Tales Of “Just One Thing” Success

For fun, I thought I’d share a little more about how I came to be such a big fan of the just-one-thing strategy.

First, I can’t help but post this quote from mega-entrepreneur Dan Kennedy, mentioned in the BYMB newsletter this week (are you signed up?). It comes from his book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction:

“Finally, let me reveal one of my own, personal ’secrets of success.’ It is a daily discipline I have adhered to for more than 30 years. I’d wager I’ve neglected it less than 30 days out of the 30 years. I’ve adhered to it 10,920 out of 10,950 days. Every day, no matter what else I am doing or must do that day, even if in a full day of consulting, traveling across country, or on vacation, I still do one thing, if only one thing, one thing intended to ‘prime my pump’ to create future business for myself or my companies. It may be a small thing: tearing a magazine article that should interest one of my clients, scrawling a note on it and mailing it. It may be answering one item of correspondence, getting one fax sent, identifying a new, potentially useful contact, jotting a note, or sending a book. But no day passes without me doing at least one such thing. Although it is no longer required, it has been especially important to me over the years because a lot of my income is derived from delivery of services, such as speaking, consulting, coaching and advertising copywriting; so, in a way, I must sell ‘it’ and make ‘it.’ Most professionals stop selling while they’re delivering, so they have dry spells, roller coaster ups and downs. I have had more demand than supply of me and waiting lists of clients for many years because of my daily discipline of doing at least one proactive thing to attract business every single day.”

I did not learn this strategy from Dan Kennedy. I discovered “just one thing” back in 1994.

It was my last semester at Trinity College. Like many college seniors, my swan song came in the form of the dreaded senior thesis.

I can’t remember now how I hit on the strategy of doing just one thing, no matter how small, each and every day to get the thesis done. I’d like to think it was my own idea. Maybe I’d thought of it myself, but it was definitely floating around out there in the ether. I do know that I have never been an all-nighter kind of person, especially when it comes to writing. If the paper is not done the night before it’s due, it’s going to be late. Period. The thought horrified me.

I will never forget the day when, while sitting around in the cafeteria listening to everyone else bellyache and moan about their last-minute mad dashes toward the thesis finish line, I realized that mine was already done. 2 weeks early.

“And this comes as a surprise?” said a kid sitting across from me. He was staring into the abyss of being awake 24 hours a day for his last 2 weeks.

“I hadn’t even noticed,” I said, truthfully.

Silence.

“Um, I guess I’d better take it to Kinko’s and get it printed.”

The kid just shook his head.