The people who hate you don't win unless you hate them – then you destroy yourself.
Richard Nixon

When I was in the 6th grade, I was on the volleyball team and the softball team. I was a cheerleader. I took guitar and piano lessons. I was in the choir. I took dance and gymnastics lessons. And, I also took diving lessons. I was reasonably good at all these things. I began to notice that every activity I joined, my nemesis, Sheri, joined (or, at least, tried to join). It was no secret that she intensely disliked me and I returned that favor. After a while, it began to annoy me that she was trying to join everything that I was doing. I began to obsess about what she was doing. I began to get distracted in my own activities, and I felt like I wasn't performing quite as well as I was capable of. Of course, I blamed this lagging performance on Sheri (to me, it was clear that it was her fault).

One night over dessert, I was complaining to Mom about Sheri and I was trying to figure out "what to do about her." My mom's response was quite disappointing. She told me to simply forget about her, to completely ignore her existence and focus only on my stuff and doing well at it. It wasn't exactly the evil strategy I was hoping for, but I decided to give it a try. It taught me an invaluable lesson in life: you cannot control what someone else is doing (or trying to do) but you can control what you are doing. By simply focusing on my own activities, I left Sheri way behind.

How many times have you heard someone complain about a co-worker or a business competitor? Soon they become so obsessed with the competitor, they forget about doing their job. As soon as that happens, the competitor has a shot at winning. There's a reason why a horse in a race wears blinders – so they stay focused on the finish line and not aren't distracted by what’s going on around them.

How do you stay focused on what's important and tune out the meaningless distractions?

To Your Success,

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