the kind of focus that makes you immune to distraction

Hey guys, Mark here. In this video, I'm

going to show you how to achieve levels

of focus so deep it makes you immune to

distraction. And if you can't even

finish this video that is about focus,

then that teaches me everything I need

to know about you and you are cooked.

This video is not going to be super woo

woo and how you need to follow your

passion. No, none of that. This is going

to be super duper practical, tactical

advice that you can implement the moment

that this video is over. If you actually

do what is in this video, I guarantee

you will get more done in less time. And

I am living proof. For the last 8 years,

I have worked anywhere from 10 to 14

hours per day, every single day, with

very few exceptions, without burning out

using these exact strategies in this

video. First, you need to understand why

you've been failing for so long to

actually stay focused and why most

advice is just complete [ __ ] The

reason why you fail ultimately is

because all these strategies, all these

other videos on YouTube talk about in

order to become focused, you have to

increase your willpower. Basically, you

just have to try harder. And after doing

that so often for so long, I realized

that this is a complete lie that people

tell you so that you stay trapped in

these states of being super distracted

and never getting any real meaningful

work done. You're basically kind of

following the David Gogggins method and

just using pure discipline to try to

stay focused. But the problem is using

discipline in and of itself is a

cognitively demanding task that takes

away from the work that should be poured

into doing something productive. True

focus is simply the absence of

distraction. It's not trying to be a

maximalist and have a pomodoro timer and

all these other tiny little cheat codes,

so call them. It's literally just to

reduce and eliminate all the [ __ ] that's

getting in the way of focus, which

sounds relatively easy, but it's

actually a little complicated. Hence the

reason I'm making this video in the

first place. So, what we'll call for

this video true focus really has four

kind of steps. And if you follow these

four steps, you'll get into the deepest

possible states, not just once, but

every single day repeatably because you

literally just have a formula. First is

called preloading, which is basically

what you do before you sit down. Second

is activation that triggers you to get

into that state. Third is immersion,

which is where you actually maintain

that deep state of focus, what people

call deep work or deliberate practice.

And then fourth is the exit protocol. If

you don't close that loop properly, then

cool, you got deep work done once. to

achieve true focus once, but you can't

do it tomorrow or the day after, every

single day following. So, let's talk

about preloading first. The first thing

that you want to do is create something

that I call dopamine debt. We all know

this neurotransmitter that's associated

with pleasure, with motivation, with

actually achieving things. Dopamine debt

is essentially where you try to

eliminate all of the dopamine that you

have accured throughout the day or even

if it's first thing in the morning to

essentially set your baseline level of

dopamine so freaking low. so incredibly

low that anything that you do afterwards

is going to feel so much better than

what you just did before. We are starved

in this world of true boredom. Every

second of the day, we are just thrown

constant dopamineergic activities with

social media, porn, with food, with

relationships, every single freaking

minute of the day. And dopamine, you

know, typically es and flows. And if you

are like doom scrolling on IG and your

dopamine levels are continually getting

spiked and spiked and come back down and

spike and come back down and then you

try to get into this super deep state of

focus. No, of course that's not going to

work because your brain is comparing

this deep work that you're doing to this

super dopamineergic activity of

scrolling social media. It's not going

to be a smooth transition. So instead

what you're going to do is acrue

dopamine debt which is literally you sit

on your bed wherever where there is zero

stimuli around you. What I mean by this

is no phone, no music, nothing. Bonus

points if you do this with no sunlight

because sunlight, as many of you know,

does increase your dopamine. However,

that's better though. Allow sunlight.

You know, I don't personally do

sunlight, but I'll allow it. You're

going to sit in silence. You're going to

stare at a wall and do nothing for 10

minutes before you even trigger this

state of deep work and true focus. Now,

this dopamine debt that you're building

up is essentially intentional boredom.

And as I said, because of, you know,

especially the invention of the

smartphone, but everything else in

modern society, everything is instant.

