Mastering Your Focus
WATCH/LISTEN HERE OR ON APPLE PODCAST, SPOTIFY OR WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO YOUR PODCASTS
Mastering your Focus
It all starts with focus. We think that we behave in a certain way because something happens to us. We think that a situation triggers our behavior. And it's just not true; We make up our own reality, and it's based on our focus and the decisions we make.
Five Focus Switches and ways to switch them
Think about when you have a disempowering focus. How to recognize it, and how to switch that to a more empowering, focus.
1.The Control Switch
In order to master your focus, you have to believe you have some control over your focus. You have to believe that you take action, first because you focus on something in a certain way that drives the way you feel, and the way you feel drives you to take action. And then you get results based on that.
Locus of control: Locus is just a fancy word for center or point.
External locus of control, says things happen to you; “the world is happening to me.” You believe the problem is out there
Internal locus of control says I make things happen.
Now, the way you make all of these focus switches when you find yourself with a disempowering focus,
take a breath.
Ask yourself an empowering question now, for the control switch when you're in a situation where you're blaming, rather than taking responsibility, for the control switch. What is in my control?
2. The Intention Switch
the intention switch is a switch from believing in the negative intent of others, to believing in the positive intent.
The Law of Positive Intent simply says, everyone's just trying to do the best they can with the resources they have. I
That doesn't mean everyone's doing the right thing. it says everybody's trying to do the right thing.
You make that switch again by taking a breath. And asking a simple question. What else could this mean?
3. The Want Switch
The want switch is a switch from a disempowering focus of focusing on what you don't want, to a more empowering focus, about what you want. When you focus on what you don't want, it causes frustration, anger, overwhelm, and again, you lose your ability to solve the problem.
Stop, take a breath, and ask yourself an empowering question. What do you want?
4. The Meaning Switch
The meaning switch, and it's a switch from believing stuff just happens randomly. To believe that there is some purpose behind it.
Think of a hardship you're going through today. And take meaning from it now.
You stop and take a breath. And the empowering question is what could, what could the purpose be for a hardship I'm currently experiencing?
Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia. And paranoid says everybody's out to get me. Pronoia says the universe is actually conspiring on my behalf.
When there's an obstacle in your way, big, or small, maybe the universe put it there to help you. And if that was the case, What's it trying to help you accomplish?
5. The Happiness Switch
The happiness switch is a switch from believing I will be happy WHEN To being happy NOW.
When you're thinking, I'll be happy WHEN… Stop and take a breath. And ask. How can I be happy NOW?
Your Daily Ritual, Daily Recipe
How could you make sure that you're setting your day up to have the ability to master that focus? That you have the ability to stop, take a breath, and ask yourself an empowering question.
Thanks for listening!
Apply for a free coaching call with me
Get a Free Gift ⬇️
🆓 The limitless organization short video course
Connect with me
www.instagram.com/mikegoldmancoach/
www.facebook.com/mikegoldmancoach/
www.www.linkedin.com/in/mgoldman10/
I invite you to assess your team In all these areas, by taking an online 30-question assessment for both you and your team at
-
[00:00:00] Intro
Welcome to another Mike on the Mic episode of the better leadership team show. Today. I want to talk about one piece of Mastering self-leadership. Now, this is called the better leadership team show. Why are we talking about self-leadership? Well, you have no hope of doing a good job or a great job leading others unless you can lead yourself.
[00:00:29] Mastering Self-Leadership
So. Self-leadership is absolutely a foundational part of building a great leadership team. And. There are a whole a lot of topics under the banner of self-leadership. So we're not going to talk about all of those in one episode. But today, I want to focus on one that is. I think pretty damn foundational. To the idea of self-leadership and that's the idea of mastering your focus.
[00:01:00] Mastering Your Focus
I believe it all starts with focus. We think that we behave in a certain way because something happens to us because of a situation. Our kids piss us off. And therefore, we yell at them or, you know, clients do something, horrendous, and we get angry, our employees do something, and we, you know, attack them. We think that our behavior is triggered by a situation. And it's just not true; because you could look at—the same situation happening in your life. At different times when you were focused on different things, and you will have a very, very different reaction to that situation. If it's late in the day and you're frustrated, and something happens to you, you may react with greater frustration and anger and overwhelm. But if it's a different type of day and you're focused on all the good things going on, you are in a grateful, thankful, joyful mood. That same thing could happen to you.
And because you're focused on something different when it happens. You react in a different way, and, you know, I love that there's a German neuroscientist named Dr. Manfred Zimmermann; I read a study he did back in 1986, and it said there are 11 million bits of information hitting us every second, 11 million.
And that was pre-social media. So I don't know if it's more than that now, but let's be conservative and say it's still 11 million.
