₦airaland Forum

“I still think buying a home is the best investment any individual can make.” - John Paulson, billionaire

“You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.” Gordon B. Hinkley

“You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.” Gordon B. Hinkley

Reverseng:
I'll go straight to the point.

I received an email, which surprisingly landed in my spam folder. At the time, I thought nothing awkward about it. In my state of joblessness, I was actually quite excited.

On opening the email, I saw that I had been shortlisted for a "Digital Executive Assistant" role under a GrowthHub Recruitment Program. Hurray!

I was told to complete an online assessment on a platform called Meritsphere, which would give me a temporary ID. I did that.

I hurried to the venue the next day with my temporary ID. Since I was the first on-site, I had to wait for other lucky shortlisted candidates, and this was my first red flag that made me sense something was wrong.

1) The Location

Something stood out about it. It looked like a regular house. It was a one-story building, and I just couldn't picture it as a place housing a job that befitted the title described in the email I had received: "A Digital Executive Assistant (Graduate Trainee)."

Well, I told myself that since it was a tech-related role, it could be remote or mostly online, so they wouldn't need to have a heavy physical presence.

The second red flag I received was when I tried engaging in a conversation with another male candidate, but I was quickly interrupted by a staff member and told:

"Communication between candidates is not allowed and is strongly discouraged. If you have any questions, call our attention and you'll be clarified. The person you're talking to doesn't know as much as we do, seeing that you're all new here."

We were made to write our names and temporary IDs into a book, and then we were ushered into the building. All this while, we had been seated on plastic chairs arranged outside. There were 8 of us interviewees, while the staff working there who were gradually resuming numbered about 10 (mostly ladies). Both the interviewees and the interviewers were mostly sharp-looking, vibrant youths—which is the main reason it hurts to recount this event—some leaders of tomorrow have been sold out!

The room we were ushered into was quite small (a 3-by-3 ceiling type room), and there was a flat-screen TV playing a motivational Christian YouTube sermon about success, reward, and sacrifice... "aspire to acquire"... something along those lines.

Everything just seemed off.
What if there were Muslim candidates? Should Christianity be impressed on them just because they are jobless? And there was a Muslim candidate there; I saw a lady in a hijab.

Then I was interviewed. I was taken to a separate room upstairs in the same building and was asked questions like:

"Do you want a job or an opportunity?"
"Tell me about yourself."

Then I was asked what I studied and my grade, and I told them. There was this look on their faces that made me feel I was overqualified.
Hello! It was supposed to be a graduate trainee role for a Digital Executive Assistant!

Being suspicious of everything, I asked the interviewer what the job was all about. I had already searched for "Meritsphere" and "GrowthHub" online before coming, but I couldn't find much—which was surprisingly strange for a supposed tech-associated company seeking Digital Executive Assistant Graduate Trainees.

The interview ended, and I was excused and told to fill out a digital form for the next phase of my assessment, which I was told would happen at Alausa, Ikeja the next day, and that was when my breakthrough moment came.

I was filling out the form when the guy I had tried communicating with earlier downstairs signaled to me and showed me his phone. He had written a text in his notepad: "This could be GNLD."

Immediately, something clicked. Believing is seeing, so I started looking for signs that what I had gotten myself into could indeed be GNLD. That was when I spotted the name "Vitacare360" in the digital form I was told to fill.
There were also some questions in the form that I knew I'd have to lie about to answer, so I tried to skip them, but the form wouldn't let me submit without answering.
I approached one of the staff members (a lady) and asked if this role involved selling drugs. She said it was a "Wellness Program."

But you weren't this specific in your email!

I excused myself from the venue and left.



[Why did I write this rant here?

First, I shouldn't be lied to or manipulated about a job role. Truth inspires choice. If I had known via email that the position of a Digital Executive Assistant was to market wellness programs to people online, I would never have honored that invitation. I wasted my time and my transport money.

Next time, if I see a job—especially one that lands in my spam folder, or one that I don't remember applying for, or one with a shady role description—I'll do a better job of calling HR to clarify before proceeding.

Could the job be GNLD, where participants are eventually told to invest money for kits/materials to increase their ranks? I didn't stay long enough to find out.

Were they shady in their dealings with applicants? Yes. Extremely.

Would you want to be in my shoes? I'm guessing your answer is no.

I don't feel you wasted time or money because this experience has taught you and other young, relatively inexperienced graduates valuable lessons.

It's part of the process. Keep pushing.

“You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.” Gordon B. Hinkley

“Owning a home is a keystone of wealth… both financial affluence and emotional security”.
Suze Orman

Everyone wants a piece of land. It’s the only sure investment, it can never depreciate like a car or a washing machine.” Russel Sage

Let’s talk about how to overcome our tendency to multitask and focus on one thing at a time. Of the many options in front of you, how do you know what to focus on? How do you know where to direct your energy and attention? How do you determine the one thing that you should commit to doing?


