Focal Point

Brian Tracy

📚 GENRE: Business & Finance

📃 PAGES:  224

✅ COMPLETED: February 24, 2022

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

With so many things to do and goals to achieve, where is your time best spent? What are the one or two skills and talents that deliver the majority of your value? Using his seven-step ‘Focal Point Process’, renowned leadership expert Brian Tracy explains how to place your ‘X’ (or concentration) on the tasks and skills that will benefit you the most and maximize your time, energy, and productivity.

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Think Ahead and Work Backwards — Spend time thinking about your future and who you want to be, how you want your career to look, and what you want in your personal life. Then decide what it will take to get there and what you’ll need. Then get to work developing the skills or attribures needed to get you there. 

2️⃣ Identify Your High-Value Skills — Take a hard look at yourself and determine the 20% of skills and talents that deliver 80% of your value. Then become elite at those skills. 

3️⃣ You Are What You Think — You become what you spend the most amount of time thinking about. You always have control over your thinking and reactions to every situation. Make the decision to think optimistically.  

Favorite Quote

"To achieve more in your outer world, you must go to work on your inner world, on developing yourself."

Book Notes 📑

Introduction

  • The ability to direct your focus and attention to the things that matter most and will deliver the most growth is the key to personal efficiency and time management.
  • Quote (P. 2): “The ‘X’ is your focal point. This is the one thing you can do in that area, at any given moment, to get the best results possible. Your ability to choose the correct time, place, and activity to place your ‘X’ on has a greater impact on your life than any other factor.”
    • Knowing where to “put the X” in each part of your life is the critical determinant to everything you accomplish.
      • The ‘X’ is your focus and attention. 
  • By concentrating your focus effectively on the tasks that deliver the most value, you can accomplish much more in far less time. 
    • This book provides a guide to doing this in 7 critical areas of your life.
  • There are only 4 things you can do to improve the quality of your life and work:
    1. Do MORE of certain things
      • Do more of the things that are already delivering good results and growth.
        • Ex. Reading books, practicing Spanish, going to the gym, etc.
    2. Do LESS of certain things
      • Do less of certain activities that are hindering your progress or distracting you. 
        • Ex. Netflix, Social media, etc. 
    3. START doing things you weren’t doing previously 
      • Create new habits and daily disciplines designed to help you grow and improve. 
      • Learn new skills, begin new projects, etc. 
        • Ex. Meditation 
    4. STOP doing things altogether 
      • Completely stop doing things that aren’t helping you get to where you want to go.
        • Ex. Video games

Ch. 1: Unlock Your Potential

  • Quote (P. 7): “You can dramatically improve the overall quality of your life far faster than you might think possible. All you need is the desire to change, the decision to take action, the discipline to practice the new behaviors you have chosen, and the determination to persist until you get the results you want.”
    • This this the formula to effective change and growth. 
  • I’m today’s world, you are paid for accomplishments and outcomes rather than activities.
    • It’s possible to reduce your amount of time working and still accomplish big things.
      • It’s all about where you place your focus. You have to cut out the things that are time-consuming and aren’t delivering high value. This is the key to efficiency. 
  • Use the 80/20 Rule to form your approach to productivity.
    • 20% of your daily tasks deliver 80% of your overall value.
      • Identify these top 20% tasks that make you valuable and discipline yourself to focus on them and do more of them.
        • At the same time, reduce or cut out the time you spend on the bottom 80% of tasks that aren’t delivering maximum value. 
  • Quote (P. 12): “ The acceptance of personal responsibility is what separates the superior person from the average person. Personal responsibility is the preeminent trait of leadership and the wellspring of high-performance in every person in every situation.“
    • Take 100% accountability for your life. This means no excuses, no criticizing others, and no blaming, and no complaining. 
    • If you aren’t happy with a certain part of your life, take responsibility and work to find a solution or change. 
    • Make progress, not excuses. 
  • Quote (P. 14): “Your ability to divert your attention from activities of lower value to activities of higher value is central to everything you accomplish in life.”
    • The key to increasing your income is to make yourself more valuable.
      • Spend more time on high-value tasks rather than low-value, time consuming tasks. 
      • Improve your skills. Or learn new skills.
  • The Law of Increasing Returns — You make the most progress when you direct your focus towards improving two or three skills or areas of your life rather than a bunch of skills or areas of your life.
    • By trying to improve too many things or areas of your life, it’s actually difficult to make good progress in each one. 
    • In other words, try to put MORE focus and energy into the development of FEWER skills. 
  • Quote (P. 19): “You can learn any habit that you consider desirable or necessary if you are willing to work at it long enough and hard enough.“
    • Habit — Automatic or conditioned response to stimuli.
    • Habits have momentum. When you start a habit and ingrain it into your life, it becomes easy to stick with it over time. It becomes part of you. 
  • Learn to say ‘no’ to activities or demands on your time that aren’t helping you get where you want to go.
    • Focus on making progress towards your goals. Cut out the tasks that aren’t bringing you closer to your goals. 
    • Maximize your time. 

