Focus

The art of doing impossible things is the art of doing fewer things—on purpose, and with full attention.

For me, achieving the extraordinary means:

• Choosing where you can create real value, and deliberately setting everything else aside.
• Committing to a single path—no backup plan, no hedging—so all your energy flows in one direction.
• Identifying the most effective ways to execute, not just the most obvious.
• Creating systems that let you focus—by making it easy for others to leave you alone, and feel good about it.
• Keeping a crystal-clear view of the one most important thing you can do today, this week, this month, and this year to move your vision forward.

Take Peter Thiel at PayPal. In the early days, he insisted that each person have one—and only one—priority. He wouldn’t entertain conversations about anything else. Even performance reviews in 2001 asked for just one thing: your single most valuable contribution. Some resisted this focus at the time. But the approach paid off—PayPal ended up producing an unusual number of outliner founders.