Episode 146, Why we all need a flashlight!

Simplify Your Sales and Business meetings. Lisa Thal is an Author, Speaker, and Business Coach. She has over 35 years of marketing, sales, and leadership experience. She wrote the book "Three Word Meetings."  Lisa coaches leaders on simplifying sales and business meetings with fun and interesting 3-word topics to get your sales team motivated and inspired.

 

Episode 146, Why we all need a flashlight!

 

I have a question for you?

Have you found yourself juggling multiple projects and finding it hard to focus?

Do you have trouble remembering things or situations? 

How do you prioritize which task to complete first?

 

I will share a few things I learned that you might find helpful to help you focus. I was listening to Brene Browns Podcast Dare To Lead. Her guest was Dr. Amishi Jha. A neuroscientist and author of Peak Mind's bestseller talks about attention, focus, and concentration. She shares how Three parts of our mind work together to direct our focus, widen, and make us receptive to incoming information.

 

Ever wonder why you choose to remember some things and forget other things? 

 

My Twin sister Lynn and I just celebrated a birthday. We were sharing childhood experiences. She remembers everything, and I had a hard time recalling it. She remembered more about certain situations because she was paying more attention than I was. What I have come to realize through the book Peak Mind is that the first step to memory is attention. It's a process called "Press record," This idea is that we need to pay attention to have it go into long-term memory. 

 

So, What is Focus?

It's our attention!

 

Have you ever experienced driving down the expressway, listening to your favorite radio station, and suddenly seeing red headlights? Then we quickly turn down the music for just a second to figure out what's going on." Why do we do that? Because this situation has your attention - your focus! As if turning down the music is going to change the situation. 

 

You become alert, and you're receptive. If something does happen, you can take action fast because you're ready for it; you're in a readied state. I learned that the definition of attention is prioritizing some information over additional information; focusing is about prioritizing some content over other content. Alerting is about focusing on the present moment now. What is important is right now.

 

So, what happens when we multitask? Multitasking is not a thing. What we do in the brain is something called "task-switching." 

 

A great metaphor is that a flashlight represents where you focus. We don't have flashlights; we have a flashlight. And what you say when you say multitasking, it's like, I got four flashlights, I got them pointing in all these different directions at once. That is not how it works. You may have several focuses, but only one of them will have your singular focus first. 

 

For example, I can walk and talk simultaneously; walking doesn't require any attention if I have a deep conversation with somebody because the brain is programmed to walk. So, I can speak effortlessly or think because I am not trying to figure out how to walk. But now, if I put myself on a ledge or a cliff, and I said, "Alert -pay attention," suddenly I am in a different situation because now, that very automatic act of walking requires my attention. 

 

So multitasking is a myth because it's impossible when we think we're doing multiple things at once. We are only engaged in one task at a time.

Then we disengage in the task, move into the other task, then disengage, and then move it again, so we're doing task switches repeatedly.

 

The attention system exists to solve one of your brain's biggest problems: there is far too much information in the environment for our brain to process fully. Our brain uses attention to filter out both the unnecessary noise and chatter around us and the background thoughts and distractions that constantly come up to the surface of our mind.

 

All-day, our attention system is in action: In the office, in meetings, while we are driving, the five windows you have opened on our computer, your phone with multiple texts, all those distractions.

 

Attention is so powerful and is our "Brains boss" because attention guides how information gets processed in our brains. We become challenged by the constant stream of information we ask our brains to process. At times, we feel overwhelmed and distracted, which no one likes this feeling. So what can you do? 

 

It is all about Mindfulness! We take a deep breath and focus our Flashlight. We pay attention to present-moment experiences without reacting. We have to focus our attention on what's happening at that moment.

 

So, the first step is to point your Flashlight to something, focus, direct your attention. The second step is to notice, "Where am I right now? Where is my mind?" If your mind begins to wander away, you can't clear it because stuff will come up, so give yourself a break if you've noticed your mind has strayed away. Find your Flashlight and bring it back.

 

Follow these three words to focus when you feel like your attention is getting pulled in multiple directions. Focus, Notice, Redirect your attention, and shine your Flashlight to where you want your attention to go! 

 

If you think someone could benefit from this episode, share it, rate it, or subscribe for Free at Itunes or Spotify, so you don't miss out on the next three-word podcast.

 

Learn more about Simplifying Your sales meetings using 3-word topics at http://www.threewordmeetings.com.

 

To hear Brene Brown's podcast with Dr. Amishi Jha click below:

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/finding-focus-and-owning-your-attention/