Focus is a central key to success in any endeavor. Focus. Laser-like focus!

A few days ago I was sitting in Panera Bread (which we call “The Annex” because that’s where I have a lot of my meetings) with my associate Nola. The food at Panera is better than average. The atmosphere is outstanding! The baroque music stirs my creative juices! I can get alot done at Panera. On this occasion Ron Spigelman, Conductor of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra was sitting at a table nearby, and he was havin’ a concert. Laid out on the table in front of him was a thick musical score. He was swinging his arms and directing imaginary music in a big way. All the while, Panera’s own piped in music was playing in the room. He seemed oblivious to that, and to everything else in the room for that matter.

I watched him for a while, and then I couldn’t help it. I had to ask how he could work through this voluminous musical score while totally different music played overhead. He said “It’s easy. I’m a conductor. I am trained to hear many things at once, while listening to only one particular instrument. So, I never even notice the background music.”

Now that’s focus!

Shift gears for a moment and let’s take a look at an example of non-focus. You may remember a few weeks ago a group of medical academics issued a report that said women didn’t need to have mammograms as often as had been protocol in the past. Shortly after this report came out, HHS Secretary and former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius appeared on all the morning news shows saying the report was wrong and that women of a certain age should still have mammograms on the previous schedule.

Now, understand this. I don’t know when women should have mammograms? (If they help with early cancer detection I want my wife to have one……DAILY!) I don’t know whether the physicians who issued the report saying less is more know what they are talking about or not (though I’ll give them latitude because they are physicians).

Here’s what I do know: Running the State of Kansas is an executive job filled by an elected politician. Being the Director of Health and Human Services is an executive job filled by an appointed politician. If Kathleen Sebelius were a wise woman she’d realize that this was an argument for the medical community, not a stage for political theatre. But I know, when you are just the HHS secretary and you really want to be the Senator (or whatever) from Kansas you’ve got to get your face on TV whenever you can. However, the point is: she was out of her area of expertise. She drifted from politics and administration into medicine. The HHS secretary needs to deal with public health policy, but she shouldn’t be advising people on when to schedule an exam. She’d lost her focus!

Those of us who have capacious curiosity and large egos can be given to mission creep—to drifting into areas where we really don’t have specialized knowledge to contribute, or helpful things to say. We need to know when to shut up. Beyond that, we need to take a good look at our lives and determine whether we are really investing our energy in the places where it makes the most impact. Are we focused?

I’m reminded of the power of focus in nature: The Grand Canyon was carved not by water that dispersed over acres, but by water that was concentrated into a stream focused on one path.

Sports provides an analogy. I’m writing this piece from Chicago, home of the greatest basketball player ever, Michael Jordan. Do you remember when the great Michael Jordan tried to play professional baseball? He failed! He lost his focus on doing what he did best, drifted into another arena, and failed.

Dispersion = failure. Focus = success.

I just departed from a convention of my colleagues who were asking questions about how to be successful. Many of the answers given were about things they could “add on” to their existing business to give them success. NO! Success comes when you “take away” the ancillary things that distract you from your primary mission and focus your efforts and energy on the one thing that matters most to your success. Don’t seek to do more. Do less, and do it really well.

Focus! Focus! Focus!

One of the most helpful truths my friend Lee Brower has taught me is “Lift the Anchor.” When we face a big, insurmountable project we often fail to tackle it because of it’s size, or that the ‘getting ready’ is its self an enormous task. So the question is: How do you move a battleship? You don’t have to haul the anchor thousands of feet up from the sea floor and safely stow it on deck. All you have to do is lift the anchor an inch off the sea floor and you can move the ship. So the BIG SHIP in your life that you need to move only requires a small task to get started: Lift the anchor!

Lifting the anchor, taking action, take the first step, getting in motion—they are all the same principle. Norman Vincent Peale said “Inaction is both the result of fear and the cause of fear.” When we take action it begins to build our confidence (or restore confidence that has waned.) So get up off the couch, put on your sneakers, and walk the first 100 steps toward the physically fit you. That’s lifting the anchor. Clean just one drawer in your dressor, or one spot on your desk. That’s lifting the anchor. Sweep just one corner of your garage. Anchor’s away!

What BIG challenge do you face today? You can be paralyzed by fear and enormity, or you can take the first step.

Get in motion!

• The question isn’t “Did you screw up?” Of course you did! Everybody does! The question is “Did you tell me about it before it became a crisis?”
• To get what you EXPECT you have to INSPECT. Attributed to Woody Hayes from Ohio State.

I was sitting on the porch (my specialty) drinking a Diet Coke and resting a bit from an intense few hours getting my garden in shape for Spring, when my friend Brett Godfrey gestures broadly and says “not everybody would ‘get’ this.”

It was a beautiful Spring day; the horses were grazing in the South pasture and the goats were frolicking in the front paddock. This is life as it was meant to be. (Deep good sigh!) 

But Brett is right, most people can’t conceive of why I’d be sitting here in muddy boots and Big Smith overalls with an aching back when an hour in my office working in the area of my unique ability would generate more revenue than my family will spend on vegetables in an entire year. Maybe I don’t get this either. Why do I do it?

Balancing work and leisure (yes, the garden is a leisure activity—-some people play golf, some people move rocks and dig in dirt—–both cause sweat) is an ongoing struggle for entrepreneurs. Nearly every day that I pause to play I find my mind drifting to “how much I’m worth an hour if I were doing something productive.” But the truth is: that’s weak thinking. Strong thinking realizes that life is about life, and work is just a tool to support life, and most importantly—leisure is productive.

Life is found in the simple pleasure of eating bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches when the pork came from your farm, and the lettuce and tomato grew in your garden. (In trying economic times there’s a certain confidence that comes from experiencing a meal that you grew totally on your place—slow food instead of fast food.) Life is in sitting on the porch in a rocking chair (yeah, we’ve got about ten big ones across the porch) visiting with your friends. In fact, that’s one of the best places to sit and talk with God. It’s also a good place to think.

Have you just sat quietly and done any thinking lately? What about talking to God? What about visiting with a friend? I won’t even ask where your bacon came from.

Dan Sullivan Founder of Strategic Coach (if you’ll contact them they’ll send you a free CD on the entrepreneurial time system) has taught me that in order to be most productive on what he calls Focus Days, I need to have a commensurate amount of Free Days in my schedule. A Free Day is a 24 hour time period where you do nothing related to work. Many of my friends in Strategic Coach have over 100 Free Days a year. That’s a nice balance of life and work.

I don’t have this subject all figured out yet, so I’m mostly just musing aloud. Though I am discovering that the more time I take off, and the more relaxed I am, the more productive I am on my Focus Days, and the more money I make. When Brett commented about people “not getting it” I promptly replied, “Yeah, I like money. But I like homegrown tomatoes, too.”

Take the day off. Go stick a shovel in the dirt.