And that doesn't really go well with the

natural way that dopamine is supposed to

be released in your brain. So, you're

essentially building in boredom on

purpose so that right before you get

into your deep work states, it's not

going to feel like you're swimming

upstream compared to if you were like

scrolling reels right before you get

into your deep work. It's it's going to

not be easy. You may stay focused for

like 10 minutes and then you're going to

lose because your attention span is

reactive to whatever you were doing

before after you have completed your

dopamine debt. What you want to do next

is craft your environment so that

everything is conducive to true focus

feeling really really good and easy. If

you want to have a habit that you

genuinely stick to, it should be

something that is satisfying that is

easy and that is initially small enough

so that just doing it triggers your

sense of dopamine and you want to

continue to do it. It's not an uphill

battle. You want to continue. So, what I

do with my environment is I want it to

be simple and satisfying. If you know

anything about me, you know I am very,

very OCD and autistic about the setup

around me. Everything on my desk right

now has a purpose. I researched it

meticulously. There's a very specific

reason that I have it exactly in the

place that I do. Most of us spend the

majority of our life working. If we're

not sleeping, typically the average

human is probably working. And what that

means for you is you want to make your

environment actually enjoyable to be in.

A really small example of this is the

tech that you have all around your desk.

For example, I am like super nerdy about

mechanical keyboards. Like if it has a

very specific tactile response in terms

of how the you know the the switches and

the key caps are moving together, it

makes me want to work more. This cost me

you know maybe like 130 bucks this

keyboard that I'm using right now. But I

view this as an investment, as crazy as

that sounds, because if I want to sit

down at my desk and work, it is going to

be so much easier for me to get work

done. Every single thing in your

environment should follow that exact

same principle. That is essentially the

satisfying piece. The simple piece is

you don't want to have a ton of ton of

[ __ ] on your desk. You'll if you were

able to see my desk, all you would see

is my keyboard and my mouse and my

monitor and that is all. I don't have

any distractions, anything else on my

desk at any point in time. That's how

psychotic I am about keeping

distractions not just in my mind away

from me, but also on my physical space.

So, this is where you can kind of

personalize it to you. Like I said, I

kind of nerd out about a few stupid, you

know, lowcost tech purchases that I have

on my desk, but make it specific to you.

The point is, you really want to make it

satisfying and enjoyable for you to sit

down and work. So, just the moment that

you sit in your chair, you genuinely

feel good and you don't want to get up

and you just want to sit down and work.

Now, before we move into how to actually

stay in these true focus states, this

deep work, the state of focus, um I want

to talk about something that I hear

nobody talk about, but it's energy

matching your task. Throughout your day,

you have a number of things that you

have to get done. And some of them, you

know, they're essentially going to kind

of fall on a spectrum of super duper

leftrain dominant activities. For

example, like I spend a lot of time

running ads for myself and other people,

and that means that I spend a lot of

time looking at data. That is a

leftbrain dominant activity. I also

spend a lot of time on creative

activities which is right brain

dominant. Now the right and left brain

thing has kind of been debunked a little

bit but the point is different kinds of

tasks require different types of energy.

If you're writing copy for your

newsletter, a new VSSL, a new creative,

a new ad, if you're in a super duper low

energetic state, you are not going to

create good material. No artist really

has ever made creative work without

getting into the right energetic state.

That doesn't necessarily mean you have

to be in a super good mood. Many of the

best authors in history, they're known

to be tortured, but even those torturous

states of mind, those torturous states

of energy are incredibly powerful and

they're able to channel those into their

work. Every energy that you have

throughout the day should serve a

purpose. Some of it is going to be

highly energetic, some of it is going to

be highly logical. So, you should be

planning out your day based off it,

right? So what I do for example,

typically the times where I have the

most amount of energy is right after I

get back from the gym. I have all these

endorphins flowing through my body. My

blood flow is very high. My energy is

very high. So if I'm doing creative

work, I want to do it then. On the other

hand, if I'm spending time running ads

and I need to be super duper analytical

and data driven, I'll do that way before

my workout. So it doesn't really matter

what it is for you. Everybody kind of

knows when they're like the most locked

in throughout their day. And depending

on the the task that you're doing, you

should align that with the state of

energy that you are in. So here's how

you can actually implement this because

you know you can kind of like feel it,

but if you actually track it, it's going

to make it so much easier. Track your

energy for 3 to 5 days. Literally every

hour, we're going to rate your energy on

a scale of 1 to 10. Number two, you're

going to identify when you naturally

have the highest peak energy. Number

three, you will ruthlessly protect those

peak hours for your most important work.

whatever that is, whatever is going to

move your business forward, make you the

most amount of money, improve your

creative work, whatever's, you know,

kind of that northstar for you. Protect

those hours like it's your [ __ ] life.

