Focus Schmocus

Day 6. "One of the greatest gifts is to recognize when you're in the wrong place, or doing the wrong things, then find the courage to stop whatever that is and make a change without guilt or regret." - Adrian Savage's The Coyote Within, "Quitting Time"

Last night, at the weekly Daring to Live an Authentic Life group that meets at our house, someone asks me why I got married: "I didn't want to throw away my five year investment in the relationship." The answer blurted itself without thought. Ughh, did I say that? Yet that's precisely it. (Needless to say, I'm divorced.)

I remember how crummy I felt when I took Lisa Haneberg's focus survey (sneak peek of results) - no fault of Lisa or the survey itself, however. Gee, I've accomplished nothing I'd intended for this year, the squeaky critic's voice within echoes as it peers at the screen disheartened. (Said squeaky voice also exaggerates.)

And then something miraculous happened that following weekend. And I write back to Lisa in private explaining my grumpy mood when I took the survey:

Sometimes people say they want X. Or  X is supposed to be what they want because their parents want it, their spouse, all of their culture says X is a good goal. And maybe for a while X really is their goal. But people change, priorities change.

And now they put much of their energy in Y. In fact, Y actually becomes the new goal - but they haven't admitted to themselves and others that they've lost interest in X.

So if you ask them they are total FAILURES at accomplishing X. They obviously aren't focused enough.

But they don't notice the singular focus they do have is on Y.  They have focus. But it's on Y, not X. They are accomplishing and getting somewhere with Y.

Perhaps in your book, you can have people note where they really are applying their energy, time, resources, effort,  concern. Maybe they aren't as scattered as they believe.

Lay aside your past investments for an instant. What are you actually executing on?

[W]e are moving into the execution economy... The next wave of high profile successful startups will be the ones that can best execute. Sure, execution has always mattered, but it's becoming just about the only thing that matters. You can't hide behind a patent, proprietary information, specialized knowledge, or any of the barriers to entry that used to protect you. -  Rob May's Business Pundit, "Your Idea Is Irrevelant"

If you must muster the will to whip a dead horse to focus and execute, maybe that's your cue, maybe it's quitting time. I find it hard to believe one isn't applying oneself in any endeavor whatsoever (if so, you are probably suffering from depression; even the 'dark night of the soul' is definitely not passive). It just may not be what you last said or last promised. Look closely, even at unpaid work and tasks if there is energy and execution there.

I mentioned to Lisa that enlightenment had become my singular focus "to the point that all other goals fell by the wayside out of disinterest." Of course, I've said so in so many ways. Yet I held onto a trickle of last year's myriad of startup thoughts including a blog coaching business, because I once had an investment there. I hadn't admitted it was way past quitting time. (BTW, I fully grok the absurdity of enlightenment as a goal thanks to a few teachers in the last month: "The Self always walks toward itself, and it can never miss.")

"Once I am complete with something, it's over for me as a gift, and it drops, letting a new gift evolve. If I meet someone who could do what I can do better, I stand aside and let them do it, and develop a service that is missing in the world." - quote from ex-neuroscientist David Deida

There are many gifted blog consulting gurus and advocates. So many people stitching  together interesting startups. So what is my unique function that's missing in the world? "Allow yourself to know what you know," says my teacher. And sometimes it filters through the mouths of others. I'm astonished in one-to-one conversations to find people don't read my blog for marketing or innovation whatsoever, especially marketers. Words like inspiration or epiphany come up instead. Tony Dowler probably summed up my unique contribution best:

I'm reminded of a lesson from my old philosophy professor. He used to say that the person is a crossroads. They are where the vertical line of spirituality crosses the horizontal line of practicality (apologies for my atrocious paraphrase).

I'm fullly aware that I have come across as a flake, a bailer a million of times. I should have seen clearly where my shifting passions where heading, but I didn't. Or that these weren't even new shifts but the primordial ground of all my passions all along.

My teacher told me that after about a year and a half of intense interest in psychology as a major in college, all of a sudden that interest fell by the wayside. Not a calculated decision as much as it was simply over. Done, clean, complete. A step perhaps. But also history. It was such a relief to hear that from someone I wholly respect as I'm discarding ideas, interests, and things faster than a snake sheds skins.

