MY TOP 10 PERSONAL FAVOURITE SOURCES ON “WHERE TO FIND FOCUS”

Dr. Michael Trautmann is Co-Founder of the Advertising Agency thjnk AG and of HYROX, the World Series of Fitness. He is also podcast co-host of www.onthewaytonewwork.com

Preliminary remark:

Obviously, I considered whether it makes sense to make such a contribution in the current corona crisis. I chose this topic because I believe that knowing “where to find focus” is important right now. And after three weeks in the home office, I am more convinced than ever before.

Why is ‘focus’ my focus?

As a procrastinator and someone who has had difficulties saying no, I have had major difficulty for almost my whole life, being able to focus on what was really important for me. As a result, I stayed well below my options in high school. Later, as a student, doctoral student and then as a knowledge worker in different positions, I benefited from the fact that I was able to achieve maximum performance when I was under pressure. The combination of these, is probably the reason why I only began searching for methods and specific tools to help me achieve said focus, so much later in my professional career.

For anyone out there who finds themselves in the same position and isn’t sure where to begin: here they are, my completely subjective, Top 10 list of where to find and how to harness the power of focus:

#1: John Stepper, the mastermind behind Working out Loud and my first WOL Circle:

With Working Out Loud (WOL), John Stepper has developed a peer-to-peer method. In short: 3–5 people supporting each other over a period of 12 weeks, to achieve their individual goal. I currently have the great privilege of working with John directly as well as two wonderful and very talented female managers from Beiersdorf, in a so-called “WOL-circle” to achieve my goal of learning to focus better.

An important learning from this still ongoing process: for me, it is about two things:

1. Finding the things that I want to focus on.

2. Learning to keep the focus.

In short: “Finding focus, keeping focus.”

I owe John, the method and the ongoing support whilst on my journey to the “Land of Focus” a great deal of thanks.

#2: Stephen R. Covey, the Author of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and Reinhard Springer who is the living example of Stephen′s approach:

It is my former boss, Reinhard Springer, the founder of the famous advertising agency Springer & Jacoby, who gave me the ultimate reading tip in 1997 with the words: “If you read this book, you will understand me.” I have read the book again and again since then, because it gave me a first inkling that it may be worthwhile to align my life with a personal mission or, as we say today, with a personal purpose. When I practiced an exercise from the book which aims to help you find “the one sentence on your own gravestone”, my purpose became evident through the words I had imagined for myself: “He inspired us.” However, the sentence seemed arrogant and ludicrous at the age of 32 to me and I subsequently immediately dropped it in the depths of my mental hard drive.

What remained was the discovery that Stephen R. Covey’s approach, which Reinhard Springer exemplified to me so convincingly, would ultimately serve as a blueprint for a successful and happy life.

#3: Simon Sinek, the author of “Start with why.”:

It only really ‘clicked’ when I heard about Simon Sinek’s ‘golden circle’ in a TEDx video. If Covey had given me a premonition of the strength of a vision for my own life, Sinek convinced me even further with his adage: “Start with Why!”

Using numerous examples, Sinek explains that leaders, companies and brands are particularly successful when they can not only explain ‘what’ and ‘how’ they do, but especially when they can explain their conviction behind ‘why’ they do it.

I owe my return to clarifying the question of why I am on this planet and what my role is to Sinek and his writings. During the actual Corona Crisis he demonstrated his Leadership skills in a Video Call with his team. You can find it on his personal YouTube Channel.

#4: Adam Grant, the Author of “Give and Take” and “Originals”:

My good friend Alex Wipperfürth gave me a task a few years ago. “You should clarify for yourself whether you are a giver or a taker.” Adam Grant divided the world into givers, takers and matchers. Matchers always expect something in return if they do someone a favor. Takers always want to gain an advantage in a social interaction. Whereas givers, on the other hand, help without expecting anything in return.

