Jeff Howell: Out Of Focus, Into Flow!
Out Of Focus, Into Flow!
Hey, you guys. How’s it going? This is Jeff Howell coming at you with another edition of Mindset Monday. And today is a little whack because I’m not in the most glamorous location. I’m at a kind of, like, truck stop or hitting. The Sprinter and it’s pouring down rain. I thought I was going to have a better opportunity to drop a video, but. We just pulled out of New Orleans on our way from Austin to Florida in record time. And the mind set that I wanted to drop today really revolves around the flow. If you watch some of my other videos, you know that that’s kind of my word for the years flow and. It’s it’s really crazy how some of these ideas and things that you learn along the way kind of come into play. I started learning more about Flow a few years ago, but I didn’t really realize that’s what it was and it was then. Dan Sullivan’s Strategic Coach program, where they would plan everything out so far in advance and they knew their rhythm so well that they would plan their entire year out, and they would plan in times to sprint, in times to rest over the period of time. And so it was different for everybody. Maybe they would sprint for six weeks and then take a week off or sprint for eight weeks or whatever it was. It doesn’t matter, whatever makes sense to you.
But I think in in really having that understanding that sometimes you’re going to be able to press on the gas and sometimes you need to let off of it is very liberating because then you take a lot of the pressure off of yourself when you think, Oh, I need to be focusing, focusing, focusing. And I was with a friend of mine. We were at a festival. First of all, I went to a festival, a music festival last four or five days in Boston. And even leading up to that, I was like pressing on the gas. Like, ever since the last time I got out from Florida about two months ago, I was eight weeks just pressing the gas, not really taking breaks. I did a few things here and there, but I didn’t really take a big break. And so then when I told Patrick, Hey, I’m going to take this four or five days, I didn’t even know, but I thought I was going to be off the grid. I wasn’t. But once I kind of relayed that to him, Hey, I might not even be in contact. Patrick, to his credit, was like, Hey, you know, no problem. Just, just go like, we need these kinds of breaks in our lives. And, you know, in the last break he took once he got back, he was much more rested and much more motivated to go and knock out the things that he needs to to knock out.
So that’s kind of what it what framed up this particular mindset Monday. And then at the festival, I was with another friend of mine who’s a pretty accomplished musician and DJ and and he and I were were talking one night and he was asking me about Flo and how I stay. And Flo, he said, Well, I can’t stay focused. And I’m like, well, you shouldn’t, you know, it’s like you should have periods of focus and periods of rest. And I kind of relate to him the way that I do it. So I just kind of had this reflected in real time and was thinking about it in these terms and thinking that it really goes from the macro to the micro. Like My day is also in Flo in the sense that I that I press on the gas, I do what’s called block time. I learned this from Brendon Burchard as were you you block out 50 minute segments of your day and then you take ten minute breaks. And he’s one of the most high performance guys out there in the world, really. I mean, if you looked at his schedule, it blow your mind and he accomplishes it. But what he does is this 50 minutes on, 10 minutes off. And so whatever he he sets the clock for 50 minutes and then whatever he’s in the middle of, he just stops.
He gets up, he does different energy practices and things like this. And that’s how he. Is able to generate enough energy for him to accomplish all the things that he accomplishes. So I’ve incorporated that into my life and my work schedule, although I’m not as consistent with it as he is. But that’s sort of on the micro level on a daily basis. And then on the macro, again, going from like an eight week sprint into a five, six, seven days, I’ll be on the road until tomorrow. We’ll get to Florida and kind of just break it up, get a little reset and then come back at it. Firing with that new energy, new creativity, new ideas, new ways to solve problems and all of that. And that’s kind of the way that I see flow in general, is that I’m able to live these times of when I’m when I’m not working, living my best life, so to speak. So then I’m very grateful, I’m very motivated. I’m very grateful when I’m doing that. And then I’m very grateful and motivated to go back into work mode and to go back and and overcome those challenges that we’re trying to to overcome. So I’m going to keep this a little short because of the situation I’m in right here.
But yeah, that’s that’s it. That’s what it is for flow for me on the macro and the micro. And I just see the more that I’m able to do that, the happier I am, the more productive I am, the more valuable I am, and the more opportunities come my way because I’m around people, I exude happiness when I’m around them. More people want to work with me when I’m happy. I want to work with happy people. Other people want to work with happier people and all of that. So it just kind of all plays out into this really amazing dynamic that is has been very powerful in my life. And so do you have any questions about that? Let me know. I’ve been playing around with Flow again for a long time, but have really made a commitment to it. Recognize opportunities to stay in it when the universe is presenting me with an opportunity in the moment to say yes if it feels like a yes, and to know when to say no. And then that leads me into. That next bit of energy is going to take you to the next level and to the next the next thing that I’m doing. So anyway, that’s my Mindset Monday for the day. Drop the comments. I’d love to know what you feel about it and I’ll see you on the next Peace.