Yet in the last few years, I've never stood up a friend that I'd made a commitment to meet. I say no if I mean no and I say no a lot. Anthony de Mello was asked if he wanted to go to a movie by a friend. Thanks, but no, he answered. His friend pressed him. De Mello simply wanted to spend time by himself. And his friend was outraged because it didn't seem like a good enough reason to thwart his offer. For many people, it's easier to say maybe, or let's play it by ear than to be totally straightforward. Being straight can get you into hot water and it's easier to skirt that by anticipating what you think the other person wants to hear. That's what the escape-a-date cellphone feature is all about. Flaky - heck, that's full-fledged people-pleasing that's ultimately worse than a flat out no, I'd rather clip my toenails - or, there's clearly no match here, so why waste a lovely evening politely pretending there will ever be a second date. Try it, you might find it liberating.

Anyway, what I'm committed to has a voracious appetite of its own and I've see it's pretty intelligent to boot. In fact, I've gotten the inkling I can't go wrong:

Ramana [Maharshi] says, "Every step that has ever been taken has led to me and was right."

Q: Good, then I'm not entirely off, then?
There are only right steps and right effort. The Self knows one hundred percent what it needs to find itself. At every moment it knows that completely, and it always takes the right step toward itself.

Q: I believe it. But why am I sitting here now?
Because the Self has placed you there. - Karl Renz, The Myth of Enlightenment

p.s. I don't mention my teachers' names only in deference and honor to the Self that leads you down your own steps, your own path and teaches you life is the teacher.

Comments

[Larry Borsato]

I've been at that crossroad for a while. How do you allow yourself to "know what you know"? Or more correctly, how to you know you're there? And I definitely have a focus problem.

[Lisa Haneberg]

E - I think your points are great and we should give up goals that we have already given up in our hearts (even if we do not know this yet).

It is a bit more tricky when dealing with goals that take a long time - like a degree, a huge project, or writing a book. And doubly tricky when you have committed to complete this goal (like to a publisher). Sometimes I fall in and out of love several times with a book I am writing, but I cannot abandon it as I have make a legally binding agreement to complete it. And really, I am always glad that I finish it.

I often think that the reason we become disinterested has to do with another post of yours - that we are not present with it.

I think we both hang on too long to goals and we don't hang on to them long enough. Depends on the situation.

The person I need to say both NO and YES to more often is myself. I should say no to more things that distract me and say yes to those goals that light me up.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Lisa, Speaking to goals that you've committed to legally (or not). Dozens of times in the midst of writing the essay for More Space, I wondered why I had committed to doing it. I stuck with it because a) it WAS a commitment although certainly one I could back out of b) more importantly, as much as I struggled I knew the reluctance was because I was rising to my own potential. It was a stretch. But clearly one I was aligned with regardless of the reluctance. Reluctance doesn't indicate no heart is there. Heck, I've been reluctant to write this book that's haunting me.

Sure, stick to commitments you've already made to others, but observe where you REALLY commit. Be aware where you are moving to.

Abraham Maslow talks of the biblical Jonah story, and how we evade our calling. That's not the quitting I'm talking about. The discarding just happens of its own. And then you note LATER that you have discarded it. But I had a tendency to cling to PAST investments (not necessarily future commitments). I'm talking more our evolution (the man doesn't mourn that he isn't an amoeba anymore), but evolution from personal perspective.

This is a tough post to convey what I mean fully.

Lee, HOW do you allow yourself to know what you know? The secret is in word 'allow'. Thanks, I'll make this a topic for a post. The Jonah story might be illuminating too:
http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/2004/09/evading_the_cre_1.html

"It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet." - Franz Kafka

[Mike Sansone]

"Our past isn't as important to our future as our present is to us right now." (unable to conjure up who said that)

Another secret - take a concious part with the conversations going on inside ourselves. Then, be accountable for everything that happens in your life.

God had the Isralites take 40 laps to learn a lesson. Once they did, they got into the Promised Land. Sometimes, it's about taking another lap to learn the lesson.

"You are the product of your own thinking processes and whatever you're thinking about today is the cornerstone of your tomorrow." - Thomas Sikking