Gain competitive advantage in times of crisis and recession

If you feel confused today, that is normal. 

The world seems to conjure to confuse you, the times we’re living are pure chaos.

You are overwhelmed by information coming at you from all angles.

 Everyone has a theory and everywhere you look, from news channels, to social media, to the people you meet online, throw their truth at you.

 There has never been, in the entire history of humanity, such access to unlimited content, and too much of anything can only lead to confusion and distraction.

And as if it were not enough, chances are that you worry about your job, your future, and even the future of the very industry you’re in.

 I’ve experienced the same over the past month, and I can tell you that more noise won’t help you get your head around it.

 Actually, the opposite will work, you need silence and concentration.

If anything can help you get over this world’s crisis is to develop the highest level of concentration, to become laser focused on the things that really matter.

 You may have heard that two of the most successful people of our time, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, are best friends, but it hasn’t always been that way.

 In fact, many years ago, Gates didn’t even want to meet Buffet, whom he looked at as a stock trader, a category of capitalists he didn’t respect much.

It took Gate’s father, who thought putting the two in the same room was a good idea, an impressive amount of negotiation to convince his son. 

When they finally met, they eventually got along very well, and when asked by Gate’s father to write, in one word, what they thought was the key to their success, they both wrote FOCUS.

In fact, Bill Gate’s childhood friend, and founding partner of Microsoft Paul Allen, would often tell the world about his friend’s Bill obsession for programming. When the two were kids, Allen said, young Bill seemed to enter a state of trance every time he would sit in front of a computer. 

The same was true for Buffett, as once told by his son Peter.

 He would see his father reading thousands of pages of financial reports every day, as concentrated as if he was reading the most captivating of novels.

 In the evening, he would out of his office, after long hours of work, with peacefulness printed on his face, the kind of facial expression humans beings have when the importance of the task they are at silences their ego.

 You should pursue the same level of concentrated effort.

 You need to look at your situation, whatever it is, from a place of calmness and solve one problem at a time.

 Calmness comes from the ability to dominate your mind, which is something you can and must learn.

 You need to build the mental discipline to avoid losing yourself on YouTube, to get distracted by your phone every time you start doing something, to second guess yourself every time someone questions your point of view.

 To do so, I suggest you try meditation.

 There are several forms of meditation, I practice Transcendental Meditation and in the past I’ve also tried several practices based on a mantra. They are all useful.

 There are plenty of meditations you can try: there is mindfulness, there are guided meditations online, and there are apps, like Headspace, which can also help you commit to regular practice.

 According to physician Robert H. Schneider, research on Transcendental Meditation has found reduced blood pressure, increased insulin resistance (useful for preventing diabetes), slowing of biological aging and even a 48 percent reduction in the rates of heart attack, stroke and death.

 Research on meditation has also shown a wide range of psychological benefits. For example, a 2012 review of 163 studies the American Psychological Association published concluded that Transcendental Meditation had relatively strong effects in reducing anxiety, negative emotions, trait anxiety and neuroticism while aiding learning, memory and self-realization. Mindfulness meditation had relatively strong effects in reducing negative personality traits and stress and in improving attention and mindfulness.

 Since I started practicing meditation in June 2019, twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the afternoon, I have noticed a higher level of clarity and energy and improved overall wellbeing. 

 I feel I am gradually reaching the psychological detachment I need to look at the things happening in my life with objectivity, so to take the right action.

 Meditation alone, however, is not sufficient.

You must also be vigilant throughout the day and not allow toxic thoughts and messages to poison your mind.

Your mind is your most powerful tool, never forget it, and to function at its best, you must handle it with care.

With a calm mind, start looking at your challenges, prioritize them, and tackle them one by one.

 In his book “Focus”, bestselling author and psychologist Daniel Goleman writes: " Directing attention where it needs to go is the primal task of leadership” 

 Let’s say you need a job, you may very well need to start from writing a great resume, and build a strategy to have it delivered to the right people.

 This alone is a task that deserves all your attention.

 You’d be amazed by the number of resumes I receive, unsolicited, full of typos which only contribute to making a bad impression of the people sending them.

 Or let’s say you are a leader who needs to record a message for your team, a message in which you inform them about the measures you’ve taken to respond to the crisis you’re facing, many of which are bad news, or uncertain answers.

 Logically, that is painful to you, and you’ll try to procrastinate it as much as possible.

You’re also overwhelmed by many other tasks, so you’re likely to write your speech right before recording it, or improvise it before the camera, or the microphone.

That lack of focus will inevitably backfire you, and jeopardise the very effort of sending that message.

 At the individual level, concentration is by far your greatest competitive advantage.

 No one wants (or can) compete with someone as focused as Bill Gates was when writing a software, or Warren Buffett reading a financial report.

 Being concentrated doesn’t make you blind to the world around you, especially if you direct part of your attention to gaining unbiased information.

Focus makes you effective, productive, and clear; a "dangerous" player in any industry, one no business can afford to lose.

 Focus also provides you with psychological safety: the more you’re immersed in a task, the less likely your mind will wander in fear.

 Carlo Pignataro

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