From 30 feet away a shotgun blast will disperse many dozens of pellets over a broad area. The greater the distance, the wider the spread of pellets.

A rifle on the other hand is a single projectile. It only creates one hole in the target, but it's able to do it from a much greater distance.

The energy behind a shotgun propels dozens of BB-like projectiles toward the target while the rifle focuses all that energy on a single bullet. Focusing on less is rifle-like. Multi-tasking like a madman is more shotgun-like.

Years ago while working with a client who was easily distracted because everywhere he looked he saw opportunities, I created a diagram to show him the power of focusing on fewer opportunities. Sometime later I created a 1:21-minute video (without sound) to replicate what I did in front of the client that day.

I drew a circle with a dot in the center. That center dot represented the starting point for any business pursuits my client might engage in. The outer circle represented profit or whatever measurement he wanted to use to represent success. And I began by marking an X somewhere on the circle, to represent that goal. A circle is 360 degrees so we'll assume there are 360 choices or pursuits (even though there are infinite number of them really). So our X represents just one.

I then began to advance one dot at a time from the center dot (the starting point) in a straight line toward the X, the goal. I put 3 dots in a line and told my client that each dot represented a step toward achieving success in that direction.

Then I drew a new X on a different part of the circle to represent a new opportunity - a new pursuit. And I put three dots in the direction of that X, telling my client that represented steps taken to achieve success toward that different goal.

I did it with a third X on yet a different part of the circle. Again, I put 3 dots toward that goal, representing different activities put toward this third goal.

Suppose there are 10 dots between the center starting point and anywhere on the circle. The dots represent the actions necessary to reach the outer circle or success. By now I've put 9 dots on the diagram, but they're divided by 3 different pursuits so none of them is even a third the way toward achieving success.

I explained to him that if his attention had been more narrowly focused on a single objective then he'd be 9 steps toward success. That meant, he'd be just one step away from achieving the goal, albeit a single goal. But instead, he was about one-third the way toward achieving success in 3 different areas. Which meant he wasn't even close to success at any of them. His history showed that he hardly ever reached the outer circle. With anything. When he did manage to achieve it, he struggled the sustain it...or improve it because something else grabbed his attention.

Over time, it was pretty clear to him what he most struggled with -- he mistook motion for action. As long as he was running around with his hair on fire he felt like he was driven, and ambitious. But he was wrong. Clarity was elusive for him. He didn't see it. Until he finally could see it. His lack of success had very little to do with much else other than his focused attention to it for long enough periods to make it a reality. He was busy traveling short distances in many directions, but the goals were all longer distances away. Short trips to the store do not a vacation trip make.

That's the power of less. It's the power of embracing or leaning into less - not more.

Throughout our time together he discovered that he had a fundamental idea that had never proven true in his life. Throw more stuff on the wall and something is bound to stick. Bet on more numbers and surely one of your numbers will win. Do enough things and something is bound to succeed. But it never did. Because he struggled to maintain enough focus fully exploit any opportunity.