I want you to imagine, for a moment, a bright, scorching afternoon. The kind where the air feels thick, and every breath is an effort. I was out on the track, doing my usual run, and honestly? It was brutal. My legs were heavy, my lungs burned, and every fiber of my being wanted to just... stop. I was consciously counting the laps, feeling every painful step. Then, my phone rang. It was my dad from Australia. And without really thinking, I answered. We started talking about his day, about his new house, and moving. And we talked about how he couldn’t find one of the boxes and we laughed about that. “Oh it’ll turn up soon, Dad” (and it did a day later, but anyway.. back to the topic)

And as we talked, something extraordinary happened. I kept running.

I wasn’t thinking about my legs anymore. I wasn’t thinking about the heat. I wasn’t even thinking about the laps. I was just running and talking. And before I knew it, my dad said, ‘Well, I should let you go, you must be exhausted from your run.’ And I looked up, genuinely surprised... I had finished. Not just finished, but I’d run 8 laps (my average is 2), and I barely remembered doing it. I had never been less focused on running, yet I had never run better.

This experience sparked a question in my mind, one that goes against almost everything we’re taught about success and achievement: What if, sometimes, to achieve our deepest focus and perform at our peak, we actually need to be… distracted?

We live in a world obsessed with focus. ‘Eliminate distractions!’ ‘Single-task!’ ‘Deep work!’ And for good reason, often. But I believe there’s a powerful, often misunderstood paradox at play. A paradox where a well-placed ‘distraction’ isn’t a detractor, but a catalyst.

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