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Several years ago I, along with Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt, co-wrote a New York Times bestselling book called "The Power of Focus: How to Hit Your Business, Personal and Financial Targets with Absolute Certainty." It was a hit with leaders, managers, and HR people. Its principles are still relevant today, and will continue to be exceptionally valid as we course through what's bound to be a challenging period ahead. The economic slowdown and financial shakeup has everyone feeling uneasy and uncertain. But this is when embracing and practicing key principles of success are essential—if not critical. It will allow you to do exactly what the subtitle of that book says: hit all your targets with absolute certainty.

So with that in mind, let me share two fundamental principles for engaging the power of focus:

Focus on Your Core Genius

Every single one of us has a core genius; one thing you love to do, and do so well, you hardly feel like doing anything else. It's effortless and a whole lot of fun. The ability to train and manage other people, for instance, is most definitely based on a core genius. You also can have smaller core geniuses within that realm, such as a talent for training employees a certain way, or a knack for covering a specific field in your company.

In most cases, your core genius is directly tied to your passions, life-purpose, and chosen profession. Successful people believe this, too. That is why they put their core genius first. They focus on it and delegate everything else to other people on their team. Identifying and honoring your core genius, as well as those in people around you, is key to achieving success and productivity. If people you train, for instance, have no idea what their core genius is, then it’s helpful to engage them in ways that help them discover that. Yes, it’s possible to have more than one core genius, but often the genius revolves around a similar area.

For me, my core genius lies in the area of teaching, training, coaching, and motivating. I love to do it! I do it well, and people report they get great value from it.

Another core genius is writing and compiling books. Through the years I have written, authored and co-authored, compiled, and edited more than 100 books.

Compare that to other people in the world who go through life doing everything; even tasks they’re bad at, or those that could be done more cheaply, better, and faster, by someone else. They can't find the time to focus on their core genius because they fail to delegate even the most menial of tasks.

When you delegate the grunt work (the things you hate doing or those tasks that are so painful, you end up putting them off) you get to concentrate on what you love to do. You free up your time so you can be more productive. And you get to enjoy life more.

So why is delegating routine tasks and unwanted projects so difficult for most people?

Surprisingly, most people are afraid of looking wasteful or being judged as being above everyone else. They are afraid to give up control or reluctant to spend the money to pay for help. Deep down, most people simply don't want to let go.

Others (potentially you) have simply fallen into the habit of doing everything themselves. "It's too time consuming to explain it to someone," you say. "I can do it more quickly and better myself anyway." But can you?

One of the strategies I use and teach is complete delegation. It simply means that you delegate a task once and completely, rather than delegating it each time it needs to be done. As a trainer, teaching this tactic can mean the difference between quick results or very slow success.

When my niece came to stay with us one year while she attended the local community college, we made a complete delegation, the grocery shopping. We told her she could have unlimited use of our van if she would buy the groceries every week. We provided her with a list of staples that we always want in the house (eggs, butter, milk, ketchup, and so on), and her job was to check every week and replace anything that was running low.

In addition, my wife planned meals and let her know which items she wanted for the main courses (fish, chicken, broccoli, avocados, etc). The task was delegated once and saved us hundreds of hours that year that could be devoted to writing, exercise, family time, and recreation.

Most entrepreneurs spend less than 30 percent of their time focusing on their core genius and unique abilities. In fact, by the time they've launched a business, it often seems entrepreneurs are doing everything but the one thing they went into business for in the first place.

Many salespeople, for example, spend more time on account administration than they do on the phone or in the field making sales, when they could hire a part-time administrator (or share the cost with another salesperson) to do this time-consuming detail work.

Most female executives spend too much time running their household, when they could easily and inexpensively delegate this task to a cleaning service or part-time mother's helper, freeing them to focus on their career or spend more quality time with their family.

Don't let this be your fate—or the fate of your employees, colleagues, and co-workers.

Be an example to start. Identify your core genius, then delegate completely to free up more time to focus on what you love to do—and of course what you excel at—when you're at work. Help the people you train to recognize and support their own core genius. Bring this lesson home with you, too. You'll be amazed at how much free time (not to mention mental space) you'll have to keep doing what you do best, and for the benefit of the entire team.

Focus on Determination

It is extremely valuable to take action toward your goals, and help others to do the same. But one of the most important qualities you will need to develop in order to continue taking action is persistence.

You must be persistent in your disciplines and habits; perseverant in the face of adversity, hardship, and challenge; and determined to achieve your dreams, no matter what. This becomes even more important the more people you have to train, mentor, teach, and advise.

There will be many times when you will want to quit, give up, and go back to doing something else, but the one quality that will guarantee your success—as well as the success of others around you—is the willingness to stick with it, to see it through to the end, and to refuse to settle for anything less.

The longer you hang in there, the greater the chance something will happen in you and your team’s favor. No matter how hard it seems, the longer you persist, the more likely you and your team's success will be.

Adversity and Discouragement Is Inevitable

No matter how well you plan and how well you execute your plan, you are bound to meet with disappointments, adversity, and failure along the way to your ultimate triumph. That failure, by the way, may come from other people you rely on. Sometimes, you will encounter what seem like overwhelming odds. And sometimes, the universe will test your commitment to the goal you’re pursuing.

The going may be hard, and may require you to refuse to give up while you learn new lessons, develop new parts of yourself, and make difficult decisions.

Adversity is what gives you the opportunity to develop your inner resources of character and courage. Adversity is a great teacher. It will test you and make you stronger, but you have to hang in there and not give up!

More than 4,000 years ago in China, Confucius wrote: "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

How to Deal with Obstacles

Whenever you confront an obstacle or run into a roadblock, you need to stop and brainstorm three ways to get around it, over it, or through it. For every obstacle, come up with three different strategies for handling the potential obstacle. There are a number of ways that will work, but you will only find them if you spend time looking for them.

Always be solution-oriented in your thinking. Persevere until you find a way that works. The next few years may be filled with more obstacles and roadblocks than previous years, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still come out a winner and encourage others to succeed, too. Trainers in particular need to embrace their roles as leaders and teachers even more so.

Remember, people who focus on what they want prosper. Those who don't, struggle. They inspire everyone around them to participate and contribute to the common goal. Focusing on core genius and determination alone will jumpstart your future success and accelerate results.



Jack Canfield is co-founder of the Chicken Soup for the Soul brand, and a specialist on cultivating peak performance. For more information, visit www.FreeSuccessPrinciples.com.

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