In today’s episode I want to talk with you about a massive new issue that is determined to steal your happiness and the happiness of the people you care about.
In the modern ‘attention economy’ there are so many forces that seek to stop you from focusing upon what truly matters in your life.
This is an important episode where I want to help you take back your power and focus upon what is most important.
Grab a free copy of my book Bridging the Gap here:
https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf
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https://go.jonathandoyle.co/jd-speak-opt-in
Find out about coaching with Jonathan here:
https://go.jonathandoyle.co/coaching
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again.
Speaker:Welcome friends.
Speaker:Welcome back to the almost daily podcast.
Speaker:Uh, missed a couple of episodes, bit of travel.
Speaker:Again, I'm back speaking, which has been really great to get
Speaker:out there amongst real humans.
Speaker:Again, to see some real humans has been a great thing.
Speaker:I've missed it.
Speaker:It was really nice to be with live audiences again.
Speaker:And then, uh, Karen and I actually.
Speaker:Went to Sydney for a wedding.
Speaker:And it was just wonderful to be with so many great friends.
Speaker:In a beautiful part of Sydney, one of the world's great cities and the weather was
Speaker:fantastic and it was a beautiful wedding.
Speaker:Uh, shout out to anybody that was there.
Speaker:I know a few of you listening.
Speaker:So, um, it was really great.
Speaker:And the cool part was that Karen and I got to have a date.
Speaker:We actually, we'd been married 22 years, but we got young kids and.
Speaker:And we don't get a lot of that time at the moment.
Speaker:Some of you can relate.
Speaker:And, uh, it was really cool because we ended up.
Speaker:Staying at a hotel near where we used to date.
Speaker:Where we used to sort of, you know, first, uh, Hang out together.
Speaker:It's amazing to stand kind of, you know, in this spot, on this beach where we were.
Speaker:You know, before we were even dating, but we were hanging out together and, um,
Speaker:It's really cool these years later, just to, to sort of remember those special
Speaker:memories and, uh, You know, I was thinking today, I've gotta give a speech next
Speaker:week, uh, to, I think we've got about a thousand parents coming along and.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, just to talk about, I guess, the great blessing that Karen's
Speaker:been to me, you know, she really has I've, um, feel incredibly blessed
Speaker:to have married, such a remarkable.
Speaker:Compassionate grounded, beautiful soul.
Speaker:So, um, Karen, if you ever listen to this, I don't know if she listens,
Speaker:but I think you're pretty great.
Speaker:And then a whole bunch of my listeners just went, oh, that's so sweet.
Speaker:And another whole bunch of my listeners went, dude, can you
Speaker:just get on with the podcast?
Speaker:Yes, I can.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:I digress.
Speaker:Friends, uh, housekeeping.
Speaker:Di me a favor, please make sure you've subscribed.
Speaker:Hit that subscribe button does make a difference.
Speaker:It's a great, uh, beautiful honor.
Speaker:To see the podcast growing.
Speaker:And, uh, so please do that.
Speaker:And if you could leave a review, a comment, if you could take
Speaker:the time to do that, does help.
Speaker:It just, you know, I've been blessed this week, hearing from people who've been
Speaker:touched by the podcast around the world.
Speaker:So you never know if you.
Speaker:Leave review.
Speaker:If you share it with somebody, you never know, um, you know, who,
Speaker:how you might be impacting people.
Speaker:So please do that.
Speaker:And here in the show notes on the podcast version.
Speaker:You can find all the links to different things.
Speaker:You can book me to speak live at your conference, your event.
Speaker:Uh, you can get a free copy of my book, bridging the gap.
Speaker:And, uh, coaching with me.
Speaker:It's all this, I go check out those links and, uh, I'd love to get in touch.
Speaker:And what else?
Speaker:Uh, look, I reached out yesterday to everybody and said, Hey, what are
Speaker:your, um, What are your top issues?
Speaker:What are you dealing with?
Speaker:Cause I think the best podcasts are either you've either got awesome guests.
Speaker:Or you've got user generated content, right.
Speaker:Which is questions and ideas coming from you guys.
Speaker:So I was blown.
Speaker:Away from people all over the world yesterday from, you know,
Speaker:Texas to London, to New Zealand.
Speaker:Uh, just people reaching out, sharing the issues I'd like me to talk about.
Speaker:And, um, also thank you so much, Tim.
Speaker:So many of you for your beautiful encouragement, there
Speaker:was so much encouragement.
Speaker:And kindness in many of those emails.
Speaker:And, um, you know, I'll tell you the truth, you know, when you're.
