Speaking of zigging and zagging, Kyle Steed wrote an excellent article to accompany an equally amazing mural he illustrated.
We can’t have it all. This is true. At one point or another we must all decide what is more important in life. But I believe there does exist a balance in life whereby we can create amazing things and still create an amazing life at home. […]
I have seen firsthand the examples of how success can intersect with family and there’s no looking back.
Just because you know about something doesn’t mean you do anything about it. There are overweight dietitians, sleep-deprived sleep researchers, broke business coaches, and angry counselors.
Common knowledge is not the same as common action.
* * *
The balance between our work and personal lives isn’t so much a perfect balancing act. It’s more of a zig and a zag. We spend a season of time focusing on a particular area of life, then we pull back and spend a season focusing on something else. We work hard at the office and then we go on vacation with the family.
It has been three weeks since the Focus Course launched. And now that this chapter of my life is closed, in the zig-zag of life I am taking some time off during the next month to be with and visit family as well as to celebrate 10 amazing years of marriage with my wife.
And during this down-time I’ll be thinking about what’s next.
* * *
This morning I was leafing through the notebook I used to jot down most of my research notes related to The Focus Course.
I came across one page, right in the middle of my notebook, that had several unordered bullet points on the importance of a focused life. These are some of the original ideas that later got expounded on as part of the course. I want to share them here with you.
I have such a propensity to want to do everything, be everywhere, and control everything. But I know that the times I’ve done my best work are the times when I had one specific goal and one main project that I was focused on.
Reading my own notes this morning was a reminder to myself that just because I know a little bit about focus and diligence, doesn’t mean I’m immune to ever being un-focused. As I take some time to think and plan for what is next, I also need to remember to take my own advice: clearly defined boundaries empower; life needs humor and joy; I have all the time I’m going to get.
If you’re also slowing down this summer to think about what’s in store for the next season of life, instead of trying to figure out how you’re going to do it all, maybe try to do one thing really well.
Two years ago I launched my first real product.
I remember waking up the morning of the launch and feeling sick. I didn’t have the flu. I was scared. There was a big knot in the pit of my stomach. I felt like a fraud. I was afraid people would buy my book, read it, and feel ripped off.
The book I’m talking about is Delight is in the Details.
On the day I was to put it up for sell all I could think about was how I felt like a fraud and an imposter. I was scared that I was charging for something that should be free. In short, I wasn’t confident that the value of the book was greater than the price I was charging.
Who was I, I thought, to make something and then ask people to give me money for it? I didn’t trust my ability to create something of value.
It was such a bizarre feeling. I chose to ignore it and stick with my plan. I put Delight is in the Details up for sale when I said I would and I didn’t lower my price.
Delight is in the Details has since gone on to sell more than 2,000 copies. I have heard from so many people who have read the book, listened to the interviews, and have been inspired. I’ve even gone back and referenced my own writing from the book multiple times, to re-take my own advice and remind myself of those values and ideas.
* * *
Over the past two years, I’ve thought a lot about that day and those feelings: the fear, doubt, and even the shame that can accompany a product launch. Here you’ve got this thing that you’ve created for someone else, and you’re trying to assign a value to it. It’s not easy to do.
But since that initial product launch two years ago, I’ve since had two more times through a launch: last summer (2014) I published a big update to Delight is in the Details, and then a couple weeks ago I published The Focus Course.
Here’s an interesting data point: I charged more each product. In part because I learned how to add more and more value, but also because I learned to trust my ability to create something of value.
If you’ve got a product you’re trying to assign a value to, here’s something to consider:
Your product has three adjustable numbers: Cost, Price, and Value.
Cost is the time and money it takes to make the product.
Price is what you sell the product for. (Assuming it’s higher than your cost, then the difference is your profit.)
Value is what your product is worth in the eyes of the people who buy it.
These three numbers must be in balance.
Your price has to be more than your cost so you can make a profit. But you also want your price to be less than the product’s value so the people who buy from you are getting something worthwhile.
