Arata Academy - Focus

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SUMMARY BY ARATA ACADEMY

SUMMARY

Focus: The hidden driver ofexcellence

Daniel Goleman



SUMMARY Focus: The hidden driver ofexcellence

Summary by Arata Academy



FOCUS

A brief course on video toincrease your focus andattention span .

About Summaries byArata Academy

This summary by ArataAcademy can be read in 15minutes and is oered as apractical guide to the originalbook, Focus: The Hidden Driverof Excellence (2015) by DanielGoleman.

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To be read in 15 minutes: Focus: The hidden driver of excellence, by Daniel Goleman. Summary Arata Academy.

by Seiiti Arata, ArataAcademy.com - All rights reserved. Copyright © 2015

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About Arata Academy

Your continued improvement.

ArataAcademy.com oers online courses for personal and professional development.

Since you chose the download of this ebook, we recommend our fast course on FOCUS,

which is specially produced to strengthen your ability to concentrate your focus andachieve selective attention. At the end of the FOCUS course, you can prioritize what isimportant and will know how to avoid distractions.



OverviewDo you want to increase your focus and concentration? Will morefocus help you accomplish more and live a personal and professionallife more fully?

Psychologist Daniel Goleman in the book Focus: The hidden driver of excellence believes

that focus is much more than the attention we devote to activities. He supports the idea that

more focus can help us live a life with mindfulness and better coexistence among our peers.

We need to overcome the distractions of modern life, smartphones and the Internet that

keeps us always connected.

The dissipating attention impairs our ability to work in high performance.

For leadership, it is necessary to strengthen our internal focus, the focus on the other and

external focus: internal focus keeps us in tune with our intuitions and values, focus on the

other facilitates our relationships and the external focus helps us deal with the context.

How to increase the focus? We should treat the focus like a muscle that needs to be

trained and also needs rest .

In addition, we have to use our creativity to make the most valuable future problems.



SUMMARY

This summary Arata Academy was created for you to read all the content in fteenminutes and have an overview of the original work. Accordingly, we do not intend tocriticize the work of author Daniel Goleman but rather to bring you a practical guide.

1 - INTRODUCTION: FOCUS IS A MATTER OF CHOICE ....................................... 8

2 - WHY IS IT DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN CONCENTRATION? ............................ 11

3 - AN UNUSUAL TECHNIQUE TO INCREASE FOCUS ......................................... 14

4 - ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER ... OR LACK OF FOCUS? ............................ 17

5 - SELECTIVE ATTENTION ........................................................................................ 21

6 -CONCLUSIONS AND NEXT STEPS ..................................................................... 24



1 - INTRODUCTION: FOCUS ISA MATTER OF CHOICE



The attention span is like a muscle. If left unused, it will weaken. With practice, it isstrengthened.

When we dedicate our attention to anything, we are making a choice that has

consequences. This is a very valuable way to understand attention. Note that at anygiven moment we are in charge, making choices.

And to choose properly, we have become aware of the consequences of our choices. Weshould accept the price we are paying.

Let’s give an example to illustrate: When I choose to devote my attention for twentyminutes watching a television news programme, what do I expect to get as a result?What’s the price I’m paying? What other things could I have done and did not dobecause I chose these twenty minutes of television?

What if instead I choose to work out for twenty minutes? What dierent results will Ihave? Or if I devote those twenty minutes to studying a foreign language or any othertopic that is important to my career?

I choose where I focus my attention! Always.

Whenever I remember that my attention is determined by my choice, it helps me to

remember that I want to be conscious in my decisions. It increases the quality of choices,and it strengthens my decision-making power.

Attention is a type of investment.

Have you ever thought about it from this perspective? Attention is an investment. Andinvestments are dierent options with dierent results.

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To stay with this analogy, take a look at the dierent ways in which we use money andthe dierent consequences:

- If you have an amount of money in the bank, you can withdraw it and spend it

all in a night of partying.- You can also buy a car that seems like a bargain but in the end will cost muchmore money on maintenance.

- You can invest in high-risk shares in a company that can go bankrupt.

- You can leave the money in that savings account while ination destroys itspurchasing power.

- You can also use money to start a business and make prot.

In a similar way, attention is also a valuable resource, and we have dierent options forits use.

If we do not take control, life may lead us to undesired destinations because we weresimply reacting to the demands of those around us, living the life others expected us tolive ...

... Or we can decide to take charge of things, going after what we really want, resistingthe temptation to get lost in distractions.

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2 - WHY IS IT DIFFICULTTO MAINTAINCONCENTRATION?



When we use our attention intensely for a long time, it may cause fatigue. It is calledcognitive exhaustion.

How to identify this? What signs should we look for?

If our attention span starts to decline, all mental activities begin to conk out: we getdistracted, our irritability increases ... Well, there are the indications that we have mentalcapacity exhaustion.

