Today's Business Lessons
Focus is intentional
These words caught me by surprise and brought me sudden burst of laughter.
My face in the mirror isn’t wrinkled or drawn.
My house isn’t dirty. The cobwebs are gone.
My garden looks lovely, and so does my lawn.
I think I might never, put my glasses back on.
There are people who have lost their focus, not because they have not
put on their glasses, but because they do not know how important focus
is.
They are easily bored; they feel like they want to try out new things
immediately yet tire just as easily. Many of them work for a company for
about two and a half years, and then they get bored and think they are
wasting an entire lifetime because things are moving so slow. They jump
from one job to another and they think that this is the best way to rise
in their careers and get better pay. But in doing so, they did not
focus on a particular skill, knowledge or an area of specialty and a few
years later, just as when age caught up with them, they have not
created a name for themselves in the industry, they have no skills that
are marketable, all they have are regrets because they let their careers
slip away.
I have also met adults who could not focus. They could not hold their
attention long, their eyes drift while I speak to them and their
thoughts wander. Now they hear, now they don’t.
This is a weakness that must be addressed. Here is the key:
Focus is not a skill; it is a decision.
Focus is intentional, it is not accidental.
Not focusing meant that the person is embarking on a perpetual sense of useless energy.
This sense of urgency may come in the form of worry. Worry based on
misplaced urgency, like an important tweet they may have missed, a post
in Facebook they need to answer, SMS messages that need reading, emails
that need responding or perhaps, a call from the President of the
Philippines requiring their service for the country because of a
national security crisis only they can solve. And thus they live in
a continuous state of non-stop partial attention. This zombie-like stage
meant that they could not focus. Everything is a blur. These are not
qualities of a person who wanted to be successful in his or her craft.
You need to decide to focus. Life is not a digital game you play on
your tablet, that every time you feel bored, you swipe it away. Focus is
discipline in action.
What are the areas you should focus on?
Focus on excelling in your craft. Focus on building additional skills. Focus on personal growth and development.
Focus on increasing your network of friends and business contacts, on
building trust and credibility and on being a specialist at something
that would make you relevant and marketable, so that you can secure a
good future.
The future will be very difficult for those who do not know how to focus.
Television journalist Diane Sawyer said: “I think the one lesson I
have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention.”
Be like the champion archers, they do not aim at the bull’s eye, they aim and focus at the center of the bull’s eye.
Every successful business person I have met is skilled in the art of focusing.
The question is, are you focused?
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