The Joy in Business

13What’s Your “One Thing”?

• Q. How do you take your career to greater heights?
• A. Focus on the “One Thing.”

I hosted a cable TV talk show, At Work with Joy Baldridge, for several years. I interviewed CEOs of Fortune 500 companies like IBM, Pepsi, PerkinElmer, and Time Mirror about how they made it to the top.

One of my favorite responses was from CEO Bill Rowe, who was in publishing. When I asked what he did along the way to rise to the top, he modestly said he wasn’t smarter or more talented than others, but he did do something that he felt made a difference. He said he asked himself a question, 220 business days a year for 10 years, and that’s what advanced his career to the C-suite.

I asked, “What was the question?”

He said: “What’s the one thing I can do to further my success for tomorrow?” Then he would do that one thing, and leave his office feeling satisfied. He said that a lot of people leave dissatisfied, staying late and struggling to do more and more. By focusing on the “one thing” that leads to further success each day, he created a powerful momentum of incremental gains that was built over time. The key is to do it consistently.

Now that Part 1 of this book is coming to an end, it would be a good idea to reflect on what you have read. Take a moment and flip back through the pages and note below the “golden nuggets” you would like to use before moving on to Part 2. Is it the Purple Break, AFA All the Way, Function in Disaster, Finish in Style, Salt the Hay, Find ...