This is why pricing is an art, not a science. You need to make a sustainable and worthwhile profit from your product. But you also want to provide as much additional value as possible.
In my experience, there are two ways to adjust my cost/price/value ratios in order to have a price that is sustainable for me while also being fair to the people who buy my products.
Second is to add value in a way that doesn’t unnecessarily or dramatically increase complexity or cost. I think one of the best ways to do this is by sweating the details. When you add empathy and delight to your product and the experience surrounding it, then the people who use it feel honored and excited.
The packaging that an Apple product comes in is an excellent example of both empathy (the boxes are easy to open and unpack) and delight (the boxes are high quality and well designed). It’s one of many ways Apple adds value to their products without dramatically increasing the cost to make the product.
* * *
Here I’m going to share my own examples of how I did this, by sharing what I did to add value to The Focus Course. I’m using the Focus Course because it’s a real-life example that’s still very fresh in my mind.
I’ll first share about the real costs associated with the course, what I did to make the course as valuable as possible, and then where and why I landed on for the price.
For me, The Focus Course has two costs associated with it: the initial cost of building it and ongoing cost of running it.
I spent at least 1,500 hours (and probably more) of my own time to research, write, and architect the course. I also invested $9,600 to pay for the design, development, videos, editing, research material, and a few other miscellaneous odds and ends.
The second cost is the ongoing expense of keeping the course going. I pay for hosting the website (Flywheel), the webfonts (Hoefler & Co.), the SSL cert and domain registration, the video and media files (Vimeo Pro; Amazon S3), the forum (Discourse & Digital Ocean), the email servers (Mandrill and MailChimp), and the membership service and payment gateway (Memberful).
All in all, the services which power the Focus Course cost $211 / month to run. And the more people who sign up for the course, the more these monthly expense go up. This is certainly not a massive expense right now, but neither is it insignificant.
Additionally, I have to be able to pay a designer / developer for any updates, changes, or improvements to the website.
All this may sound like a lot when it’s listed out, but actually I think it’s quite reasonable. The moving parts all fit together quite nicely to make an overall awesome product that I’m proud of and that I believe is sustainable to maintain.
The big question I kept asking myself over and over was this: How can I make The Focus Course as valuable as possible?
In fact, it was this question that led me to build the course in the first place. As you may know, The Power of a Focused Life was originally going to be a book. But once I finished the initial draft of the book, and I began to read other books for research, I discovered that so many of important actionable items within these books were mostly buried underneath all the ideas and theory. I realized that my own book was suffering from the same fate, and so by asking myself how I could make the product more valuable I realized that it needed to be something other than a book.
Then, as the course began to take shape and I decided that I wanted to charge $250, I knew that I needed to build something that looked and worked like a $500 product and had the foundational content of a $1,000 product.
Basically, when people sign up, I want them to instantly feel as if they’ve already gotten more than they paid for. I want them to feel excited and refreshed. And then, by the time they finished the course, I want them to feel an even greater satisfaction — that they got what they were looking for and more.
It is critical to me that the value of the Focus Course be far greater than its price.
The foundation of the course’s value is, obviously, the content itself. There are 40 days of assignments and lessons, and if those 40 days don’t flow well and offer something of substance, then the rest doesn’t matter. And, fittingly, this is where I spent the bulk of my time and energy. Then, once I had the course outlined and written, I worked with nearly 100 “beta” testers to go through it and get their feedback on the contents alone.
The early pilot version of the course was ugly. And when I say “ugly” what I mean is “ugly.” I sent out ugly looking emails every day and I had a generic WordPress theme. It was just the raw content of the course with nothing to hide behind.
But once I knew that the content itself was right, then I got to work sweating the details.
And so, in addition to the content, there were a few other things I set up to add additional value to the course.
Community: Having a thriving community forum that’s filled with other people going through the course is a massive value. It provides accountability, encouragement, help, and just a great sense of camaraderie.
