The Essentialism Movement with Greg McKeown Author of "Essentialism" and Founder of ThisInc.co

Greg McKeown is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less." Many past interviewees including Brian Kurtz tout this as one of their favorite books of all time. Just to demonstrate the effect your message has on serious entrepreneurs....I spoke to brian who helped Boardroom to grow to $150 million company and he said he felt like a schoolgirl when he met you at Genius network event. I am in his mastermind where he gave your book to everyone and said he has bought over 100 copies to give out. Greg has spoken at companies including Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Pixar, and Salesforce.com, just to name a few.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [0:38] Jeremy’s introduction of Greg McKeown, author of “Essentialism.”
• [2:36] Why do some people break through to the next level and some don’t?
• [16:00] How Greg’s experience of a random encounter with the word “IF” led him toward essentialist thinking.
• [26:02] How can kids apply essentialism in the right and balanced way?
• [33:14] How Greg decided on the name of the movement (essentialism).
• [39:00] The importance of keeping to essentialist priorities in relation to the family.
• [44:10] A powerful lesson from Stephen R. Covey’s habits that leveraged his time with his children and family.

In this episode…

Greg McKeown is one of the primary figures at the forefront of a fairly new movement known as “essentialism.” It’s a focus on boiling life down to the most important things, the most essential things so that life is lived for what really matters. HIs book, “Essentialism” has led the way in that effort.

Some of the things that Greg shares in this conversation are the basic understanding of what essentialism is and why it’s important, the gap between his own activity and the things he really wants to contribute to the world, the pain and problem of the moment to moment existence we typically live, the power of gratitude, how the essentialism movement began in a random encounter with the word “IF,” and moving into his own movement of essentialism.

Jeremy dives deep into the concept by asking Greg to unpack the best ways to teach children about essentialism, how can they understand the power of their own ability to choose, but also know the responsibility of making right choices and using resources wisely and well. Greg responds with a great story about his children, lego toys, and helping them to find their essential values in life. This point alone is worth you listening to this fascinating conversation.

How does a widespread, world-changing movement like essentialism get started, and how does it spread to be such a powerful influence? How does one man quit law school and get to work building the concepts and infrastructure to spread the message effectively and powerfully? That’s the story you’re going to hear from Greg McKeown on this episode of Inspired Insider. He shares his thoughts about naming the movement and the power of words for books, movements, and products, and what he hopes to see come of his efforts on an even broader scale.

Resources and People Mentioned on this episode

• Greg’s website
• Greg’s BOOK: Essentialism
• www.EssentialLive.tv
• www.ThisInc.co
• Jim Collins
• Dan Kuscell
• Genius Network
• Derek Sievers’ blog post about, “No more yes, it’s ‘HELL YEAH!’”
• Shawn Venderhoven
• The Race to Nowhere
• Jim Sheils episode on Inspired Insider
• BOOK: The Opposite of Spoiled
• Derek Sievers
• Malcolm Gladwell
• Michael Phelps
• Bob Bowman
• Stephen R. Covey