The 5 am club

History-Maker Focus #2: Freedom from Distraction
The billionaire pointed to the model with a pinky finger.
“Remember that important brain tattoo of successful people? ‘
An
addiction to distraction is the death of your creative production
.’ It will guide
us through this section of today’s mentoring session. And I’ve decided to go
deep into the importance of winning the war against diversion and cyber

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nuisances because it’s an extremely serious issue in our culture. In some
ways, the new technologies and social media are not only eroding the
Everests of our glorious productive potential, they are also training us to be
less human. We have fewer real conversations, fewer true connections and
fewer meaningful interactions.”
“Um. Yes, I’m realizing this more and more as the mornings pass on this
beach,” admitted the entrepreneur.
“Filling valuable hours with meaningless moves is the drug of choice for
most people,” the billionaire continued. “Intellectually we know we shouldn’t
be wasting time on zero-value activities, but emotionally we just can’t beat
the temptation. We just can’t fight the hook. This behavior is costing
organizations billions of dollars in lost productivity and deficient quality. And
as I suggested earlier, people are making more mistakes in their work than
ever before because they aren’t present to what they’re doing. Their precious
concentration has been hijacked by a foolish use of technology and their
priceless focus has been kidnapped, costing them their chance to create their
best work and calibrate their finest lives.”
The stillness and quietude that only the day’s earliest hours provide was
still evident.
The industrialist paused. He scanned the entire scene, gazing at the
flowers neatly ordered around his home, then at the cargo ships on the
horizon that looked like they hadn’t moved and finally at the ocean.
“Look, cats,” he said at last. “I 
love
the modern world—I really do.
Without all the technology we have available to us life would be a lot harder.
My businesses wouldn’t be as successful as they are, I wouldn’t be as
efficient as I am and I possibly wouldn’t be here with you two.”
“Why?” wondered the artist as a single dolphin swam by gracefully.
Astoundingly, it then soared high out of the ocean and spun in the air four
times before returning to the water with a lavish splash.
Mr. Riley looked delighted. “I’m so happy I discovered how to become a
magnet for miracles,” he whispered to himself. “And I can’t wait to teach
these good folks how to do the same for themselves.” He then kept on with
his discourse.
“All the innovations in healthcare tech saved my life when I was sick,”
the billionaire explained. “Anyhoo, technology well used is a phenomenal
thing. It’s all the silly ways people apply it now that really concerns me. So
many potentially outstanding people are suffering from ‘broken focus
syndrome’ because they’ve filled their professional and personal lives with so

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many gadgets, interruptions and cybernoise. If you’re in the sport of winning,
please model all of the great masters of history and strip away all the layers of
complexity from your days. Simplify. Streamline everything. 
Become a
purist.
Less really is more. Concentrate on just a few work projects so you
make them amazing versus diluting your attention on too many. And socially,
have fewer friends but go deep with them so the relationship is rich. Accept
fewer invitations, major in fewer leisure activities and study, then master, a
smaller number of books versus skimming many. An intense concentration
only on what matters most is how the pros realize victory. Simplify. Simplify.
Simplify.
“Stop managing your time and start managing your focus,” added the
billionaire. “Now there’s a principle for greatness in this overstimulated
society we live in.”
“Thanks to your teaching so far,” said the artist, “I now understand that
being busy doesn’t mean you’re being productive. I’ve also come to see that
when I work on a new painting, the closer I get to great art, the more some
darker part of me wants to get me distracted so that I avoid doing something
mind-blowing. It happens fairly often now that I think about it. I’ll get nearer
to fantastic work and I then begin to break my work routine. I’ll go online and
just surf. I’ll sleep later and watch entire seasons of my favorite shows or play
video games with my virtual friends all night. Sometimes I’ll just drink too
much cheap red wine.”
“The closer you get to your genius, the more you’ll face the sabotage of
your fears,” agreed the billionaire powerfully. “You’ll become scared of
leaving the majority and having to deal with the by-products of mastery, like
being different from most people, jealousy from competitors and the pressure
to make your next project even better. As you rise toward virtuosity, you’ll
become anxious about failure, threatened by a concern of not being good
enough and insecure about blazing new paths. So, your amygdala—an
almond-shaped mass of gray matter in the brain that detects fear—gets all
fired up. And you begin to tear down the productivity you’ve built up. We all
have a subconcious saboteur that lurks within our weakest selves, you know?
The good news is that once you become aware of this condition . . .”
“I can make the better daily choices that will give me better daily results,”
the artist interrupted with all the energy of a puppy seeing its owner after a
long day alone.
“Exactly,” said the billionaire. “Once you are aware of the fact that, as
you near your highest talents and most luminous gifts, the scared side of you
will rear its ugly head and try to mess up the masterpieces you’ve been
creating by pursuing every distraction and escape route possible to avoid