The Grand SLAM Formula

  • Simplify 
    • Cut out or reduce low-value tasks that aren’t helping you get where you want to go.
  • Leverage
    • Leverage other people to help you get where you want to go faster. There are seven types of leverage available.
      1. Other People’s Knowledge
        • Read books, articles, etc. to find answers that can save you time.
        • One key piece of knowledge can save you tons of time and energy when going for your goals. 
      2. Other People’s Energy
        • Outsource low-value tasks to others, which gives you more time to spend on high-value tasks. 
      3. Other People’s Money
        • Borrow money and invest it wisely. Real estate comes to mind here. 
      4. Other People’s Success
        • Study successful people. All successful people — regardless of their field — have common traits (discipline, drive, etc.). Study them and try to emulate their process. 
        • Reading books and biographies is one of many ways to do this. 
      5. Other People’s Failures
        • Similar to studying success. Learn from mistakes others have made. 
      6. Other People’s Ideas
        • The more you read, learn, discuss, and experiment, the more likely it is that you’ll run into a great idea that helps you make progress in your life. 
      7. Other People’s Contacts
        • Tap into other people’s networks. There are people that can significantly accelerate your progress. 
        • Who do you know who can help you to achieve your goals faster?
  • Accelerate
    • Always be looking for ways to do the job faster and more efficiently. 
    • Speed is valued in today’s world. 
  • Multiply
    • Put together a solid team around you that can help you accomplish goals. 
  • Most people waste a lot of time at work socializing with coworkers, working on low-value tasks, and arriving late/leaving early. They avoid the high-value work that they’ve been assigned.
    • The issue is that the work still has to get done. It’s not going away. 
    • You’re better off putting your head down and getting through the hard stuff right away so you don’t feel overwhelmed later as deadlines approach. 
    • I tend to procrastinate on tasks I don’t want to do. The issue is that I’m going to have to do these tasks anyway. The right mindset is to just attack those terrible tasks and get them out of the way immediately.  
  • Try to take a 3-day weekend once per month.
    • During that time, make progress towards your personal pursuits. 

Ch. 2: Double Your Productivity

  • Efficient productivity starts with defining what you’re trying to achieve as clearly as possible. 
    • Write it down. Then break the task down into parts and write those down as well.
    • By planning thoroughly, you save yourself a lot of time when it comes to executing the task. 
  • Planing ahead is so key for everything. 
    • When you don’t have a gameplan going into a daily task, you end up wasting valuable execution time thinking of how you want to execute the task. 
      • Ex. Website. Instead of getting after it and making progress during my limited time to work on it, I’m wasting time thinking of the next step to building the website.
  • Prioritize tasks using the ABCDE Method. Attack each task in order based on the rating. 
    • A — Super urgent. You have to do it now. 
    • B — You should do it. But only after all ‘A’ tasks are done. 
    • C — It would be nice to do it, but it doesn’t really provide much value. 
    • D — You can delegate it to somebody else.
    • E — You can eliminate it altogether. 
  • The key to great productivity is to always, always, always be asking yourself the following question:
    • What is the most valuable use of my time right now?
    • Great productivity comes from maximizing your time. You need to make it a habit to use your time wisely. 

