3.9 - "FOCUS"

Welcome back to Bri Books! Today’s epi is all about “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence” by Daniel Goleman.

Hello and welcome to Bri Books! In today’s episode, we’re talking about “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence” by Daniel Goleman. Meet Paulana Lamonier, a multimedia journalist who loves to tell compelling stories. 2:05 - How I discovered “Focus” in a bookshop in Taipei (here’s an epi I recorded about travels to Asia.) 2:45 - When I finished the book on the flight, I didn’t feel bad about myself. I didn’t feel like, “I suck at focusing and this book confirmed it.” It was more, here are tools and different ways to think of focus. Don’t think of it as a single moment—it’s a muscle. It takes practice. You have to build up the muscle of focusing.” 3:37 - Paulana’s main takeaways from “Focus”: The importance of self-awareness 4:04 - How P. Diddy and Beyonce epitomize focus as a driver of excellence. “Their success isn’t built on breaking anyone down, but on edifying, improving, getting better, and focusing.” 4:30 - What Paulana has learned about focus from studying culture makers and how Beyonce and Diddy have mastered marrying self-awareness and focus...and how we can, too. 5:55 - “When you break down focus, it’s determination. Hard work. Discipline. Like you mentioned earlier, focus is a muscle. Yes, you’ll keep exercising and doing it. When you’re sore or tired of doing something, the muscle is expanding and getting bigger. Soreness is weakness leaving the body. So, when you’re feeling like you’re focusing on something, there’s gonna be times when you’ll be tired, but you have to push through that.” 6:40 – Daniel Goleman on focus and practice: “When practice occurs while we are focusing elsewhere the brain doesn’t rewire the necessary circuitry for that routine. Those who browse online while working out will never reach the top ranks. Paying full attention seems to boost the mind’s processing speed, strengthens synaptic connections, and expands/ creates neural networks for what we are practicing.” 7:39 – Goleman says, “You don’t get benefits from mechanical repetition, but by adjusting execution over and over, tweaking the system by pushing and allowing for errors at first as you increase the limit.” 8:26 – Let’s discuss #ComplexPleaseHirePaulana. “Complex” isn’t just a magazine. It’s a media company that focuses on culture—news, pop culture, entertainment, tech. They’re all about the culture. They were looking for anchors. 9:45 - Paulana lets us inside the thought process that led her to create #ComplexPleaseHirePaulana--and what came next. 10:15 - I’d seen that “Complex” had retweeted a man who wanted to be an intern for Chance the Rapper. His name is Hopsey. He created a website called Chancehirehopsey.com. 11:00 -  I added a few gifs in there (I wanted website to show my creativity and abilities and what I can bring to the table) to show I’m multifaceted and can entertain people. 11:15 - I bought the domain—didn’t have much money left, I had $20 to my name —I went to work, and within a week’s time I got the website done. I put a link to tweet for friends to send out. 11:35 - Long story short I ended up not getting the job, I felt like it was to prove to myself that, whatever you do just go 100%. It got me in the doors and it got me the audition, but it is what it is. I know that what’s for me is for me. 11:50 – I love what you just said! It went beyond focus as an idea/ mental state, and into focus helping you create something tangible. I think everything you’re talking about is the hard work element. That focus is a DRIVER of excellence—it’s not the be-all-end-all, but it’s the fuel you have to put into your brain and body. You put in that fuel. You focused on a goal, went all out, and finished strong. You did everything that YOU could. But you produced something out of your focus. 12:45 – You put yourself out there, and you put your focus out there. 12:40 – Paulana, the last thing I...

I picked up “Focus” while wandering around in the self-help/ psychology section of a bookstore in Taipei, Taiwan during a 22-hour layover on my way home from Bali. Discipline doesn't come easy, as CurlBOX CEO Myleik Teele often muses, and it’s not designed to feel “good.”  I hoped “Focus” book would be pages of quick tips, tricks and fixes to the “focus problem.” NOT! It’s an examination of how and why focus works, the different types of attention. Here are a few of my favorite takeaways from the fact and research-laden book! Here’s a link to the episode on Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud.

Key Takeaways from "Focus":

Focus is a combination of muscles, neurons and decision-making. 

“When practice occurs while we are focusing elsewhere, the brain does not rewire the relevant circuitry for that particular routine. Those who browse online while working out will never reach the top ranks. Paying full attention seems to boost the mind’s processing speed, strengthen synaptic connections, and expand or create neural networks for what we are practicing.” –p.164

Develop the negative into a Positive picture.

In the Bible, one of my favorite scriptures reads: "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." - Phillippians 4:8. It's necessary to FOCUS on the GOOD! 

The value of a mind adrift

I find myself looking forward to showers in the mornings now! I have some of my best ideas while my mind is toggling between states, and I find that I'm able to imagine what the fruits of my labor will taste like.

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