Hey friends,

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I just failed to stick with my newsletter schedule. I promised to share one newsletter a week, but there was none last week. Why?

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A lot of things have been happening in life. I’ve been systematically doing the newsletter-sharing process on the weekends. Last weekend I was hosting an event in Lapland and could not find the time.

 

I find not having time a lousy excuse, and thus breaking a promise, functioned as a good reminder of how my doing is structured.

 

While this happened, I’ve been consuming two exciting books that fit the scope:

1. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

2. Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: Your Foundation for Successful Leadership by John C. Maxwell

 

Essentialism in this context is like the wakeup and boils down answers to questions such as:

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Have you ever:

• found yourself stretched too thin?

• simultaneously felt overworked and underutilized?

• felt busy but not productive?

• felt like your time is constantly being hijacked by other people’s agendas?

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Good Leaders Ask Great Questions, on the other hand, teaches you to question everything.

 

Why am I stretched too thin? Why didn’t I get a newsletter out last week?

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In a world full of opportunities and choices, we must be able to question what is essential for our happiness. We must be able to make decisions we can stick to, which requires trust. Trust in our process.

 

I’ve learned the past week that you must play the why game with each decision you make. With this, I mean asking Why until you come to the core of “Why do I choose to do this?”.

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You can’t do it all, so you must choose some things to focus on if you

want to succeed.

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Why am I doing a newsletter?

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I would have given you a fluffy answer a week ago – thus the fluffy result.

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Now I have played around with it, and now I can answer WHY it is essential to my life:

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1. It teaches me evergreen skills: communication and writing

2. It forces me to reflect

3. It trains me consistency

4. It keeps me engaged with those who care to listen

 

There are 500 of you following this journey weekly, and 70% of you read this newsletter every week.

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That’s validation enough. Something here interests me. In addition to that, I grow while doing it.

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All this sums up the essentialism method:

1. Explore and evaluate: Try different things and ask why?

2. Eliminate: Remove the fluff and doubt.

3. Execute: Walk the talk. If you miss once, life happens. If you miss twice, there is no way back.

 

Be aware. Keep learning. Focus. Put what you know to practice.

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Don’t take anything as granted. There is always a reason. Figure it out.

 

That’s the past two weeks of my life in a nutshell.

 

Cheers,

 

Ronny Eriksson