All the little details: everywhere I could I tried to add fun extras. This includes a friendly welcome video when you first sign up, a welcome page and email that tells you everything on the website, personal follow up emails to check in on, an easy sign-up process with single sign on for the course and the forums, as well as some really fun easter eggs you naturally discover once you start the course.
One of the hardest aspects to building the Focus Course was coming up with a price. I went back and forth with all sorts of different numbers.
I wanted to charge an amount that was fair to those who bought the course — making sure the value given exceeds the price they paid. But I also needed to charge enough to make back the time and money initially invested, as well as being able to cover the ongoing costs of hosting the course.
Moreover, by charging a fair price, I can do more than just maintain the course, I can keep working on it and adding more value. I already have a clear roadmap for the next update.
I’ll also add that by charging a fair price relative to the content and commitment required, it means the people who buy The Focus Course have something invested in it. If I were to charge $5 then people would value the course as something about on par with a latte.
However, by charging $250, people see the course for what it actually is: something incredibly valuable that requires sacrifice. Which means those who do sign up are far more likely to actually to commit the time an energy needed to work their way through the 40 days.
When the value of what you’re selling is more than the price you’re charging for it, people who buy your product feel honored. (Conversely, if the value is at or below the price, people feel ripped off or cheated.)
When you sweat the details and add empathy, joy, and delight into your product then it makes people feel happy and excited.
And who doesn’t want happy, honored people as customers?
Marius Masalar wrote a review for us over on Tools & Toys of the Fuji X100T. Fantastic review, fantastic photos.
While I’m very happy with my E-M10, my heart goes out to anyone in the market to get an awesome camera. There are just so many amazing cameras out there today, not the least of which is the one that’s in your pocket (unless, that is, you’re holding it right now as you read this).
And, speaking of podcasts, I was also privileged to be a guest on the latest episode of Home Work. Dave, Aaron, and I talked about the glories and the terrors of life as a work-from-home dad. I also shared a lot of the behind-the-scenes regarding the what and why of The Focus Course, and answered several questions from show listeners regarding writing routines, building an audience, and investing in your work.
I was just recently a guest on Joe Darnell and Joshua Peiffer’s podcast, TechTonic. It was a great show where we talked about writing, design, using technology, and a whole lot more.
Wow. What a wild and awesome past few weeks. The Focus Course has launched (as you well know, haha), and now things return to their regular schedule. (Well, technically, they’ll return this coming Monday. I’ve got a birthday and a holiday weekend, so I’m taking some time off after today.)
Over the coming months I will be sharing a lot of the behind-the-scenes stories, information, and motivation about building and launching the Focus Course. If you have any questions for me that you’d love to see answered, please just email me. I’ve been doing this self-employed, work-from-home-as-a-full-time-writer racket for more than four years and I want to do what I can to encourage you that, yes, you can do your best creative work every day.
But today, I want to share something different. Simply a video of a man ironing a shirt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylQtbXFZ4yw
Now, this is no ordinary video. This is one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time.
I can’t say exactly what it is about this ironing video that I love so much, but it’s just awesome.
Maybe it’s the meticulousness and skill with which the man irons that shirt. Maybe it’s the neat-freak in me loving to see that wrinkly shirt get ironed out. Or maybe it’s because this gives me hope that I don’t always have to be horrible at ironing.
Who knew that ironing could be a craft?
It makes me wonder how many shirts this man has ironed. Would he even tolerate the cheap Black & Decker iron and squeaky ironing table that are hiding in my closet feeling very insecure and inadequate at the moment?
Just a friendly reminder that today is the last day to sign up for The Focus Course at the special launch price.
The Focus Course is normally $249. But during the launch week (which ends today), the course is just $199.
And keep in mind, you don’t have to start the course right away, nor do you have to complete it in 40 consecutive days. You get lifetime access to the course and the website, thus you are free to go at any pace that works for you.
There is no rush to complete it (or even start it) until you’re ready. And since the website keeps track of which days you have completed, it is easy to keep track of your progress in case you have to take time off from the course.