Keys to High Productivity

  1. Work Harder 
    • Don’t waste time at work. Get after it from the moment you step into the building to the moment you leave. 
    • Take your work seriously. 
  2. Work Faster
    • Push the pace at work. Move through tasks quickly. Have a sense of urgency when you work.
    • When you do complete a task, move to the next one quickly. 
  3. Work on High-Value Activities 
    • Again, work on the tasks that are most important. 
  4. Do Things You Are Better At
    • Work on the things that your most skilled at.
    • Become excellent at your best skill. When you become excellent, you get the job done faster and better. 
  5. Work More Hours
    • Avoid traffic and stay a bit later each day. 
    • The extra hours you spend on the job adds up over time. Your productivity and results will reflect that. 
  • Turn work into a game. Make it fun. This is a key high productivity mindset. 
    • Compete against yourself to see how much you can get done in a single day. 
    • Set your own daily deadlines and race to meet them. 
    • See if you can get more and more done in less and less time. 
    • Make every minute count. 
  • Quote (P. 40): “Concentrate on developing the habit of results orientation, focus, concentration, discipline, and persistence. These become internal motivators and drivers for high performance.”
    • Focus and concentrate when you’re at work. 
    • Don’t get distracted by your wandering mind or other factors. 

Ch. 3: Simplify Your Life

  • Simplifying your life comes down to reducing the sheer number of things you are doing in your work and personal life. 
    • Cut out or reduce the things that aren’t providing value. 
  • With every task you deal with consistently, look for ways to reduce the number of steps it takes to accomplish the task. 
    • When you eliminate steps, you increase the speed and efficiency of the process.
    • Ex. Citibank reduced its total mortgage application approval time dramatically by reducing the number of people who needed to approve the mortgage. They streamlined the process. 
  • You should always be thinking ahead when it comes to your career. Key questions to ponder include: 
    • What is my next job going to be? What do I want it to be?
    • What is my next career going to be? What do I want it to be? 
      • Take control. If you don’t answer these questions for yourself, somebody else will. 
  • Quote (P. 52): “If for any reason you are not happy with your current situation, you can make new choices and decisions about exactly what you want and then go to work to make that a reality.“
    • DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT and HOW YOU WANT TO BE, and then go to work on making the necessary changes to make your vision a reality. 
      • You ALWAYS have this power on your control. 

Ch. 4: Tap Your Most Precious Resource

  • Your mind is your greatest asset. You can do anything you set your mind to.
  • One of the few things you have control over in life is your thoughts and reactions to things that happen to you.
    • You have the power to think with a grateful mind.
    • You have the power to focus your mind on all the great things you have already rather dwelling on what you don’t have. 
    • You have the power to think highly of yourself and see a vision for yourself. 
    • You have the power to react to events with a positive mind frame. 
  • Quote (P. 58): “If you do what other successful people do, you will enjoy the same results and rewards that they do. And if you don’t, you won’t.”
    • Study successful people. Follow their path. Learn from their journey. 
    • Ex. Successful people are disciplined. They are internally motivated and have level of high drive and work ethic. They build their mind through reading, studying, and learning. They improve their skills. They go the extra mile. 
  • Quote (P. 62): “Your thoughts are the causes that create the conditions of your life. Everything you have in your life today you have attracted to yourself by the way you think. You can change your life because you can change the way you think.”
    • You become what you think about the most.
      • Ex. If you think you’re a dumb, unconfident loser, you will be a dumb, unconfident loser.
      • Ex. If you think you’re smart, talented, hard working, disciplined, caring, and loving leader, you will be those things. 
    • Every aspect of your life today is because of your thinking. 
    • If you don’t like something, choose to think of a solution and get to work making the change. 
  • Successful people think about what they want and how to get it most of the time.
    • Unsuccessful people think about what they don’t want most of the time and who is to blame for their issues.
  • Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania interviewed 350,000 highly successful people and found that the predominant trait was optimism.
    • Successful people tend to think positively about themselves and people around them. 
    • Becoming an optimistic thinker can be tough at first, but it can be done through a lot of effort, repetition, and practice.
      • Think of it as the mental gym. Just as you go to the gym to get buff, you need to spend time in the mental gym training yourself to be a confident, optimistic thinker. 
    • Over time, after a lot of practice, optimism becomes a conditioned response. It’s just who you are. 

