Focus
Focus, focus, focus! You have already heard me talk about 'goal setting.' Once you have picked your A1 goal, I would like you to focus only on that goal.
Now how many times when you were growing up have you heard from your teachers and from your parents,
“Hey where are you?”
“Why don’t you focus?”
“Why don’t you focus on studying?”
“Why don’t you focus in sports?”
“Why don’t you focus on whatever you’re doing?”
And we have heard about focusing so many times that sometimes it starts losing its value. But let me explain it to you. Focusing is one single factor that has helped me accomplish and achieve a lot, not only professionally, but also personally. To focus is a very simple thing to do. Of course it will require your time, and it will require a little discipline. But we are going to get you there.
The point is that if you focus on the present, the whole universe is open to you. So many of us sit down, and we run a movie of our lives in our brain. We stay in the past, or we go to the future, but we have a hard time staying where we are in the present.
Let me give you an example: Let’s say you were my patient, and I was working on you. Wouldn’t you want me to be focused just on you at that time? If I am not focused on you, if my brain is thinking about what I am going to do for the next patient, or if I am thinking about what I did on the patient before you, I will be robbing you of providing you with excellent service. And this kind of focus, or the lack of it, we do in personal life, we do in professional life, and we do when we communicate with people on a daily basis.
We are talking about focus, so I want you to focus on this topic. So many car accidents, so many work-related injuries occur every day, and I have a very strong feeling that high percentage of them may be because of the lack of focus. For instance, I am driving somewhere and I miss my exit because I was running the movie of my life. I was in some other universe at that time.
Hey. It’s okay to daydream. We’ve talked about that. Daydreaming is good. But when you are in a project, when you are with someone, when you are doing your work, you have got to focus. You don’t have any choice.
Now, when we are not in the present and we take ourselves into the future, we’re worrying about things that have not happened yet. The studies and the information have shown that of the things you worry about, 95% of them never happen. And 5% of them, if they do arrive, will arrive in such a non-effective way that it doesn’t make any change in your personal or professional life. So why worry about something that might never occur? Why put your energy into something that might never happen?
Now remember one other thing, when you stay in the future and ignore the present, what are you doing for tomorrow? Now let’s think about it. Your today will become yesterday, and your today will bring the results for tomorrow. So, your future is made today, and your past is created today. So, wouldn’t you like to have the wonderful, fond memories of yesterday? And how do you get those wonderful, fond memories of yesterday? By having them today.
So, whatever I create today, that is going to become my past. And whatever I do or accomplish today in the present, is going to become my future. Can you see the connection between present, past, and future? In my simple explanation, all three are the one thing, and that is called PRESENT.
Now, I don’t watch much TV, but one day I happened to watch Prime Time. They had invited a large number of people, with one requirement to participate and that was they had to be 85 years age or more. There was one question from all of them: “What is your secret for longevity?”
Of course, each group of people had different answers, starting with watching their cholesterol to not smoking to exercise and food, which we are all aware of it. But there was one answer that each single person on that program had in common, and that was they had learned to live today, or in the present. They had deaths in their families; they had lost their spouses; or they have lost their businesses. But you know what they did? They recovered real fast and they came back to the present. Just by doing that alone, they were able to live happier and healthier lives.
If you are not happy with the results of your past, and if you are not happy with the results you have in your life right now, how are you going to change it? You are not going to change them by staying in the past and keep repeating what you did and or what you should have done. No. Nor are you going to have better results by just staying in the future, saying that you would like to have this or live this or do that. In reality, what you really need to do is just focus on the present.
Now, nobody is saying, don’t go to the past. And nobody is saying, don’t dream about the future. I do that myself. But I go to the past for two reasons:
First, to enjoy the good deed and good results of what I did.
Second, to learn from the mistakes that I made, so I will not repeat them again
And I go into the future myself, but I go only for one reason, and that is to plan my future. So I think about it in a systematic way. And once I have made my plan, I just work on executing that plan by staying in the present.
So can you see that past and future and present is all related? Can you see how you can change your results in your life, which you are not happy with or satisfied with just by focusing on the present? Now this is a learned art. This is not something you were born with. This is something with discipline, and by focusing on it, you’ll be able to find that it becomes easier for you to stay in the present.
