0:02 The most productive people in the world,
0:04 they don't rely on discipline and brute
0:06 force to stay focused. They found hacks
0:08 to trick their brain into this
0:10 superhuman level of productivity. So,
0:11 I'm going to share with you 10 hacks
0:13 that will make you more focused, even if
0:16 you have crippling ADHD like I do. These
0:18 are the strategies that I use to go from
0:22 an ADHD mess to a hyperfocused CEO. You
0:24 can start using these today to stop
0:26 fighting against your brain and start
0:28 using it as a superpower. So, with that
0:30 being said, these are the 10 hacks to
0:32 unlock insane focus. Starting with hack
0:35 number one, make a notto-do list. Here's
0:38 my philosophy. Focus is a filter, not a
0:40 muscle. Stop trying to brute force
0:43 yourself into focus. Decide what you
0:45 don't want to do so that you can make
0:47 decisions quicker. If every new decision
0:49 comes into your life and you have to sit
0:50 there with the mental overload and brain
0:52 powder, try to make a good decision
0:53 because you haven't set up a filter,
0:55 it's going to drain your energy. To me,
0:58 a new yes is a no to your dream. And a
1:00 no is a yes to your goals. If you think
1:02 about the most successful people, you
1:05 see that success is a subtractive
1:07 process, not an additive process. You
1:10 don't do more to win, you do less, but
1:12 you make the things you say no to the
1:14 right yeses. So, when people ask me
1:15 like, "Hey Dan, what did you do to be
1:17 successful to drive those cars or fly
1:19 around on your plane?" Uh, it's what I
1:21 don't do. I don't drink. I don't gamble.
1:23 I don't play video games. I don't vape.
1:24 I don't do a bunch of stuff that would
1:27 impede me from winning. And it requires
1:29 that to have the level of focus we're
1:30 talking about. The way I think about it,
1:32 you know that game Plinko where you have
1:33 like these balls you drop at the top and
1:35 it hits all these different pins and it
1:36 goes all over the place. That's how most
1:38 people live their life. What I want you
1:40 to do is break out all the other options
1:42 which is those pins. Drop the ball. Go
1:43 straight to the middle. If you think
1:44 about each one of those as being a
1:47 energy unit of focus, then you would
1:49 just literally focus and stack and focus
1:51 and stack instead of spreading yourself
1:53 thin across so many different options.
1:56 So what goes on the notto-do list for
1:58 me? Number one is lowv value task.
2:00 Anything that I can pay anybody else to
2:01 do for a little bit amount of money or
2:03 just use an app to get brought to me or
2:05 get done, I'm not doing it. Number two
2:07 is bad habit and vices. Some of you guys
2:09 have bad habits of not confronting
2:10 people that say about you. Some of you
2:13 have vices like you literally lay in bed
2:15 and hit the snooze button 15 times
2:16 before you get out of bed. Those things
2:18 have to go. The third is energy
2:19 vampires. When I'm interacting with
2:21 somebody, they either give me energy or
2:22 they take my energy. The people that
2:25 take my energy see you. Which brings us
2:27 to hack number two. Create focus
2:29 triggers. Most people wait for
2:32 inspiration to do work or hope they'll
2:34 magically get in the zone randomly to
2:36 start doing the work. I create a
2:38 structure to get myself into flow so
2:41 that it is by design, not random. See,
2:44 flow state isn't random. It's designed.
2:45 And when you're in it, guess what? I
2:47 don't think about going to the bathroom.
2:48 I don't worry about what other people
2:50 think of me. I don't worry if my work's
2:51 very good. When I'm in flow state, it
2:53 produces the best work possible. The way
2:55 I quickly get into flow is I create
2:58 focus triggers. So, for example, the
3:00 location, the chair that I sit in to do
3:03 my reading, to outline my goals, to
3:05 ideulate. I mean, even when I go off
3:07 sites with my wife to plan our quarterly
3:08 planning, our year in planning, those
3:11 are triggers for us to focus on
3:13 designing our future, not worry about
3:15 what happened this week or next week or
3:17 anything like that. The second is sound.
3:19 When I need to focus, I have to have
3:21 music playing. It's a vibe. It's a
3:24 strategy. Deep work, I'll sometimes put
3:26 on playlists that have no words, or I'll
3:28 use a special app that uses binaural
3:30 beats to actually improve my ability to
3:33 focus. Headphones are a must cuz I can't
3:34 be distracted with other people's noise.
