Understanding What “Focus” Really Means
Air traffic controllers don’t live in a state of fear. They live in a state of management. Because management lands planes. Fear doesn’t.
If there is a fear of falling behind, you will always fall behind.
If you look in the Cave, I was going to start a Brain Audit Trainer program in 2005. Last I checked, it was 2010. But that’s how things are. You have to keep going, just to stay level, and then sometimes you get ahead.
Falling behind is almost certain for so many things that we do today, because as we complete one task, technology decides to dump seventeen hundred tasks on our heads. We fix the blog, then along comes some Kindle something. We fix the Kindle, along comes the iPad. And that’s just technology, not even the content to keep that technology going.
We can fight, but we can’t win.
Where we can win is in the battle of fear. Fear will consume us and kill us long before any technology can. So the key is to treat the constant state of seeming overwhelm as a kind of ‘heart disease’. You can’t ever get rid of it, you can only ever manage it. And manage it as well as you can, without going nuts.
There’s also the other issue of what to focus on
To me, focus is “landing one plane at a time”. It’s like being a traffic controller at Heathrow. There are fifty three planes circling, but you land the plane, then the next, then the next. I’ve never ever read one book at a time. Or done one course at a time. I’m landing one plane (sometimes it’s a light plane) and then along comes an Airbus A380 with 555 people. I have to land them both, one after the other.
People expect that focus will help them.
But the brain rarely learns in a focused manner. It takes what it can, then sleeps on it. When you let the content percolate, the same stuff is better the next day. If you implement it, it gets even better. The brain must go through several steps of learning, implementing, making mistakes, and lots and have rest time so that the concepts solidify. You can learn something today, do nothing all day, and then the next day as you review it, you’ll find you’re way better at understanding the concept. This is your brain at work.
But the brain doesn’t deal with fear well
It goes into panic mode. It starts bleeping and stalling. In fact current brain knowledge tells us that we can only deal with about one or two emergencies at any given time. This emergency factor is diverted to the reptilian brain, that is largely designed to take those scary decisions. When faced with fifty three planes circling the airport, our brain goes waka, waka. Therefore the air controller brain must come in.
The air controller must take over
You can do several things at once. You just have to land one plane. Focus on that course that you’re doing, that book you’re reading, knowing fully well that once you’ve gone through a good chunk of that course/book and have gained competency, it’s like having a landed plane taxiing to the hangar. Now the landed plane isn’t in the hangar yet, but another plane can land. At any given point in time, there will be taxiing planes, landing planes and planes taking off.
It’s just life.
It needs management, not fear.
Be an air-traffic controller. It’s not an easy job, but you stop the planes from crashing all around you.
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Next Step: “The Brain Audit-It’s like the first comic book in marketing!“
As an infojunkie, I buy ALL the stuff about smallbiz marketing, and here’s what makes Sean’s book stand out: while others mostly just dump info on you, Sean’s passion is that you understand and absorb the material for easier implementation.
Earlier versions of The Brain Audit had easy to understand structures and graphs, but this new one, with the new secret ingredient – cartoons – helped me absorb the knowledge faster and with more fun.
I would’ve liked to cite specific results, but I’ve been using the Brain Audit for so long I can’t keep score any more. I used it in my sales copy for selling manuals, trainings, seminars,
memberships, or to help my customers sell maps, wine, even electricity.
I’d recommend the Brain Audit to any business owner or marketer who wants to understand the mind of his customer and be able to use this structure, this checklist to write copy more confidently.”
Gabor Wolf, Marketing consultant, Budapest, Hungary
Judge for yourself The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy And Why They Don’t
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“I actually didn’t join 5000bc a year earlier than I did assuming it would be a lot more expensive than it is. Silly me.”
I found it was far better than I ever imagined, over the years I have been a participant of many different memberships and forums and none of them come close to what 5000bc offers.
I would recommend 5000bc to any entrepreneur or small business owner as a great source of knowledge and information from like minded people who have often already achieved what you may be struggling to do and can help save you loads of time and ultimately expense in getting to where you need to be.
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Judge for yourself http://www.psychotactics.com/5000bc
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Unsure About Something?
What Bugs You?
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Thanks SO much for this, Sean. Wow, just what I needed.
“Do the next thing” is my mantra at the moment, and it’s serving me well, helping me focus on the little niggling things that MUST be done and not get overwhelmed by all the stuff that will have to be done another day. Onward! 