My Power of Focus

<img src=”http://mypoweroffocus.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/100px-olympic_ringssvg.png” border=”0″ alt=”olympics_logo” align=”right”/> Like most of the world, the last couple of weeks TV viewing has been locked to one channel - whichever channel is displaying the Olympics.

Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s a sign of the times, but the Olympics are just not as magical as they were when I was a kid. Then again as a kid, I didn’t understand about nor did most of us know about, drug cheats.

We have seen some remarkable feats of human effort, remarkable results of dedication, focus and training. You could say all Olympic athletes should fit into that category. My personal favourites are the 33 year-old gymnast (Oksana Chusovitina) who won a silver medal while raising a son with Leukaemia, and the 41 year old swimmer (Dara Torres) who won a silver medal. And who can forget Michael Phelps 8 gold medals - finally!

We’ve seen heart-breaking disappointments - athletes at the top of their game whose bodies get the best of them, like the 2 x world champion Colombian weight lifter whose right hand just couldn’t hang onto the bar 8 or 9 times in a row. Disappointments when athletes let their nerves get the better of them, like US shooter Matthew Emmons, who shot the target before he had aimed. We’ve seen athletes push themselves beyond their own expectations, even beyond their own body’s capacity, like the Hungarian weightlifter Janos Baranyai who dislocated his elbow.

These are huge but brief moments in an individual’s lifetime. Years of effort, training, dedication, choosing their passion over other distractions of life, all to come together for a few minutes of challenge. Can they rise to the challenge, do they have it in them, do they have the right stuff?

And yet, amidst all this pool of astounding human achievement, a few individuals flat out cheat. The Olympic games are increasing marred by numerous controversies, drug cheats, age cheats, and who-knows-what other cheats. It dirties and drags down the whole lot.

When you see examples of this, how do you feel? I admit I loose all respect for them, they loose credibility and become quite small and utterly insignificant to me. And most importantly, they disappoint me. Even if I never knew them personally, I’m disappointed.

If the athletes loose or never have the right focus, the right reason for making the years of sacrifice, I can almost see how they justify to themselves that cheating is okay. Kind of like how businesses get so focussed on one goal that “the ends justify the means”.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth. What you do to others, you do to yourself. What you give out, you get back. What goes around, comes around. Some call it “Karma”, others call it “vibration” or “energy”. Whatever you call it, the phenomenon exists.

So take a moment to step back from your goals. Look carefully at each one. Ask yourself “why? - why do I want this?”. If your reasons don’t stand up or will mean you cannot look yourself in the mirror in 10 years time, then stop! You don’t have to give up on the goal forever, just until you can strive for that goal with a completely clear conscience; with an open, honest, moral and ethical reason for that goal. You’ll come unstuck otherwise - guaranteed.

I saw an interview recently with Rex Hunt. He’s a celebrity of sorts, a bit of a polarising individual - people love him or hate him. He rose to fame as a football player, and was quite an accomplished athlete. From there he leveraged his fame into radio and calling football games, and finally into a television series about fishing.

Up until that interview, I didn’t think much of him. A good deal of the image of him in the press was anything but complementary, and he made some classic publicity blunders which further underscored my opinion.

In the interview, he described his childhood. Quite ordinary in many respects. He was a chubby kid (had the photos to prove it) and often was the last one picked for a team. He said of all the kids on the team, he was sure 14 other kids had a better chance of making it as a professional football player than he did.

So what was the difference? His answer “Drive. I had a vision and I saw myself playing in a grand final.” He went onto explain that in his minds eye, he was a professional football player. Clearly as “the fat kid” on the football team, there was no evidence that this young kid stood a chance at fulfilling that dream. But he never let it go and years later it became a reality.

He has had similar success in radio. As a kid he used to go out to the football grounds, put a tin-can to his ear and pretend to call the games. Years later he wouldn’t need the tin can-he’d be doing it for real and be an established national broadcaster.

While football has been his key to fame and fortune, his real passion is the sea - or rather fishing from the sea. Who but Rex Hunt could have made a fishing program successful on radio?

His polarising personality is perhaps his strength of resolve. He clearly doesn’t worry so much about what other people think about him that it stops him from his passions or his dreams. He holds his vision, no matter how improbable, no matter how ridiculous it may seem.

When interviewers speak to him about his two interests - fishing and football, his eyes light up, his face glows, and his passion and enthusiasm nearly burst his skin.

Now whether you like the man or not, whether you think he’s an example of an “everyman done good” or something less, he is a perfect example of clarity, vision, passion and the inevitable success that comes from it.

If you’re holding back because you’re worried about what someone else might say, you’re not living your life. Are you living at all?