3:36 And the last one is routines. When you
3:38 look at worldclass athletes and you
3:40 think about how they visualize, how they
3:42 warm up, the way they structure their
3:44 day, their week, their month, it is a
3:47 rhythm. It is a rhythm of success and it
3:49 is a routine. And a lot of people think,
3:50 well, that would be boring. You know
3:52 what's not boring? Having the resources
3:54 to do what you want, when you want, with
3:56 who you want. And if that requires some
3:58 level of routine, sign me up. Which
4:00 brings us to hack number three. Start on
4:03 hard mode. This one is wild is that a
4:06 lot of people try to start easy. Let's
4:09 make it easy. Let's build momentum. How
4:11 about stop trying to create momentum
4:14 with easy wins. I think if you want to
4:17 focus and get things done, attack it.
4:19 Like go all in. Like literally start on
4:21 hard mode. Make it hard. If you do
4:22 everything that's easy, it's kind of
4:24 like starting your meal with dessert.
4:26 Sure, you might enjoy it and it might
4:28 fill you up, but it's not going to give
4:29 you the nutritions you need to actually
4:31 build your body and you'll be too full
4:32 to eat the real food. So, to me, we
4:34 start with the thing that's the hardest,
4:37 not the easiest to do. In many ways, the
4:39 hardest task is to stop picking the
4:42 easiest task. So, to dial this in and
4:43 really get your focus, we have to do a
4:45 few things. First off, we have to choose
4:48 the one thing. What's the one thing? For
4:49 most business owners, it's marketing.
4:51 For most individuals, it's working out.
4:54 But what's the one thing that if you do
4:56 first as soon as you wake up or you sit
4:58 down at your desk that it will set you
5:00 up to win that it will build that
5:02 confidence to create momentum that will
5:06 give you the vibe of success. That one
5:08 thing if you just nail it out of the
5:10 park every time. It's kind of like that
5:13 first domino that you know if you get
5:15 that right the rest of the dominoes will
5:17 fall down. That's where we start. Then
5:20 what we do is we do deep work blocks.
5:22 For me, it's first thing in the morning.
5:23 I used to be a late night guy, and you
5:25 can do that, too. But as soon as I had
5:27 human alarm clocks, aka kids, my
5:29 mornings became my most precious time
5:31 because that's when I create connected
5:33 to my creator. When I think of like
5:35 writing, outlining these videos,
5:37 creating videos, coming up with new AI
5:39 companies to start, strategy work. It
5:41 has to happen first thing in the morning
5:43 in my deep work blocks. And it all
5:46 happens before checking my email, social
5:48 media, or anything else. I can't tell
5:50 you how my energy is affected by the
5:53 things I consume and if I accidentally
5:55 go down a rabbit hole and see stuff or
5:57 check things and all of a sudden ah I
5:59 have this like oh crap feeling and now
6:02 I'm supposed to go dream ideate design
6:04 something cool but I'm in this headsp
6:07 space of like no you know what I mean my
6:09 day is going from bad meeting to bad
6:11 meeting I love the people I work with
6:13 but nobody brings me anything other than
6:14 problems to try to resolve so I can't
6:16 check my email before I do the right
6:18 work You can't be like reading comments
6:20 on your social media feed about what
6:22 people think of you before you go sit
6:23 down and create more videos to help
6:24 people cuz you're going to be like, "Oh,
6:25 screw that person. I'm not even doing
6:27 this video anymore." See the challenge
6:28 with that? Which brings us to hack
6:31 number four. Be hard to reach. When I
6:32 was sitting down and editing my book,
6:35 Buy Back Your Time, I had my buddy Chris
6:37 and we got in my car and we drove to the
6:39 mountains. There was no internet. There
6:40 was no connectivity. And we stayed in a
6:43 cabin and we got our laptops out and we
6:45 edited literally for 16 hours a day. We
6:47 did it for 5 days. We had a rhythm of
6:50 working out, editing, lunch, editing,
6:51 dinner, editing, pass out. The reason
6:54 we're able to do that is cuz we are
6:56 disconnected from distractions. See,
6:58 some of you make it too easy to be
7:00 interrupted. The notifications are going
7:02 off, the phone's going off, your inbox
7:05 is like blowing up. I mean, your inbox
7:07 is nothing more than a public to-do list
7:09 of other people's priorities on your
7:11 time. My philosophy is you want to be
7:13 easy to find all over the internet, but
7:15 hard to reach. The only way to make that
7:16 work is to use these strategies. The
7:17 first is turn off all your
7:20 notifications. I mean, go into the app
7:22 under notifications and I dare you to
7:24 swipe them off. The only two people in
7:27 my life that can get through to me is my
7:29 wife and my assistant. Other than that,
7:30 everybody else can wait. Second thing is
7:33 a schedule time to respond. See, I do
7:35 reply to people, text messages, etc. I
7:36 have it in my calendar, so it's
7:38 dedicated. That way, it's a forcing
7:39 function. If I got 60 minutes, I'm
7:41 spending that 60 minutes heads down. I
7:43 was standing in the hot tub behind me
7:45 earlier replying to all my text
7:47 messages. So, call that net time. No
7:51 extra time. Post-workout hot tub sitting
7:53 there text messaging creating momentum
7:55 in my life. Figure out how to put both
7:57 of those together. The third is use
7:59 focus signals. So, for me, I have my
8:01 headphones on. Please don't talk to me.
