Posts Tagged ‘Focus’

By Seamus Anthony

I was just reading a blog post that explained something I kind of knew but hadn’t really thought about – that the old gatekeeper barriers (to a career in the creative arts, creative business, etc) that the Internet has famously blown away were only ever a smokescreen anyway and that the real barrier still exists – hard work, persistence, focus – all that tough stuff that we don’t wanna do a lot.

Just so happens that I was also just reminiscing with an old friend who I used to live with in the 90s and with whom I have recently made contact with again ala Facebook. We were talking about where the time goes and how did we get this “old” already so fast and I said something about how I wish I could time travel so I could go back and tell the very happy-go-lucky 26 year old me to get the fuck on with it and do some hard work (that mattered, as opposed to tending bars until 4:30am like a crazed go-bot for minimum wage).

Then the thought struck me that I CAN time-travel and that I SHOULD and that in fact it is VITAL to do so.

Part Two of a Three Part Series (here’s the first)

By Seamus Anthony

One line from the cheesy 1991 movie City Slickers (yes, the one starring Billy Crystal) helped me to achieved absolute and total spiritual enlightenment in a blinding flash of inspiration.

And no, I am not kidding you.
Well, actually … maybe just a little bit

But the point is I did get something amazing out of that film and this is a thing that I later came to see being referred to as “Curly’s Law“.

Curly’s law states simply this: Do One Thing

Curly was the tough old cowboy character played by the late Jack Palance. Here’s the scene from the movie where Curly espouses his life philosophy to Mitch, Billy Crystal’s character:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?

Curly: This. [holds up one finger]

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.

Mitch: But what is the “one thing?”

Curly: [smiles] That’s what you have to find out.

By Seamus Anthony

Part One in a Series of Three

Do you struggle to achieve mental clarity in a world of busyness, complexity and clutter? Do you find yourself chasing your tail, always busy but never seeming to get around to doing the things that are most important to you, like discovering your True Life Purpose, achieving your dreams, or devoting the time and energy to your family that you know deserve?

Wouldn’t you love to know what the secret is that the great achievers of our age use to move mountains? What it is that your heroes know that keeps them at the top, the thing you are missing, the thing that holds you back? How do they manage to churn out such amazing work, and rack up win after win while you chase your tail and struggle to pay the bills?