Speaker:When you offer plane after 14 hours somewhere and you're in an
Speaker:airport and you keep saying to yourself, why do I do this again?
Speaker:And then you get these beautiful emails from people that remind
Speaker:you that, um, you know, something you said or did really bless them.
Speaker:So that's kind of what I get to do, but, you know, I think it's
Speaker:worth reflecting that all of us, uh, are impacting lives all the
Speaker:time, even if we're not aware of it.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Just keep doing you and keep bringing.
Speaker:What you've got to bring into the world.
Speaker:What else before we start, um, I'm gonna take you on a journey
Speaker:with me over the next few weeks.
Speaker:Because I don't know if I should say this, cuz once I say it, I can't get out of it.
Speaker:Um, I have signed up for a 255 kilometer bike race.
Speaker:That includes 5,000 meters of vertical climbing.
Speaker:And then 10 days after that I've got an ultra marathon trail run.
Speaker:And, uh, so I'm back working with my coach, Andre, shout
Speaker:out to you if you're listening.
Speaker:And, uh, the training load is just hurting.
Speaker:I was up this morning at four.
Speaker:I have an hour for prayer, and then I was on the trainer bike and,
Speaker:uh, just wrecked myself on that.
Speaker:And I got another err and a half training set later today.
Speaker:And tomorrow morning, his father's day, I've gotta do a three hour training ride.
Speaker:So I have to get up at 3:00 AM to get that done because the family's
Speaker:taken me out for breakfast.
Speaker:So I know a whole bunch of listening saying you are nuts.
Speaker:You are at absolutely on unhinged.
Speaker:I just think it's relative.
Speaker:I just.
Speaker:I think, uh, I've been saying a lot of people lately, you know, if all
Speaker:you do is walk to the letter box, then all you need to do is walk
Speaker:to the letter box twice, right?
Speaker:All of us, just need to find a way to push ourselves.
Speaker:This is what I do.
Speaker:I, um, I do this kind of craziness, so, Hey, let's see how we go.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You are gonna check in with me now, you're gonna be like, Hey, did you do it?
Speaker:Did you do it?
Speaker:Cause yeah, I'll tell you the truth.
Speaker:I got huge second thoughts.
Speaker:I'm like, what am I doing here?
Speaker:This is nuts.
Speaker:But anyway, let's get into it today.
Speaker:We are gonna talk about.
Speaker:A, um, I've got all these user questions, listen to questions.
Speaker:They're gonna come up over the next few episodes.
Speaker:But, uh, a couple of things jumped out at me today.
Speaker:From some stuff that I'm reading on subs.
Speaker:Stack.
Speaker:And, um, I follow this, this guy, I don't even know how to pronounce
Speaker:his name, but I like what he writes and, um, He was writing today about
Speaker:the look, I guess, some of the.
Speaker:Sociopolitical.
Speaker:Commercial forces that are trying to divide us.
Speaker:Right across the world.
Speaker:And I don't wanna go deep down this rabbit hole, but.
Speaker:The confluence of late stage capitalism means a kind of what
Speaker:we call regulatory capture.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Which is.
Speaker:That the merge between government.
Speaker:Corporations and media is almost now perfected, right?
Speaker:So in case you're not across this, and again, I won't
Speaker:digress on this is very long.
Speaker:Um, you know, the number one revenue source for all mainstream media now.
Speaker:Is either big corporations or government, right.
Speaker:That's where the advertising revenues come from.
Speaker:The advertising rev revenues aren't coming from.
Speaker:You know, small businesses they're coming from big corporations.
Speaker:They're coming from government itself.
Speaker:So you can see this kind of.
Speaker:Merging of the three most arguably the three most powerful forces in our culture.
Speaker:And one of the things that they're doing is really seeking to divide us.
Speaker:I think as humans they're dividing us along all sorts of different lines.
Speaker:Uh, they wanna tell us that it's left and it's versus right.
Speaker:And it's right versus left.
Speaker:And it's progressive versus.
Speaker:Conservative and it's this, that and the other, um, again, I, I'm not gonna
Speaker:come down on what I think about that.
Speaker:That's not what this podcast is about, but I do wanna talk about.
Speaker:How they're seeking to confuse.
Speaker:And overwhelm us with either fear.
Speaker:Or distraction.
Speaker:So I wanna read you this quote, and then we're gonna talk about
Speaker:what we need to do about it.
Speaker:It says this the modern age, this is the quote, the modern
Speaker:age is an attention economy.
Speaker:And those things upon which you spend yours.
