What Successful People Really Mean When They Say ‘Focus’

And why is no one listening

Anirban Kar

4 min read

1 hour ago

Coming from the country of meditation, I might get disowned by my family for saying it. But here it goes.

Focus doesn’t always mean discipline or concentration.

At least, those are not the first things you should be focusing on. Pun intended.

When most people say “focus,” they mean forcing yourself to stare at one thing until your brain finally obeys.

But that’s not how high-functioning people use the word.

Here’s what made it click for me.

I once watched my boss prioritize a smaller client over a few much larger ones. On paper, it looked ridiculous. Why put the least profitable account at the top of the priority list?

But he saw what I didn’t. This client was more invested, more curious, and more excited about the collaboration than most big players.

So I was instructed to allocate a little extra bandwidth to his projects from ideation to execution.

And it worked for them. There was a noticeable spike in their social media engagement.

And then it worked for us. Six months later, their referral brought in three new…