What do we see when we focus?

One of the simplest yet most vital “superpowers” in business and leadership is Focus.

Today a reminder of how humans have evolved naturally in order to focus.

This past week I have been taking some “Dark Skies”walks. One evening I thought to take a picture of trees with the little light there was reflected up by the snow, creating what, through my eyes, felt to be a vibrant image like the one on the right. However, the true light was the photo on the left, even though my brain felt my reality was like the one on the right. How was the photo on the right created then ?

Well, it turns out my iPhone has some wizardry. Once it recognised a low light situation, it paused for three seconds before clicking the shutter. In those three seconds the phone gathered and focussed in all of that low light it could, then augmented the actual photo with additional light to create a clearer, sharper, lighter picture.

I didn’t realise this feature existed, I wondered why it was pausing, then I took the second (darker) picture by disabling the pause, then looked up the Night Mode when I got home.

What then occurred to me was that my brain, in “seeing” the clearer, sharper image, had automatically “focussed” to help me as I walked in the dark, all without me thinking.

Now imagine the power of focus in business and leadership, particularly when we choose to bring truly conscious and aware focus to what we look at, what we do.

Originally published at Tom McCallum.