The Power of Selective Focus

Yesterday I had an incredible talk with a good friend of mine who is incredibly successful in both business and life. At times he seems a bit stressed with everything ‘’he puts on his plate’’ as he calls it, but he also mentions that he kind of loves the stress.

The stress is what has allowed him to grow over the years. It has kept him outside his comfort zone and it has helped him start many successful projects.

We were talking about life and business. This guy loves to talk, he especially loves to talk if he sees that you’re paying close attention to him. Remember, when you’re honest with someone and you actually talk about what interests you both. You’re going to have a much more productive conversation. Passion fuels everything.

So there we are sitting, talking about his projects, his successes, and failures. Then I interrupt him. I ask him. ‘’What do you think is the best advice you could give to someone my age?’’

He looks at me and thinks for a second. Then he says. The power of selective focus.

Multitasking damages brain health.

The power of selective focus is the ability to only focus on ONE thing.

Many of us constantly multitask. We multitask when working on our to-do lists. We think that by doing 3 things at once, we’re going to get them done faster and more efficient.

Well, that’s actually very very wrong, even though it does feel like you’re on fire and you’re getting a lot done.

I’m about to get a bit scientific here. Our brain is built to do ONLY one thing at a time. Or should I say one kind of task. Every time you go from one task to another, for example from writing to calling a client, you lose focus.

Our brain has this power. The power of focus. Our brain needs about 10-15minutes after you start working on something to adapt. Different kinds of work require different parts of brain to be active. Those 10-15minutes are what allows the brain to activate and switch from different parts of the brain required for different kinds of tasks.

So instead of doing it all at once, batch your work. Batch it into categories that require the same kind of skill and do only that kind of work for a few hours. It’s a well-known strategy, which is clearly described in this book. It’s a very good read.

But when my friend mentioned the power of selective focus he meant something else. Actually, it’s the same thing but on a larger scale.

Focus on one thing.

It’s one of the rules I often hear Gary Vaynerchuk talk about. Going all in on your passion.

My friend said that there are many of us who are ‘’hungry’’. Hungry for success and everything else that comes with it.

That hunger can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. Because of that hunger, we often fall into a trap of doing too many things at once.

He mentioned how he fell into this kind of trap years ago. He already had a really really successful business running, but he was presented with a couple of other opportunities. They spiked his interest and he decided he was going to take action.

A few months go by and he’s barely getting by. His energy is low, he’s too stressed to even function and business isn’t going as well as it used to. He says all that happened because he multitasked on a larger scale.

The golden rule for life and business success.

Always use the golden rule of one. Scale up your business until it’s so big that it stops growing.

OR

Hire someone else who can run and grow that business for you. Make sure you invest time into finding the right person for the job though. That will allow you to have a stream of passive income, that doesn’t require your focus, but still brings in revenue.

If you want to start working on something else and have a safety net underneath you. Option 2 is the way to go, every single time.

Thanks for reading,

Until next time,

Benjamin 🙂