Grant used data to determine how applicable his three ‘type’ are. Matchers can be found on all levels. Takers are often successful in the short term, but they have to look for new fields of activity more often. Givers are among the most unsuccessful people, especially if they do not set their own limits within their interactions. Grant also found out that there are a disproportionate number of givers among the most successful people.

Thanks to Adam Grant and my dear friend Alex, they allowed me to hone in on what general attitude I would like to have within my social interactions.

#5: James Clear, the Author of “Atomic Habits”:

I only discovered James Clear in January of this year (2020). In the past few years, I have been confronted again and again with seeing how habits develop and have often wondered how you can separate yourself from unpleasant habits. I have read numerous articles and have tried many different apps in my search for answers. However, I still hadn’t reached the point of understanding that I wanted within this topic.

James’ personal story and the difficult road back to a normal life that he faced after a bad accident, immediately captivated me. He showed me that it is the sum of many, often small, things that make a big difference. In this context he speaks of “1% improvements in various areas”. We often talk about exponential curves in the current crisis. These not only help to depict the spread of viruses but also with visualisiing more positive topics. Such as, If we only improve by 1% every day, after a year we will be more than 37 times better.

Thank you James for making this topic more accessible for me. But it still remains my biggest challenge.

#6: My EO-Forum (Entrepreneurs Organization):

Together with around 14,000 other entrepreneurs from all over the world, I am a member of EO (Entrepreneurs Organization). In the smallest organizational unit there, the so-called forum(approx. 8–12 entrepreneurs) meet in a fixed group once a month, for several hours to help each other to lead a better and happier life.

I can open up completely within this group. The members of my EO Forum know all my weaknesses and strengths. There is no shared business between each other and therefore no one has a hidden agenda — This is one of the ground rules of this special connection. We don’t ‘preach’ to each other about how the world works and we don’t judge. But what we do is so much more valuable: we share our experiences and we help each other to question ourselves again and again and help each other to find out what really matters to us in life. Thank you, to my entrepreneurial therapy group (without a therapist).

#7: Christoph Magnussen, filmmaker, CEO and podcast co-host of “On the Way to New Work”:

I met Christoph at EO (he is not part of my forum), but the initial connection goes back even further. My wife was his babysitter over 30 years ago. On a joint trip to New York, to which Christoph accompanied me spontaneously to get my advice on how to position his company Blackboat, the idea for a book project and our podcast “On the Way to New Work” came up. In the more than three years of our collaboration, Christoph has shown me how to find your true passion or even destiny. His former LinkedIn and XING self-description “Blackboat CEO” reads today: Filmmaker at heart, CEO by profession. Does it sound unbelievable? Check out his YouTube channel. My tip is the documentation of the first HYROX World Championships, for which I was able to win him as a filmmaker.

The second reason why I am so infinitely grateful to Christoph is hidden in his company. During a “workshop whilst walking” in New York we found Blackboat’s “Why”: “Free people from the old way of working by leveraging future technologies.” Thank you, dear Christoph for being a role model and thank you for the numerous concepts and tools that you shared with me on my way to finding more focus.

#8: Elke Menzel, the CEO of the Hofmann Process in Germany:

Everyone has subconscious patterns that they act on. Everyone has ‘blind spots’ they aren’t able to see objectively and many point the spotlight at others instead of working on themselves. However, if you want to go one level deeper, in order to look for meaning and self-determination in your own work, you cannot avoid starting with yourself and being radically open to all that makes you who you are.

About three years ago — suddenly, as it appeared for many — I went ‘off the radar’ for a whole week. The man, who is otherwise available on every channel, was suddenly no longer available and could no longer be seen on Facebook and other social media channels.

The Hoffman process is about a holistic view of your own personality. In this one week I have learned more clearly than ever what I stand for and what my “personal key to happiness” is. But above all, I got to know what is still standing in my way. I owe it to Elke Menzel and her coaching staff, that I was able to create the prerequisites for being able to live a more focused life.

