In the book, The One Thing, by Gary Keller, the first sentence is “If you try to chase two rabbits, you’ll catch neither”, to paraphrase. Such a simple phrase, yet so profound. Most people tend to cast a wide net on life and see what they catch. This is the wrong approach as you’ll often wind up catching more than you can handle. It can be extremely difficult for us to have the focus to follow through with something when times get difficult, however, narrowing your focus is actually the best way to success.
Narrowing your focus
In the beginning of anything new, the focus of the individual is always broad. They are looking for ways to break into a business and find their niche. For example, when I started in real estate, I tried anything and everything I could to break into the business. I started as a realtor, then wholesaler, now a buy and hold investor. I approached real estate with a wide net and began to narrow my focus on what I ultimately wanted to do. Once that was established, my views were again too broad to succeed. I was the caller for acquisitions, the capital raiser, the property manager, and everything in between. I tried to wear too many hats for too long and was barely able to get any traction while constantly stuck doing bad deals and losing money. It wasn’t until I began to narrow my focus and leverage relationships that I started to develop serious traction.
Narrow focus with leverage
It took me more time than it should have to realize that doing it all wasn’t going to work. Almost by accident, as the universe has funny ways of making things happen, I met amazing people that I was able to grow around. No longer do I have to rely personally on making calls to make sure I am getting enough deals to close on to continue to make and grow my money stream. No longer do I have to manage my transactions. No longer do I have to completely oversee properties and manage rehabs and tenants (not that I ever did that much to begin with being that I didn’t have much success in the beginning). By harnessing the superpowers of others and their unique gifts and abilities to excel in areas that I couldn’t, I was able to narrow my focus to what I am best at doing. This involves building relationships with capital partners and analyzing properties to create creative and money-making exit strategies for short term cash and long term cash flow. This is what I like to spend my time doing and am best at. There are still parts of the process that need to be tweaked and fine tuned that draw my attention away from what I know I need to be doing, however, I know the narrower I continue to get the more success I will continue to have.
Imagine you are on a train going down a track. The train just arrived at a splitting point where there are multiple directions you could go down. You don’t know which track to go down and you can’t decide. The power of leverage and other people’s abilities gets rid of one alternate path at a time until your path becomes the only one left. Your trajectory is clear and your path to get there is obvious. Follow that path.
Narrow down the people around you
This one is difficult for me. Just like you’ll narrow your focus on what you’re physically doing to achieve your goals, you’ll also inevitably have to narrow down the people around you as well. Sometimes, you will outgrow people. In 3-6 months, you may realize that there isn’t a role for someone anymore and it is better to go your separate ways business-wise. Difficult conversations will need to be had and you will get accused of being cold or a bad person. You aren’t, don’t let guilt drag you down. Being selfless is a great quality, but being too selfless is costly. It can cause a buildup of resentment towards someone you care for and create tension where the ice just may need to be broken. No matter who is around you, make sure that everyone is providing value to one another. If they are not, it needs to be addressed. If they are no longer a good fit to move forward for the greater good of your trajectory, moving on is an evolutionary part of life and business. You may be reading this and disagreeing with me, but I’ve been here more than once and more frequently lately than you would think and it is in no way a position I enjoy being in. Like everything else in business, it’s never personal. My goal is to always provide immense value to those around me. I don’t want to ride the coattails of someone else’s success and pawn it off as my own. It is a core value of mine that I take extremely seriously. Always be honest with your feedback of others and provide constant value to one another. Otherwise, you create a tense and challenging relationship that is destined to implode.
Growth
As you grow and change, you might not be recognizable in 6 months compared to the person you are today. Your experiences, goals, and ambitions will shape and mold you into an ever evolving person. The more narrow you can get on your focus from all angles, generally, the more traction and success you will have over time. Narrowing your sights has a positive correlation with growth and is a sky rocketing formula for success.