Attention is as an investment. A lack of focus means that my attention reserves areempty. And what did I get in return?

In other words, the question is: How are we investing our attention? What brings usgood results and enriches our quality of life? And what impoverishes our quality of life?

When I say enriching or impoverishing, it is in the broadest sense possible and not justin the nancial dimension. Is money important? Yes, of course, it is the trading tool forthe basic services and products that give us quality of life. But there is more than that:

A full life is one in which we are where we want, with the people we want, doing whatwe want, with lots of joy to start a new day.

And how do we achieve this fullness of life? We have to understand what our prioritiesare.

We have to understand where we need to concentrate, where to focus. We need tounderstand what deserves our attention in the rst place. And attention is like a muscle.Remember? And like every other muscle, it can also suer fatigue.

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We have to accept the fact that our attention haslimits.

Let’s take for example our study curve. When we are studying, at the beginning it takesa while to warm up. This is followed by a good performance level when we do very well... and after a while our ideas start to become confused.

This is the point of mental fatigue, when our performance drops and we becomeineective. In other words, our work is no longer ecient. I have to read the samesentence twice or three times, and I still get it wrong or do not understand anything. I’mwasting my time.

When we come to the point of exhaustion, it is possible to recover our focus. We mustrenew our attention.

exhaustion - renewal - attention

The big mistake is using inappropriate activities to renew. For example, watchingtelevision or surng the Internet are generally not good ideas—they provide too much

mental stimulation. What we want is to recharge with high-quality activities.

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3 - AN UNUSUAL TECHNIQUETO INCREASE FOCUS



Now we will discuss an unusual technique called “Making the invisible palpable”. This isa summary from the book by Daniel Goleman in chapter 13:

If our emotional circuitry (especially the amygdala, the trigger for the ght or ight

reactions) perceives an immediate threat, it will ood us with hormones such as cortisoland adrenaline, which prepare us for ght or ight.

But that does not happen in the case of potential dangers that are years or centuriesahead. In these cases, the amygdala does not react.

The amygdala circuitry is concentrated in the midbrain, and it warns us about immediatedangers that need our urgent attention.

Our amygdala deals with immediate, urgent problems. That’s how it happened in theevolutionary selection process.

Unfortunately, we do not have a very good brain for planning future events, even whenthey are important plans. If they are far away, it’s all abstract; it’s dicult to predict andidentify causal relationships. “If I do this, such a thing happens. If I fail to do that, thenthis thing will no longer happen.” This is not very obvious. It is not natural to be thinkinglike a computer that simulates the risks and possibilities of the future.

That is why today the most advanced computers can defeat the world’s chesschampions. The computer has the capability to perform millions of calculations persecond on all possible variables and to calculate the probabilities.

Despite not having the computing power that considers millions of variables, the humanbrain still has something unique: our creativity.

And it is creativity that allows us to apply this unusual technique to increase our focus:We can use our creativity to imagine a future event happening now.

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Imagine an abstract future event becoming animmediate threat.

This is how we will enable the brain to stay fully alert, fully focused and ready to do whathas to be done.

Let me give an example. Imagine that I am studying for an important exam, but it’shard to concentrate. The exam will only happen two months from now. In other words,my brain nds it dicult to make the exam tangible, to nd what is palpable in thissituation. Everything is abstract. The exam is far in the future; why bother? I have athousand little things to do in the meantime—I have to sweep the oor of the house,I have to check my mail, have to pay the electric bill, I have to prepare dinner ... I have

many immediate and tangible situations that will steal my focus. It’s easier to do theserst. It’s rewarding; it’s more inviting to devote attention to these little things justbecause they’re more visible, more tangible.

Since I know the result of this exam will have an inuence on my future, I will now usemy full attention. I will use my full attention and creativity to imagine the consequencesof a bad performance in the exam. I imagine all the details—what consequences theremay be in my bank account throughout my life. The way I will feel if I fail the exam. Theway my family will feel about my failure.

I’m making the invisible palpable.

My diculty focusing was because of lack of clarity, and now I solved this problem.

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4 - ATTENTION DEFICITDISORDER ... OR LACK OFFOCUS?



Some disturbing news: a growing number of teenagers are pretending to have attentiondecit disorder to achieve stimulant prescriptions, or take medicine and increaseattention through chemical drugs, according to the chapter “The Impoverishment ofAttention.”

The problem is not only aecting teenagers: A Mexican executive says that in the pastshe could do ve-minute video presentations, but nowadays she has to reduce themessage to a one and a half minutes at most, otherwise her audience’s attention drifts,and people start to check their phones.

Another indicator of the lack of attention is when a person is reading an interestingbook but cannot read more than two pages at a time without feeling an irresistible urgeto go check email or social media.

In a way, this is a fear of losing out on what may be going on in another corner. It alsoconveys the notion that the here and now is not very interesting.