Mental Training Techniques

  1. Focus on the Future
    • Look ahead 3-5 years and completely visualize your life. What does it look like? Who is part of it? What are you up to? What is your performance like? What is your confidence like? 
    • Once you’ve visualized your perfect future, work backwards and figure out HOW you’re going to get there. 
  2. Think About Your Goals
    • Your goals are the HOW. Set goals and timelines designed to get you to your vision.
      • Get to work on executing. 
    • Always be working towards your goals. Think about them. Focus on them. Concentrate. 

3. Commit To Excellence 

  • Commit to excellence in your work.
  • Decide to join the top 10% in your field. Focus on improving every da, and do what it takes to get in that top 10%.
    • Content Writing
  • Ask yourself — “What one skill, if I developed it and did it in excellent fashion, would help me the most in my career?”
    • Identify it and place your focus on it. Get a little better at it each day.

4. Focus on Results 

  • Think about the results you want. Focus on them and be a results oriented person. 

5. Concentrate on Solutions

  • Life is a constant string of problems. Everybody deals with them.
    • Successful people focus on finding solutions to problems.
    • Unsuccessful people focus on blaming, criticizing, and complaining about problems. 
  • Focus on putting a solution on the board. Think of ways to solve the problem and then get to work. You always have the power to choose your response.
    • By thinking of solutions — rather than complaining — you become optimistic and creative. 

6. Dedicate Yourself to Lifelong Learning

  • Be a sponge and soak up information from every source around you.
  • To earn more, you must learn 
  • You are your most valuable asset. Become a weapon. Invest in yourself. Develop yourself daily.
    • Constantly feed your mind and learn.
    • Learn new skills and develop old ones daily to improve your overall performance. 
  • Ways to develop yourself:
    1. Read Books Daily
    2. Listen to Audio Programs
      • Especially while driving. Turn your car into a university. 
      1. Attend Seminars 
    • Quote (P. 80): “Work on yourself as if your entire future depended on it, because it does.“
    • When you commit yourself to learning, growing, and getting better every day, your confidence soars. 
      • You learn to trust yourself because you know the work you’re putting into your development. You would rather trust yourself to do a job than anyone else. You know what you’re about. 

7. Do It Now!

  • Move with a fast tempo and pace when you work.
    • You gain energy when you move quickly. 
  • Operate with a sense of urgency. Try to move quickly and get as much done as possible each day.
  • Overcome procrastination by getting started IMMEDIATELY on key tasks

Ch. 5: Practice Personal Strategic Planning

  • Personal Strategic Planning involves thinking ahead 3-5 years and deciding what you want and who you want to be.
    • Then work backwards by identifying the skills and attributes you’ll need to get there, and begin working on developing those. 
    • It’s important to map everything out when doing this. By writing a detailed plan down and following it, you’ll get where you want to go much faster.
  • Quote (P. 92): “One of your chief responsibilities in life is to select the area of excellence that can have the greatest positive impact on your career and your income, and then throw your whole heart into becoming very, very good in that one area.“
    • Identify the ONE skill that will help you bring the most value and then commit yourself to becoming the best at it.
      • Ex. Content Writing
      • Ex. Public Speaking
  • Quote (P. 99): “The greater clarity you have with regard to who you are, what you want, and what you have to do to get it, the faster you will move ahead.“
    • Clarity is so key to progress — you have to know what you want and what it’s going to take to get there.
      • Planning is essential to creating clarity. 
      • If you DON’T plan and you therefore DON’T have clarity, you’re just going to be spinning your tires. You will make minimal progress.
        • You need written goals and checkmarks to shoot for that will get you to your destination.
    • Constantly asking yourself the right questions is another essential part of creating clarity. You need to ask yourself what you want until you are able to define it with complete clarity. Then you can get to work on reaching your vision.
      • Quote (P. 99): “The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life. The better questions you ask yourself, the better answers you will elicit.“
    • The rest of the book will discuss the Focal Point Process, which is designed to help you create your plan. 
  • The Focal Point Process involves seven key steps:

Ch. 6: Supercharge Your Business and Career

  • Quote (P. 104): “High performing people are clear about what they believe and stand for, and they don’t deviate from those values.”
    • Choose 3-5 values that you believe in and stand for. Never deviate from those values. Everything starts here.
      • Heart & Love 
      • Integrity
      • Discipline 
      • Thoughtfulness 
      • Honesty
  • Quote (P. 108): “Practice ‘back-from-the-future’ thinking. Project forward five years and then look back mentally to where you are today. Imagine the steps you would have to take to make your future vision a reality.”
    • Look ahead and define what you want. Then work backwards and identify the goals, skills, and habits you will need to get there. Then get to work.