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finishing, you can manage that self-destructive behavior. You can step outside
of it. You can disempower it, simply by watching its attempts to denounce
your mastery.”
“Really profound insights here,” contributed the entrepreneur. “This
explains so much about why I’m limiting my productivity, performance and
influence at my company. I’ll set an important target. I get the team enrolled
in it. We sequence the key deliverables. Then I get distracted. I’ll say ‘yes’ to
another opportunity that adds more complexity to our business. I’ll fill my
days with useless meetings with people who love to hear the sound of their
own voice. I’ll check my notifications obsessively and watch ‘breaking news’
reports religiously. This morning it’s become super-clear how I’m totally
sabotaging my effectiveness. It’s also pretty obvious that I am addicted to the
digital nonsense you’re speaking about. I’ll be honest, I haven’t gotten over
some of my exes because it’s so easy to watch their lives on social media. I’m
understanding now that a lot of the hours I could be super-creative I trade for
online recreation. Like you said, Mr. Riley, it’s a form of escape. I can’t seem
to stop shopping on my devices. It’s just too easy. And it makes me feel
happy, for a few minutes. I’m getting why Steve Jobs didn’t give his kids the
very things he sold to the world. He understood how addictive they could be,
if improperly used. And how they could make us less human and less 
alive
.”
The billionaire raised a hand. Another assistant sprinted from the beach
hut up to the now sun-soaked terrace. He wore a crisp white shirt, charcoal
gray sailing shorts and well-cared-for black leather sandals.
“Here you are, sir,” the young man said with a French accent as he handed
the mogul a tray with mysterious markings on it. In the center was a model of
the human brain.
It looked exactly like this:
“Merci beaucoup, Pierre. Now let’s explore the neuroscience of self-
sabotage so you cats can understand it better—and then beat it. Remember,

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each of us has what The Spellbinder calls ‘The Ancient Brain.’ This is made
up of the limbic system—a set of brain structures that sit on both sides of the
thalamus, right under the cerebrum. The amygdala that I mentioned a few
moments ago is part of this. This basic and lower-functioning brain served to
keep us safe thousands of years ago in a primitive world of relentless threats
like starvation, temperature extremes, warring tribes and saber-toothed tigers.
It functions to do one main thing: maintain a steady state while warning us
against dangers so we survive and propagate our species.
“With me so far?” asked the billionaire politely.
“Understood.” The entrepreneur and the artist responded in unison as a
housekeeper served fresh lemon tea with some chunks of ginger in it.
“Excellent. One of the fascinating traits of our ancient brain is its
negativity bias. To keep us safe, it’s far less interested in what’s positive in
our environment and significantly more invested in letting us know what’s
bad.
“This brain’s default is to hunt for danger,” the billionaire continued
happily. “So back when life was much more brutal, we could respond swiftly
and stay alive. That mechanism served our ancestors exceedingly well. But in
today’s world, most of us don’t face death daily. The reality is that the
ordinary person lives a higher quality life than most members of royalty did
even just a few hundred years ago. Please think about this blessing.”
The tycoon slurped some tea.
“And yet, because of this built-in negativity bias within our ancient brains,
we’re constantly scanning for breaches against our security. We’re in
hypervigilance mode, mostly anxious and uptight, even when everything’s
going great. Fascinating, right?”
“Explains a lot of why we think the way we do,” noted the entrepreneur as
she, too, enjoyed the tea. “Now I see why I always seem to feel I’ve never
achieved enough, even though I’ve accomplished more than anyone I know,”
the entrepreneur carried on. “I have such a successful business, a robust net
worth and before my investors got greedy—a fairly wonderful life. Yet
despite everything I have, my brain seems to always focus on what I’m
missing, where I don’t have enough and how I’m falling short of expectations
around winning. Drives me crazy. I hardly feel any peace. Ever.”
The entrepreneur crossed her arms. The artist blew her a kiss as his
dreadlocks dangled in the fragrant breeze.
“Theodore Roosevelt said something I think it’s important you hear,”
expounded the billionaire.

