Greg McKeown saw first-hand how success can lead straight to professional and personal failure, during his career evaluating and coaching Silicon Valley executives. The heart of the problem, he says, is the insidious idea that we can do it all. As entrepreneurs and executives find success, they’re often overwhelmed by expectations and options, and end up losing the single-minded focus that made them successful in the first place. Taking inspiration from legendary designer Dieter Ram’s philosophy of “less but better”, McKeown outlines an antidote in his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, which features practical tips on how to figure out what’s most important, eliminate the trivial, and establish routines for effortless execution. McKeown earned his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.