Because of that, in our online course, FOCUS, we give you the exercises to practicemindfulness, i.e. being fully present and increasing your focus.

Sometimes, a kind of mini-contract with other people is necessary. An example isthe couple who agrees that as soon as they get home from work, they will leave thesmartphones switched o and inside a drawer.

Why something so extreme like that?

Both the husband and wife feel frustrated when the other one picks up the phone andis no longer fully present. But at the same time, they both have that irresistible urge to“just check something quickly”.

In such cases good, respectful and sincere communication can greatly help to identifywhat type of mini-contract can be useful to maintain the couple’s harmony.

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Regarding treatment and therapy, it is obvious that we should never do self-medication.This excerpt from Daniel Goleman’s book is very worrying:

“Patients are telling a known doctor of mine who are ‘self-medicating’ with drugs for

attention decit disorder or narcolepsy to continue working.”A lawyer said he took no drugs, could not work, could not read contracts.

A lawyer said if he took no drugs, he was not able to work and could not read contracts.This is crazy.

This type of medicine is not candy: these drugs can bring dependence, various sideeects, and they need to have very serious professional monitoring. Previously, theseprescription drugs were only used in severe cases, but today they’ve become some kindof ‘performance enhancing pills’

If you are wondering whether you have attention decit disorder or whether it is merelya lack of focus, get a professional clinical examination. And here is a special tip: we arenow living in an age with a much larger amount of information than a few years ago.

Because of that, it is normal to feel that it’s harder to process everything. We needspecial focus techniques.

Herbert Simon, Nobel laureate, said that information consumes attention. Now that wehave a wealth of information on the Internet, we live in a world of poverty of attention.

Information consumes attention.

As I always repeat: it’s crucial that you get good information and work together withlicensed professionals you trust, taking medication only under their supervision. The

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good professional will know how to make the diagnosis in cases of illness and mostimportant, will know how to advise you when no remedy is required.

Always remember the value of good communication and self-knowledge and the

benet of practicing focusing techniques.

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5 - SELECTIVE ATTENTION



You know those situations when you are trying to concentrate, and any tiny noisebothers you? Maybe it’s the people talking nearby, or a street noise. Even a l ibrary, withall the rules for maintaining silence, may have some sort of distraction that takes ourfocus.

We idealise a situation where we are isolated from everyone, so we can stay within oursilent cave and have no interruption. Is that the solution to be able to focus?

The answer is NO. Complete isolation is not necessary for those who develop selectiveattention.

Neurologist Richard Davidson says that when we have a selective focus, the prefrontalcortex circuit is synchronized with the object in a phase lock. And when we areunfocused, there are several neural circuits being simultaneously activated in areas thatare unrelated to what we wish to focus upon.

Let me illustrate: When I am at a street market or in a popular bar where there are a lotof people making all types of noise and with loud music playing in the background, it’sstill possible to talk to people around me, because my brain can identify the specicsound stimuli that interest me.

This is selective attention.

A policeman on the chase in the middle of a crowd can also keep the selective attention.He is focused.

We need to be clear about our purpose and learn to ignore all other stimuli that are notin line with that goal.

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There are two types of distractions: sensory andemotional.

Sensory distraction is, for example, anything else that is not this video you are watchingnow. Maybe some smell in the environment, or even the room temperature. Of all thesenses, we separate those that are relevant, and then we decide to ignore the rest. Whensomething is dicult to ignore, we call it sensory distraction.

But emotional distraction can be even more dicult to face. If the phone rings in themiddle of the night, and it is a family member bringing sad news, this situation can leaveus shaken for days and days. It totally takes our focus. The loss of a loved one. Chronicdisease. The breakup of a relationship. Treachery. Humiliation. All these situations can

leave us obsessed, unable to think of anything else.

In some situations, we may even need professional help so the mind can nd waysto preserve its integrity. Otherwise there is the risk of depression, panic, obsessive-compulsive disorder or total collapse. Chronic anxiety starts here: the inability to changefocus. You want to do a certain activity, but you cannot because you’re mentally stuck,thinking about something else.

In less acute situations, you’re dealing with a mild type of concern that is repeatedlyhaunting your head and hindering your concentration. The FOCUS course will be useful

here to do the internal strengthening work, so you can become able to withstand boththe emotional and sensory distractions.

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6 -CONCLUSIONS AND NEXTSTEPS



Achieving focus is the decision of greatest impact on your performance and on resultsthat will be harvested for life.

Just like a muscle, your focus can be trained. And without training, it will become

increasingly weakened.We need to understand the risks of a lack of focus to our future risk and use ourcreativity to make the invisible palpable.

Congratulations for completing this ebook! As a next step, we invite now to receivemore practical tips and videos on focus here.

I wish you a better focus!

Cheers!

Seiiti Arata

Arata Academy

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