My near death experience unveiled the Secret of Daily Focus | Sukhi Wahiwala | TEDxAstonUniversity

[Music] you [Music] the year was July 2006 I just arrived back from a beautiful family holiday from Florida to be honest with yourself we really had a brilliant time but I had a little niggly pain around abdomen place little did I know that this actual pain was hepatitis A and was actually going to change my world completely I personally in my own little way thought I had life cyst in a proud moment good family create a little mini business empire that helped people they looked after my parents had great friends all those things that you think SAS self-gratification all those beautiful things that we all crave little did I know they had no work-life balance there I was just 48 hours after landing back in the country I collapsed went straight into hospital I found myself looking up just at the ceiling in the hospital drifting in and out of consciousness I couldn't actually work out what was going on I was completely delirious all I could hear in the background was some faint voices and the voices are saying his livers swollen two and a half times the size it should be we don't think he's gonna make it we believe he's got about two hours left to me it was all a dream I think when it was reality or not I was in and out drifting left right and center has anybody here ever had a self belief in themselves but then had it shattered well that's what I'd felt like the world itself flashed straight past me it just went as though life and death became one the only thing I could do was just be I started to actually accept death as a guaranteed and I don't wish this upon anybody but I'll tell you now it was a gift in disguise working day in day out relying on nobody but myself now I was in a position where I was thinking who could I genuinely rely on my brothers my sisters my nephews who could I actually rely on to look after my bid for family to look after my parents whilst I was gone it's an odd place to be I couldn't help but to wonder as a british-born seek somebody who created something some kind of success in my world was it all worth it in my short 31 years of life working 7 that days as hard as anything building just mindset focused completely driven to achieve what I thought were the real gains of life putting myself my family but my health the signal came to me by my hepatitis A my health second fiddle to all everything else in business the question is was it truly worth it after being away from my family for eight whole weeks in hospital sedated three weeks on the drip in and out two blood transfusions and a whole year away from my businesses my memory felt completely shattered I was constantly on morphine anything you know seven different types of medications none of them were fixing anything everyone was just giving me a new way of life all and containing the pain that I was feeling for me I was thoroughly overjoyed when my doctors gave me that all go you can go back to work I thought wow life can go back to how it was I'll feel great again little did I know that somehow I had forgotten I had forgotten through my brain being shattered my memories being all over the place I'd forgotten actually what I thought was the method or the blueprint of actually being a successful entrepreneur if there is such a thing my mind was in a constant state of distraction constantly getting distracted by the simplest menial of tasks like email a family stuff looking at screens just looking at them doing nothing a bit like a monkey we were talking about earlier on even phone calls and texts are drift in and out of conversation yeah sure let's buy that maybe what were you talking about I'm sure we've had these moments this is nothing like me my staff that come in for a simple meeting what should have took a yes or a no answer five minutes later I'm still thinking about it procrastination had truly set itself in the inability to take the action in the now I'm looking around at once thinking have you ever been in that position yourself we heard that one that virtually everybody is a procrastinator and I believe we are at some level multitasking this is what came to me I started shoveling paint papers and plates this side and this side and when it started slowing down I'd run and do this one again so I thought that's it I'll get back to doing lots of things rushing around trying to get things done no didn't really work all it did is it created even more disillusion I was distracted even further I was training myself to not be and not take action I had to think about this wasn't the successful me that I'd been so honored and gifted seven generations of being in business by my family my parents were caught this this learning procrastinate distraction feelin too busy this is all that took my life running away from every single task at hand the need for novelty actually wanting to be wanted to be looking at a task and thinking what can I do to escape this task how can I get away from this I was running a group of companies this is not normal my wife which I'm truly truly blessed to have looked saw I just couldn't take it in long as she said Sookie do you know you're an avid note-taker before your illness why don't you look at your laptop and we've actually plunked my old laptop straight and death of me and yes it was a PC but nowadays as a mac i sat there relentlessly to be honest with yourself opening up the laptop and I was just breathing every single thing I could do in Outlook it was just an amazing run it was the pivotal point of my illness success eventually bringing the success back into my life my memories memory after memory process of the process strategy after strategy starting to reconnect it was really a gift one of the key elements that actually I absolutely tell you this most important in my life that she changed my life was a process of activating my brain and when I started looking at how I was activating my brain in the now in the past as I wrote really good notes I actually ended up realizing that you could switch it on you can get laser-like focus whenever you needed it so this is the key that I'd like to speak to you today about it unlimited they unlock sure unlimited ability to be able to achieve and do whatever you want time I'll talk about that a bit later a beautiful variable so the urge of actually working out which I thought was a first step of how and why I was actually being distracted was key for me I started looking into research and I found some research by the University of California by Professor Gloria mark she wouldn't want to say that the actual human mind this is an average human mind some of you are above average I'm sure but an average you might actually distract itself every three minutes did you know that every three minutes would look for something to distract our mind and a novelty of some kind isn't that interesting so when we're distracted how long do you think it actually takes us to get back into focus fifteen minutes can you imagine getting distracted and running a 15 minute loop but actually getting distracted whilst you're the middle of that loop kind of just carries on right well welcome to what was happening to me I was starting the day and finishing the day I lived achieved a handful of target items I was in my loop never ended infinite loop of time wasting starting something three minutes getting distracted fifteen minutes into the