8:04 Unless it's an emergency. I do have a
8:05 rule that if you come in my office and
8:07 I'm on a call, you then have to present
8:08 on your call. So, my kids have been on
8:10 board meetings. They've been on pitch
8:12 meetings. They literally if you're in
8:13 the room and you're asking me a
8:14 question, I'm not going to introduce you
8:15 to the people I'm talking to. My kids
8:18 are my priority. But they know if the
8:19 doors close and unless it's an
8:22 emergency, they don't come in. It is so
8:25 hard for me to focus to get in the zone
8:27 that when I'm in it, I got to protect
8:28 myself. And the fourth one is just
8:30 remove yourself. I have team members
8:32 that choose on certain days I don't want
8:33 to come to work cuz I'm going to sit at
8:36 home. No distractions, no conversations,
8:38 no taps on the shoulders, no got a
8:40 seconds, no nothing. just boom, get it
8:41 done. Other people, they go to coffee
8:43 shops. Here's an advanced move. Don't
8:44 take your power cable with you. That
8:46 way, when you're there and you know your
8:47 battery is slowly dying, slowly down,
8:49 slowly down. It'll force you to get that
8:51 work done. But coffee shops are great.
8:53 Other offices are great. You can
8:54 literally go to your buddy's office and
8:55 say, "Hey man, can I hang out in your
8:56 conference room?" Which brings us to
8:59 hack number five. Turn up the pressure.
9:01 So imagine this. You've got to move out
9:02 of your place, but you got 3 months to
9:04 move out. Think about how you would
9:05 approach that. You would probably take
9:07 your time, walk around slowly, get
9:10 distracted easily, pack sometimes. You
9:11 wouldn't move with a sense of purpose.
9:13 But if I told you you had 3 days to get
9:14 out of your place or lose all your
9:16 stuff, you wouldn't waste a minute.
9:18 That's what it means to turn up the
9:19 pressure. There's two ways that you can
9:21 do this to yourself before the world
9:23 does it to you. The first is to shorten
9:25 the timeline. You see, there's this
9:26 thing called Parkinson's law that states
9:29 the work will expand to the available
9:30 time given to it. Which means if you
9:32 give yourself a lot of time, you'll take
9:33 a lot of time. When I'm talking to
9:35 people on my team and they're like,
9:36 "Yeah, I'll get that to you at the end
9:37 of the day or the end of the week or the
9:38 end of the month," I'm like, "No, no,
9:42 no. Why not 3 PM? Why not Wednesday? Why
9:43 not the 10th of the month?" Most people
9:45 default to just giving themselves
9:48 arbitrary timelines that don't force the
9:50 creativity and the focus to get more
9:52 done. The second is to increase the
9:55 stakes. What happens if you don't? See,
9:57 then you don't have an out. There's this
9:59 woman on my team, Jen, who wanted to
10:01 lose weight. She was sick of it. She
10:03 told the whole team. She asked me for my
10:04 help. I said, "Do you want the real
10:06 stake?" She said, "Yes." I said, "Cool.
10:08 This is how it works. If you don't hit
10:09 your goal by a certain date, you can't
10:11 stay on the team." You hit that goal by
10:13 then, I cannot go on that. If you don't
10:15 hit your goal, you can't stay on the
10:17 team. Shake my hand. Hold on. No. Make
10:19 it a non-negotiable.
10:22 And she went, "Oh, no. Well, that's what
10:23 I'm saying is like, I care about you. I
10:25 want to see you win. You ask me for my
10:27 help." That's real stakes. See, most
10:30 people don't have any downside if they
10:32 don't do. And because of that, they
10:34 don't do. Which brings us to hack number
10:36 six. Train your algorithm. What I find
10:39 fascinating is the billion-dollar tech
10:42 companies. These giants hire the world's
10:45 best psychologists to design software
10:47 with one purpose, and it's to distract
10:49 you, to get you to come back in the app.