Ready to bring your life into focus? Sign up here. You’ll get instant access to everything right away.
First off: I can’t even mention the Focus Course without giving a huge thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word about the course and all those who signed up this week. The response and positive feedback has been far beyond what I expected. You guys are awesome!
Secondly, I wanted to share with you this bonus video and article from the course website. As you probably know, in addition to the 40-day course itself, there are several additional bonus videos and articles, just like this one.
The video and article I’m sharing with you here is the response to one of the most asked questions I’ve been getting over the past year: “I have way more ideas than time, what do I do?”
I hope that this bonus video and article will help you. Also, I share it to give you an example of the quality found on The Focus Course. I put a lot of time and energy into the design, content, and overall quality of the site so that not only would it be helpful and impactful, but also an awesome and enjoyable experience.
Here it is. The Focus Course has launched and is now available for you to sign up.
It’s 40 days and 5 modules. 18 videos. 75,000 words. Has downloadable PDF workbooks and HD videos. There’s a members-only discussion forum. You get lifetime access plus a money-back guarantee. And there are some awesome launch-week giveaways.
The Focus Course is for anyone who wants to increase productivity, personal integrity, morale, and overall quality of life. What sets the course apart is that it guides you in the implementation of these principles so that these topics go beyond mere head knowledge and into experiential knowledge.
If you’re ready to bring your life into focus, sign up here. You’ll get instant access to everything in the course right away.
Tomorrow at 10:00am EST, The Focus Course will be available.
This post is to tell you exactly what you’ll be getting when you sign up for The Focus Course. And, I hope to convey just how much value there is in the materials.
Over the past 11 months I have spent thousands of hours writing, researching, and architecting the content of this course. I’ve poured myself into building something that is professional, delightful, informative, fun, unique, and, most of all, very impactful. I am confident that the contents and value of the course are well worth the investment, and I hope this detailed look at everything in the course can help to demonstrate that.
If and when you sign up for the course, you can either start right away or wait to begin until a time that’s best for you. Since you’ll get lifetime access to the website there is no rush to start immediately.
The course will cost $249. At launch, however, it will be just $199.
That said, here are all the details…
This is it. A 40-day course, broken down into 5 modules.
Each module centers around a specific theme. And each day you’ll be given a fun and simple task to complete along with a teaching lesson about the value, relevancy, and practicality of that day’s task.
I’ve said this before and it’s worth repeating: The Focus Course has been meticulously and intentionally designed to lead you along the easiest and most impactful path. It starts out easy and fun and culminates in profound change and understanding.
You are free to take the course at any pace that works for you. The website keeps track of which days you have completed, and you can easily see your progress.
And since you have lifetime access to the course, there is no rush to complete it (or even start it) until you’re ready.
Here’s a very brief overview of each module:
Module One: Foundations
Days 1-7 focus on personal integrity, creative imagination, progress, reducing distractions, building social support, generosity, and simplifying.
Module Two: Honesty
Days 8-17 focus on who you are and what’s important to you; roles, values, vision, legacy, short- and long-term goals, and how to realistically move toward them.
Module Three: Clarity
Days 18-28 focus on how you’re currently spending your time and energy, what your potential is, and how to apply change and begin making progress.
Module Four: Action (and Resistance)
Days 29-34 focus on the most common areas of resistance and how to overcome them.
Module Five: Meaning
Days 35-40 focus on joy, fear, meaningful work, finding flow, margin for thought, and community.
Day 41: Conclusion
A wrap-up day will help you take your new ideas, understanding, and life changes and maintain them for the long-run. I also have some advice on how to stay motivated and keep making forward progress after the course is over, and doing work that matters.
There are 8 video teachings that accompany the introduction of the course, the start of each module, and the conclusion.
Additionally, there are 11 bonus videos and articles where I answer the most common questions and struggles related to focus, time management, work/life balance, doing meaningful work, and more.
Some of the bonus videos and articles are:
You can watch the videos right on the website, and all 19 are available to download in HD.