Speaker:Will grow and flourish.
Speaker:And so if we would thrive in the attention economy, We must spend our attention.
Speaker:More wisely.
Speaker:We must focus on our flourishing.
Speaker:And not upon those who bait us.
Speaker:One more time.
Speaker:Let me spin through it quickly.
Speaker:The modern age is an attention economy.
Speaker:And those things upon which you spend yours will grow and flourish.
Speaker:And so if we would thrive in the attention economy, we must
Speaker:spend our attention more wisely.
Speaker:We must focus on our flourishing.
Speaker:And not upon those who bait us.
Speaker:Couple of thoughts here, this attention economy, stuff's really important.
Speaker:I hope you're familiar with it.
Speaker:So before sort of the.
Speaker:Explosion of technology.
Speaker:If marketing wanted to reach us, if advertising and marketing wanted to reach
Speaker:us, they basically had three channels.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:You had.
Speaker:Radio, you had print media and you had television.
Speaker:So of course now we're all carrying around.
Speaker:The devices in our pocket, which allow massive access.
Speaker:That's one thing is that.
Speaker:That, um, you know, it's not about waiting till we've got a newspaper on our
Speaker:hands, cuz most of us never do anymore.
Speaker:It's not about watching free to wear TV.
Speaker:Cuz many of us don't.
Speaker:It's about, uh, and it's not about radio because you know, these days it's
Speaker:podcast, it's all this sort of stuff like you're listening to right now, obviously.
Speaker:So, firstly, we've got this massive.
Speaker:Reach this change in reach that we can be reached just about.
Speaker:Everywhere from the second you wake up to the second you go to sleep.
Speaker:There is a battle for attention and it's not just big corporations.
Speaker:It's also that the technology itself.
Speaker:Has dropped the barriers to entry, right?
Speaker:So in the past, if you wanted to reach people in an auditory
Speaker:form, what did you need to do?
Speaker:You had to start a radio station, right?
Speaker:You had to own a radio station.
Speaker:If you wanted to control what was said and what you could say and what
Speaker:you wanted to talk about, you needed to own a radio station now, you know,
Speaker:Don't now you do what I do, right?
Speaker:Which is, you know, you create content and the barriers to entry much lower.
Speaker:So I wanna put those forces there for you.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:You've got this.
Speaker:Attention economy.
Speaker:Everything is about attention.
Speaker:It's about, you know, this battle and relentless fight.
Speaker:To get your attention.
Speaker:And it says here what you spend, what your attention on will grow and flourish.
Speaker:You go back to that great quote from the poet, uh, the American metaphysical poet,
Speaker:Robert Frost, you know, he's famously said a man is what he thinks about all day.
Speaker:You know that whatever we focus upon tends to grow.
Speaker:We become what we focus upon.
Speaker:I mean, technically we become what we do our character, right?
Speaker:That's a character question.
Speaker:We become the actions we take over time.
Speaker:But I get the point here that the more that we focus on particular
Speaker:things, the more those things will grow and flourish in our lives.
Speaker:So what's my point.
Speaker:If you focus upon.
Speaker:Fear darkness loss.
Speaker:All the bad things that could happen, then your life will be increasingly filled.
Speaker:With more and more fear.
Speaker:And it says here, we must spend our attention wisely and
Speaker:focus upon our flourishing and not upon those who bait us.
Speaker:So the way a lot of this stuff is gonna end.
Speaker:If it, hopefully doesn't end in violent revolution is the way it ends
Speaker:is when we stop paying attention to it, that we withdraw our attention
Speaker:because what's the commodity.
Speaker:The commodity is your attention.
Speaker:The commodity that they're after is your eyeballs, your listening.
Speaker:And it's driving us in some pretty unpleasant places.
Speaker:I've talked before about an essay I read.
Speaker:Years ago in a really high level.
Speaker:Scholarly, uh, theological journal, which talked about the concept of drama.
Speaker:In the Greek sense, the artist persona, which means that.
Speaker:We're all kind of actors in the drama of our own lives.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So if you look at your life, I know doesn't maybe feel this
Speaker:way to you, but there is intense drama in your life, which is what.
Speaker:The original concept of drama was always about moral battles about either
Speaker:internal or external moral battles.
Speaker:So in classical Greek theater, you would find the characters.
Speaker:Would either be the, you know, the victims of fate or moral failures,
Speaker:or they would succeed and triumph because of moral qualities.
Speaker:So right back at the door and of, I guess, you know, the, the classical understanding
Speaker:of what it means to be human.
