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Where focus goes, results grow

March 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The high intensity, high focus, high stakes weeks of March Madness are upon us. You know what that means if you’re an NCAA basketball fan.

In case you’re not, this is the wild and woolly first week when 64 of the nation’s best college basketball teams are winnowed down through two rounds of play to 16 teams, who play next week to discover the four who get to make the final run for the championship crown the following week. (If you’re not a fan, it sounds like it goes on forever. It doesn’t. It moves fast…so fast).

Ultimately, the team that wins the tournament is the one that can best maintain its focus, intensity, teamwork and flexibility in the face of fierce and often surprising opposition.

No team in these weeks can be counted out until the clock runs fully, finally down. And that is what makes this tournament so fun for a student of great competition, great teamwork, grit.

In recognition of the intense competition ahead, here are a few quotes celebrating the value of clear, laser-like focus:

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
Aesop

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
Alexander Graham Bell

Often he who does too much does too little.
Italian proverb

One thing at a time, is my motto – and just play that thing for all it is worth, even if it’s only two pair and a jack.
Mark Twain

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Thomas Carlyle

Keep your mind on the things you want and off the things you don’t want.
Hannah Whitall Smith

Life is like riding a bike. It is impossible to maintain your balance while standing still.
Linda Brakeall

If you’ve lost focus, just sit down and be still. Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself. You need do no more.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Visualize this thing you want. See it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint and begin.
Robert Collier

Alternatively, there is this final thought:

We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet.
Unknown

Filed Under: Business Results, Current Affairs, Leadership, People at Work, People watching, Quotes

Breaking out

March 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Colorful Joy, originally uploaded by robokow.

Spring brings out the best in things.

Change, well-managed, can do the same, freeing us from burdens and other barriers to free, unfettered action.

Here a child breaks into dance or play, freed from the rain, snow and other restraints that may have held him indoors, a relative prisoner, for days.

Spring, freed from winter's icy restraints, brings out the best in things – and in each of us – in many ways.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Images, Musings, People watching, Serendipity

Find a way to want to do what you must

March 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

"Fun's not fun until the work is done."

That’s what my mother always said, trying to spur us on to move through the “must do” list as my siblings and I reluctantly dragged our feet on whatever it was.

However, as a colleague once reminded me, work for many of us is NEVER done – until we change jobs. And then it all starts again.

My approach, in contrast to my mom's, was, "If it must be done, I'll find a way to make it fun."

That often works – or a variation of it does.

But not always.

Some things just are NOT "fun,” no matter how you turn them upside down, inside out, streamline, simplify, or speed them up.

What almost always works is make the “pull,” the “lure” of the ultimate goal stronger than the pain you expect you'll have to “push” through to achieve that final result.

Find a way to want to do what must be done more than you want not to.

Escort those ornery or onerous items off the “to-do” list onto the “already done” list, one at a time, as fast and easily as you can.

Get them behind you and get on with the next thing at hand. And pause, even briefly, to NOTICE, to acknowledge the good work you've already done.

Wasting time not wanting to do something that must be done, when you can't delegate but are the one who must do the doing, just chews up good, creative energy.

Instead, save that great energy for something better – like investing it in innovation or other satisfying ways to get farther down the path to your goal and in less time than you ever thought.

Filed Under: Business Results, Musings, People at Work
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