The Power of Focus | Sean Brawley | TEDxFergusonLibrary

is there a secret to sustainable high performance what is the foundation for optimal learning and how can we have deeper more meaningful relationships with our friends and our loved ones these are three distinctly different questions in three different areas so it may surprise you to discover that the answer to all three is the same to resolve this inner struggle we often look to the outside we think we need to fix ourselves and change our behavior but I found that there's a different approach last year last March I interviewed Roger Federer now at that time Roger had just won the Australian Open winning his 19th Grand Slam championship this is a remarkable feat when I sat down with him I asked him simply how did you do it and what he told me was that when he played his absolute best tennis he focused exclusively on the tennis ball the ability to control our attention determines how we'll perform any task now what is focus before I give you an explanation what I'd like to do is give you a first-hand experience of it that's why I have the props so in tennis an exercise that helps tennis players track the ball better has been called in fact the greatest exercise ever created for tennis whenever the ball bounces on the ground you say bounce whenever the ball bounces on my racquet you say hit can you do that do you need me to repeat the instruction okay it seems pretty simple let's see how you do are you ready okay ready okay now raise your you guys did pretty well raise your hand have you made a mistake normally what happens is there's a pattern there in tennis if you start paying attention to the ball instead of worrying about how to hit it what happens is you get more information about the spin speed and direction of the ball which allows you to move more effectively have better position and footwork more solid contact all of which allows you to have a better chance of directing the ball where you'd like it to go when we play we have a process of playing in which we're thinking too much or worried then when we're focused we can play at our best it reduces the self interference now this isn't just true for tennis or sport it's also true in business and in organizations several years ago I worked with the CEO of a national restaurant chain when I started working with them they had 44 different metrics that they had identified as critical this is too many for the brain to handle over the course of the next two years they got it down to four several of the regional leaders decided to focus on just one variable which they found the most important now the metric used for that was manager visits to the table so just like in tennis the ball is the most important thing when the restaurant business the customer is the most important thing lastly in the financial crisis of 2008 there was only one large Bank that did not take any money from the US government US bank a friend of mine Josef adding who became vice chairman I asked him how did you do it how is this possible when everyone else made the mistake of investing in subprime mortgages he said you know actually it was really simple I brought the senior leadership team in I told them that these were the five critical variables that were crucial for our success and that we would focus on them then I say ask Joe what did you do next he said you know what I I just played a lot of golf and it sounds funny but actually this is how powerful this simple tool is but as I mentioned focus is not just important for performance it's also critical for learning I remember some years ago a man came to me wanting to improve his back end when I tossed him a couple of balls I asked him to simply be aware of where the racket was relative to his shoulder on the backswing but on the fourth ball suddenly something happened and he exclaimed oh I do take the racket back too high it's above my shoulder so there is a distinct difference between knowing something cognitively and knowing something in our own direct experience in 2001 I was invited to work with the New York Yankee player development group I was introduced and I shared with them that I really wanted this to be a conversation and an inquiry and that they could ask questions any time they wanted immediately a hand shot up and one of the coaches asked mr. Brawley with all due respect what can you as a former tennis pro teach us about baseball and I said you know I can't teach you much about baseball I haven't played baseball since I was 10 years old but let me ask you a question what is the single most important skill needed to be an extraordinary hitter much like in tennis they said reading the pitch was the most important skill I said great the same is true in tennis I've developed a number of mindful awareness base exercises that can really help with reading the pitch and the coach who asked the question his jaw literally dropped because the answer was never I don't know much about baseball technique but I have learned some innovative coaching techniques that might prove very helpful now in the course of the next six months we identified other critical variables that were important for hitting and pitching and by the end of the season they went from being ranked 23 as a group to number one my number one recommendation would be to meditate that in the course of meditating you get to practice your focus and you get to practice noticing what comes up in you in the present moment and I'll leave you with that thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 68,415

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Education, Achievement, Business, Learning, Life Development, Life Hack, Sports

Id: -QkHv7pKHBc

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 12 2018