If you’d like to save a PDF version of the course to your computer or tablet, or print it out in order to go through the Focus Course in hard copy, this is for you. 273 pages, full-color, and professionally designed.
There is a members-only forum where you can ask questions and share any feedback, ideas, breakthroughs, stories, etc.
The American Society of Training and Development states that those who simply decide to do something have a 25% chance of accomplishing it, whereas those who decide when and where they will do something and who also have someone to report back to have a 95% chance of accomplishing their goal.
In short, the membership forums are for more than just asking questions and sharing ideas, victories, and struggles. They are also there for the sake of accountability to help you as you work your way through the Course.
On a nerdy note, the forum software we use is called Discourse. I realize that most people don’t know or care much about forum software, but I do and trust me when I tell you that Discourse is the best option out there. Period. I was ecstatic when I found a way to tie the forum software into the course and install it on an affordable server.
Anyone who signs up for the Focus Course during the first week will be eligible to win one of 44 prizes.
A huge thanks to the Baron Fig, Day One, and Ugmonk for donating these awesome goods to help with the launch of the Focus Course.
And most of all, a huge thanks to you, dear reader. There has been a lot of lead to the launch of the course tomorrow. If you have any questions at all about the course, please don’t hesitate to email me.
My life has been mile-marked by my first son’s birth day.
There is life before I was a dad and there is life after his birth. And this. Now. This is the real and the good life.
My wife and I have two boys: our oldest, Noah, is nearly 3 and a half; our youngest, Giovanni, is nearly 2. They are sweet, noisy, wild, fun, frustrating, and delightful. I can’t imagine life without them.
Fatherhood is, by far and away, the most wonderful role in the world.
To all the other dads out there — now or yet to be — happy Father’s Day. May our sons and daughters grow up with clear minds and full hearts.
Joanna Eitel is another one of the 90 pilot members who took The Focus Course this past spring. Joanna and her husband Tyler actually live here in Kansas City, Missouri. They have a 3-year old son and 1-year old daughter.
After the pilot course, I asked Joanna some questions about her specific challenges related to focus, what her thoughts are about doing work that matters, and how the course impacted her.
* * *
Shawn: What is your biggest challenge related to focus?
Joanna: For me, I have many roles: wife, mother, administrator, event coordinator, friend, and daughter just to name a few. And while I love every one of these roles, they don’t always stick to their own clean and organized schedule.
I could be in the middle of a conference call and one of my kiddos has a fall. Or while sitting in a staff meeting I may be distracted trying to remember what I need from the grocery store. Or perhaps I’m in the middle of cooking dinner and get a text from my boss requesting my attention on an issue. Even if he doesn’t need my answer right away, it now has my focus.
Through your course, I learned that many times these situations are related to the pressure to deal with what you call the tyranny of the urgent and not having a solution on how to filter such “pop-ups” as they arise.
What does the idea of work / life balance mean to you?
That these roles can coexist, however I need balance and a good action plan to juggle it well. When at work I want to be energized to do my best and give my all. However when I come home, I need to know how to unplug and be intentional with my family and personal life. Not only does this directly connect to my habits and disciplines at home but also what habits and systems I have in place at work!
What was something you learned during the course?
I learned several things, actually:
All throughout the Focus Course, Shawn, you did an incredible job not only sharing steps and systems on how to be productive and focused but also you walked me through, step by step how to create my own mission statement and life goals. And not just within my vocation (which I think is where most of us focus on) but physically, financially, spiritually and relationally as well! Now when an opportunity arises, I am able to make a decision based on those core values and what I am called to “focus on” in this season. I can remember to stay true to who I am called to be and not distracted by what Pinterest defines as perfect or successful.
Also, the concept of organizing one’s time and productivity is not new to me. When I first read Getting Things Done by David Allen I was hooked. Because of my love for all things administrative and organization, I enjoy reading ideas and methods used by some great men and women — it just makes sense! However after becoming a mom and having even more to juggle, I had a harder time making sense of it all and finding where to even start. Along with research and insight, Shawn was even able to relate how he and his wife are able to apply these practices in their own home life. As a working mom, I finally felt like I had someone to relate to!