Warren Buffett’s “2 List” Strategy for Focused Attention
One of my favorite methods for focusing your attention on what matters and eliminating what doesn’t comes from the famous investor Warren Buffett.

Buffett uses a simple 3-step productivity strategy to help his employees determine their priorities and actions. You may find this method useful for making decisions and getting yourself to commit to doing one thing right away. Here’s how it works…

One day, Buffett asked his personal pilot to go through the 3-step exercise.

STEP 1: Buffett started by asking the pilot, named Mike Flint, to write down his top 25 career goals. So, Flint took some time and wrote them down. (Note: You could also complete this exercise with goals for a shorter timeline. For example, write down the top 25 things you want to accomplish this week.)

STEP 2: Then, Buffett asked Flint to review his list and circle his top 5 goals. Again, Flint took some time, made his way through the list, and eventually decided on his 5 most important goals.

STEP 3: At this point, Flint had two lists. The 5 items he had circled were List A, and the 20 items he had not circled were List B.

Flint confirmed that he would start working on his top 5 goals right away. And that’s when Buffett asked him about the second list, “And what about the ones you didn’t circle?”

Flint replied, “Well, the top 5 are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in a close second. They are still important so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort.”

To which Buffett replied, “No. You’ve got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”

I love Buffett’s method because it forces you to make hard decisions and eliminate things that might be good uses of time, but aren’t great uses of time. So often the tasks that derail our focus are ones that we can easily rationalize spending time on.

One goal

This is just one way to narrow your focus and eliminate distractions. I’ve covered many other methods before like The Ivy Lee Method and The Eisenhower Box. That said, no matter what method you use and no matter how committed you are, at some point your concentration and focus begin to fade. How can you increase your attention span and remain focused?

There are two simple steps you can take.

1.Measure Your Results
The first thing you can do is to measure your progress.

Focus often fades because of lack of feedback. Your brain has a natural desire to know whether or not you are making progress toward your goals, and it is impossible to know that without getting feedback. From a practical standpoint, this means that we need to measure our results.

We all have areas of life that we say are important to us, but that we aren’t measuring. That’s a shame because measurement maintains focus and concentration. The things we measure are the things we improve. It is only through numbers and clear tracking that we have any idea if we are getting better or worse.

When I measured how many pushups I did, I got stronger.
When I tracked my reading habit of 20 pages per day, I read more books.
When I recorded my values, I began living with more integrity.
The tasks I measured were the ones I remained focused on.

Unfortunately, we often avoid measuring because we are fearful of what the numbers will tell us about ourselves. The trick is to realize that measuring is not a judgment about who you are, it’s just feedback on where you are.

Measure to discover, to find out, to understand. Measure to get to know yourself better. Measure to see if you’re actually spending time on the things that are important to you. Measure because it will help you focus on the things that matter and ignore the things that don’t.

2.Focus on the Process, Not the Event
The second thing you can do to maintain long-term focus is to concentrate on processes, not events. All too often, we see success as an event that can be achieved and completed.

Here are some common examples:

Many people see health as an event: “If I just lose 20 pounds, then I’ll be in shape.”
Many people see entrepreneurship as an event: “If we could get our business featured in the New York Times, then we’d be set.”
Many people see art as an event: “If I could just get my work featured in a bigger gallery, then I’d have the credibility I need.”
Those are just a few of the many ways that we categorize success as a single event. But if you look at the people who stay focused on their goals, you start to realize that it’s not the events or the results that make them different. It’s the commitment to the process. They fall in love with the daily practice, not the individual event.

What’s funny, of course, is that this focus on the process is what will allow you to enjoy the results anyway.

If you want to be a great writer, then having a best-selling book is wonderful. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of writing.
If you want the world to know about your business, then it would be great to be featured in Forbes magazine. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of marketing.
If you want to be in the best shape of your life, then losing 20 pounds might be necessary. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of eating healthy and exercising consistently.
If you want to become significantly better at anything, you have to fall in love with the process of doing it. You have to fall in love with building the identity of someone who does the work, rather than merely dreaming about the results that you want.
Focusing on outcomes and goals is our natural tendency, but focusing on processes leads to more results over the long-run.

Concentration and Focus Mind-Hacks
Even after you’ve learned to love the process and know how to stay focused on your goals, the day-to-day implementation of those goals can still be messy. Let’s talk about some additional ways to improve concentration and make sure you’re giving each task your focused attention.

How to Improve Concentration
Here are few additional ways to improve your focus and get started on what matters.

Choose an anchor task. One of the major improvements I’ve made recently is to assign one (and only one) priority to each work day. Although I plan to complete other tasks during the day, my priority task is the one non-negotiable thing that must get done. I call this my “anchor task” because it is the mainstay that holds the rest of my day in place. The power of choosing one priority is that it naturally guides your behavior by forcing you to organize your life around that responsibility.