When you neglect, ignore and miscalculate the present, it can have a dramatic impact on your future, which will eventually be your past. When you neglect, ignore, and miscalculate the present, you can create a chain reaction effect on your present results, and it can also affect the planning for your future.
Now, how many of you have planned for a certain future and when that future arrived, you had not accomplished it? Have you ever gone back and thought about what had occurred? Have you ever gone back and reevaluated yourself as to what you could have done to accomplish that? I can almost guarantee you that one of the factors you are going to find is that you were not focused on what you were doing. If you focus, you have no other choice, and the results will come to you. That’s just how it is. There are no negotiations. There is no compromise. There is no discussion.
Have you ever thought about why a present is called present? I'm talking about gift. When you have a birthday party or when you celebrate something, and people bring gifts to you, your eyes open up and you are so happy, you can hardly wait to unwrap it. Think about gifts and presents. The present is a present to you from God. So here, on one hand, is a small gift that was probably bought on sale somewhere, and you get all excited about it ... but the gift, the present that God gave you, you’re not so excited about? Come on. You can do better than that. Just think of that.
When I get up in the morning, I do a lot of little things. One thing I do is I create an imaginary gift. Then I say, “That nicely wrapped gift is from God. Hey, God, I was able to breathe again!
And when I got up in the morning, I remember my name!” Hey, that is a present from God. When I open that wrap every morning, I go into an attitude of gratitude to God, and I thank him for giving me one more present.
I sometimes go even further in discussions with my friends, and I ask them a very simple question. Sometimes they think that I have lost my marbles. I say, “Tomorrow never comes.” And they say, “What do you mean? Tomorrow is going to be here tomorrow.”
I said, “No, no, no. When 12:00 clicks, tomorrow becomes today.” So why worry about something where you’re never going to be? All you have is the present, so let’s enjoy it. Let’s not worry about the future, and let’s not go into the past and cry about it. What has happened has happened. You cannot change it anyway. Sure, you can change your future by creativity, and that is going to happen only by focusing on the now, what is in front of you.
As an example, if I don’t do a good job focusing on my patient that is in front of me, don’t you think I am doing a disservice to him? Don’t you think I am also hurting my business? Don’t you think I am also cheating myself? Why? Because I cannot provide them what they paid me for. This is why I go to greater lengths to focus all my attention, all my energy only on the patient that is in front of me.
And I’m sure if you were my patient, you would love that, wouldn’t you? I expect that from my physician. I expect that from the people who provide me service, because I want them to be focused when they are performing for me.
And believe me, I wasn’t always like that. I would be working on Mrs. Jones, but I was thinking of Mr. Smith because he’s not as nice as Mrs. Jones. I am going to show you later how to overcome that. Once I start focusing on the patient right in front of me, whatever the task I am doing, a couple of other things happen to me:
First, I became damn good at what I do. In fact, I would say I am excellent at what I do, because by focusing, I was aware of everything that is going on around me. Using that awareness, I became perfect and very proficient in what I do. I was rewarded by getting proper recognition from different societies and from different organizations because they would say, “Hey, go to Dr. A. or invite him for the lecture. He’s the best in the profession.” I didn’t do anything different, because my training was done many, many years ago. The one factor that I changed was that I started focusing on the present and did not worry about anything else. When you do that, people around you will also respect you for your professionalism.
The second result was that I also got faster. It was a surprise to discover that the same procedure, which used to take me an hour to do, I started doing it in less time. So, by focusing I not only became good at it; but I started doing that procedure in 50 minutes, and then 45 minutes, and then 40 minutes, and so on. My focus was not on completing a certain procedure in a certain time, and that should not be your focus either. If somebody gives you a chance to provide him or her with a service, your focus should be only on one issue, and that is that you are going to give him or her the best service you know how, regardless of how much time it takes. So, my focus was not on reducing time, but it was a side benefit.
Can you imagine if I can do the same job in a shorter time what will happen to me? I can do more work, and I can become more productive. Then what is that going to do to my checkbook? I’m sure it is going to get a little healthier and a little fatter. And with that, I can do a lot of other things that I want in life.