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“What did he say?” inquired the entrepreneur, her arms clenched tightly.
“‘Comparison is the thief of joy,’” responded the billionaire. “Someone
will always have more fortune, fame and stuff than you do. Think about my
earlier point about detachment and embracing the wisdom of knowing when
enough is enough.”
“Yes. I remember,” said the entrepreneur courteously.
“More and more of this hunger you have comes from deeper feelings of
scarcity. And a lot of this is stemming from the workings of your ancient
brain. It’s scanning your environment and the negativity bias is being
activated, preventing you from enjoying all the good you have. Okay,” said
the billionaire. “Let’s go even more granular. As time advanced, our brains
evolved. And the prefrontal cortex developed. This is the part of our brain
responsible for higher thinking. Neuroscientists consider it the crown jewel of
advanced reasoning. The Spellbinder calls it ‘The Mastery Brain.’ But here’s
the thing: As we began to dream bigger, learn quicker and raise our levels of
creativity, productivity and performance, the ancient brain and the mastery
brain began a conflict. They went to war. The primitive brain senses our
growth, knows we’re leaving our safe harbor of the known and gets fired up
because we’re leaving our traditional ways of being. It senses the threat—
even though the threat is essential to our personal ascension and professional
advancement. We absolutely must venture into those unexplored places where
possibility lives to become more intimate with our primal genius and to
become all we are meant to be. Knowing we have higher reaches of talent and
courage left to visit floods a human heart with immense excitement. This
knowledge is one of the vast treasures that make life worth living. The
celebrated psychologist Abraham Maslow once stated, ‘If you plan on being
anything less than who you are capable of being, you will probably be
unhappy all the days of your life.’ But the amygdala kicks into high gear as
we exit what’s familiar and try something new. The vagus nerve gets
provoked, the fear hormone cortisol gets released. And we begin to destroy
the very intentions and implementations that our mastery brain so intelligently
wants us to realize.”
“This explains why so few people are highly creative and extremely
productive,” the artist observed. “As we leave our comfort zones, the ancient
brain gets triggered. As we raise our expertise and lift our influence, it gets
frightened by the change.”
“Exactly,” applauded Mr. Riley. “Then cortisol is released, our perception
narrows, our breathing grows shallow and we drop into fight-or-flight mode.
Actually, the three options of fear are flight, fight or freeze.”

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The artist added, “Our higher thinking wants us to grow, evolve, do more
masterful work, lead better lives and inspire the world,” continued the artist.
“But there’s a battle of our brains going on. And the ancient, lower—more
primitive—brain inside all of us wants to stop our evolution.”
“Exactly,” said the billionaire as he fist-bumped the painter.
“And so, speaking to the second focus of history-makers on the model
you’re walking us through—freedom from distraction—I guess it’s because of
this fear we face that we embrace as many diversions as possible to make us
feel better, even if only for a minute?” questioned the entrepreneur.
“Truth,” confirmed the billionaire. “And to escape the discomfort that
comes with us becoming more intimate with our inherent genius.”
“This is such a big piece for me.” The artist couldn’t contain his
enthusiasm. “You’ve just walked us through why our culture is so addicted to
distractions. And why the majority don’t experience their greatness. And I
guess that’s why creative and productive people are the real warriors of our
society. We not only have to face the insults of our naysayers and the arrows
of those critics who don’t understand our art, we also need to have the guts to
push past the alarm bells of our ancient brains pleading with us not to reach
for our brilliance.”
“Poetically said, my friend!” exclaimed the billionaire gleefully. He did
that little dance again. The housekeeper, who was sweeping the veranda, just
shook her head.
“It takes an awesome amount of courage to feel the terror of true personal
and professional growth—and to keep going—even when you sort of feel
you’re dying,” taught the titan. “But continuing when you’re frightened is
how you become a legend. You two cats are makers, builders of great things.
And all builders consistently break through their fear, daily, to find higher
levels of prowess, impact and human freedom. Oh—and the fantastic reward
you’ll receive as you fully express your strengths and gifts isn’t only the
product of your heroic efforts. It’s