Manage your energy, not your time. If a task requires your full attention, then schedule it for a time of day when you have the energy needed to focus. For example, I have noticed that my creative energy is highest in the morning. That’s when I’m fresh. That’s when I do my best writing. That’s when I make the best strategic decisions about my business. So, what do I do? I schedule creative tasks for the morning. All other business tasks are taken care of in the afternoon. This includes doing interviews, responding to emails, phone calls and Skype chats, data analysis and number crunching. Nearly every productivity strategy obsesses over managing your time better, but time is useless if you don’t have the energy you need to complete the task you are working on.

Never check email before noon. Focus is about eliminating distractions. Email can be one of the biggest distractions of all. If I don’t check email at the beginning of the day, then I am able to spend the morning pursuing my own agenda rather than reacting to everybody else’s agenda. That’s a huge win because I’m not wasting mental energy thinking about all the messages in my inbox. I realize that waiting until the afternoon isn’t feasible for many people, but I’d like to offer a challenge. Can you wait until 10AM? What about 9AM? 8:30AM? The exact cutoff time doesn’t matter. The point is to carve out time during your morning when you can focus on what is most important to you without letting the rest of the world dictate your mental state.

Leave your phone in another room. I usually don’t see my phone for the first few hours of the day. It is much easier to do focused work when you don’t have any text messages, phone calls, or alerts interrupting your focus.

Work in full screen mode. Whenever I use an application on my computer, I use full screen mode. If I’m reading an article on the web, my browser takes up the whole screen. If I’m writing in Evernote, I’m working in full screen mode. If I’m editing a picture in Photoshop, it is the only thing I can see. I have set up my desktop so that the menu bar disappears automatically. When I am working, I can’t see the time, the icons of other applications, or any other distractions on the screen. It’s funny how big of a difference this makes for my focus and concentration. If you can see an icon on your screen, then you will be reminded to click on it occasionally. However, if you remove the visual cue, then the urge to be distracted subsides in a few minutes.

Remove all tasks that could distract from early morning focus. I love doing the most important thing first each day because the urgencies of the day have not crept in yet. I have gone a little far in this regard in that I have even pushed my first meal off until about noon each day. I have been intermittent fasting for three years now (here are some lessons learned), which means that I typically eat most of my meals between 12PM and 8PM. The result is that I get some additional time in the morning to do focused work rather than cook breakfast.

Regardless of what strategy you use, just remember that anytime you find the world distracting you, all you need to do is commit to one thing. In the beginning, you don’t even have to succeed. You just need to get started.

“It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can’t fly away.” - Anthony Trollope, novelist

“Buy real estate in areas where the path exists and buy more real estate where there is no path, but you can create your own.” David Waronker.

“Owning a home is a keystone of wealth… both financial affluence and emotional security”.
Suze Orman

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot."
— Michael Altshuler

Real estate is an imperishable asset, ever increasing in value. It is the most solid security that human ingenuity has devised. It is the basis of all security and about the only indestructible security.”
-Russell Sage

Real estate is an imperishable asset, ever increasing in value. It is the most solid security that human ingenuity has devised. It is the basis of all security and about the only indestructible security.”
-Russell Sage

“When you invest, you are buying a day that you don’t have to work.” Aya Laraya

Real estate is an imperishable asset, ever increasing in value. It is the most solid security that human ingenuity has devised. It is the basis of all security and about the only indestructible security.”
-Russell Sage

“Buy real estate in areas where the path exists and buy more real estate where there is no path, but you can create your own.” David Waronker.

“Every person who invests in well-selected real estate in a growing section of a prosperous community adopts the surest and safest method of becoming independent, for real estate is the basis of wealth.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

“When you invest, you are buying a day that you don’t have to work.” Aya Laraya

Real estate is an imperishable asset, ever increasing in value. It is the most solid security that human ingenuity has devised. It is the basis of all security and about the only indestructible security.”
-Russell Sage

“It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can’t fly away.” - Anthony Trollope, novelist

Real estate is an imperishable asset, ever increasing in value. It is the most solid security that human ingenuity has devised. It is the basis of all security and about the only indestructible security.”
-Russell Sage

“It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can’t fly away.” - Anthony Trollope, novelist

“It is a comfortable feeling to know that you stand on your own ground. Land is about the only thing that can’t fly away.” - Anthony Trollope, novelist

The philosophy of the rich and the poor is this: the rich invest their money and spend what is left. The poor spend their money and invest what is left.” Robert Kiyosaki

Everyone wants a piece of land. It’s the only sure investment, it can never depreciate like a car or a washing machine.” Russel Sage

Everyone wants a piece of land. It’s the only sure investment, it can never depreciate like a car or a washing machine.” Russel Sage

“Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.” - Hazrat Inayat Khan, spiritualist

Everyone wants a piece of land. It’s the only sure investment, it can never depreciate like a car or a washing machine.” Russel Sage

“When you invest, you are buying a day that you don’t have to work.” Aya Laraya

“Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.” - Hazrat Inayat Khan, spiritualist

Real estate is an imperishable asset, ever increasing in value. It is the most solid security that human ingenuity has devised. It is the basis of all security and about the only indestructible security.”
-Russell Sage