Ch. 7: Improve Your Family and Personal Life

  • Quote (P. 122): “The happiest people spend a lot of time thinking about what they want to be, have, and do.”
    • This needs to be a priority. Really spend some time thinking about your life and where you’re headed.
      • Set goals that will get you to where you want to be.
  • There are two types of time spent in your life:
      1. Work Time — Measured by results and productivity. 
      2. Personal Time — Measured by love and contentment. 
      • It’s the quality of time at work that counts and the quantity of time at home that matters. 
  • Quote (P. 130): “The times you spend away and on vacation with your loved ones will include the happiest and most important memories of your lives together. Your job is to create as many opportunities for these happy experiences to take place, and for these memories to develop, as you possibly can.”

Ch. 8: Achieve Financial Independence

  • Quote (P. 136): “The only way you are going to achieve financial independence is by saving and investing your money month after month, year after year, until you have enough that you never have to worry about money again.“
    • There are more opportunities to become a millionaire today than there ever have been. 
  • Becoming financially independent requires that you make it one of your top goals and priorities.
    • Researchers have found that self-made millionaires think about financial independence a lot.
      • They organize their lives around saving and accumulating. 
      • They think about how they can earn or acquire more and how they should invest and deploy their savings. 
  • In general, you should have 3 financial goals:
      1. Earn as much as you can
      2. Spend as little as you can
      3. Save and invest as much as possible 
      • These are all under your control. 
  • Make cost control and cost cutting a regular part of your life, no matter how much you earn.
    • By lowering your cost of living and ignoring the impulse to buy things constantly, you can really begin to save and invest a lot and have to that money make more money. 
    • Frugality is critical to becoming financially independent. 
    • Formula — Spend less than you make and invest the rest. 
  • Wealthy people aren’t ‘evil’.
    • It takes a ton of discipline, hard work, and effort to achieve a high degree of wealth and success. People who are wealthy normally worked extremely hard for it and made ton of sacrifices along the way. 
  • Quote (P. 143): “Financial success comes from value creation. The more value you add, the greater will be your own personal value and the higher will be the rewards you receive. Every day you must look for ways to add even more value than before.”
    • This is the key to everything — Become more valuable. Look for ways you can improve yourself and become more valuable in all areas of life.
  • Always pay yourself first! When your paycheck comes in, you need to be putting at least a little bit away into your investing account.
    • Find a way to live off what is left.
  • Dollar Cost Averaging — Investing the same dollar amount in the stock market every month, regardless of whether stock prices are high or low.
    • By doing this, your average cost will be lower than if you tried to time the market sporadically. 

Ch. 9: Enjoy Superb Health and Fitness

  • 1901 — Average life span was 50 years.
    • 2001 — 77 years
  • Decide how long you want to live and visualize yourself getting there. Put your ‘X’ on that age.
  • Decide the weight you want to be and create a diet that will get you there or allow you to maintain at that weight. 
  • Keys to a healthy diet:
    • Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables
    • Eat a lot of lean protein, like fish and chicken
    • Eat plenty of whole grains
    • Drink at least a gallon of water per day
    • Avoid sugar, salt, and white flour products
    • Look into supplements so you get all of the nutrients you need. Sometimes just fulfilling a deficiency with a supplement can make a world of difference in how you feel. 
  • Exercise is essential. 
    • It improves mood and energy. 
    • It improves performance across the board. 
    • It makes you feel good by producing endorphins. 
    • It ‘sets the tempo’ for the rest of the day. 

