Paying Attention
History teaches us that even when we work diligently, sacrifice bravely and obsess on details with passion, there will still be many things beyond our control. Some of those things will cause us to fail. No one likes to think about this way, but all worthy endeavours come with this risk. Even if you process every input, optimize every resource, and keep at it long after others have given up, you can’t every truly force things to work. Control like that can’t be created. And while many things are beyond your control, the one thing that is within your control is what you choose to pay attention to; and that can tip the scales.
Years ago I rode motorcycles - a lot. I learned how to ride in all kinds of conditions and all kinds of highway traffic. At speed, the bike responds nimbly to even the smallest movements of your body. Because of this, you quickly learn that wherever your attention goes, the bike will also go. So if you want to avoid that deadly pothole ahead, don't stare at it, look past it while you steer around. If you see an accident happing in front of you, relax, focus on the path through, and resist the temptation to fixate on the cars and trucks flying towards you. Under pressure, where you to choose to place your attention matters a lot.
Similarly, if you have big goals and complex obstacles in your view, how you divide up your mind has direct bearing on the outcome. The things we regulalry allow into our heads also bring us lessons, and those lessons draw us either closer or farther from our desired endgame. When we are working hard, the things we pay attention to need to be thoughtfully curated and line up with the goals we set. This alignment takes deliberate effort, it does not happen on its own. Even if you manage to tune the right attention in, it’s fragile and needs to be defended.
I regularly try to find a way to pause and conduct an honest mental audit of my attention: Am I measuring things that provide the most immediate clarity? Am I spending proper time with the people who know what we need to know? Am I preoccupied with the right obstacles? Am I having the right conversations and debates with the team? - or are we all just (albeit diligently) acting on the things and ideas and data that cross into our collective field of vision? Of course you can never be perfectly certain that you have it right, but I’m convinced it’s a valuable habit. At the very least, it might save us from hitting all the unexpected potholes.
GPT- 4o offered an interpretation of this article featuring what it thinks is me navigating business obstacles on a motorcycle