So can you see how this works as a cycle? By increasing my focus on the present, one patient at a time, I have created extra time in the day, and now I had a choice. I can invest that time in my profession, by improving myself more and have more financial reward, or I can use that time in whatever way I wish because my soul is always looking for fuller expression. Now what I do with that time is up to me, but at least I have a choice.
And now another thing is going to happen. When you are in a rush, you need to go somewhere, and you are so worried about getting there that you try to finish your work very fast, it backfires. You are more focused on leaving than on working. If you can just focus on the work you have to do, you might get done a lot earlier and go where you need to go on time. The idea is that no matter how you look at it from the satisfaction point of view, from a professional point of view, from a personal satisfaction or financial point of view ... whether from past experience or future results ... no matter how you twist the puzzle, you will come back to one conclusion, and that is that you have no choice but to focus on the present, what is in front of you now.
I have a very simple expression for this that I always tell my team members: “Come back home right away.” This statement “Come back home right away” means, don’t go in the future. Don’t go into the past. Just come back where you are right now because your real home is only in the present. It’s not in the future.
I hope I have made my point. By focusing in the present in my personal and professional life, I am enjoying amazing results that have been given to me by the universe and God. My practice has grown 400% in the last four or five years. I have a 98% satisfied patient. These patients are referring their friends and family to According to the statistics provided by American Dental Association and Academy of General Dentistry, our practice falls into the top 1 percent of all the practices in the nation.
Of course, I applied many other universal principles with it, but the use of all the universal principles will have no value if you cannot apply yourself and focus on what you are doing. So, I can have a tremendous amount of knowledge, but that knowledge will go nowhere if I don’t apply it properly. And the one simple rule of doing that is by being in the present and focusing on what you’re doing.
By staying focused, I was able to master my profession, I became very satisfied, and I have very productive days. Personal satisfaction has enriched my soul, and that has also brought creativity in me. I just feel like singing that song from James Brown, "I Feel Good."
Now, when you are focused in the present, remember we talked about awareness. By staying focused, it also increases your awareness, and then you have a very high chance of getting to the level of mastery. Your thought process totally changes. And you have thoughts that are forced in your brain to take action, which will be productive. Can you see all the benefits come from one simple thing, just by being focused in the present? Isn’t that awesome? The hard part is to channel your energy into the present and only in the present.
Now I know it can certainly be done. I am a living proof of it. But it takes a lot of conscious effort on my part to get there. I practice it every day, intentionally and knowingly to increase my focus in any way I can.
Once you make it work for you, you will find that you have a different level of power in you, and you have a different level of energy in you. You feel like you will never get tired. You feel like you can accomplish anything, and that comes from experience. Once you experience something good, you want to do it again and again. And that’s what this focus will bring to you.
Your confidence will grow. You don’t have a choice. It’s going to happen. That’s the way the universe has set up your system.
Whatever product or service you provide, whatever trade you are in, whatever stage of your life you are in, even if you are a student, if you focus in the present, and thereby perfect your art, you are going to attract only the best clients. If you don’t stay focused and you are doing mediocre work, you are getting mediocre grades, or you are performing at a mediocre level to just get by, those are the kinds of clients that will be attracted to you. So the choice is yours.
You’re going to work X number of hours per day anyway. Why not make them the best? I would like to have whatever hours I work to be the best job I can do and be rewarded. We all want that, but we don’t do that. And the reason we don’t do that is because we have a heck of a time just staying focused.
At 11:00, people start thinking of lunch. At 4:00, they start thinking of the traffic they’re going to have to face when they leave at 5:00. Well, if you’re hungry, eat something at 11:00, but get back to work. If you’re that anxious to leave at 4:00 and get into traffic, make an arrangement with your boss and leave at 4:00, because that last hour, you’re not producing anything anyway.
So come back home again. You’ll be happy you did.
Now I don’t watch too much TV, but I do watch a few programs like Oprah, Larry King Live, or sometimes basketball. Now how do you think that Oprah got where she is? You know her background. It wasn’t handed over to her. I have watched her show, and the only reason I watch her show sometimes is so I can see her focus on her guests. She totally becomes engulfed with them. She is totally in the present with them.
