Pat Williams - Extreme Focus: Harnessing the Life-Changing Power to Achieve Your Dreams

Pat Williams once again gives us the blueprint for a life of success with this valuable new book. Pat is one of Americas top motivational speakers and writers, and this might be his finest work to date.

Brian Kilmeade, Cohost, FOX News Fox & Friends

The man who turned a dream into a multimillion dollar NBA franchise has written a powerful, practical manual for making dreams come true. Pat Williamss Extreme Focus is such a fun read, youll hardly be aware of how much you are learningand how radically your life is changing. Read itthen focus on its truths. This is your guidebook to an exciting future!

Jack Canfield
Coauthor of The Power of Focus and
the Chicken Soup for the Soul series

Pat has really captured the importance and value of intense focus. In the sport of basketball, focus is everything. Ignoring the noise and blocking out all distractions is paramount to success. As someone who has been fortunate enough to play and coach at the highest of levels, I have witnessed firsthand the tangible power of focus.

Scott Brooks, Head Coach, Oklahoma City Thunder

This book will change your life for the better. Ive known Pat Williams for many years and have admired his work greatly. ExtremeFocus will touch you deeply, and help put shoe-leather to your dreams!

Zig Ziglar, Author of See You at the Top and Better Than Good

This powerful, practical book shows you how to focus your energies and talents, concentrate single-mindedly on your goals, and achieve greater successfaster than you ever thought possible.

Brian Tracy, Author of Goals!

Focus will get you where you want to go. Extreme Focus will help you get there easier, faster and more profitably, with you in your heart. Read this book and use it.

Mark Victor Hansen, Cocreator of
the Chicken Soup for the Soul series

EXTREME

FOCUS

EXTREME

FOCUS

Harnessing the Life-Changing
Power to Achieve Your Dreams

PAT WILLIAMS & JIM DENNEY

Health Communications, Inc.
Deerfield Beach, Florida
www.hcibooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Williams, Pat, 1940

Extreme focus : harnessing the life-changing power to achieve your dreams / by Pat Williams, with Jim Denney.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-1562-6
ISBN-10: 0-7573-1562-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9195-8 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 0-7573-9195-8 (e-book)
1. Attention. 2. Distraction (Psychology) 3. Success.

I. Denney, Jim, 1953 II. Title.
BF321.W55 2011
650.1dc22
2010050869

2011 Pat Williams and Jim Denney

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

HCI, its logos, and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
3201 S.W. 15th Street
Deerfield Beach, FL 334428190

Cover design by Justin Rotkowitz
Inside design by Dawn Von Strolley Grove

This book is dedicated
to my friend Jim Denney,
who has taught me more
about focus than anybody
Ive ever met.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Focus! Focus! Focus!

10. Focus and Finish Strong!

M y first book with Health Communications, Inc., was How to Be Like Mike, all about the success secrets of Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time. Published in 2001, that book is still in print a decade laterand I have followed that book with more than a dozen additional titles for HCI, including How to BeLike Coach Wooden, How to Be Like Walt Disney, The ThreeSuccess Secrets of Shamgar, and many more.

Over the years, Peter Vegso, the president and publisher of HCI, has become a great friendbut Peter never lets friendship cloud his business judgment. If I pitch him a book idea, he lets me know straight-up whether he thinks its a homer, a base hit, or a strikeout. His instincts are unerring.

Whenever I get down to South Florida, Peter takes me to lunch at his favorite sushi place and we talk about book ideas. One time, a couple of years ago, I spread out ten book proposals for him. He skimmed through each one, then said, Pat, you dont have ten book ideas here. You have ten chapter ideas for one book. In fact, this could be the ultimate self-help book if you could pull this thing together.

So I went home to Orlando and combined those ten book proposals into one. Then I took that proposal to Peters horse farm in Ocala and personally placed it in his hands. I waited in suspense as he read the proposal.

Finally, Peter smiled at me and said, All right, Pat, write this bookbut with one proviso: I dont want a lot of razzle-dazzle, motivational fluff. I want a book that gives readers practical, realistic insight on how they can achieve their dreams of success. Give them specific steps they can instantly put into practice. Write a book that will change peoples lives. Can you do that?

Peter, I said, thats exactly the book I had in mind.

Good, Peter said, because if this book doesnt deliver on that promise, then theres no need for you to write it and no need for me to publish it.

Well, the book Peter and I discussed that day is the book you hold in your handsExtreme Focus. And Im happy to report that when Peter read the manuscript, his response to me was, Pat, you nailed it. Those were the words Id been waiting to hear.

The insights I share in these pages are real and practical. I feel I can say that with authority, because these are the principles Ive lived by throughout my career. These are the success principles that guided me while I assembled an NBA championship team as general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers. Theyre the success principles I lived by while my associates and I were building the Orlando Magic out of dreams and pixie dust. Theyre the principles I focused on while raising a family of nineteen kids (four birth children, fourteen by international adoption, and one by remarriage). Theyre the principles I still live by today as I give more than one hundred speeches a year, host three local radio shows, and write several books a year.

Whatever your dreams, whatever your goals, Extreme Focus is the key to your success. To prove it to you, I have packed this book with scores of real-life stories from my own experience and from the lives of people who have achieved great things through the power of Extreme Focus.

I would encourage you to read this book together with your family, or read it in a discussion group with other success-minded friends. Underline and highlight these pages. Write notes in the margins. Interact with these principles in a personal wayand let these insights work the same magic in your life that they have in mine.

After youve read this book and begun applying these principles to your own life, send me an e-mail or a letter (my contact information is in the back of the book). Let me know about your experiences in putting the power of Extreme Focus to work in your life.

Start reading, start dreaming, and start achieving great things then write and tell me how your grandest dreams came true!