Sometimes when you are striving to get somewhere, you often times don’t really know what you are doing, and through a series of trial and error, you get somewhere you are happy with. This would probably involve making mistakes and correcting them, and throughout all these trials, you would have learnt some really valuable lessons.
Recently I rediscovered something which I recognised as a key to my past success. It is only through this realisation now, that I can become aware of it, and apply it with volition in the future.
What is this key I hear people asking; well it’s the power of Extreme Focus.
When I say this, I don’t mean focussing on something 95%, I mean focussing on this 100%, even when you are sleeping. You might think it ridiculous to even be focussing on something when you are sleeping, but I can assure you, you can teach your mind to do this.
You’ve had those times, when you know the next morning, you have to get up early for a flight to some exotic vacation spot. You mind was so focussed on waking up in time so that you don’t miss your flight, that for a lot of people, you find it hard to sleep that night before the flight.
You do however eventually get to sleep, and with even only a few hours sleep, you still manage to wake up just before the alarm clock goes off, all because you didn’t want to miss the flight, and you were excited about going on vacation.
You see, you were so focussed on this trip, that you even focussed on it when you were asleep. You had programmed your unconscious mind to fulfil the orders which you gave it about waking up in time. Think about this for a second; imagine you could do that with every massive goal in your life.
What could you achieve?
It was in the first few years of my entrepreneurial life that I had this extreme focus. I remember days and nights melding into one as I worked my rear end off to learn all about internet marketing and create a business which I could be proud of.
I’ve recounted this story to many people, and every time I tell it again, I realise that this kind of focus is not easily achieved. You have to really want the end result, to plough through it. It took me about 2 years non stop working, to make my first dollar through the internet marketing. 2 years.
This is what it takes to succeed.
I noticed this again lately because I’ve been heavily focussed on a project for the last 4 weeks, and finally it came to fruition last week. The result was a massive success, and with everything that I had learnt throughout my career, I was able to complete this work in 4 weeks, using Extreme Focus, work that would probably have taken a web professional at least 3 months to do.
At times it can be very pressurized, and the only person putting the pressure on, is yourself. It can get uncomfortable and almost quiet lonely as well because it’s all in your mind, and these times of extreme focus require you to be away from a lot of your friends and family.
The reason you have to do this is because through no fault of their own, they will try to take you off course. Anything you do or say will be seen as some unearthly idiotic attempt at something they perceive will fail.
Like I said, it’s not their fault, we are hard wired as human beings to be like this. We hate seeing other people get something more than us. How come I can say this with such detachment from emotion. Well I read an article about an experiment done with $100.
It goes something like this, person A and person B are given £100 and asked to split it. If both agree to the split percentage, then both get to keep the money. If one disagrees, they both lose the money.
When they agree to split 50/50, it’s all fine, A+B agree. Even at 60/40, they both agree, but when the split comes to 70/30, an agreement cannot be made. Something happens to us between that 60/40 and 70/30 where we say, “I’d rather get nothing than see the other person get £70”.
Now isn’t that fascinating.
You might think £100 isn’t that much in our economy, well the scientists took this experiment to a 3rd world country where £100 could equal someone’s wages for several months. They ran the same experiment, and guess what….. the result was the same!
Even when it was their livelihoods at stake with several months salary, the same thing happened when the split reached 70/30. How flawed we are as humans eh!
Anyways, back to focussing, the reason why I wanted to tell you all about this, is to really clarify for those of you who are entrepreneurs, or are thinking about setting up a business, that if you are not capable of this level of extreme, borderline obsessive, focused energy, then you must find a way to cultivate it.