The way the course was laid out made it easy follow, and it provided practical avenues to integrate the principles into my daily routine immediately.
Did the daily tasks that accompany the course help to make the teaching sink in?
Yes! Having daily “homework” — or tasks — challenged me to put each philosophy introduced into practice, one step at a time.
I will never forget reading the assignment on Day One: laying out my clothes for the next day. For me it turned out to be a day that I was only planning on playing with the kids and tackling a long list of chores. Still, I laid out my favorite pink t-shirt and jeans. It actually made quite a difference! The simple act of getting dressed sooner in the day without a doubt jump started productivity level. Had I waited to make this simple of a decision until that day, I probably would have been caught up in the swirl of the day and the “tyranny of the urgent” and would not have felt clear, level headed and prepared for the day ahead.
What was your favorite aspect of the course?
My favorite part of this course was taking it along with my husband!
While we weren’t always on the same day, we enjoyed being able to challenge each other and follow up with what each of us was learning. It also made it easier to integrate these practices into our daily routine. One outcome from this course is we have started a weekly “team meeting” / in-home date night! We get the kids to bed, grab some dessert and connect about crucial decisions we need to make for our family. We review our budget, calendar, bring up any new opportunities to discuss, even take time to dream and vision cast when time allows. While some weeks may be more of a quick “touch base” and others take detailed planning, we now have routine we can rely on. Not only has this strengthened our focus as a family but it has strengthened our marriage. Taking the time to discuss your life vision as well as mission as a family is priceless. I highly recommend taking the Focus Course with your spouse!
Would you recommend this course to othrs?
Yes. Whether you’re a high level executive who is managing hundreds of employees, an entrepreneur with too many ideas and too little time, or a stay at home mom who can’t remember your own hopes and dreams but can name every single character on Sesame Street… I highly recommend the Focus Course. You will not only gain tremendous insight and tools to navigate this journey but will gain a new friend in Shawn Blanc to have in your corner, cheering you on.
Today’s interview is part of my countdown to The Focus Course.
Every single person who went through the pilot course and provided feedback said that The Focus Course had a positive impact on them, and that they learned about the things they were wanting to learn about and they saw change in the areas they were hoping.
You can now sign up for The Focus Course right here.
Tyler Soenen was one of 90 pilot members who took an early version of The Focus Course this past spring.
Moreover, Tyler has long been a “productivity student” so to speak. Before even taking the course, he had already read many productivity and goal-setting books and tried out other systems and methodologies, including Getting Things Done by David Allen, Zen to Done by Leo Babauta, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, What’s Best Next by Matt Perman, and The One Thing by Gary Keller. (All awesome books, btw.)
Throughout the pilot course, Tyler provided invaluable feedback (as did many of the other pilot members). And so, afterward, I asked Tyler some questions about his specific challenges related to focus, what his thoughts are about doing work that matters, and how the course impacted him.
* * *
Shawn: What is your biggest challenge related to focus?
Tyler: My biggest challenge related to focus has been maintaining clarity on what’s most important in my life, and also being fiercely committed to that. In a day where information, priority, and urgency come at me from multiple directions in a short span of time, it’s always a fight to keep clarity in the midst of all of the competing elements of life.
What does the idea of work / life balance mean to you?
I like to think of these two topics as interwoven and integrated.
Work should be what your life is about, but there are different expressions of it. Work is taking care of your house, relationally investing into your family members, your church community, at your actual place of vocation by doing the best that you can to serve the very next person that you hand the product of your work to (whether that be a phone call, a spreadsheet, a presentation, a solved problem).
The ratio of work/life balance look different for each person according to their values and season of life. My aim (although I am very aware of my weakness to execute the vision) is to maximize my capability to serve others in my life and to use my opportunities for rest as a time to recharge my life so I can better achieve my aim of serving others.