Just look at her, and look at what her focus has done for her. She has been rewarded handsomely. What has she done with those rewards? She has improved society and the causes she believes in, and she contributes everywhere in every way she can. That capability and that power started with 'focus.'
And that’s the reason I also watch Larry King Live. Even his body posture and how he just leans over, how he looks right into the eyes of his guests, shows he is just totally with them. If he isn’t he will miss what they said, and he won’t even know what to ask for the next questions.
Now I have met and watched the king of basketball play. You know who I’m talking about – Michael Jordan. I have looked at his eyes when he plays, and he sees nothing between his basketball and the hoop. Everything else must fall away. That is the type of focus I'm talking about.
Now you might say, well, I’m talking about Oprah and Larry King and these big people. That’s not true. I have an associate, Dr. Jerry Seralde, who has been with me for three years. In the last year, his production has gone up by 60% by doing one, simple change. He was a good dentist then and he’s a good dentist now, but I took him under my umbrella, and I started sending him an e-mail every single day to start his morning. That e-mail said one line, “Just focus.” Just by focusing, and just by getting that concept in his head, his production has gone up 60%.
All of a sudden he has come out of the cocoon. He is not the same person. When you talk to him, he is a lot happier. His wife is enjoying life, and whatever he is doing with his financial freedom is his choice. But at least he does have that choice. Wouldn’t you want to have that choice in your life? I’m sure you do. If you do, let’s start working on focusing. Focus on what you are doing right now. In order to focus on your present, in your job and trade, you have to also realize your purpose. If you have a purpose clear in your mind, then it will be much easier for you to focus on what you are doing.
The second thing that has helped me to practice this art of focusing is that I had to unplug myself in order to get plugged in. You say, “What is he talking about?” Am I running around looking for an outlet? No, no, no. I’m not talking about an electrical outlet. You have to unplug in order to get plugged into the present.
Now what do I mean by that? We have so much technology around us, we have so much chaos going on around us, and there are so many distractions that they can take your focus away from the present. So, what I mean by unplugging is to unplug you from those distractions. What are those technological gadgets and all the paraphernalia that we walk around with that has a tendency to distract me from my focus?
When I enter my practice, the first thing my assistant, Cindy does, is to take my watch, my pager, my cell phone and my Palm Pilot all away from me. The reason she does this is that I don’t want to be distracted by any of them. This is Cindy’s responsibility to help me unplug.
If you came to my office, you would not find any clocks anywhere. We have not installed any clocks in our practice. The reason is that we all want to stay focused with the patient, with the customer, with the vendor who is present at that time.
Now you will say, “Man, that doesn’t sound very reasonable in today’s society. How can you work without a clock and watch?” Well, I have. I never run behind, and I never get caught because I’m totally focused in on what I am doing. Technology will consume your time and energy like a hungry animal, and the more leeway you give it, the hungrier it seems to become.
The other simple technique you can do to bring yourself into focus is to empty your head. You might say, “What do you mean, empty my head?” It doesn’t mean empty your head from information, but empty your head from everything that is cluttering it that day. You have a school meeting, you have to pick up your kid from somewhere, or you have a hot date later. You have a dinner date, or you’re expecting somebody’s phone call, or you are supposed to make a phone call to someone. Whatever it is that is cluttering your mind, empty it from your head.
The simplest way that I do it is to write it all down, all the projects and things that are in my head. Once I write them down, they are out of my head, and my head is empty. Once it is empty, I will have an easier time focusing on what I’m doing.
This might start sounding as though I am all about work. No. That is not what it is. Let me share with you about vacations. We all have vacations we like to go on. We work very hard to plan our vacation. We find the cheapest airfare we can find. We find the hottest or coolest spot, depending on your hobby. You go through the whole Internet search finding the room with double beds or triple beds or whatever you are interested in. And you look at all the restaurants and menus. Now you have finally arrived, and you are on your vacation.
