Work on inner person to become successful in life

What you need to know:

If you’re not focused, your efforts will be diffused over many different endeavours. You may be a good time manager, but you’ll never be as high a performer or as productive a leader as when you are focused.

        Behavioural economics decrees that for every behaviour you display, there must be economic benefit. You must get something in return. This calls for focus and authenticity.

If you’re not focused, your efforts will be diffused over many different endeavours. You may be a good time manager, but you’ll never be as high a performer or as productive a leader as when you are focused.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman has shared about being single-minded on a few overriding priorities. He keeps things focused. He says the speech he gives every day is: ‘This is what we do. Is what we are doing consistent with that, and can it change the world?’

You focus on the most important thing, and you find that the other small things take care of themselves. Having a focus is a byproduct of purpose. The clearer your purpose in life, the more focused you will be on the areas that are really important in your life. Once you’re focused, you’ll know which areas to delegate, which areas to throw completely out the window, and which areas to give your best resources.

Be a disciplined worker. Figure out which parts of the day are the really creative hours for you. For example, early in the morning is my coauthor Nido Qubein’s most creative time. That’s when he does his writing and thinking. He has all his meetings in the afternoon, because it’s less productive for him. While Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur wakes up at 5 am to work out, which he believes boosts his productivity significantly. He shares he definitely can achieve twice as much by keeping fit, for it keeps his brain functioning well.

Discipline is a big point for service providers, especially for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have no bosses to watch over them or make sure that they are getting their jobs done. They have to be their own bosses. They have to supervise their own behavior. Part of their discipline is to believe firmly in behavioural economics – that every behaviour they display must produce economic benefit.

To achieve this level of productivity requires authenticity. You don’t become successful by doing the right things. You become successful by being the right person. Who you are leads to what you do, not the other way around. That’s what authenticity is all about. It comes from within the person, so to achieve it we have to work on the inner person, not the outward actions.