Why? Because we can achieve much more through team work, than we can only by ourselves. Even in competitive individual sports such as running, swimming, tennis, the peak performers don’t do it alone, they have a team to support them. Steven R. Covey says it best, in his well-known book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: "On the maturity continuum dependence is the paradigm of you—you take care of me; you come through for me; you didn’t come through; I blame you for the results.Independence is the paradigm of I—I can do it; I am responsible; I am self-reliant; I can choose.Interdependence is the paradigm of we—we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together.Dependent people need others to get what they want.Independent people can get what they want through their own effort.Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success." Where do you place yourself on this continuum scale? After my thirties, and now in forties, I'm finally moving towards interdependence with my family and as an entrepreneur. This allows me to enjoy everyday life more and achieve better results. I thrive through Interdependence :) Love to read your comments.

In this episode, I had the pleasure to interview Monique Y. Wells. Monique is a productivity expert, and loves to coach women entrepreneurs who want their businesses to support their ideal lifestyles. Monique writes regularly for the Huffington Post. There she published recently a three-article series where she interviewed several entrepreneurs in the "expert arena” - coaches, consultants, authors, speakers, online marketers – about their experiences of six or seven figure business growth. This interview focused on mindset shifts around productivity, balance and entrepreneurship (namely what usually happen for the solo-preneurs to be able to survive the start-up phase, and grow their business to the six or seven figure mark.) In our conversation we spoke about: What Is Productivity?Productivity Is More Than Getting Things DoneNew Definition of BalanceProductivity Mindset Shifts in Entrepreneurship: From Start-Up to High 5 Figures From High 5 figures to 6 Figures, and Beyond "If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."-  Old African Proverb Links:Click here for Monique Y. Wells three-article series published on the Huffington Post: Learn more about Monique Y. Wells at MakingProductivityEasy.com

In episode 26 of the MINDSET ZONE podcast where the topic was “Do People Really Change?”, I spoke about a Greek philosopher called Heraclitus who said: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." Heraclitus believed everything is in constant flow, everything always changes. I thought about this when I watched a short video from Martha Beck, a popular life coach and author. She shared her strategy to deal with major life transitions. Martha begins with the perspective that “all life is transitory” and if we accept that, we can better deal with unexpected changes. When life throws us a curve ball, it’s vital to press the pause button, and be able to see the situation from a wider perspective – to see the big picture. This is easier said than done, and often we need support to be able to do this. Eagle View This can be called taking the eagle view. This birds eye view enables us to see the bigger picture and decide what’s really important. Yet, we have to return to the earth and like a small mouse, walk one step at a time. Mouse View As Martha Beck says, sometimes we have to reduce things to very small bites. One day at the time, in some cases, is too overwhelming. One minute at a time or even smaller bites - such as one breath at a time. Here is how Martha Beck explains it: [leadplayer_vid id="5587BDCE1EE81"] I love the Eagle and Mouse analogy, because really articulates the paradox we have to embrace to thrive and evolve in our lives. Yes. We have to be able to see the big picture. To be that eagle that soars above and sees with clarity where she want to go. Yet, we can not fly to our goal. We have to come down to earth and walk toward it. We often have to climb many hills, overcome many obstacle, one at a time, while we keep the bigger vision in our head and heart. In practical terms, we have to transition as needed between an eagle and a mouse. Love to hear your thoughts about this.

To conclude my series of podcast episodes about the importance of “Focusing”, I was honored to interview Greg McKeown, author of the New York Times Best Seller Book - Essentialism: the Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Greg has taught at companies that include Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Salesforce, and Pixar. He is also an amazing keynote speaker that I had the opportunity to meet at the ICON15– The InfusionSoft Annual Conference held in Phoenix, Arizona. Here are some of the topics we spoke about: What is “Essentialism”?Information and opinion overloadEmails in mobile devices as a distractionDiscern between the vital few and the trivial manyBecoming an essentialist is not an event, it’s a processImportance of pressing the pause buttonSmall changes produce big resultsThe power of a short breathing exerciseThe paradox of successEssentialism is not one more thingEssentialism is a journeyThree Simple Daily Practices to Become an Essentialist: Press the pause button - Breath slowly for 3 breaths Top Six Priorities - Focus on the first one: The Priority Write Down Five Successful Trade-offs and Celebrate that! Next steps: Listen to the book: EssentialismRead the book: Essentialism