That's not really interesting. That's not the interesting part of what I learned in researching this. The interesting part is our brains can only handle 126 bits per second, 126 out of the 11 Million. That is 0.001% of reality; It's like judging your whole week based on a six-second experience.
It's like thinking you've seen the Mona Lisa by looking at a part of it. No bigger than a grain of sand. So this thing we call our reality, we're making it up. You know, we make up our own reality, and it's based on our focus. It's based on the decision we make. On where we're going to focus. So what I want to talk to you about in this episode, are ways to switch your focus. I call them focus switches.
[00:03:56] Focus Switches
And there are an infinite number of focus switches you could make. I'm going to share five that I see come up all the time - and this need to switch from a disempowering focus to an empowering focus. I'm going to give you five examples, but, come up with your own. I hope by me sharing this idea, you could use the focus swhich examples I give you, but it also just gives you a whole mindset. To think about these all the time, to think about when you have a disempowering focus. How to know that and how to switch that to a more empowering, focus. So I'm going to share five of them with you.
[00:04:39] Control Switch
And the first one I'm going to share. I called the control switch. And I share this first because if you don't get this one right. It's going to be really hard for you to get any of them right.
In order to master your focus, you have to believe you have some control over your focus. You have to believe that you take action, first because you focus on something in a certain way that drives the way you feel, and the way you feel drives you to take action. And then you get results based on that.
So the action doesn't come first. The feeling doesn't even come first. It's the focus that comes first. So when we talk about the control switch, I want to introduce a concept called the locus of control. And locus is just a fancy word for center or point. And you could have an external locus of control or an internal locus of control. External locus of control says things happen to you; “the world is happening to me.” An internal locus of control says I make things happen.
So if you have an external locus of control, you believe the problem is out there. And I will tell you, as long as you believe the problem is out there. You have a very, very small chance of solving it. You can't always, control the situation you're in, but you can always control how you focus on it.
So. If the economy is an issue. You could look at that and say, oh, this economy's happening to me, but you're not solving the economy. On the other hand, if you have an internal locus of control which says I make things happen. Your focus is very different. You look at the economy and say, huh? What can I control In this situation? What is within my control? What can I do? So, if you hear yourself saying things like, You know, he just doesn't get it. Well, he just doesn't get it is an external locus of control statement. The problem is, is he; the problem is this other person.
The way you shift that to an internal locus of control. One example is by posing in the form of a question and saying, instead of he doesn't get it, It's. How can I communicate? So he'll better understand. Instead of saying my clients are so unforgiving whenever we have a problem, that's an external locus of control. You might say, what can I do? where you might ask, what can I do to build a stronger relationship with my client or my clients? So you've got to make that shift from an external locus of control to an internal locus of control in order to come up with creative solutions to solve the problem. Now, the way you make all of these focus switches, and we start with the control switch, is when you find you're in a situation and you recognize you've got this disempowering belief that's just causing anger or frustration or overwhelm. You need to take a breath. Take a breath to kind of rebalance, settle the mind, take a breath, and if you're into different breath techniques, 4, 7, 8 breath techniques, whatever it is. Wonderful. At some point, maybe I will have an expert on the show to talk about breath techniques. That would probably be a good idea, but what I'm going to say, I'm going to simplify it right now and say, Take A Breath.
And ask yourself an empowering question. So here's the process. You find yourself with a disempowering focus; take a breath. Ask yourself an empowering question now for the control switch when you're in a situation where you're blaming, rather than taking responsibility, for the control switch. One great empowering question is simply this one. What is in my control?
COVID closes the world down. You're not in control of that. What is in my control? Ah, I'm not in control of the fact that I can't get on stages to do public speaking because all the stages of the world closed down. But what I can do is get better at virtual keynoting. What I can do is maybe create an online course based on my book.
Because more people are used to working virtually, these days, what is in my control? And let's be really clear when we make that control switch from external to internal; from, you know, things happen to me to I make things happen. That doesn't mean you're to blame. COVID was not your fault. I don't think it was. The economy is not your fault. If you have a child with developmental issues. it's not your fault. If you are in an industry that's getting hit really hard right now. It may not be your fault, but you are absolutely responsible for how you respond. So that’s the first focus, which is called the control switch.
[00:09:47] The Intention Switch
Let's talk about the second switch. The second switch, I call the intention switch. And the intention switch is a switch from believing in the negative intent of others. To believing in the positive intent, there's a lesson I learned. Many years ago. Back in 2006, actually. And if you ever saw me do a keynote, I tell a story about this, and I'm not going to tell on the show, but back in 2006, I learned this lesson, and it's a law that I call the law of positive intent. The law of positive intent simply says, everyone's just trying to do the best they can with the resources they have.
Now that doesn't mean everyone's doing the right thing. This is not some world is wonderful philosophy where everybody's doing the right thing, but it says everybody's trying to do the right thing. They may not have the information, you have. They may not have the resources you have. Or maybe they know something you don't know.
