- With so much distractions happening in your life everyday,
how do you stay focused?
One of my course ranks that I have,
is the ability to stay laser beam focused.
Highly successful people, they stay laser beam focused.
So, how do you do that?
Today is not Boss in the Bentley
but Lesson From the Penthouse.
So I've got a flip chart here.
Understand that I think in life you go through three stages.
In three stages, the first stage
maybe when you're younger,
when you're still trying to explore
when you are trying to discover yourself.
I believe the first stage is,
you need to say a lot of yes.
Because you never get more in life saying no.
You can only get more in life by saying yes.
Say yes to the opportunity,
say yes maybe to that new person,
say yes, going to that new city.
You want to try a lot of different things.
Sometimes a lot of young people, they ask me,
"Well, Dan what should I focus on?
"What should I do?
"What career should I pursue?"
or "what's my passion?"
I say, how the fuck do I know?
You haven't tried enough things.
You haven't failed enough.
It's like, if you only have tasted certain types of food,
if you only tasted hamburger, let's say for example,
you haven't tried Japanese food, Malaysian food, right?
Indian food, Chinese food, how do you know what's out there?
How do you know what is possible?
How do you know what you like?
You've only tried one thing.
You only stayed in one city.
You've only hung out with a few people
in your whole fucking life.
So you want to try more things, it's okay.
Maybe it's an online business venture that you want.
You tried E-commerce and it doesn't work.
And you tried Amazon and it doesn't work.
And you tried Philly Marketing and it doesn't work.
It doesn't matter what it is
but you need to try enough stuff.
I started and failed at 13 businesses.
13 businesses.
Before having my first success.
Because I was saying yes to a lot of things.
Most of them didn't work out and that's okay,
but I knew I found out what I don't want to do.
If you don't know what you want to do,
its a great place to start, find out what you don't want.
Find out absolutely what you don't want
and what you don't want to tolerate.
So first stage, you need to say yes.
To say yes, to all kinds of opportunities
knowing most of them will fail.
Most of them will be a waste of time
but you'll learn something from that and that's okay.
And then you want to go to,
"sometimes,
"yes."
So stage two, now you are kind of
trying a lot of different things, right?
Now you kind of know what you want,
what you don't want.
What you're good at?
What you're not good at?
What's your strengths?
What's your weaknesses?
Now you need to learn to say "yes, sometimes"
but not all the the time, kind of like dating.
At first you have to date a lot of people,
to find out okay what's out there in the marketplace, right?
What's out there in the dating world?
And then you filter, or you know what
now I have found the man, the woman that I want.
You kind of like now it's more serious,
a more serious relationship.
Now it's boyfriend, girlfriend.
Now you bring them to see you parents, right?
Then you're getting way more selective.
Now you're, to get a one, two, three, five years.
Sometimes, yes.
Then,
when you get very, very serious,
let's say when you get married.
When you're now together, now you learn how to say no.
No to other temptations, say no to other distractions.
All these choices out there, to have a successful marriage
you have to learn how to say, no.
No different in business.
First, you just say yes to a lot of crap, I know that.
You watch all kinds of videos,
maybe my video,
maybe other people's video,
and then you listen to all kinds of Podcasts.
You go to all kinds of events.
You're trying to find the answers,
you buy all kinds of courses.
Say yes, that's okay, because when you try enough things
then you'll be okay, you know,
out of all those things that I tried
these are the two or three things that I enjoy.
I'm good at.
That I enjoy the most.
That I can see I could excel doing this, that's fine.
Then after that; then when you are honing in
when you're focused on that one or two things.
Ideally, one thing.
And then you eliminate all these other options,
all these other distractions out there,
then you need to learn how to say no.
I'll make a point, imagine every single fucking day,
I get paged some kind of opportunity,
some kind of collaboration, someone asking me,
begging me for money.
Someone asking me for help, every fucking day, right?
Because of my social media presence.
If I say yes to all of them, can I stay focused?
Obviously, not.
If I even say yes, sometimes, can I stay focused?
Absolutely, not.
I need to say no, to 99.99& of the things
that come across my desk at this point of my career.
Because I know what I want,
I know my business model,
I know what I stand for,
I know what I want to do,
what I don't want to do with my time
and my time is precious, so I learned to say, no.
Here's the biggest problem, people can not stay focused
because they are really at a stage
where they should say no, you're mature enough
and you're still operating like a fucking Teenager.
You're still saying yes, to everything.
You have this shiny ball syndrome.
You're like this, this is how you operate.
Or, when you're supposed to say sometimes, yes
and you're saying a lot of no.
When you say you feel your gut instinct,
this is the opportunity I want to pursue,
this is what I want to focus on.
I want to invest my time and resources
into this particular thing.
But then you're saying no, cause you're afraid.
You're fucking scared,
when you should say yes, sometimes.
Until you find the thing,
then you can put all your energy into the "no."
People have challenges, people have problems staying focused
because they're afraid that they'll miss out.
They're afraid, they're all "what if that doesn't work?
"Maybe I'll have a plan B just in case.
"I'll have a back-up plan."
And in case that shit doesn't work,
let me have a back-up plan.
And in case that thing also doesn't work,
I will have a back-up plan.
That's why they try two, three, four, five, six things.
What you are actually saying is, you're not sure.
You're uncertain about your ability to making that work.
That's the difference.
So that how to stay focused.
Go through this, ask yourself the question,
where you are at?
Maybe you need to say more "yes' to more opportunities.
Don't be so afraid, say "yes."
What's the downside?
What's the worst case scenario?
And then if you're in stage two,
now you need to be more selective.
Remember, you'll only be effective by being selective.
And then when you get to a point
where you have so many opportunities,
so many things that coming in your way,
so many deal flow, so many, so much abundance,
then, you need to learn how to say no.
And you knowing that when you say no to people,
some people might to like it.
Some people might not find it pleasant and that's okay.
One big breakthrough that I have,
I realized when people email me,
I don't necessarily have to email back.
Cause I get so many fucking emails every day.
Sometimes when some messages it is not an obligation
it is not a necessity that you have to email back.
So when you don't email back, oh you know what,
when I made that realization, it's okay to say no.
It's okay to ignore.
Life is too short.
So know what you want.
Know your strength. Learn to say yes, if you're a beginner,
in the beginning stage.
And learn to say no, when you're in the later stage.
And that's how you stay focused.
What the fuck man, you can't even focus
you have all your browsers open
and on Instagram, an Facebook, focus.
Stay focused.