Number four, you're going to batch all

the other, you know, low energetic task

throughout the day. And finally, never,

never, never waste these [ __ ] tasks

on your most energetic windows

throughout the day. Now, let's move on

to the second phase, which is

activation. All this means if you study

kind of the the neuroscience especially

of building a really good habit because

that's what you want this to be

ultimately getting into these deep

states of focus should be a habit. Every

dominant habit and even better every

dominant addiction it has a trigger.

What you need really is essentially a

biological trigger that signals to your

brain it's time to [ __ ] lock in. And

I think the rule of thumb here in

general to have something that genuinely

sticks is you should have a trigger that

is hyper unique to you. something that's

even a little bit quirky and that if you

told other people like you would low-key

be a little bit embarrassed. I think the

best example of this is going to the

gym. A lot of people genuinely don't

like going to the gym. Many times I

don't like going to the gym, but as soon

as I get this one psychological trigger,

my body needs to go out. And for me,

that one trigger is beta alanine. Beta

alanine, for those who don't know, is a

very common ingredient in pre-workout. I

literally bought a mass bag of beta

alanine and I'll like sometimes double

or triple dose my beta alanine have up

to like 10 to 12 grams of beta alanine

and it's the thing that most people hate

but I personally love that gives you

kind of that sensation that spiders are

crawling underneath your skin. It's

great but it's gotten to the point where

if I feel that of course I'm going to

want to go work out and it literally

doesn't go away until you work out

unless you wait multiple hours. This is

the most interesting thing. I have been

training for so many years that even if

I don't take pre-workout, which is rare,

but even if I don't, I still get this

sensation of tingling as I am walking to

the gym because it has just been

hardcoded into my physiology that as

soon as I start walking on the path to

the gym, I start feeling this sensation.

Another personal example that I use,

more specifically related to work and

productivity and being focused, is

having bone broth in the morning. Not

only does it help me hit my macros by

being one of the most anabolic natural

things that you could possibly consume,

but of course it has a very specific

taste that if I continue to have it

every single cuz I I look forward to it.

If I continue to have it every single

time before I get into my deep work, my

brain is just hardwiring that loop over

and over and over again until the first

thing that I'm thinking of when I wake

up is when can I have my bone broth? Now

again, don't be afraid to do something

kind of weird here. The goal is to have

something that is highly sensory so that

as soon as your body experiences this

feeling, you smell these things. Use all

of your senses. That's where the word

sensory comes from. Using all of your

senses, vision, audio, touch, all of

these, use them all together to create a

super super strong cue. Have it

immediately before you deep work. And

then never have it at any other time.

And as you continue to do this time and

time again, it's going to get to the

point where as soon as you have this

cue, you're basically already in a

hyperfocused state. As a little bonus

before we move on to the next section,

guys, obviously if you are watching this

video right now or if you've seen any of

my videos, you know that I always work

in the dark. I try to work in pure

darkness and I have blackout shades

literally like taping my windows that no

light can possibly get through. And

that's not by accident. The reason why I

do that is because of something called

peripheral blackout. Your peripheral

vision accounts for roughly 90% of your

total vision. So the reason that I have,

you know, these blackout shades is

because I'm trying to reduce the amount

of information that my eyes have to take

in and try to configure and make sense

of so that I can put more and more

energy into what is in front of me. And

the only way that you can really do that

is to make sure that there's nothing

around you that you can truly see aside

from your screen. So, if you want to

know why I've been working in the dark

for so long, that's one of the reasons.

I'm literally just trying to get rid of

all of this unnecessary additional

information so that I can put more

energy into what is directly in front of

me and stay focused better for longer.

Now, of course, you don't have to work

in the dark like I do. Maybe you just

sit in the corner so that the only thing

that you really have to look at is a

freaking wall. Maybe you build some some

freaking goggles. It blinds out

everything, you know, like a racehorse.

Doesn't really matter. Feel free to get

creative and and be weird like me. Now,

let's move on to phase three. How do you

actually stay in these deep states of

focus without losing it? Without getting

distracted, without feeling like you're

hitting a creative block or kind of like

going against the grain. Step number one

is you got to be bricked up. A brick is

a tiny physical device that you can buy.