You know, maybe that maniac who. Cut you off on the highway. Wasn't just. Doing something crazy and dangerous and knowing maybe they were rushing to the bedside of a loved one. Right. You don't know. I have never met anyone who woke up in the morning. And said. What can I screw up today? Maybe you've met that person.
But I never have.
So this focus, which. Which is called the intention. Switch again is a switch from this disempowering focus of believing, that someone has negative intent and that that person that threw a wrench in at the meeting was just trying to be a pain in the neck.
If you believe they have negative intent. It just causes you to get angry and frustrated and lash out. You lose your ability to build relationships. You lose your ability to solve the problem, but if you leave, believe in positive intent. That everyone around you is just trying to do the best they can with the resources they have. It opens you up. To new questions and new creative answers, you get curious, instead of getting angry. So let's again, talk about the process. How do you make that switch? When you're assuming someone is being a pain in the neck on purpose? And you're getting frustrated and angry, and you lose your ability to do things productively.
You make that switch again by taking a breath. And asking a simple question.
And the question is, what else could this mean?
Someone does something that just makes you angry. So you're assuming negative intent. By you asking. What else could this mean? It opens you up again, to being curious and asking questions. Find out what they know that you don't know. What resources do they have that you don't have? You actually have a conversation. So that's the second focus which we're going to talk about. And we talked about today. First was the control switch. Second was the intention switch; third, I call the want switch.
[00:12:53] The Want Switch
And the want switch is a switch from a disempowering focus of focusing on what you don't want, to a more empowering focus. About focusing on what you want. Now, why is the focus on what you don't want a Disempowering Focus? On man. I, I hope that the project doesn't fail. I hope I don't lose that client. I hope my kids are in a pain in the neck again today. Well, when you focus on what you don't want, it causes frustration. Anger, overwhelm, and again, you lose your ability to solve the problem.
If you're trying to lose weight and you're focused on the fact that I don't want to look like this anymore. I don't want to feel disgusting anymore. And you want to lose 30 pounds what's going to happen is when you lose 10 or 15. You're not going to feel that negative anymore. You say, ah, look pretty good.
And then you get a yo-yo back. Whereas, if you focused on what you want, you want more energy. You want to be an example for others. You want to live a long life. That motivation doesn't end.
So. This focus, which again is a switch from a focus on what you don't want to, what you want. And it's crazy that the question is so simple here again, you stop, take a breath, and ask yourself an empowering question. The empowering question is. What do you want?
Just ask yourself, what do I want?
I have leaders call me all the time, and they'll rant and rave for 10, 12 minutes on the phone with all the things that are wrong. All the things they don't want. And then I'll stop and say, that sounds really bad. What do you want?
And there's this uncomfortable science like I've asked them to remember. You know, college physics and, or I've asked them about Pythagorean's theorem and. Well, I did was say, what do you want? But people tend to think about what they don't want. When you think about what you want, again, it opens you up to objects. So first focus, which was the control switch. the second one was the intention switch. Third was the want switch.
[00:14:54] The Meaning Switch
And the fourth one, I call the meaning switch, and it's a switch from believing stuff just happens randomly. To believe that there is some purpose behind it.
So. I was doing some; I was doing a podcast interview many years ago with a gentleman named Rodney flowers. Actually, it wasn't many years ago. It's probably four or five years ago. And. He was at college. I'm sorry, high school football player. Big conference colleges were coming to see him play. He had a real chance to make it in college and even be, an NFL star.
And he got hurt on the football field. And the doctors told him he'd never walk again. And he ended up walking with braces and crutches. He ended up walking again, but he never played football again. And when I was doing a little pre-interview with him for the podcast interview, He said to me, Mike, you know, I'm celebrating—25 years since my injury.
And I thought. Celebrating. How many people would celebrate the day all their dreams came crumbling down, but he was celebrating because he was now, he's now able to help thousands of people through his story. Keynotes podcast writing. He knows. And he's able to celebrate that now. 25 years later.
Now there's probably a lot that's happened in your life. I know that there's a lot. That's happened in my life. That I could look back 10, or 15 years later and say that was horrible. But if that didn't happen, I wouldn't be here. If my first business didn't fail, I'd never be able to do what I'm doing.
It's kind of easy to look back 10 or 15 years, but what I want to challenge you to do in this—fourth of five focus switches. Is, I want you to think of a hardship you're going through today. And take meaning from it now.
Again, focus from things just randomly happening to there is a purpose.
So again, what do you do here? You stop and take a breath. And the empowering question is what could, what could the purpose be for a hardship I'm currently experiencing?
And this is a great concept here. I learned from. Owen Fitzpatrick, he didn't make it up. And he's actually a guest on one of our early podcasts. If you haven't listened to Owen, make sure you listen to Owen. He's great. But. He said, Mike, look up a concept called pronoia. And when I did, it was amazing, and it fits right in with this focus, which. It says.