10:51 I'm talking they run split tests on the
10:53 red for the notification jewel. They'll
10:55 run AB tests on the message of the
10:57 notification they send to your phone.
11:00 All to get you back and distract you.
11:02 However, you can fight against it. See,
11:04 I actually use my social media feed to
11:06 feed my brain. And this is how I do it.
11:09 First off, I teach it my preferences. I
11:11 search for things I want to learn about.
11:13 I leave a comment on the videos that I
11:14 find interesting. And that tells the
11:16 algorithm I'm engaged. Second is I
11:19 unfollow any account or mute friends
11:21 that are not contributing to the areas I
11:22 want to learn or get better at and I'm
11:25 unapologetic about it because my feed
11:26 works for me. I don't work for it. And
11:28 the third is integrate what I learn. So
11:30 there's one thing to learn something,
11:32 see something, save thing. I'm saying
11:34 share it and more importantly teach it.
11:36 When you teach other people, you will
11:38 learn completely different. Which brings
11:40 us to hack number seven. Design your
11:41 perfect week. This one is going to
11:43 shatter some of your beliefs. But
11:46 multitasking doesn't work. It's crazy,
11:48 but it takes 23 minutes on average to
11:51 refocus after your distraction. So when
11:53 you're doing work, you got to fight for
11:55 that focus. The funny way I like to
11:58 think about it is multitasking. It just
12:00 means screwing up multiple things at
12:02 once. So this is what I suggest to
12:03 create your perfect week. The first area
12:05 is start with the big rocks. These are
12:06 the non-negotiables. These are the
12:08 things that you know that if you get
12:10 done, everything else will be good. This
12:12 is the date nights, the workouts, the
12:14 reading time, the strategy meetings, the
12:16 weekly rhythms with your teams, the best
12:18 practices for the best life. The second
12:20 area is understanding that theming your
12:22 days for different things like
12:26 marketing, sales, strategy, one-on- ons
12:28 will help you understand where to put
12:30 things in your life on what days so it's
12:31 not a decision every time. The third
12:33 area is batch and block tasks together.
12:36 That ability to take your content
12:38 creation or all your conversations and
12:40 batch them together and block it in your
12:42 calendar into 30 or 45 minute meetings
12:44 is a game changer. And the most
12:46 important is plan around your energy,
12:47 not just your time. I know there's
12:49 certain types of tasks I do in the
12:51 morning that fuels me to the next level
12:54 of task that fuels me to the afternoon,
12:56 that fuels me to the nighttime with my
12:58 family, and if I did them out of
12:59 sequence, I wouldn't be good for
13:00 anybody. I wasn't going to do this, but
13:03 it would be probably pretty of me not to
13:04 do it. Essentially, if you want my
13:06 perfect week template, what I use to
13:08 structure my week every day, just find
13:10 me on Instagram, message me the word
13:12 perfect, and I'll send you the direct
13:14 link to the dock. No opt-in, no email,
13:16 my gift to you. Which brings us to hack
13:18 number eight. Gify your work. The reason
13:20 why video games are so addictive is
13:22 because they have levels and you
13:24 visually see your progress when you're
13:25 playing them. And what I've learned in
13:27 life, new levels, new devils, and it'll
13:29 make you want to progress when you
13:30 understand you're getting better. So,
13:32 design your life where you can measure
13:34 the wins. You don't get distracted
13:36 because you're bored. You get distracted
13:38 because you can't see your progress.
13:41 Progress is happiness. Anybody that's
13:42 struggling in life right now, I know
13:44 that if they made a little bit of
13:45 progress in their life, they would just
13:48 feel better. So, let's gify our work so
13:49 that we show up with focus and
13:51 attention. Number one, we got to track
13:53 our streaks. Jelly Roll came out with
13:55 this great song about winning streaks.
13:57 And I just love that philosophy that if
14:00 you measure yourself doing something and
14:03 you can go day after day after day and
14:05 just make it a simple win that day, if
14:08 it's 10 sales calls a day, how many days
14:10 can you go in a row? My buddy Ben has
14:11 been working out. I think he said the
14:14 other day 1,200 days in a row he's
14:16 worked out and he's done his unrequired
14:19 workout. That's wild. The second is you
14:20 got to create milestones for the
14:22 rewards. This is my favorite cuz I like
14:24 to buy things and go on trips. I like to
14:27 use milestones as a marker for rewarding
14:29 myself like vacations with my family or
14:31 my friends as a way to have something to
14:33 build towards. The third is make it
14:35 visual. I'm a fan of technology, but I
14:37 will tell you when you have that in
14:39 front of your face as a poster on your
14:40 backdrop on your computer, put it on
14:41 your whiteboard, I don't care where it
14:43 is, but get it outside of your brain and
14:44 put it out in front of you so you can
14:47 see it every time. That makes it fun.