I'm not affiliated with the company. I

just happen to use the product and like

it where you block off certain apps that

you can't use on your phone and there's

no way to get out of it unless you have

this physical thing near you. You can't

unlock those freaking apps unless you

use like an emergency unlock and you

only have a few of those. Don't ask me

how I know that. [laughter]

Again, the point here is to make

distraction impossible. Not to make it

difficult, to make it impossible. You're

trying to block the [ __ ] exit so that

the only place for your brain to go is

directly in front of you doing focused

and productive work. Number two, let's

talk about music. If you want to get

into these true focused states, you want

to once again be able to use all of your

senses. And using your sense of sound

obviously is one of those senses. So I

want to begin this section. I love

music. I want to begin this section by

saying this is highly variable and

dependent on you and your personal

interest. I have weird [ __ ] that works

for me. You'll have weird [ __ ] that

works for you. Some people want to work

in 100% silence. Other people want to

have very specific music. Other people

want to have music with lyrics. find

what works best for you. In my opinion,

there's essentially two sides to, you

know, kind of the music piece of

productivity. The first side is

essentially what the science says. And

what the science says is that there's a

few different types of beats that you

can listen to to get into higher states

of cognition. For example, if you are a

classical type listening to a type of

classical that is called Baroque music,

where I believe the BPM is directly at

the same BPM typically of your heart

when it's at rest. So, it feels very

very natural that way. I did this very

very frequently for the few years that I

spent in college and it worked really

well for me. Another thing you can do is

use binaural beats. Binaural beats

actually sounds like music but in the

background of the music there's

different frequencies being played in

both your right ear and your left ear.

And this difference in frequencies puts

you in a state of what's called

hemisync. If you know anything about the

Gateway project, you know this was

studied decades and decades ago. and

they figured out that in the military

that you can reach these incredibly deep

states of consciousness through having

hemisync. This is typically one of my

go-tos. And then the last one in terms

of what the science says is using what

is called isocchronic tones. Isocchronic

tones is essentially binaural beats, but

it is stripped of the music. So it's

literally just two tones that are played

constantly. It's barely even music. Like

to quantify it as music is low-key

disrespectful to music. But I'll be

honest, it works. So if you listen to

for example beta wave isocchronic tone,

this is a specific wave in your brain

that is associated with higher levels of

activity in the prefrontal cortex. I

actually like it simply because of how

aggressive it is. I'll typically only do

this in intervals of like 60 to 90

minutes because as soon as you take out

your earbuds or whatever you're using,

your brain will feel like it's

vibrating. Literally, I promise if you

try it, you'll get what I mean. So

that's what the science says. The other

side of this is what does your soul say?

What is the music that you listen to

that puts your soul on fire? This is

what gets me into those very deep states

of productivity specifically for more

creative work. I had a copywriting

mentor of mine who every time he would

listen to copy. He would be listening to

Jay-Z and he would play it at the

highest volume that he can. He's moving

his body. He's feeling good and he's

literally letting the emotions of music

flow through his body from his brain

into his body onto his keyboard with the

words that he's typing on the screen.

Everybody has a different artist. Maybe

it's Jay-Z, maybe it's Rihanna, maybe

it's we don't know, you know, everyone

has a different one. For me, for

whatever reason, I cannot listen to

music with lyrics and stay focused. It

is super difficult for me. My mind just

like grabs onto the lyrics and starts to

listen to those instead of like focusing

on the work that I have in front of me.

So, for my soul music, I have a few

favorites. Number one is going to be

vapor wave or synth wave, which is kind

of this futuristic, retrofuturistic kind

of music. Think of like the almost like

the Tron soundtrack is a good way to

think of this music, but I could listen

that [ __ ] all day. Another one is liquid

D&B. Liquid D&B, jungle D&B, atmospheric

DMB, any kind of those DMBs I could also

listen to all day and get into

phenomenal energetic states of focus.

Now, the third and final piece we're

going to talk about when it comes to

immersion and staying in these deep

states of focus is using constraints.

All this means is you are going to be

setting non-negotiable times for you to

complete a task. Many of you have

probably heard of something called

Parkinson's law. Parkinson's law is

essentially a law that says the work

that you have to do will expand to the

time that you allocate to getting that

project done. For example, the most the

most common example is people that go to

college and they have to write this big

essay by the end of the year. All of the

students believe that, oh, I have the

whole year and then they all put it off

into the very last second and it only

takes them like 2 or 3 days. If you

actually just set aside 2 or 3 days in

the beginning, you would have been done

within the first 2 or 3 days. So, the

point is that you should set aggressive

timelines for yourself instead of

saying, "Oh, I have all day to do this."

No, literally create constraints so that

you are forced to complete stuff faster.