You told me that you’ve already read quite a few books about productivity and have tried different systems and methodologies before. How was the Focus Course different than what you’ve learned in the past?
The books I’ve read tell you about the theory of how to use a hammer to hit a nail. For example, if you’ve ever read read Getting Things Done, it’s easy to think “Ahhhhh! Oh my gosh, there’s so much to do! I have to clarify all of my 50,000 ft objectives, set up my tickler system, clarify my 10,000 ft goals — it’s so much.” And that thought makes it overwhelming to actually put all of it to practice — you’ve learned the theory, but you’re not sure how to do anything about it.
Did the daily tasks that accompany the course help to make the teaching sink in?
Absolutely. What I liked about it is that it forced me to put words on paper, and perform the actions as I was learning the theory (reiterating what I was saying before). This also helped pace performing the actions.
As I mentioned before, when I’ve studied other books, the can be overwhelming to actually put in to practice. I learned the theory, but it’s not always clear how to do anything about it.
Your course, however, did the work for me in this area by taking that variable out of play. I just focused on doing what you told me to do and I learned from it. (Which, by the way, that’s why we usually pay for courses. And this course does that.)
What this left me with was 40 days of learning about the philosophy related to focus, doing work that matters, and having a healthy work / life balance. And at the same time I was learning from the experiences that came from completing the daily assignments. The course forces you to beat the resistance (as Pressfield says) and do the work. The result is that you learn so much more because you’ve actually done the work and tasted the fruit that so many of the books talk about.
This was huge for me, because in all of the reading I’ve done, the The Focus Course had something original that was very beneficial to my own life: the integration and union of having daily lifestyle practices that tie in to our ‘short- and long-term goals. You defined this paradigm in such a way that makes it possible to feel like I was achieving success daily by completing activities that are aligned with my own values, but at the same time using these activities to complete a short-term / long-term quantitative goal.
What was the most challenging aspect of the course for you?
I have to say, the most challenging aspect was sticking with it.
Being an American in our drive-thru-mentality society, I wanted to see awesome results just 5 days in. Sticking with 40 days of actions is difficult.
But when is the last time you’ve done something you’re really proud of in just a few days? In my experience it’s the difficult yet mundane tasks (and you talk about this, Shawn) that produce tons of fruit in the long haul. You just have to be willing to have the grit to follow through. I though you did such a great job at breaking things down and making them as simple as possible.
What was your favorite aspect of the course?
The integration and marriage of the ‘Daily Lifestyle Practices’ and ‘Short Term and Long Term Goals.’ As I said, in all of the reading that I’ve done, I think this is original and very beneficial to my own life.
In my experience reading a lot of productivity books out there, they either focus on the “now” and express that “there are no goals,” or they focus on goals alone and the achievement of these goals.
I’ve found if you focus on the “now” alone, you lose heart because of a lack of vision for where you’re going in life. And on the other side of that, if you are constantly completing and re-signing-up for goals, you never feel like you have success day to day.
You took both of these ideas and forged them into a singular convergent idea that can be deployed on a daily basis and that brings vision for the future, Yet it’s also something that is practical and simple enough to complete in 24 hours that aligns with your core values.
This was so helpful to me and was by far my favorite thing about the course.
Who do you think this course is for?
This course really could be for anyone. Every person is doing creative work somehow. If you have a choice on how you’re going to go about your day, your relationships, your vocation, etc. then this course is applicable to you. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, a horse rancher in Wyoming, or a broker in New York, I believe this course will not disappoint because it’s aligned with fundamental truths that we all benefit from.
Today’s interview is a part of my countdown to The Focus Course.
Every single person who went through the pilot and provided feedback said that The Focus Course had a positive impact on them, and that they learned about the things they were wanting to learn about and they saw change in the areas they were hoping.
Over the weekend I’ll be sharing some more stories and testimonies of those who’ve already taken the course and how it impacted their life.
You can also sign up for The Focus Course right here.