The "F" Word... not that one!

I once heard that having talent without FOCUS is like being an octopus on roller skates. There will be plenty of movement, but you won’t know in what direction it will be.

Take light for example, when you shine a flashlight, the beams disperse and fill a dark room, enabling you to see things that you couldn’t see before. Take that same flight and focus it into a narrow beam and you can create a laser, which can be used to cut through steel and even perform surgeries that require the utmost of precision. Light focused is a very, very powerful thing!

The same is true of the focus of our teams, our businesses and our goals in life. When we all have a different focus, we are like that octopus on roller skates; we are just a bunch of individuals, all going in different direction. Movement, oh yeah... there's movement, but movement alone is not enough. Now take the focus of yourself and your team and your family and narrow it. Just like light focused becomes a laser, capable of amazing things, so our team becomes laser-like and able to succeed with the greatest of precision. 

What happens when we lack focus? We tend to be drained of energy and unable to accomplish much. We “spin” our proverbial wheels and never really get anywhere. Yes with it, we find our talents and abilities gain direction and intention. Let’s take a look at some very important truths about focus from John Maxwell’s book “Talent is Never Enough”:

1.) Focus Does Not Come Naturally to Most People

We live in a culture with almost infinite choices and opportunities, and because of that, most people find themselves pulled in dozens of directions. What’s worse is that people often find themselves expending much of their time and energy on things they don’t really care about. It’s been put this way, “Ours is a world where people don’t know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.” The solution to such a predicament is focus.

Poet William Matthews wrote, “One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties. The first law of success in this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration – to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor the left.”

2.) Focus Increases Your Energy

If you desire to achieve something, you first need to know what your target is. That’s true when it comes to business or personal development. If you lack focus, you will be all over the place. Attempting everything, like attempting nothing, will suck the life out of you. It will sap you of your energy and new opportunities. And whatever momentum you have going for you will be diminished. In contrast, focus gives you energy. After American astronauts successfully landed on the moon, Albert Siepert, deputy director of the Kennedy Space Center, attributed their success, as least in part to NASA/s focus. For a decade, the organization put nearly all of its time and energy into researching the moon. Siepert observed, “The reason NASA had succeeded is because NASA had a clear-cut goal and expressed its goal. By doing this, we drew the best of men to our goal and the support of every phase of government to reach our goal.”

3.) Focus Lifts You

Scholar and educator David Star Jordan said, “The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he or she is going.” In a sea of mediocrity, just knowing what you want to do and then making an effort to pursue it distinguishes you from almost everybody else. 

Henry David Thoreau asked: “Did you ever hear of a person who had striven all their life faithfully and singly toward an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a person constantly aspires, he is not elevated?” Focus always has an impact. Just by striving to become better than you are, you become elevated- even if you don’t accomplish what you desire, and even if others don’t step aside for you. 

You can’t shoot for the stars and remain unaffected by the effort.

4.) Focus Expands Your Life

John Maxwell said, “A few years ago, I wrote a book called Thinking for a Change in which he described the various thinking skills that can help a person become more successful. Included was a chapter on focused thinking, the ability to remove distractions and mental clutter so that a person can concentrate with clarity. In it he explained how he often bring together a team of people to help him brainstorm when working on a project. Because we focus our attention on the subject at hand, we are able to expand the ideas in a way that we wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

Narrowing your focus widens your perspective.

5.) Focus Must Be Intentionally Sustained

People do not naturally remain focused. Just as light naturally loses its focus and gets diffused, so does a person’s attention. It takes a lot of effort, but the payoff is significant. Hall of Fame baseball player Hank Aaron says “I think what separates a superstar from the average ballplayer is that he concentrates just a little bit longer.”

“Success is the progressive realization of a predetermined worthwhile goal”. Success is not an even; it’s a process. And anytime you engage in a process that takes time, focus is essential. Only people who are capable of remaining focused can expect to direct their talent and achieve a level of success.

 So now it’s up to us. Will we take the time to develop our focus and gain laser-like precision within our business and our lives? 

I love the way that Dave Ramsey describes focus when he's talking about getting out of debt. He says you must have "Gazelle Like Intensity"... Have you ever watches a National Geographic special of a lion, out in the Serengeti, stalking a herd of gazelle? What happens when he finally makes his move? Those gazelle get real serious, real fast and their focus becomes singular. They run and jump and stride like their lives depended on it... because their lives do depend on it. THAT is Gazelle Like Intensity! Imagine what we could achieve with that same "our life depends on it" intensity! Until something matters that much, until we have that level of focus, it's very difficult to truly obtain a goal.

What goals are you focusing on today? Is your focus singular or are you distracted? There's still 6 months left in 2020... what do you still want to accomplish?!

Don’t be an octopus on roller skates!