Shane Parrish

Brad Jacobs has a framework for evaluating your team.

He calls it ABC.

When a C player tells you they're leaving, you feel relief.

When a B player says the same thing you think, we'll miss them, but we'll manage.

But when an A player walks into your office and says they're done, you feel a pit in your stomach.

You'd do almost anything to keep them.

That gut response tells you the truth about how you feel.

You don't always know what someone means to you while they're there.

You find out when they're gone or when you imagine them gone.

And this applies to everyone from co-founders to employees and friends.

If you want to know who really matters to you, run them through the goodbye test.

Lesson six, one thing.

Phil was always overwhelmed.

There were too many crises, too little cash, and not enough hours in the day.

But he had a discipline that carried him through all of it.

He writes, I wanted to focus constantly on the one task that really mattered.

His team adopted the same principle.

Each of us found pleasure whenever possible in focusing on one small task.

One task, we often said, clears the mind.

Knight didn't want to just tackle every problem at the same time.