And then if you want to get really

crazy, you can create essentially

consequences for not getting it done

within that time. Another really common

one from some productivity guys is to

automatically donate to a super [ __ ]

up charity that you absolutely don't

support in the name of trying to get

work done. Because a lot of times we

don't do [ __ ] as human beings until

there's a clear consequence if we don't

do that thing. All right, let's move on

to the fourth and final phase, which I

like to call offline gains. Offline

gains is essentially what are you doing

when you're not working that will make

it easier for you to work in the future.

Let's start off nice and simple with the

Pomodoro technique. Pomodoro technique

is setting a timer for anywhere from 25

to 90 minutes and working only for that

allotted time and then taking a segment

of time off of that. My personal

favorite in terms of like the amount of

time is typically 50 minutes on with 10

minutes off. Now, most you guys are

familiar with this, but this is the

thing most people miss. It's actually

more important what you do when you're

not actually working. That'll make the

work easier in the future. I see so many

people that will just go on their

freaking phones in doom scroll during

their pomodoro like time off and that

going back to the first point just makes

it so much harder. The point is after

you complete your block of work, you go

and do nothing. You go and do no kind of

like spiking of your dopamine kind of

behaviors. Everything stays completely

baseline. You could just go walk, stare

out a window. You could go for a walk

period. Just don't partake in any

activities that are going to have these

super harsh spikes of dopamine like

this. All right? Dopamine in and of

itself is not a bad thing. What is bad

is these crazy spikes like this. What

you do want your dopamine rewards to

look like in your brain is more of like

a logarithmic curve like this where it

has an extended increase and delay over

time instead of just like violently

spiking and coming back down and

violently spiking and coming back down.

The second thing that you can do to

increase your offline gains is something

that I recently learned about actually

called the wakeful rest replay protocol.

So this was a study that was conducted

where essentially having these micro

bursts of rest periods interspersed

during your practice significantly

increased hippocampus and neoortex

activity in this case. Basically what it

is saying is if you take these periods

of rest during your work, you actually

are able to learn more and improve at

stuff faster compared to just trying to

raw dog it and work for like 6 hours

straight without any kind of break.

That's part of the reason why Pomodoro

method is so powerful. But one of the

things to really put this on steroids is

to visualize the work that you were

doing to cement it in your brain. I'm

sure many of you have seen the power of

visualization in general. It's kind of a

highly debated thing because some of it

is just straight [ __ ] and some of it

is incredibly powerful. And this is one

of those things that is legitimately

backed by science. If you are able to

visualize yourself doing something,

that's pretty good. If you're able to

actually do it, that's also very good. A

little bit better. If you use both

together, however, that is how you can

get freakishly good at stuff freakishly

fast. So imagine if I was trying to

learn how to play the guitar and I was

practicing a specific lick. I played a

few times for 10 seconds and then I take

a 10-second break just thinking,

visualizing myself playing that lick

perfectly. And then 10 seconds of me

practicing the lick over and over and

over again. That is a legit like

scienceback strategy for you to get

freakishly good at anything. And you can

apply that to your work. And finally, to

make this work feel incredibly easy and

to fully complete the habit loop, you

have to have some kind of dopamine

reward after the work is complete. So,

what I was saying previously about the

pomodora method, right? You work for 50

minutes on and then you go for a walk

afterwards. So, going on a walk is a

great way for you to release dopamine in

a healthy way to complete the dopamine

reward. Another good example is doing

meditation. Just doing 20 push-ups. It

really doesn't matter, guys. As you can

see, the point is it's something small,

but also healthy and not just going to

[ __ ] doom scroll so that all the hard

work that you did of getting in the

right state, doing the music, all the,

you know, nine yards, then you just ruin

it at the end without completing the

loop. The point is to build this as a

habit. Even better, build it as an

addiction. There should be some reward

at the end, some payoff, or else it's

going to feel hard every single time.

Pause. You know what I'm saying? So, if

you actually do follow everything in

this video, I know it was quite a bit,

but I told you it was going to be

tactical. And if you do follow it, I

promise you, you will be getting into

states of focus that you never knew was

even possible. Not only that, you'll be

able to do it every single freaking day.

Other than that, guys, that's going to

be it. If you like content like this and

you also like business, running ads, and

other stuff like that, I happen to have

an email list. Totally free. You can

click the first link in the description

to join. Other than that, guys, thank

you so much for watching this video.

I'll see you on the next one. Peace.