I have been in the business of soccer my entire career. Twenty-five years in the game, it’s all I have done. I work with amazing people and have learned so much during this time. One thing I have learned is that the game of soccer actually teaches everyday lessons in business. Whenever we put on a staff training seminar, everything is explained through soccer, which is why I have written a series of lessons titled “The Soccer of Business” – 25 years of business lessons explained through the beautiful game.

The game of soccer is a beautiful thing. It’s one of the few remaining places where you cannot have your cell phone with you. You are distraction-free from the usual daily barrage of digital jabs and punches that steal our mind and focus every day.  Again, this doesn’t matter if you are a professional player or playing indoor 5-a-side, the rule is the same. NO CELL PHONES. This gives us the opportunity to focus on the thing that matters, which is the game (and asking yourself, “Why am I breathing so heavily?”).

The world of digital media is unfortunately rewiring our brains in a bad way; we are becoming ever-increasingly poor at the ability to focus over sustained periods of time. Now, this may not seem very important. We hear things like, “It’s great to be able to jump around from project to project, giving input and keeping a bunch of plates spinning.” The answer to that is, only very, very few people are either a) able to do that effectively or b) in a position to need to do that.  There aren’t that many Elon Musks out there. Even when bouncing from project to project, real work still needs to be done. Real FOCUSED work. Even Elon Musk sits down and codes, designs and thinks. And just like any muscle, the more we do it, the better we get at it. The better we get at it, the more we do it.

Some people call it a “flow-like mindset,” but what we are talking about here is just the subset of the focused part of flow. Sometimes, focused work just means the ability to sit down and read distraction-free. Can you imagine even that is a skill that is slowly disappearing – READING! In fact, I bet you have already looked at your phone at least once while reading this.

So how do we bring this unbelievably important skill back to us? How do we train our minds to be able to focus again? It’s actually easy. Just like an 11v11, 90-minute game of soccer, all we have to do is schedule two 45-minute halves into our daily calendar. That’s it. When you are planning your week and then your day, block out two 45-minute sessions for the focused project work you need to do that day. And if you’re doing it back to back, make sure you take your 15-minute halftime break.   Dead easy, right? Here’s the two difficult pieces that put most people off:

1. Turn your phone onto airplane mode. “What?” “But what if …?” “I can’t because …” NONSENSE. Yes, you can. I am sure everyone reading this who works in an office has a landline. If someone needs to get hold of you, they can. If the world explodes, you’ll find out about it, don’t worry. To step your game up even more, choose the SAME 45-minute blocks every day so everyone knows they CAN’T get ahold of you then. And by the way, putting it on silent doesn’t work, make sure it’s on airplane mode or, even better, leave it in your car. It’s 45 minutes, so it shouldn’t be a big deal, but most people don’t do it because they can’t bear the thought of being offline for 45 minutes. But the benefits are magical. Try it for a week and see the difference it makes. And because most people don’t do it, that’s exactly why you SHOULD do it. That’s the differentiator; that’s you staying on the training ground for that extra hour in the freezing cold and putting the graft in. That’s what will allow you to do the work to get noticed and progress in your career and business faster than you thought was possible.

2. You have to actually do it. Every day.

The results are magnificent. Much like players who have been on the whole game typically play better than subs coming on. They are already in the zone, they are focused, and their mind is in the game, only in the game.  

And the effects are like compound interest, which Warren Buffet says is the eighth wonder of the world. The more you do it, the better you become at it. The better you become at it, the easier you’ll find your mind can turn on “focused mode” so you love to do it more and then the circle continues … and the compound interest grows.