My Takedown of "The One Thing" by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 5:08 am
I like a lot of books. I even like a lot of business books that supposedly billionaires and entrepreneurs recommend. 
But what I've discovered, through my own experience, is that some of the MOST recommended and most hyped books proved to be the most disappointing in terms of their paucity of practical insights, at least for me.
This was the case with my reading of "The One Thing" by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.
Maybe it was just me not having enough experience to profit from the book when I read it as an early stage entrepreneur. But I read the book so avidly and expectantly based on some pretty big name multimillionaire entrepreneurs recommending it.
What a downer the book proved to be. I got a lot more mileage out of practical business books like MJ DeMarco's The Millionaire Fastlane and Felix Dennis's How To Get Rich, both books I like A TON.
Later on, I learned from Jim Koch's book, "Quench Your Own Thirst," that a lot of billionaire and multimillionaire "authored" books are in fact ghostwritten. Billionaires have little time to actually sit down and write a "business" book, so they hire a writer out of journalism school who basically knows next to nothing about entrepreneurship but can spin a pretty yarn, and they weave together soundbites from notes the billionaire provides and cobble that together with what talking heads like Jim Cramer on TV might say, and voila, instant New York Times "business" bestseller!
I don't know if this was the case with "The One Thing," but suffice it to say, it turned me off a whole category of "business" and "entrepreneurship" books.
Nothing against Gary Keller. I actually found that his real estate company publishes some incredibly helpful training materials for realtors that'll probably make you millions if you implement em right, only, they have next to no chance of ever being a "New York Times Bestseller."
But what I've discovered, through my own experience, is that some of the MOST recommended and most hyped books proved to be the most disappointing in terms of their paucity of practical insights, at least for me.
This was the case with my reading of "The One Thing" by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.
Maybe it was just me not having enough experience to profit from the book when I read it as an early stage entrepreneur. But I read the book so avidly and expectantly based on some pretty big name multimillionaire entrepreneurs recommending it.
What a downer the book proved to be. I got a lot more mileage out of practical business books like MJ DeMarco's The Millionaire Fastlane and Felix Dennis's How To Get Rich, both books I like A TON.
Later on, I learned from Jim Koch's book, "Quench Your Own Thirst," that a lot of billionaire and multimillionaire "authored" books are in fact ghostwritten. Billionaires have little time to actually sit down and write a "business" book, so they hire a writer out of journalism school who basically knows next to nothing about entrepreneurship but can spin a pretty yarn, and they weave together soundbites from notes the billionaire provides and cobble that together with what talking heads like Jim Cramer on TV might say, and voila, instant New York Times "business" bestseller!
I don't know if this was the case with "The One Thing," but suffice it to say, it turned me off a whole category of "business" and "entrepreneurship" books.
Nothing against Gary Keller. I actually found that his real estate company publishes some incredibly helpful training materials for realtors that'll probably make you millions if you implement em right, only, they have next to no chance of ever being a "New York Times Bestseller."