Focus Hoax: What Most Advice Gets Wrong

Falling out of the sky at 120 miles-per-hour is something that I always assumed would actually feel like falling. Turns out… it doesn’t actually feel like falling.

A few years back a few friends and I did went skydiving — doing tandem jumps from 14,000 feet. Sitting there at the airplane hangar door, as it was my turn to jump, the whole experience didn’t seem real.

My brain couldn’t put together all the pieces of what I was experiencing. My eyes could see the common, 14,000-foot view that you have seen if you have ever flown in an airplane. But at the same time as I could see the high-altitude view, my skin could also feel the outside air and the wind.

Plus, I was sitting on the edge of the airplane’s hangar door … my feet literally dangling outside.

The moment when we jumped out — somersaulting through the air — that was the wildest moment of the whole experience for me.

As we were dropping out of the sky it didn’t feel like falling. It felt more like floating in the sky while it was very windy.

My drop lasted for about 60 seconds. Aside from the wind blasting in my face, it was surprisingly peaceful. I was focusing on taking it all in. The view. The senses. The sheer craziness of falling out of the sky.

When my tandem jumper pulled the parachute, it got even more calm. The parachute slowed us down and we slowly navigated back to the landing spot, where we landed in a field with tall grass.

. . . .

When you’re 14,000 feet up in the sky, you can see for miles in every direction…

When you’re back on the ground you can only see what’s around you.

Skydiving is a great way to think about focus…

Why?

Because there are two conversations regarding focus and productivity: the weeds and the clouds.

These two conversations will always lead to one another.

1. Whenever you “get into the weeds,” and talk about the details of how to do things or what tools to use, people will always want to know “why.”
2. And, vice-versa… whenever you get into big-picture strategy and vision, people will always ask about “how” to actually get it done.

This is a big reason why so much productivity advice is just not helpful. Most advice offers one or the other (the How or the Why), but usually not both.

And you you need to have both of these conversations … you must know the WHY just as much as the HOW.

Think of the clouds as your life’s purpose and your big goals.

Think of the weeds as your daily habits and your to-do list.

• Goals without habits are just wishes.
• And habits without goals are just random acts of focus.
• You must combine them if you want to see the true power of a focused life.

. . . . .

One of the reasons people walk away from Focus Course Live with such massive breakthroughs is that you get both.

Here is a testimony from one an alumni member, Tyler Soenen:

In all of the reading I’ve done, The Focus Course has something original that was very beneficial to my own life: the integration and union of having daily lifestyle practices that tie in to our short- and long-term goals.

Shawn defined this paradigm in such a way that makes it possible to feel like you’re achieving success daily by building habits that are aligned with your values, while at the same time using these activities to complete a goal.

In my experience reading a lot of productivity books out there, they either focus on the “now” and express that “there are no goals,” or they focus on goals alone and the achievement of these goals.

I’ve found if you focus on the “now” alone, you lose heart because of a lack of vision for where you’re going in life. And on the other side of that, if you are constantly completing and re-signing-up for goals, you never feel like you have success day to day.

Shawn takes both of these ideas and forges them into a single idea that can be used on a daily basis that brings vision for the future, yet something that is practical and simple enough to complete in 24 hours that aligns with your core values. This was so helpful to me and was by far my favorite thing about the course.

Just like Tyler experienced, when you go through Focus Course Live, I will walk you through the high-level, super-important stuff to your life (your Why). And I will also make it practical for you — simplifying it down into ways that you can bring your life’s purpose and your big goals into the smaller actions of your day-to-day life (the How).

. . . . .

Registration for Focus Course Live opens August 28th.

That’s just one day away.

I hope you will consider signing up and joining us for this 4-week cohort.

In a few more days I’ll send out more details about the schedule and the agenda so you can know more about exactly what to expect.