journey distracted again fifteen minutes into the journey and distracted again I call this the candy floss effect it's an effect of a little bit of sugar which gets puffed up and you fill up the hole of a beautiful ball of candy floss it's just like that three or four tasks and we spend all day there in there in that mindset of the monkey of procrastination this is why I started multitasking so what is multitasking to us as human beings it's that ability isn't it between doing two tasks at the same time but actually when we're moving ourselves consciously between one task and another there's a little space in the middle and that space I call twitching it's one we're actually not sure and why on this task or should I stop this task it's stuffed in the middle this actual time every single day in an average human being takes and distracts and holds 30 minutes every single day that's nearly well it's over one week and nearly 108 hours a year wasted twitching between one task and another multitasking is amazing right institute of psychology of University of London found that multitasking actually splits the prefrontal cortex when you're trying to do two conscious things at the same time it actually reduces your ability to focus by half this split causes you to actually forget things when you've forgotten the average person is three times likely to make a mistake three times more likely they go on to say and this will may shock you that multitasking actually reduces your IQ the human mind cannot truly focus on two conscious processes at the same time it's one or the other thankfully dr. Linda Boyd of the University of British Columbia says that we can actually retrain our brains because it's just like a muscle it remembers how to do things and the tracks you use become bigger and better again thank god this process is as if she called neural plasticity so I retrained my brain the process that actually became a formal process of seven steps is called the daily focused time this is what I want to share with you today and it's seven three steps step one always start with a clear question a clear question that is encouraging a decision of some kind usually a task at hand or even a challenge after you got the clear questions that two is actually to grab a piece of paper yes paper not the Mac or the PC the best thing is to use a pen and paper there are three elements in there Cartesian logic that your mind thinks it which is digital gets through into an analog situation your muscles and then you visually see it back when you write it out this actually allows you to remember it that's three times again you can even draw a mind map if you're a visual type person that's not a problem either anything and everything that comes to your mind so this is gonna be an exhaustive big list step three select the ten important tasks that need to be done today and now now take them pop them onto a separate piece of paper once again using pen and paper throw away the courage throw away the big mind map of tasks as strange isn't it because I found I could retrain my brain to remember things again and I could trust it because I've made the list the very first time it helped me remember the information then so I can do it again can I because it's a muscle a brain you will remember step 4 reduce those 10 tasks to five of the top tasks out of that list now here you take a little break you increase the RAM of your brain again get away do something different watch TV or for a walk and have a chat when you come back to your desk peel up pick up the list again now here's step 5 step 5 you got it reducing it again down to three so now it's just down to three most important priority tasks won't you have once you have them at a hand step six is now to put them into order so you started with a big list you're reducing it down to ten we're reducing it down to five now to three and you put them in order of one two and three most important step 7 quite important actually is to immediately do it now not all three just the one consciously we can only think and align three things do the one task complete get on to the second and then get on to the third there's a hidden 8th step actually and it's actually repeats at we'll do it again and again every time your three tasks are done start again create another three that seems really simple isn't it but it's use the simple task there are simple processes that are actually quite easy to follow but have the best results it's a really simple process at the DFT in my own experience I realized that I could enhance this by actually creating a space around myself where I didn't get distracted I had just my laptop just my machine all switched off my mobile phone was off as well pen and paper this is what I call the power space I started doing things quicker not slower but by doing them quicker I didn't cook a time as well which meant I could do most of my work in the morning and then I don't afternoon free this allowed me to actually slow my braid down in the afternoon or vice versa in the morning and spend more time with my family the stuff that really was important to me so there a year later I'm sat on my desk again my businesses are in front of me but somehow I don't know what to do I don't want to step forward I asked myself a deep deep question are you actually doing what you want to do in your own lives time is a finite resource kind of one go at it am i spending it wisely I genuinely believe every one of us has the opportunity in our life to achieve anything we want to do using any structure that we believe is true the key is to believe dr. Martin Luther King said very very famously always believe with deep integrity and self worth bringing it back to the original question I had was it really worth it was it worth all those seven days pressurizing myself achieving watching the world's appear making no real constant memories and I'll tell you now it was worth the gift of the illness it slowed my world down and it was worth every single time the gift of the illness gave me the opportunity to slow my brain down and see things in the present in the now actually enjoying my time my children understanding the true meaning of my life being present with one of my children for one minute in a focused manner was worth more than an hour or half a day in a destructive manner with a mobile phone stuck to my head there are important things in life more than money more than just ambition I wanted to see the world through the eyes of other people and the place of contentment and peace instead of this constant chase of creating something focus on the things that I didn't have instead of the things that I do respecting your life for what it truly is is the key I should try creating new things with an unrivaled ambition and in evolution since my rebirth in 2006 I've asked myself this question daily am I actually being present in the moment and I can safely tell you right now I'm enjoying this I am being present in this moment before I wouldn't have am i making use of my time now am I really making it count my name is Sookie wahi Walla thank you very much for listening [Applause] you [Music] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 413,659

Rating: 4.4623852 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United Kingdom, Life, Achievement, Motivation, Productivity

Id: 3W7GNMXhMDo

Length: 20min 4sec (1204 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2017