14:49 The fourth is do it together. The more
14:52 people you can enroll into the process
14:55 of winning, you will create focus around
14:56 your outcome like you've never felt.
14:58 Because the truth is is you'll do more
14:59 for other people, especially if you're
15:01 the person that got them to start that
15:02 competition or that weight loss thing,
15:04 than you will do for yourself. So having
15:06 that group of people to do it together
15:08 with is a pro move. Which brings us to
15:10 hack number nine. Manage your energy.
15:13 Exhaust the body, tame the mind. If you
15:14 follow me on Instagram, and if you
15:15 don't, you should because I'm a good
15:17 time, you will see me post almost daily,
15:19 exhaust the body, tame the mind. For me,
15:22 my energy is a byproduct of my habits.
15:24 And if I've got things going on in my
15:26 mind and I need to focus, I got to first
15:28 exhaust my body. My morning routine is
15:31 where I create my proactive energy
15:33 boost. The first thing I do is focus on
15:35 my process for how I wake up, what I've
15:38 decided to do. It's in my calendar. I
15:41 move my body. I read my books. I ramp up
15:43 my focus so that I can get my best work
15:45 done. I'm all about energy and there's
15:47 two ways that I make sure that my day
15:49 gets the best of me. First off is a
15:51 proactive energy boost. That is how I
15:53 proactively start my day. This is my
15:55 morning routine. This is the philosophy
15:57 of prioritizing the pump, getting it on
15:59 the calendar, making sure my stuff's
16:00 prepped. If I got to work out, I put
16:02 that stuff out the night before so when
16:04 I wake up, it's ready to go. I don't
16:05 have to have decision fatigue. The other
16:08 one is reactive energy boost. This is
16:10 when I feel drained. Maybe my eyeballs
16:11 hurt. I don't know why sometimes that
16:13 happens. And I just got to reset. I
16:14 mean, the other day I was giving a talk
16:16 and a guy asked me, he's like, "Hey man,
16:18 how do you deal with like feeling
16:20 lethargic and tired and like you've got
16:21 the weight of the world on you?" And I'm
16:23 like, "Dude, get up front, do some
16:24 push-ups." And I did the push-ups with
16:26 him. And we sat there and I said, "Keep
16:28 going, keep going, keep going until he
16:29 failed." And when he failed, I said, "On
16:31 your knees." And he went on his knees.
16:33 And then we were all done. I said, "Now,
16:35 how do you feel?" He's like, "9 out of
16:37 10." I said, "That took 46 seconds."
16:39 Most people don't realize they can reset
16:40 their energy cuz you don't have energy.
16:42 You create energy. I can prove it. If I
16:45 told you you had $10 million cash in the
16:47 bank, taxes paid. How would you feel
16:50 that feeling? Where'd that come from? Up
16:52 here. The other thing I love to do is
16:53 walking meetings or scooter meetings.
16:55 All my one-on- ones are done on a
16:57 scooter. Why? A lot more fun. Which
16:59 brings us to hack number 10. Find your
17:01 flow. You see, I grew up thinking I was
17:04 broken. I was told I was broken. Needed
17:06 medication. Put on rolin when I was 11.
17:09 And what I've realized, it wasn't that
17:11 my mind was broken, is that I just
17:12 needed to find a different way to work
17:14 that worked for me. So, here's what I
17:17 know. Your journey will be very unique.
17:19 Nobody else can tell you how to do it. I
17:20 can give you some thoughts, but you got
17:22 to figure it out for you. Take the time
17:25 to reflect. Journal what you're thinking
17:27 about, what's working, what's not. When
17:28 I did this, I felt really good. And then
17:31 constantly tweak. That's what I do. I
17:32 look at my calendar because it's
17:34 designed. I said, "That felt good." And
17:36 some things used to give me energy that
17:38 was very productive and all of a sudden
17:39 now based on where I'm at in life, it
17:41 doesn't work for me anymore. And you're
17:43 allowed to iterate. You're allowed to
17:45 take stuff out and try new things on
17:47 like new clothes. Does it fit well? If
17:49 it doesn't, take it off. Go find
17:51 something different. The big idea though
17:53 is don't give up. Don't give up on you.
17:56 I know that if you master the ability to
17:58 find your energy, your focus, and your
17:59 flow, your dreams exist on the other
18:01 side of that. Now, if you want to learn
18:04 the eight habits that will fix 98% of
18:05 your problems, click here and I'll see
