I started yesterday’s talk by confessing an incident that happened in the Target parking lot on Saturday afternoon. I had briefly stopped to let my wife out of the truck to get into her vehicle, and the person behind me kept honking for me to move. So obnoxious did they become, that I thought maybe they were sick. So I got out, being the nice guy that I am, and asked them if they were ok, and if I could help.
That incident reminded me that we live in a culture where people are in a hurry to get to someplace. They’re not really sure where it is, and what they’re going to do when they get there. We are a world fixated on speed, fixated on noise and clutter, fixated on more and more and more. And yet the one thing we need more than anything else is the ability to focus.
In our series, “Moo Out Loud,” there are five practices for developing your own personal brand, for building a platform from which you can be heard. And the third practice is to fix your focus, which means you become an expert in some field that you focus on, that you drill down into, that becomes your one thing that you know better than anyone else.
So as you listen to the talk, look for the difference between broken focus, and fixed focus. Ask yourself this question: Is my focus broken? Are we really fixating on the petty things around us, responding to noises and to the urgent things, or are we really focusing on the things that truly matter?