#9: David Allen, the Author of GTD (Getting Things Done):

David Allen gave me one of the last pieces of the puzzle. With GTD he helps me to create more and more empty space in my mind to focus on what is really important to me. With GTD, David has developed one of the best-known methods for so-called ‘self-management’.

In short, he is concerned with getting all thoughts out of our mind as quickly as possible. Whenever there are things we should do, we should remove them from our minds and put them in a place where we can always find them. It is then a matter of defining specific tasks which can give us a desired result and which subsequently forms the basis in a context-related list system for us to ‘get things sorted’. For me, GTD is the best operating system for a knowledge worker. I’m still at the beginning, but I feel the progress day by day.

#10: So many smart people along my way (in particular more and more talented women that I have encountered in the last decade):

In the almost 30 years that I would call myself a knowledge worker, I was very lucky to work with exceptionally talented people or at least to be able to exchange ideas with them. I only realized the influence some of these people had on my late and increasingly successful search for focus in the preparation for this blog post.

During my time as a PhD candidate at the University of Augsburg, it was my colleagues at the Chair of Marketing who quickly grounded me. Thanks to Karsten Eichmann, Roland Mattmüller, Michael Schineis, August Joas, Oliver Gra?y and Markus Brixle. As a young counselor at the French management consultancy Bossard Consultants, it was the two senior partners Nikolaus Fuchs and Eberhard Sch?bitz who shaped me and who compared my personality to a colleague who was promoted faster that I, with a Porsche 911 and a BMW 7 Series. “Learn to put your strengths on the road and you will overtake the BMW in the curve.”

From Stefan Heidenreich at Bertelsmann and later from Martin Winterkorn, Rupert Stadler and my assistant Sven Schuwirth at Audi, I learned not only to keep an eye on a very large number of projects, but also to push them forward. Reinhard Springer and Konstantin Jacoby, the legendary founders of the most formative advertising agency in Germany, made me want to become an entrepreneur and they showed me what it takes to be one.

From André Kemper, my co-founder and creative partner of my first advertising agency kempertrautmann, I was able to see what strength lies in the complete focus on a singular topic. Armin Jochum (the “j” in thjnk), my creative partner of the agency thjnk, which emerged from kempertrautmann, also has his strength here. I have always admired Karen Heumann (the “h” in thjnk) how powerful it is to be able to say “no”. I was also able to learn a lot from our 30 partners at thjnk (the “k” like “colleagues” — or in German ‘Kollegen’ in thjnk), I thank each of you deeply. You all know what for.

With Christian Toetzke and Moritz Fürste, I founded the fitness competition HYROX three years ago. Christian is a veteran in major sporting events. He has a level of effectiveness and efficiency that I would call superhuman. With Moritz, who won three Olympic medals (two of them being gold), I have a long-standing working relationship and friendship. If you only want to find a single source for focus, you are in good hands when it comes to competitive sports in general and Moritz in particular. His book “Nebenbei Weltklasse” is a good start.

In addition to the people listed here, there is my family and there are a large number of customers, partners and friends who, through their living example or discussions I have shared with them, have given me ideas about how to find and keep the right focus.

Finally, I would like to mention the over 200 guests in our podcast. Thank you to all of you for your example, your openness and your suggestions that you gave us and our listeners. I would like to close with the words of one of you. It is Frithjof Bergmann, the founder of the “New Work” movement, that Christoph and I visited for our episode 100 in Ann Arbor: Ask yourself what you really, really want in your life!

Word.

PS. Of course, other names also belong to this list. Daniel Goleman certainly made a very valuable contribution with his book “Focus — The Hidden Driver of Excellence”. I have the book on my desk and I will read it someday. I promise!

And Cal Newport also published a great book with “Deep Work” that I almost devoured. Steve Jobs at this point would probably have said “… one more thing!”

Source: https://medium.com/@michaeltrautmann/my-top-10-personal-favourite-sources-on-where-to-find-focus-68de3e0c3069