[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddhart here aka the focus b. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.

[00:36] I am so excited to announce a launch of my book, The Magic of Focus. It has taken me years to finally release this book. I'm so excited to share it with you all. Okay, so a few words on this idea of The Magic of Focus, how I wrote this book, what happened in my life, how it led me to this book, and what are some of the key aspects I discuss in it. Although I won't go into too much detail because if you want to find out more, you can tune in and read the book. I started this book in August 2019, so it was almost four years ago. I wrote it all in one go within a month. Super inspired. I had a target of number of words every day. Just wrote, wrote, then put it on hold, then forgot about it, and then rewrote all of it. And as I soon found out, with writing a book, it's not at all the first draft that matters, but 2nd, 3rd, fourth. And so I rewrote it several times. I added more of a background storyline, so to say. And this contributes to the atmosphere of the book and to make it a little less rigid, because I sometimes find that nonfiction books are quite rigid and stuck. And so this is a little more free flowing and a little different to other nonfiction books that I've read, then had several editors write it, looked for a publisher, decided to self publish it, the whole writing journey. More importantly, also dealing with my own thoughts, doubts and creativity. Because the journey of writing a book is quite a transcendent journey. It takes a lot of self acceptance, compassion, letting go, letting go of perfectionism, letting go of doubts, letting go of fears, letting go of what other people will think. And this was way harder than the actual writing of the first draft, because the first draft was okay to write. But then the more I wrote it and the more it became a real project and something I was actually going to publish, the bigger the fears and the bigger the doubts. And so the more inner journey and inner transformation I had to go through to actually make this happen. And so it was quite a roller coaster. It has been a fun ride, that's for sure. A few words on the book itself. So I chose the topic of focus. As you know, my brand is the Focus B. I highly believe in the power of focus, because what we focus on, we become what we focus on, we bring into the world. What we focus on, we attract. What we focus on becomes our reality. And so through this concept of focus, I looked into different aspects because what I came to realize is this notion of short term focus, which is really our ability to master focus now in each moment, on each task. And this is where many people get lost in distractions and emails and social media and the phone because they struggle to now be in flow for a whole amount of time. And this is something we can definitely train. And I go through different concepts and ideas. I was inspired by many other fantastic books on focus that I reference in the book. Also books such as Indistractable by Niral and Hyper Focus by Chris Bailey and Flow by Mihali she thank me high. So all these books had a tremendous impact on my vision of focus and on my thoughts on this topic. The second notion that I discuss in depth in the book is the idea of long term focus. And this is really looking at your goals, your direction, your vision, what you want in life. Because this is also a type of focus. Because if what you're doing every single day doesn't contribute organically to your long term vision, then this will hinder your motivation, this will hinder your ability to perform and to persist and to persevere and to be resilient. So this idea of long term focus is something that I find fundamental and gaining clarity on what that long term focus is and so that you're able to actually use it as a compass and direct your life. So this is the second pillar of my book. Obviously, this is a very abbreviated version. And the last pillar is selective focus. And this is how do you manage your thoughts, your emotions and how do you manage to be present every day. This is a type of selective focus. And if you're not able to deal with your emotions and your thoughts, then how will you manage, when you're working on a project, for instance, or a task or an activity, not to get hijacked by fear or a certain emotion that comes up? And this is the third concept, selective focus. And there I got greatly inspired by The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, or The Power of now by Eckhart Toll that goes in a slightly more spiritual direction. My idea really here was to go from a more productive or productivity orientation to a more mindful form of looking at things. So it's a high performance to spirituality journey which really reflects my own journey. It all began with this desire to be productive and high performing. And it led me gradually to discover that what really mattered was the quality of presence that we have every single day. And if we're able to have high quality of presence, not only does performance go through the roof but we feel so much happier and grateful and joyful. So this is really what I want to share in my book on Focus. I am so excited for the release. I can't actually believe it's coming true. I have been wanting to write a book and publish a book ever since I was ten years old. I still remember being ten and writing and journaling and wishing for a book to publish. I loved reading at the time and I still do. So it's literally a dream come true. So, so excited for you to read it. I'm obviously going to put the links in the comments of this episode. Please write in the reviews in the comments of the YouTube video or podcast. Have you read the book? What are you enjoying about it? Do you have any questions about it? And obviously if you're also buying it, write a review on it, which would be fantastic and also help other people to discover it. So super excited. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for getting and reading the book. If you do, I'd absolutely love to hear from you and you can also message me on my website katiestod.com thank you for tuning in. Wishing you a wonderful, wonderful day ahead. Much, much joy, much focus, and enjoy the journey.

[07:40] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.