Speaker:We realize that there's a dramatic battle going on within our lives.
Speaker:Now, my point is that when I read that essay all those years ago, the thesis
Speaker:was that many of us have dropped the focus upon the drama of our own lives.
Speaker:And we begin to focus upon the drama in other people's lives, such as celebrities,
Speaker:such as the Royal family, such as whoever, the latest, whatever the latest thing is.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So we, we.
Speaker:We disengage from the drama and seriousness and significance of our own
Speaker:internal, moral struggles and growth.
Speaker:And we outsource it to other people.
Speaker:I mean, the obsession, like I'm gonna lose some of you here.
Speaker:I'm gonna say it.
Speaker:Deb obsess with the Royal family.
Speaker:I mean, it's every time somebody trips over and has a wedding,
Speaker:it's like the world stops.
Speaker:It's like, you know, friends come on seriously.
Speaker:I mean, until 1917, they, they were, they sort of a, they weren't even the Windsors.
Speaker:They were the sax Colberg go authors, you know, because, you know, queen, what's
Speaker:the name, Mary, the prince Albert's.
Speaker:Son or whatever, and changed the name to Windsor in 1917.
Speaker:I mean, they're not superhuman friends.
Speaker:I know I'm gonna lose some of you.
Speaker:I know that some of you are like, well, they embody this tradit shit and they.
Speaker:I'm just saying, I just lose my mind when people are like,
Speaker:did you watch the wedding?
Speaker:You know what I actually didn't.
Speaker:<laugh> that didn't I think I rearranged my, so drawer that night.
Speaker:You know, it's like, no, I didn't, you know, I just
Speaker:think let's put our attention.
Speaker:On our own internal growth and moral development.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:All the flourishing that could be happening.
Speaker:So, let me try and land this plane tie some of this up for the three
Speaker:people that haven't just unsubscribed.
Speaker:Cuz I upset their feelings about.
Speaker:About the Royal family and God bless them.
Speaker:Uh, What this is what this podcast episode today is about.
Speaker:Is about your attention is where you're placing your attention on a daily basis.
Speaker:So over the last, I don't know, maybe 12 months, there's a whole
Speaker:bunch of steps, you know, going back maybe longer than that, you
Speaker:know, many of, you know, I deleted.
Speaker:Every social media account, the only social media, I guess you
Speaker:could say I have is that I upload to YouTube because it's a big platform
Speaker:and I get to book content there.
Speaker:But, um, you know, I don't really, you know, I don't.
Speaker:Bet my farm on, you know, YouTube.
Speaker:Um, you could be shut down in a millisecond.
Speaker:So I upload to rumble as well.
Speaker:But my point is that, um, I got all that stuff off my phone.
Speaker:Now I know some of you'll say that there's benefits to it and you
Speaker:can do this and you can do that.
Speaker:And I do get it.
Speaker:I know Karen.
Speaker:Has a big Instagram following and she gets a lot of great information
Speaker:there from like-minded people.
Speaker:So, uh, but you know, she's more grounded than me.
Speaker:She's more.
Speaker:She's you know, she <laugh>, she's got better discipline sometimes than I do.
Speaker:She's great.
Speaker:So look, I know some of you'll say that social media does X, Y, and
Speaker:Z, but for me it had to go, but it was, it was still my attention.
Speaker:It was stealing my attention and I learned more and more that, so many really
Speaker:impressive men and women throughout the world are really good at limiting the
Speaker:access to their attention and learning to.
Speaker:Really focus their attention on key things.
Speaker:Um, you know, something, you know, I do a lot of work in the global finance.
Speaker:Central banking, blockchain.
Speaker:Um, crypto economy kind of stuff.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:This week, I've been going through a 16 hour training program in
Speaker:advanced blockchain coding, because not because I plan to.
Speaker:Code full-time it's cuz I just wanna understand it.
Speaker:And I've learned that I need incredible attention.
Speaker:So I've got these amazing headphones and I use brown noise, brown noise generators.
Speaker:Um, you get 'em on Spotify.
Speaker:They're on YouTube.
Speaker:You just type in brown noise generator or a brown noise.
Speaker:Because apparently brown noise, as opposed to white noise gives you
Speaker:the deepest levels of concentration.
Speaker:So all I'm saying here is that I've started to get more and more
Speaker:serious about the role of attention.
Speaker:And look as much as this episode's been about, you know,
Speaker:where we place our attention.
Speaker:It's also about, you know, really.
Speaker:Choosing to place it on things that are.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:Good and beautiful.
Speaker:So I want to give you something here.
