“Don’t worry about what is not getting done.” 

Choose How to Focus

You can see how focusing on the wrong things can undermine the success of your efforts:

• Brotherhood and The Crisis. During the height of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, my brother and I really battled. I would speak to my Mom and Dad on the phone and my Mom would say, “You guys are brothers and have to figure out a way to work through this.” Each time we would talk, she would make that same point. One day I told her that I thought this was a waste of time. Every minute that we spent talking about how we had to fix our relationship was time not spent fixing the business. The day we fixed the business, I told her, would be the day we could fix our relationship. There was no point of focusing on what could go wrong, all the things we needed to do or about ruining my relationship with my one brother instead of spending every waking minute fixing the business. I put my head down and worked from five in the morning until midnight for nearly two years and got us to a better point. Had I spent my time focusing on the family issues or anything other than moving the business forward, it would have prolonged the struggle. There were times when my mind would wander and think about what had happened between Dan and I. Whenever I would, I turned back to the task at hand. When the business recovered and we sold the business in 2013, Dan and I got back to being brothers. I am happy to say today that we are closer than ever.

• Bar Exam. When I was studying for the bar exam, there were hundreds of hours of material to cover. It’s probably the only time in my life when I felt if the testers wanted me to fail, I would fail. Think of it as a test on any class you had, or any textbook you read, or were supposed to read, throughout college. Anything was fair game. It was hard not to spend at least some time thinking about what would happen if you failed. I was confident, but the volume of information the test could leverage, was massive. I got some advice from a friend: “You can spend time studying, or you can spend part of your time studying and part thinking about failing, but if you spend all your time studying you increase your chances of passing.”

When you focus on overall risk and big picture concerns, it can be debilitating. If you focus on your present to-do list, you offer yourself the remarkably satisfying and motivating experience of completing the tasks before you.