Focus also applies to your vacation. When you go on vacation and when you have a luxurious time, you should focus only on that. Don’t think about worries at home, that there might be a flood or there might be an electrical outage or maybe a bomb will drop or your roof will collapse. If it did, it did. What the heck! Just enjoy the vacation. This not only applies to work. It also applies to your vacation and luxury time.
I would like to share a story with you. I had gone with my family for a vacation to Jamaica. A young man picked us up at the airport in the hotel shuttle, and I happened to sit right behind the driver. I guessed he was probably driving about five or six miles an hour at the most, so I tapped him on his shoulder and I asked him what the speed limit was here in Jamaica?
You know what he did? He stopped the shuttle, and he got up, and he stood right in front of me. I was a little bit scared for a minute because I’m not a very tall, big guy. I thought maybe I had offended him or said something I shouldn’t have. He looked at me, and he said, “Give me your watch.” He has so much power in his voice, I didn’t want to have any conflict, so I took off my watch and gave it to him. Then he said, “Man, you are here to enjoy yourself. We have two speeds in Jamaica, the one I was going and the second one that I am doing right now, which is to ‘stop.’ Which one do you want me to use?”
I learned something from him that day. The biggest message he gave me, the one I just talked to you about – be present wherever you are. When you are on vacation, be on vacation. Let the worries go. Don’t worry about what you are going to find when you go back to the office.
I’m going to share one more thing about vacations. I was the biggest culprit for violating that law. I would go on vacation with a whole list of things that I would need to take care of when I come back. And I would be worrying while on vacation, and telling my wife and kids every hour how much I miss my patients, I miss my tools, or I miss my charts. They used to get annoyed with me.
So how did I practice being focused on my vacation? Instead of taking 10 days off, I started taking vacation only for three days. I knew I could relax three days but by the fourth day I would be itching to come back to work. So I started cutting my vacations short to three days, and then it extended to four days and five days. It took me a few years, but now I enjoy my vacation at 10 days. When I’m there, I’m just there. Go ahead and try that on your next vacation.
One other culprit we have in our society is lack of focus when we eat food. You are supposed to enjoy the taste, the aroma, the beauty of that food, but what do we do? Somebody invented TV dinners! Now what has the TV dinners brought to you? The only thing it ignored was dinner, not the TV. So what you need to do – when you sit down and you are eating your food, do not have the cell phone sitting right in front of you. I have seen people even have their laptop on the right side, today’s mail sitting in front of them, and the TV going in the background. I have no hesitation in saying that you are insulting your food. When you are eating your food, focus on the food. Maybe, just maybe this is why so many people are running around with so many health problems and indigestion because their focus is not on the food.
You get my point. It’s not only work. It’s also vacation and also enjoying the small luxuries of life. No matter where you are, you must stay in focus.
I’m going to take this focus a little bit further into my personal life. This experience has left such an impact on me that I have never forgotten about it. I have a small office at home. One evening when I was working on my computer, my son, who was, in 7th grade at that time, came and sat right across the table. He said, “Dad, I need to talk to you about something.”
I said, “Okay, son. Go ahead.” But I never stopped typing. I never took my eyes off the computer. And he was talking.
About a minute or two later, I realized, when I couldn’t hear any voices, he wasn’t there. So, I searched for him in the house and I found him in his room. Now, remember, he’s only in 7th grade. And I went to him, and I said, “Elmo, you were talking to me, and you left.” You know what he told me? He said, “Dad, if I wanted to talk alone, I can do it in my room.”
I was on my own journey. It’s a journey we should name B.S. You know what that means. That is that “Hey, Elmo, my son, I am a multitasking oriented person. I used to teach at Northwestern. I had 110 students at a time. I could hear, see, type, and listen at the same time.” But you know, pretty soon I realized it was nothing but an excuse, and that left a very lasting impression with me forever. So for my children, my family, my friends, my clients – when I’m in conversation with them, I want to stay focused with them.
I don’t know if you notice that or not, but we have a higher tendency of ignoring people who are our family and the people who we love the most. So pay attention to the people who are close to you; you are ignoring them by not giving them your total focus or attention.
