Christo: A recurring question that I’ve been getting is how did I find time to write my book? So when I released my book recently, um, behind the scenes, just so you’re aware of, I have a toddler and I also have baby twins, um, which were born just after the uh, book was released.
How did I find time to write it, how did I find time to promote it when I’m already so busy with business life, family, surfing, maintaining health, having a good life, you know, everything else that goes on around it. And a kind of a follow up question to that as well, which has come up quite a bit, is when you’re so busy, how can you be creative?
Like, how do you find time to be creative when you’re under pressure? And there’s so much to do. So just in response to kind of these two questions, um, and something I see with our own team in house, uh, in my own businesses and uh, lots of customers that I work with, your focus is super super duper important.
Now Now the metaphor I use actually in my book is that when you are surfing on a wave that can kill you, you’re surfing somewhere like Pipeline in Hawaii and these waves are massive and you’re paddling into a wave and basically what happens as you paddle into these waves is it’s like the floor drops out from underneath you and it’s like you’re two stories up looking down at a couple of feet of water over volcanic, uh, rock.
And this wave is, it’s like the entire ocean is about to just unload and throw you towards that rock. So you have to paddle with all your might to get yourself down there, that wave or you can legitimately die. Like people, expert surfers have died at Pipelines. So when I’m surfing this kind of wave, just when I’m about to take off and I’m just in that state when the, like the floor just dropped out from underneath me.
And instincts, it’s pure instinct from then and, and like absolute focus and flow. That’s when I think something like, you know what, I might just actually stop and check my emails or I wonder if somebody’s replied to that Instagram post. Joking. But the reality is your life depends on it.
Like my life depends on that absolute focus and flow. And as they fall into these waves, it’s sort of like time stands still and you’re absolutely in the zone to try and make the wave and get in the best position. It’s like pure instinct. Now this is what happens when we’re in Business and day to day, when we really get into a deep state of flow, a deep state of focus where we kind of fall into that flow state and we need to get ourselves into it.
You can set up, it’s almost like rituals and processes and routines to get yourself into that state. It It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a book like I was, where I could get in the state. Be productive, get a chapter done, be creative with that chapter and very present.
Because like in surfing, the quality, your life depends on it. I firmly believe, having worked with so many business people, it’s like your life depends on your ability, uh, to be able to focus. The more you can focus in a deep state and work on big tasks that get big results, it might be that you’re doing sales calls and you need to dedicate 10am M every day to, to absolute focus, to just get the sales calls done from 11am onwards.
Do everything else and get distracted by everything else. Get yourself another cup of coffee, then, you know, whatever distracts you. It might be that you think, ah, um, I’m not techy, I don’t like social media, I can’t do it. We find excuses. Um, now the reality is if you dedicate time and really get into the state, the little processes of actually doing it, you might actually almost enjoy it.
It’s like writing, oh, ah, it’s hard. But the reality is, once I was in the state, I would actually enjoy it and feel fulfilled. Now, how do we get there? First of all, the most successful people I see in having worked with thousands of different people in businesses big and small, um, is they treat treat it like a routine.
Like it’s like 10am Every day is dedicated, focused time. So I myself, how do I do it? It’s exactly that. I have 10am I like to go for a surf in the morning after the kids are looked after and dropped at daycare and everything else. I have dedicated time.
I tell my team, unless it’s an exceptional thing like an interview or media appearance or something, I don’t want any meetings booked before 11:00am ever. Uh, and so that’s basically the time before 11:00am is when I have blocked out time. So writing the book, 10am every day, it was booked in there.
That’s when I dedicate time to it. I would sit down if the ideas didn’t come. I sit there and I stay there. Important keynote. Here is something to note. Get rid of every other distraction in front of you. So the phone goes on silent. Um, the calendar. We all love multiple screens Nowadays, the calendar with everything else you’ve got to do later that day is minimized, closed.
You don’t have your inbox sitting in front of you. You don’t have team chat, you don’t have a to do list with a million things on it. Everything’s closed, put away. You might set a timer. The only thing you can see is the next single task. Like I’m staring at that chapter of the book and that’s it.
If it’s sales calls or social media, it’s just having that next call in front of you. When you’ve done that one, then it’s the next one, then it’s the next one. The more you glance over everything else you’ve got to do, it drains your focus, it drains your energy.
Um, and a little side note here is try and do these really high priority tasks, like high impact tasks at a time of day when you have energy. So if you recognize that you’re a morning person and you have the most energy, you know, 9am, that’s when you should do it.
Or you might be a night person, you might have the most ability to focus at 10pm, whatever it is for you. But you don’t want to be trying to do these high impact tasks where you require full focus. If you’re exhausted, you know, 4pm For a lot of people in the afternoon or three, you’ve kind of got brain fog and everything else you’ve, um, been through for enough in the day and you’re already exhausted.
So try and do it. When you do have peak energy in the day and dedicate that time to it too. Get in a deep state of focus, which will get you into a deep state of flow.