Speaker:Uh, this is from the Bible from new Testament.
Speaker:Um, the letter to the Philippians chapter four, verse eight, some
Speaker:of you will have heard this.
Speaker:This is where St.
Speaker:Paul famously says finally, brothers and sisters.
Speaker:Whatever is true.
Speaker:Whatever is noble, whatever is right.
Speaker:Whatever is pure.
Speaker:Whatever is lovely.
Speaker:Whatever is admirable.
Speaker:If anything is excellent or praiseworthy.
Speaker:Think about such things.
Speaker:So friends, you know, some Paul would've been writing that in the first century ad.
Speaker:So it's about 2000 years old.
Speaker:And he's drawing our attention that we need to place our attention on noble
Speaker:things, write things, pure things, lovely things, admirable things.
Speaker:Excellent things, praiseworthy things.
Speaker:Can you at least agree with me that so much of our current media
Speaker:landscape is not helping us focus on the pure, the lovely, the admirable,
Speaker:the excellent, the praiseworthy.
Speaker:It's helping us to focus on loss.
Speaker:Scarcity fear violence.
Speaker:Um, and I know something you'll go, but Jonathan, we need
Speaker:to know about these things.
Speaker:Well, look, I would say go to subst stack.
Speaker:If you wanna actually get decent content, go to subst stack, poke
Speaker:around in there and find a bunch of.
Speaker:Writers whose opinions and research you actually trust and go with that.
Speaker:Because I'm just not convinced that the goal, the global attention
Speaker:marketplace is your friend.
Speaker:Um, and I don't think that a lot of the social media marketplace is your
Speaker:friend, but their decisions you're gonna need to make in your own time.
Speaker:So summary, let's wrap this up.
Speaker:What have I done here today?
Speaker:Well, I've offended the Royal family.
Speaker:<laugh> I've offended.
Speaker:All of you that love them.
Speaker:Have mercy on me, friends.
Speaker:I'm doing the best.
Speaker:But, uh, look for me, that's just an example.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:We could pick something else.
Speaker:We could pick sports.
Speaker:I mean, I've been coaching soccer this year and my daughter's team
Speaker:is some of, you know, and, uh, you know, She, we started watching
Speaker:this documentary on arsenal.
Speaker:We placed our attention.
Speaker:On the British premier league and we got really into it.
Speaker:So, you know, there is some things that, uh, are really interesting, you
Speaker:know, sport can be really interesting, engaging thing, but it's, I guess
Speaker:it's always about the balance, right?
Speaker:It's always about.
Speaker:Finding that balance, finding that place.
Speaker:Where we're not doing too much or too little, but it's freeing us up to be
Speaker:human, to reconnect with each other.
Speaker:It's father's day tomorrow.
Speaker:We're heading out to, um, To have a barbecue together.
Speaker:And we lied a big fire in the middle of nowhere at this river.
Speaker:And we just sit around in chairs and stare at each other.
Speaker:I mean, we, we, we talk and stuff.
Speaker:I mean, kick a soccer ball, but you know, you get my point.
Speaker:We just place our attention on each other.
Speaker:We pray place our attention on the beauty of the environment.
Speaker:That's surrounds us.
Speaker:Friends.
Speaker:This is about human flourishing.
Speaker:This is about what it means to be human and not to be.
Speaker:So embedded in that rabbit hole of.
Speaker:Distracting content that we become malleable.
Speaker:We become.
Speaker:You know, tools and, uh, we get used by the system rather than using the
Speaker:system to help us flourish and grow.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's it a lot in that one today, friends as longer than usual.
Speaker:I'm gonna go do the video version of this now.
Speaker:So if you like the daily, if you want shorter versions each day,
Speaker:the YouTube ones are much shorter.
Speaker:So you can check those out.
Speaker:There'll be a link across to the YouTube channel here in the podcast.
Speaker:Show notes.
Speaker:Would you subscribe for me?
Speaker:Hit that subscribe button, go and check out the links.
Speaker:Book me to speak.
Speaker:Get a copy of my book.
Speaker:Um, just get in, get on the list.
Speaker:Because any of those links will put you on the list and I can get content
Speaker:to you more regularly, but that's it.
Speaker:Let's go get a focus, right?
Speaker:Let's take our attention back.
Speaker:Let's get our humanity back.
Speaker:Let's get our communities back.
Speaker:Let's get our relationships back.
Speaker:Let's get our humanity back.
Speaker:God bless everybody.
Speaker:My name's Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:This has been the daily podcast and you and I are gonna talk again tomorrow.
