Our pal Alex Bogusky recently broke down an awesome mindfulness technique that I’ve been practicing for the last few years.
It’s called Hakalau, which is a vision meditation in which you soften your focus to take in your periphery. Your periphery isn’t only your blurry sight range on the edges, it actually comprises more than 95% of your vision field.
When people say “see the forest through the trees,” that’s Hakalua. When I’m on the trail and I’m looking at everything, I ride/run/ski faster and smoother over everything in the trail. When I focus on a fixed point, I always slow down and nearly always stumble.
This is a wicked skill on the trail, but this practice also translates amazingly well to our daily work lives.
Most of us have been told our entire lives that focus—even laser focus—is what it takes to be successful. You have to pick a point on the horizon and do whatever it takes to get yourself there.
But with that focus, it’s easy to miss the other 95%.
How many times have you fixated on a problem, unable to crack it … until you get up to refill your water or go to the bathroom and have an epiphany in that moment of loosened focus?
With Hakalu, we can train ourselves to be open to more. This mindfulness lets us see the connectedness of the system that we, and our brands, live in. It lets us see 95% more.
Softening your focus lets you soften your mind and allows you to see opportunities you never knew were there.
Personally, it can help you see that the difficult task or situation you’re dealing with isn’t really all that big or bad.
For your brand, it could open up opportunities for collaboration or let you see that there’s a better way to position that’s not in the same red ocean as your competitors.
Give it a try. I guarantee you’ll see something you haven’t before.