I have another team member who helps me with these programs of The Essence of Life and other programs. Her name is Diane. One day I was talking to her about the focus, and I ended up sharing this story about my ignorant behavior, which I presented to my son. And I said, “You know, Diane, we ignore people we love the most. Why do we do that? We will pay all the attention needed to attract new people in our life, and all the while we are ignoring what we have.”
So after we were done with our conversation, I just wanted to say thank you to her for listening, and I wrote an e-mail to her. Well, the minute she got my e-mail, she called me right back. And she said, “Dr. A., I know you’ll be doing your recording. I want you to share this e-mail,” which I had written to her about this recording, so here it is.
“We look to make new friends. We try to impress the people we don’t know. We try to present ourselves as a nice present to others. We wrap ourselves with nice, shiny wrapping of colors. But what do we do with the loved ones we already know? Where are they? What happened to our present or presentation for them? Let us enjoy who and what we have in our lives NOW, wherever we are. New friends will come with your energy of love for the present.”
Now isn’t that beautiful? I want you to feel those words inside. Your energy of love for the present will bring all the friends in your life you want and desire. That’s the power of being in focus.
Thanks, Diane.
So many times I have experienced this when I go to a social function. People will come to you and start talking to you. When they are having a conversation with you, they are looking around you, they are looking at who is coming in the door and they’re looking all around, but they’re not looking at you when you’re talking to them.
Now you know in your heart that they are talking to you just because they are waiting for someone else to come; or they are talking to you because they have nobody else to talk to; or maybe they don’t even realize what they are doing. What I do, I tell them, “Excuse me. I have to go pee.” This way, they don’t have to be with me when they don’t want to be with me, and I’m not going to share my love and energy with someone who can’t stay focused with me for two minutes.
Do you agree with that? Have you experienced that? I’m sure you have.
Now once you pay attention to your friend and family when you talk to them, you know what’s going to happen? You’ll say, “God, people are really awesome and wonderful.” They will start liking you more, because they are getting your attention. That’s just how it is.
We all get attention, even little babies. You know, when you ignore them for a few minutes, they scream their lungs out. It’s not that they’re suffering or hurting – they want your attention. So that’s installed in us from the day we are born. Why not use that knowledge? Why not use that awareness and make them feel important just by being there? Just listen to them. Look in their eyes for a few minutes.
You can create that patience in you, and that patience is going to pay off for you in many other ways. When you go out and start your day each day, lots of things are going to happen that are not in your control. There are going to be lines some time where you don’t want to wait. There might be a cashier missing at the bank where you need to cash a check. These things happen every day. But by focusing in the present will create a tremendous amount of patience in ourselves. Can you see how this simple thing can transform your life?
Now I would like to share a quick story with you in closing, the story of Sir William Osler. He gets the credit for starting John Hopkins Medical School.
Sir William Osler was a worrier. He used to worry about everything. One day, he was driving somewhere, and he happened to turn his head to the right, and he saw the passenger seat empty. It took him about 40 minutes to complete his drive and, at the end of his ride, he was literally sick to his stomach. Why was he sick?
He shared, “When I looked at the empty seat on right side, I thought ‘One day my wife will be sitting there, and what the heck am I going to talk to her about for 40 minutes?’” He could not think of one thing he would talk to her about for 40 minutes. And the thought of that made him sick. That’s how he was.
Now what happened? He went through this transformation and realized the power of being focused in the present. In his old age, he was invited for a commencement speech. By that time, all the accomplishments he had done in his life were written in bullet format, which took only 1,000 pages to write. And he shared, “I’m an ordinary man. My I.Q. is probably a lot lower than lots of you. Ask my wife and friends. They’ll tell you how ordinary I am. But I have all these accomplishments, because one day I came across a poem. Kalidasa, who is considered the Shakespeare of India, wrote this poem. The poem is called Salutation to the Dawn,” and I would like to share that poem with you now.
“Look to this Day, for it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the varieties and realities of your existence;
the bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendor of beauty.
For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision.
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day, such is the salutation to the dawn.”
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Thanks, Sir William Osler, for finding this poem for us. So go ahead and enjoy today, enjoy now, enjoy the present. This is the only gift you have, which will make your past very memorable and your future very sweet.
This is Dr. A. Thank you.