Three Essential Questions to Transform Your Life

Every moment of your life, you’re answering three questions. Jot them down. These three questions are pivotal in shaping your experiences and emotions. The first question is: What Are You Going to Focus On? right now? Whatever you’re focusing on affects you. If you’re focusing on how you’re going to use what you’re going to learn this weekend, it might be different from focusing on the smell of your neighbor after all that jumping up and down. There are so many things you can focus on, but we don’t focus on everything. We focus on a small number of things, and that’s what we experience in life.

Focus equals feeling. Whatever you focus on, you’re going to feel, even if it’s not true. Have you ever had somebody tell you something and said you think John is your friend, but he’s not? If two or three people tell you John’s talking behind your back, you can get pretty upset because it hurts. And then maybe you confront John and find out you were wrong and feel like an idiot. Who’s ever had this happen before? Say “I”.

What Are You Going to Focus On?

The most powerful decision we make, and most of us don’t make it consciously, is what are we going to focus on. You could be focusing right now on the blood rushing through your left ear or the touch of your clothes against your skin, but you don’t. Most of what your brain does is distort, delete, and generalize to make life simple. The problem is when you distort, delete, and generalize, you miss a lot of your life. So, we want to kind of see if we can’t get out of that and figure out what the focus is.

Let me give you three patterns of focus. You tell me which of these are you, and there’s no right or wrong answer. Don’t get personal about it because if you don’t like your answer, we can fix it. Think of it like software. Here’s my question: If I asked you, there are two things you could focus on, what you have or what’s missing. Which one do you spend more time focusing on? Shout it out. You can hear in the room, you’re not taking a poll, one is dominant. Raise your hand if you focus more on what’s missing. Raise your hand nice and high and look around this room. It’s about 95% of the room.

The Impact of Focusing on What’s Missing

I have a simple question for you, and it’s a really important one. Just think software, don’t think personality. If your brain is constantly focusing on what’s missing, how can you ever sustain happiness, no matter how successful you become? It is impossible. Raise your hand if you see this and it’s dominant in this room. Most of you consider yourselves achievers. That’s part of who you are as an identity. As an achiever, looking for what’s wrong for a moment so you can fix it can be a good thing, but what happens when it becomes a habit? Then it doesn’t matter how much you achieve, you’re not happy.

Do you know how many multi-billionaires or entertainers with their Oscars, Emmys, or Grammys that I work with, who you think would be the happiest people in the world? They’re worth almost a billion dollars, some of them. They’re the best in the world at what they do, everybody loves them, and they’re miserable. I get the call, and why is it? It’s because they keep focusing on what’s missing, no matter what they have. That’s one pattern. This weekend, if you only change that, it would change your life. What happens when you focus on what you have? You feel alive, you feel no scarcity, you feel joy.

How many of you have lots of things in your life that if you focused on, you could feel grateful for, you could feel excited about? How many of you have lots of things like this? Now say “I”. But it doesn’t exist unless you focus on it, and we all have patterns of focus.

What Does This Mean?

The second question is: What Does This Mean?? Because the minute you focus on something, you have to give it a meaning. Is this the end or the beginning? Is God punishing me, that’s why this problem happened? Is God challenging me, or is this problem a gift from God? See, if you think it’s the end of a relationship, are you going to feel the same way and act the same way as if you think it’s the beginning of a relationship? Yes or no? No, the meaning changes the answer to the third question, which is: What am I going to do?

Meaning equals emotion. Whatever meaning you give, you’re going to have a feeling. If you think God is punishing you, you’re going to have a very different feeling from that meaning than if you think God is challenging you or this problem is a gift from God. How many follow here? Say “I”.

Relationships and Focus

People often have trouble in their relationships. Do you know why? In the beginning of a relationship, what’s your focus? Are you trying to get them to give you things? Is that the primary focus? When you really love somebody, what will you do for them? Shout it out. What will you do? What will you do? If someone says to you, “Would you take out the trash?”, you’ll take out the trash and ask, “What else can I do for you?” in the beginning. But after 7 days, 7 weeks, 7 months, 7 years, or 70 years, somewhere between 7 days and 70 years, they go, “Could you take out the trash?” and you go, “What do I look like, your janitor?”

We used to have so much passion. What happened? If you do what you did in the beginning of the relationship at the end of the relationship, there won’t be an end because in the beginning, it wasn’t a trade. You weren’t measuring. You were focused on how to give. How many can relate to this? Say “I”. Once you start measuring what you’re getting, it’s a transaction. Transactions don’t make anyone feel good long-term.

Control and Focus

Another pattern: Do you tend to focus more on what you can control or what you can’t control? What’s outside your control? Which do you tend to focus more on, what you can control or can’t control? Watch this, it’ll be a different pattern in this room, I guarantee you. Raise your hand if you focus more on what you can control. Raise your hand, keep your hands up nice and high, look around. It’s about 80%. How many focus on what you can’t control? It’s about 20%. So it’s about 75-25 or 80-20. But notice, this one is more focused on what you can control. More people, that’s why you came here.

How many of you came here to take more control of some area of your life? Say “I”. That’s why you’re here. How many of you know someone that you wish came with you that needs this way more than you do, and they’re not here? Why? They focus on what’s missing, I guarantee you. And they focus on what they can’t control, or they think, “It’s just some guy talking, that can’t change your life”, which is really an unconscious belief that “I can’t change”.

Now some of you have both: what’s missing is your focus and what you can’t control. How are you going to feel? Just forget you personally, think of it as software in the brain. What is someone going to feel who is constantly focused on what’s missing and what they can’t control? What would you have to feel, my friends? Come on, tell me. Sad, frustrated, angry, depressed. But think about this, this is how we function. So why are they still depressed? Because they’re still focusing on what’s missing and they’re focused on what they can’t control.

Past, Present, or Future??

I’ll add one more: Do you tend to focus more on things from the Past, the Present, or the future? We all do all three, but where do you spend more of your time? Raise your hand if it’s the Past. Now look around the room, it’s only about maybe 1 or 2% of the room. Because if you focused too much on the Past, you wouldn’t even come to a program like this. You might get enough of it to say, “I want to change it”. But if you focus on the Past, since you can’t control it, it makes it pretty tough.

How many focus more on the Present? That’s where you spend more of your time, in the Present moment. How many focus more on the future? Watch this, look at this future-focused room here, because that’s what achievers do, right? We’re focused on how to create a better future. Many of you came for that.

So what’s the goal? Well, certainly you want to use all three, but if you’re going to spend your predominant time and you want enjoyment, it’s the Present. If you want to create a great life, it’s the future. So it’s a balance between the Present and the future. These three patterns alone can change your whole life. What if you came here and you’re always focused on what’s missing? We retrain your brain to find all the unbelievable magic and magnificence in your life, and you keep seeing it, feeling it daily. Will that give you more energy or less energy? A lot more energy, and that’s what’s going to change it all.

So our focus is the first question. The second question is: What’s it going to mean? Is this the end or the beginning? Will that change how you feel? And based on how you feel, will you answer what to do differently? You bet. These three questions are happening every moment of your life.