Ch. 10: Become Everything You Are Capable Of

  • Quote (P. 160): “To achieve more in your outer world, you must go to work on your inner world, on developing yourself.”
    • Personal and professional development is the most powerful tool you can use to achieve any goal for yourself.
    • The best way to develop is to study successful people and follow the path they blazed. Do what they did. Adopt the habits that they adopted. 
  • Most people settle in life rather than committing themselves to maximizing their full potential.
  • Self-discipline is the most important quality for success.
    • You have to be able to command yourself to do what needs to be done, whether you feel like it or not.
    • Develop a set of small daily habits and have the discipline to perform them every day.
      • Repeatedly performing small acts of development every single day is how you make huge strides in your growth over the long haul.
  • Quote (P. 169): “No matter how excited or determined you are, change and progress take place slowly.“
    • All permanent change is progressive and takes place over a long period of time.
      • The key is to chip away at it it every day. Every day, get a little bit better. Every day, get a a little bit stronger. 
  • Turn your vehicle into a university. Play Spanish tapes or motivational tapes while you drive.
    • Try to use commute time to your advantage. 
  • Quote (P. 173): “Decide today to develop yourself to the point where you can achieve every financial and personal goal you ever set and become everything you’re capable of becoming”
    • Focus on improving yourself and making progress every single day. 

Ch. 11: Make a Difference in Your Community

  • Victor Frankl, who survived the Nazi death camps of World War II, found that the strongest driving force in the human psyche is the need for meaning and purpose.
    • One of the biggest questions you can ever ask yourself is this: What kind of difference do I want to make with my life? 
    • Decide how you want to make a difference in this world and in the lives of others. 
  • At age 30, Albert Schweitzer put his thriving music career to the side to go back to school for 8 years to earn a degree in tropical medicine.
    • At age 38, he went to Africa and opened up a village hospital and served others. 
  • Andrew Carnegie, the legendary steel magnate, decided to spend the first half of his life building wealth and the second half of his life giving it all away.
    • He built libraries, set up foundations, gave money to worthy causes. 

Ch. 12: Spiritual Development and Inner Peace

  • 1895 — Sigmund Freud introduced his theory of psychoanalysis. He developed a theory called the Pleasure Principle. 
    • The Pleasure Principle — Human beings are motivated to move toward pleasure and avoid pain; to move toward comfort and away from discomfort. 
    • Freud concluded that human action is stimulated by dissatisfaction of some kind. Without dissatisfaction, no action takes place. The person remains content and satisfied. 
      • Change and action arise from feelings of frustration of dissatisfaction. If you are perfectly happy with where you are, you won’t be inspired to change anything. 
  • Quote (P. 188): “Rightly understood, spiritual development is the key to peace, prosperity, happiness, and personal fulfillment.” 
  • The Golden Rule — Treat others how you want to be treated.
    • Be forgiving and understanding of others as you would like them to be to you. 
  • Quote (P. 196): “Look for the good in every situation. Look for something beneficial that you can gain from every setback or difficulty.” 
    • There’s always a positive or something to be gained in every situation. Find it, even if it takes some searching. 
  • Quote (P. 197): “Spiritual development enhances your life and fills you with joy and satisfaction. It makes you happy and gives you tremendous pleasure.” 
    • People who are spiritual tend to be more grateful, which leads to a better overall perspective on life. 

Epilogue: 7 Lessons for the 21st Century

  1. Your life only gets better when you get better  
    • Your outer world will always reflect your inner world. Focus on getting better and improving. 
  2. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from; all that matters is where you’re going 
    • Never let your past hold you back. Learn from past events and let them go.
    • Focus on the future and where you’re headed.
  3. Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first
    • Don’t give up. New endeavors are always hard at first but get easier over time.
  4. You are only as free as your options
    • Always look to give yourself options.
  5. Look for the good in every problem
    • Look for the valuable lesson in every setback or adversity.
  6. You can learn anything you need to learn to achieve any goal you have for yourself
    • You can always learn skills and knowledge. Focus on daily education. 
  7. The only limits on what you can do or be are the limits you set in your own mind
    • Your mind is so key. You are what you think about the most. 
    • Focus you mind on what you want.
    • Believe in yourself. Have incidence in yourself and your skills and your talents. 
  • Quote (P. 201): “If you want anything badly enough and you are willing to persist long enough, nothing can stop you from achieving it.”
    • Decide what you want, then go for it. 
    • Work towards what you want daily.