Oh, pronoia is the opposite of paranoia. And paranoid says everybody's out to get me.
Pronoia says the universe is actually conspiring on my behalf. You actually believe that all the people around you are secretly plotting to make you happy. That, even the obstacles in your way, are there to help you find the right path.
That's just that concept fits in so well with this. Meaning switch. When there's an obstacle in your way, big, or small, maybe the universe put it there to help you. And if that was the case, What's it trying to help you accomplish?
So again, the empowering question for the meeting switch. What could the purpose be for a hardship? You are currently experiencing.
[00:18:11] The Happiness Switch
Let's get to the last focus switch. And I call it the happiness switch. The happiness switch is a switch from believing I will be happy When, To being happy now. It's a switch from; I'll be happy when my business hits a certain level. I'll be happy when I get married. I'll be happy when I buy a bigger house. I'll be happy when I have kids. I'll be happy when the kids finally leave the damn house.
Happiness is always out there. In front of us. The problem is we never quite get there. And we never quite get there because we keep raising the bar. I'll be happy when I'm making $75,000 a year; then you make 75, you say, oh, that's crap. I'll be happy when I make 125. And then you get there, and you raise it even higher. There's nothing wrong with raising the bar.
Raising the bar helps us become the best version of ourselves.
But you can't rely on achieving a goal, on getting to something, buying that great new car, buying that big house, or finding your soulmate if you wait for that to make you happy.
It's never going to happen. You have to be happy with the journey. Now I know that's a cliche. It's a damn. You know, Miley Cyrus song, for God's sake, but you've got to find a way to be happy now.
And happy now might be. Taking a walk in nature makes me happy.
You know, laughing with my son makes me happy petting my dog makes me happy. What are the things that make you happy now? Keep raising the bar. But find ways and find time to be happy now.
So here you want to stop and take a breath. When you're thinking I'll be happy when, stop and take a breath. And say. How can I be happy now?
It's as simple as it comes.
So we talked about five focus, which is the control switch, the intention switch, the want switch, the meaning switch, and the happiness switch.
[00:20:12] Your Daily Ritual, Daily Recipe
The last thing I want to talk about briefly here, before we wrap up. Is how do you get your head on straight? So you could make those focus witches. Let's be honest, even though, you know, this stuff, I know this stuff, I know the law of positive intent. I teach it. And yet, I still believe negative intent, and so do a lot of people I meet; I need to work on that every day. I still say I'll be happy when… I need to work on that every day. Well, how could you make sure that you're setting your day up? So that you have the ability. To master that focus. You have the ability to stop. Take a breath, ask yourself an empowering question.
And here. I want to challenge you to think about a daily recipe for doing that a daily recipe for your own. Mindset your own focus, and it starts with, what do you do when you wake up in the morning? And if when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you do is reach for your phone. Then your day.
The start of your day is in control of whatever social media posts, whatever texts, whatever email you're taking a look at. That's not a good way to start your day from a Mastering of focus standpoint. So what's your ritual? What's your recipe at the beginning of the day? Is it exercise? Is it meditation? Is it gratefulness? Is it prayer? Is it taking a long walk?
What is it for you? It's different for all of us. But what could you do to get your day? Start off in a mentally healthy way.
Same thing at the end of the day; what do you do at the end of the day to make sure you're not going to sleep with all these horrible, stressful thoughts? On your mind. And what about the middle of the day? What about when you have that? Challenging. Talk with an employee or, that frustrating meeting with a client.
How do you make sure in the middle of the day, you get your head back on straight? So you can master your focus. Maybe at some time, middle of the day or after a rough meeting. Taking a walk around the block. For me, music helps. I'm an old classic rock guy. So if you put on ACDC back in black, or you put on led Zeppelin Kashmir or anything from the who. Especially Quadrophenia best album ever in the history of the world. Certain types of music that by the time. The song is over. I can do anything. I can knock down brick walls. So, what is it for you beginning of the day? End of the day. Middle of the day.
[00:22:42] Summary
So let's quickly summarize. What we talked about, we talked about the idea that mastering your focus is a foundational piece of self-leadership. We talked about the idea that its focus that drives a feeling, that drives a behavior, that drives your results. It's not a situation that drives your behavior or even your feeling. It all starts with focus. And then we talked about five different focus switches, and for each one, it was about taking a deep breath. Or maybe a 4, 7, 8 breath, or whatever breathing exercise works for you. And then asking yourself an empowering question.
We also talked about the idea that I shared five, but there are an infinite number of ways to shift from a disempowering focus to an empowering focus. And then we talked about. A daily ritual, a daily recipe for making sure that you had your head on straight. In order to achieve that focus. So I hope that was helpful. That's it for this episode. See you next time.