Welcome to 2015—may this be the year of insane greatness for all of you! Jane (my wife) and I took a bit of time off to pretty much completely disconnect, spend quality time together, hike the incredible national parks in Utah, review the last year and figure out what we want to do differently in 2015. The one thing which stood out for me was—I did too much last year. I took too many meetings, spent too much time in email, participated in too many projects, spread myself too thin. And thus didn’t move the ball forward on the things which really matter to me in the way I would like to.

Insane greatness requires relentless focus. Tweet This Quote

Sounds familiar? It’s easy to say yes. It feels good. It has an instant dopamine-fueled reward mechanism. And as so many dopamine-inducing activities—it’s (generally) bad for you (and your business). It keeps you from doing the 10% of your work which really matter. It keeps you from focussing your energy on you, your business and most importantly: Your customers.

In 2015 we need you to focus on the things that matter. We need you to move the ball forward—not by an inch, but by a mile (and then some). We need you to make a difference. Insane greatness requires relentless focus.

And relentless focus means saying “No” quite a bit. Don’t be a dick about it (there are many friendly and helpful ways to say no). You have to focus. 70 percent of stuff should be a clear no. 20 percent is somewhere in-between and requires some more research. And 10 percent is the stuff you really need to do to move the needle.

To Insane Greatness and Relentless Focus my dear Heretics and Unreasonables! Make 2015 YOUR year!


This post originally appeared on Pascal’s blog.

Pascal Finette

Author Pascal Finette

Pascal is the Managing Director of Singularity University's Startup Lab. He is also an entrepreneur, coach, and speaker who has worked in Internet powerhouses, such as eBay, Mozilla, and Google, and Venture Capital—starting both a VC firm and accelerator program.

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