The Breaking Point

For years, I measured my worth in hours. Then, a $5 million project taught me the truth. I was leading a major software launch in the heart of the San Francisco tech scene. The team was on a death march: 80-hour weeks, takeout dinners eaten over keyboards, and a general sense of controlled panic. I was the first one in and the last one out, convinced my ‘hustle’ was the only thing keeping the ship afloat.

The breaking point came on a Tuesday at 10 PM. I was on a video call with three senior VPs arguing—and I am not exaggerating—about the exact shade of blue for an interface button. In that soul-crushing, pointless meeting, I realized the truth: the ship wasn’t afloat. It was sinking under the weight of the trivial.

The Experiment

That night, I ran a radical experiment. I started ignoring things. Deliberately. I declined meetings. I let low-priority emails die unanswered. I redirected my entire focus—and my team’s—onto three critical software features and nothing else. I was terrified. I fully expected to be fired.

But the opposite happened. The noise vanished. Team morale skyrocketed. And by focusing on the vital 20%, we didn’t just save the project—we delivered it ahead of schedule and over target. That project became the first prototype for what I now call The Focus Lever™.