Your focus determines your reality- a Sunday read as a Monday booster
Myself, just like everyone else, have had to develop ways to make this period as productive and as fun as it can. To do that, as declared some posts back, I’ve managed to watch Masterclass’s Strategy & Leadership course hosted by Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO. And I know many of you might not be able to see it, so I am briefly extracting some of my learnings from it, all accompanied by the due amazement of enlightment.
To infinity & beyond — Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story)
Values are an individual’s spine. They determine how and where you walk both as a company and as a person.
Bob Iger lists the core values of Disney, a list which happens to be mine too. I had a trouble articulating them a couple of days ago with my career coach because they felt to me so grand and so common sense altogether. Here they are:
- Respect for others
- Value of hard work
- Good eventually triumphs over evil
- Spirit of adventure
- Taking risks
- Resilience
And as talks about values seem to be overrated by their multitude in social media and modern literature, this one is for keeps because you can really make an exercise imagining how true to these values Disney really is. I wish 10 years from now I can say as strongly as I do about Disney that my values are reflected in everything I do too, with the same amount of clarity.
The conclusion is that the clarity of values makes it a lot easier for us to determine what makes us happy, productive and, ultimately, maybe even socially successful.
Bob Iger links that to his own guiding principle, inherited from his father & inspired by a Shakespeare quote — staying true to yourself.
Your focus determines your reality — Qui-Gon Jinn (Star Wars)
The above quote is valid in real life too. Now I realize my father gave me the lesson on focus long before online masterclasses could be imagined. When I was little, I used to be afraid of the dark. He explained to me, in the dark, that fear creates images. And he would describe me the round mirror in the library turned into a one-eyed monster. Then, he’d turn the light on and the monster disappeared. It’s very much the same with Qui-Gon Jinn’s remark above. What you concentrate on becomes a part of your reality. And my father’s exercise could not have been more appropriate and actual than during the times we live now. If it’s either taking on the good side of things and focusing more on what goes right or emphasizing what goes wrong, they’re both possible realities.
Even miracles take a little time — Fairy Godmother (Cinderella)
In his quest to becoming Disney’s CEO 10 years ago, Bob Iger had to present to the board his strategy. The first thing he was told by his then marketing consultant was “focus”. Though some can focus efficiently on many things at a time, when it comes to strategy, that is one thing that cannot run effectively if it has too many objectives. So Bob Iger reduced his debut strategy to 3 goals:
- Invest in creativity
- Embrace technology
- Grow globally
What I was puzzled to see is that none included numbers. These were rooted in a deep care for the success of the company as a whole in the long run. And they also derived from the values the company has and had to keep — like the spirit of adventure, taking risks and being resilient in the face of hardship (which could have been global reach at that time).
The learning revolves much around self-sculpting as well. To me, this particular episode cleared my mind in a magical way. I took my notebook and a pen and came up with 3 activities & 10 goals for each. You can see the dilemma I had so far. Shrinking your goals to, say, 3, enables you to really focus on achieving them and get less frustrated about not being able to do everything on your list of 10. Also, it makes you achieve them faster, as the intensity of your work is bigger when directed to fewer objectives at a time.
An unexpected thing about Bob Iger’s story was that, even as Disney’s CEO, he still had sweaty palms before phoning then Pixar CEO, Steve Jobs, in order to try fixing the broken relationship between the latter & Disney over Pixar-Disney contract. But he did anyway. Also, he said that he never thought him reaching out to Steve Jobs was going to lead to Disney buying Pixar. This, to me, meant that no matter how advanced you are in your position or status, there are still things that make you nervous. For instance, it happens to me too every time I reply to an important e-mail. It is nothing but a sign of reason and common sense. But what is there to really learn from it all?
Doing it anyway. Who knows what will come out of it?! Or, as another Disney character would put it: have courage & be kind.
