The secret to success is “long-term focus”. Successful people tend to do the same thing for a long time. Bill Gates. Elon Musk. Jack Dorsey. Jeff Bezos.
You might argue that focusing was easy for them. Having achieved success early, it surely must have been easy for them to stay focused. But can we know that for sure?
Maybe maintaining a steady line of focus came easy to them. Maybe they faced trials and tribulations that we cannot even begin to comprehend. Either way, you or I cannot know what it must have been like in their shoes.
I’ll tell you what the common thread has been for me, over the years – teaching, tech, and entrepreneurship. Full disclosure, when I look back on my life, “long-term focus” has been one of my weaknesses.
Why?
I had the shiny object syndrome.
I was always looking for the next shiny object to pursue. And how I went switching from one thing to another I am pretty sure I lost the “compounding effect” more than once. Luckily for me, our mentorship program and my wife helped me figure out where I was straying and I began working on getting back to maintaining a long-term focus.
Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert, advises the following:
“If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths –
- Become the best at one specific thing.
- Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.
The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.
The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.
I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge.”
I found out my focus was tech, education, and entrepreneurship in retrospect. Not in prospect. I suggest you do it proactively. And carefully. And slowly. And stick to that intersection for a long time.
.Allow me to introduce you to Jim Collins’s hedgehog concept here. The intersection of 3 circles – What you are good at. What you love to do. What makes money.
This intersectional area is what you should ideally pursue. Connect this to your dreams. Done? Now, go a step further. Find out who made it big in this area. Hang out with them. You will learn the necessary skills. Ideally, you want to match values, attitudes, mindset, and your dreams with the people you want to learn skills from. And this is not an easy feat. Books, audios, and videos make this much easier. Little by little, you can achieve 1% growth every day. And one day, you will meet the person you can be. That makes it all worth it.
Summary action steps for achieving “long-term focus”
- Open yourself up to new experiences and gain exposure to find the answer to 3 questions –
(i) what are you good at i.e. what comes naturally to you?
(ii) What do you love to do even though you’re not very good at it?
(iii) What makes money?
- The intersectional area of these 3 areas is what you should maintain a long-term focus on.
- Dig deep and find out if there is anyone who made it big in this intersection. Hang out with them. Try to find a common ground concerning skills, values, and mindset.
- Read more books, listen to audio and take notes from podcasts of speakers who are working in this area. You will begin to figure out which are the skills you need to practice daily to achieve 1% growth each day.
- It is not easy, but doable!
Till then, live gratefully each day.
Hang around, dreamers. Stretch your dreams. Think bigger.
Treat the world as a catalog. Keep collecting and assembling your future as you go.
To discover what we are good at we need to expose ourselves to tonnes of experiences over time. Then we can say, “I liked this and that. But not that and that!” Or, “I am good at writing and with people. Not good at spreadsheet calculations.”
Volunteer. Have hobbies. Intern. Shadow people. Do part-time jobs.
Start businesses around your ideas.
Creating your future should be a dynamic, never-ending process.
Once you figure out your strengths, you need to grow them.