The Power of Focus
Ever had one of those “Balaam’s Ass” moments? You know, where God speaks to you through an unlikely and unexpected source?
I experienced one recently, shortly after I began reading The Power of Focus. The glistening irony? The book was a gift from the managers of a Real Estate Brokerage where I’d been working but intended to quit.
Yes, I said “Real Estate Brokerage.” By that, I mean ... I was a REALTOR®. Except I was about to quit.
Perhaps I should start from the beginning.
I enrolled in the Real Estate Licensing course through UBC, shortly after we moved back from Mexico last year. The idea was to start a new career which would put money in our bank account. A short-fall in our monthly missionary support was slowly but surely eroding our house equity.
It was a risk, a gamble for our future, to re-invent myself as a REALTOR®. (It also required a new wardrobe.) We knew that, right from the beginning. And we were aware the current market conditions were – to quote WKRP’s Les Nessman – “sucking canal water.” We knew I needed to be focused.
And so, after nine years of blogging, I created an exit strategy and wrote two months’ worth of posts to bring robbymac.org to a satisfying conclusion.
Nothing would interfere with the demands of my new career.
Not even blogging.
Background readings and research for a book I wanted to write about the Kingdom of God (a sort of follow-up to Post-Charismatic) were consigned to several thick binders and shelved in a remote storage closet.
Nothing would interfere with the demands of my new career.
Not even writing.
My guitars languished in their cases, lonely and abandoned, and the tubes in my amplifiers clouded over with the dust of neglect.
Nothing would interfere with the demands of my new career.
Not even music.
I was focused, having ruthlessly eliminated my most likely distractions. Everyone “in the business” knew times were tough. Weekly sales meetings reinforced Canada’s dire economic straits. That’s why our managers gave each of us, at the beginning of 2012, a copy of The Power of Focus.
Ironically, the book proved to be my “Balaam’s Ass” encounter, directly leading to my decision to quit the brokerage.
To be sure, there were a few outside factors involved:
- My (glaring) lack of sales experience.
- I’m virtually unknown in our town, which means no connections.
- The kicker: we ran out of money to invest in my being in the business, and therefore,
- Instead of reducing our debt, I’d managed to dig the hole even deeper (oops).
But as I read the first few chapters, I was challenged with the question, “What are you naturally brilliant at?” And by “brilliant,” they simply meant:
- What are you naturally good at, where even with just a minimum of effort, people take notice of your talents, and
- If you invest additional effort to hone your natural abilities, you can easily become proficient—even professional—in those areas.
And, in language reminiscent of Strength Finders 2.0, the authors recommend that we focus on our natural abilities, versus the common strategy of working our patookus off, trying to improve our weak areas. (Result: you suck a little less, but your real strengths remain undeveloped.)
I’d just put away the things I was most passionate about and naturally gifted at. That’s perplexing and frustrating: So far, none of my “naturally brilliant” abilities have done much to get us out of debt, or at least make ends meet. It felt like I’d been cursed with hobbies, not marketable skills.
Except ... my REALTOR® career was even more of a sucking financial vortex than my so-called hobbies. And let’s not forget all those biscuits God seemed to be tossing my way.
So, in what is either an act of faith in God’s provision and being true to myself, or my most reckless and ill-advised decision of all time ... I quit Real Estate.
I am focused. On developing the gifts God gave me. On using my abilities for the Kingdom. On seeking to excel in areas where I’m “naturally brilliant.”
Wendy says the real test will come when someone asks me what I do for a living, and I look them in the eye and say, in all seriousness and self-confidence:
“I’m a writer.”