The Paradox of Success

McKeown identifies a trap he calls the clarity paradox. Phase one: you have clarity of purpose and succeed. Phase two: success brings new opportunities and requests. Phase three: you spread yourself thin across all of them. Phase four: you lose the focus that made you successful.

Success becomes its own punishment when you cannot say no. Every "yes" to something unimportant is a "no" to something essential. The essentialist breaks this cycle by asking one brutal question: "If I did not already have this opportunity, how hard would I work to get it?" If the answer is not an obvious yes, it is a no.