The reader's edition
The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success: the summary
Ed Mylett is an American entrepreneur, performance coach and the host of The Ed Mylett Show podcast, and this is his second book after #MAXOUT Your Life. He argues that the gap between ordinary and outstanding lives is rarely talent. It is the habit of doing one more: one more call, one more try, one more hour when you want to stop. Each chapter applies that idea to a different part of life, from identity, emotions and goals to habits, leadership, equanimity and prayer. A central image is the identity thermostat: your results keep drifting back to the level of who you believe you are, so lasting change means raising that setting. He draws on his own business career, his family and the people he has worked with and interviewed. Read a chapter at a time, with a printable action book at the end.
- Ed Mylett
- 2022
- 4 chapters
- 5 min read
- 9 takeaways
This is HourLife's reading of The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success, in our own words. It is not a substitute for the book.
Chapter 01
Before you start
The book in a minute
Tap a paragraph to highlight it. Turn pages with the arrows, the arrow keys, or a swipe.
Ed Mylett is an American entrepreneur, performance coach and the host of The Ed Mylett Show podcast, and this is his second book after #MAXOUT Your Life. He argues that the gap between ordinary and outstanding lives is rarely talent. It is the habit of doing one more: one more call, one more try, one more hour when you want to stop. Each chapter applies that idea to a different part of life, from identity, emotions and goals to habits, leadership, equanimity and prayer. A central image is the identity thermostat: your results keep drifting back to the level of who you believe you are, so lasting change means raising that setting. He draws on his own business career, his family and the people he has worked with and interviewed.
Below are the 9 ideas HourLife readers vote up most, each in our words with a note on what it asks of you, and then the steps that put them to work.
Chapter 02
What readers keep
The takeaways
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1
HourLife takeaway
Your results keep drifting back to the level of who you believe you are, so raise the setting, not just the effort.
Mylett calls this the identity thermostat. A good month pushes you above your setting and a bad one pulls you below it, but either way you return to it. He names faith, intentions and the people you spend time with as the levers that move the setting itself.
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2
HourLife takeaway
The breakthrough often sits one swing past the point where most people stop swinging.
The chapter on trying again uses a piñata. Every swing that seems to do nothing is still weakening it, and you cannot see which swing will be the one that breaks it open. Quitting early throws away all the cracks you already made.
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3
HourLife takeaway
Your mind filters the world for whatever you have decided matters, so decide on purpose.
Mylett calls the filter your matrix and links it to the brain's reticular activating system. It is the same effect as noticing one model of car everywhere once you plan to buy it. Point the filter at opportunities and you start to see them.
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4
HourLife takeaway
A goal is something you might hit; a standard is the level you refuse to live below.
The book treats goals and standards as different tools. Goals give direction, but you often miss them. Standards are what you do every day regardless, and raising one, even slightly, changes more than a bigger goal does.
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5
HourLife takeaway
The people closest to you quietly set your ceiling, so choose your inner circle as if it matters.
In the chapter on association, Mylett pictures your relationships as a target with a small bull's-eye in the middle. Not everyone earns a place there, and he suggests letting people audition for it over time rather than handing it out by default.
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6
HourLife takeaway
Confidence grows out of small promises to yourself that you actually keep.
Each kept promise is evidence that you are who you say you are. Each broken one teaches you not to believe yourself. Doing one more than you promised is the quickest way to rebuild that trust.
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7
HourLife takeaway
Choose one inconvenience on purpose, and the unplanned ones lose some of their grip.
A whole chapter argues for seeking out discomfort rather than avoiding it. The hard thing you pick in advance trains you for the hard things you didn't pick. Comfort, kept up for too long, lowers the setting.
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8
HourLife takeaway
The best performers make the people around them better, not just themselves.
The chapter on being a multiplier uses Tom Brady as its example of a player who lifts a whole team. Applying one more to other people, one more encouragement or one more standard held for the group, compounds faster than effort on your own.
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9
HourLife takeaway
Staying steady through praise and blame, gain and loss, is a skill you can practise.
Mylett borrows the Buddhist idea of the eight worldly winds: the pairs of gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, pleasure and pain. High performers still feel them. They just don't let each gust decide their next move.
Chapter 03
Put it to work
Your action book
Do the setup steps once, then keep the habits going. The setup changes your week; the habits keep it changed after the first good one.
The download puts this whole reading and a printable action book in one PDF: the setup checklist, then a page of real calendar days for each habit, starting on the day you choose.
Set up once
Write down your identity setting
Write one paragraph, in the present tense, describing who you are on your best day. Keep it where you will see it each morning and read it before you check your phone.
Pick your one-more areas
Choose one to three parts of your life to work on, such as health, work or family. For each, write what one more looks like: one more call, one more set, one more bedtime story.
Turn one goal into a standard
Take a goal you keep missing and write the daily minimum you will hold no matter what. Make it small enough that you can keep it on your worst day.
Map your inner circle
List the people you spend the most time with. Mark who raises your setting and who lowers it, then book one extra hour this month with someone who raises it.
Schedule one chosen inconvenience
Put one hard, optional thing in your calendar for this week: the early workout, the call you've avoided, the honest conversation. Choose it now so the decision is already made.
Keep it up
Do one more when you want to stop
At the moment you would normally quit, do one more rep, page, call or attempt. Then write down what it was, so you have proof you can.
Keep one small promise every day
Each morning, promise yourself one small thing you will do that day, and do it. Keep the promises tiny until keeping them feels normal.
Ask a better question at night
Before bed, ask yourself what you did one more of today and what one more would look like tomorrow. Write the second answer down.
Chapter 04
The last word
Before you go
Pick one step from the action book and do it today. An idea from a book starts to count once it changes what one ordinary day looks like.
Most of the distance between who you are and who you could be is covered one extra try at a time.
That is the end of our reading. Where to go from here, or go back to the full The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success page.
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