Attention Is a Weapon—Aim Wisely

Welcome to Million Dollar Grit, the podcast that dives deep into the world of entrepreneurship, where tenacity meets strategy and dreams meet reality. My name is Julie and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life. It's not just about the glossy success stories, it's about the grit it takes to get there. Hey, this is Julie. Welcome back to another episode of Million Dollar Grit. And today I want to talk to you about attention and the power of attention and the mind blowing reality that can change for you depending on where you direct your attention. So I am not someone who is into, you know, manifesting or anything of that nature, so I'm not going to take this in that direction. I, I definitely come from a more biblical worldview and I also want to talk about attention in, as a currency in, in business. Okay, so this episode might be a little bit more story based than tactical because I know people are used to me being tactical, but I want to just explain how this all happened with my aha. About attention. So, uh, this morning I have been giving my time in the morning to prayer and reading scripture. And for those of you guys who have been following me a long time, morning is my most sacred hours. You know, the hours between 6:00am and 10:00am, 11:00am are just, are really precious to me. And I often will forego the normal things that people do in the morning, like taking a shower, working out, because I want to use that brain power for things that will make a big difference in my business. So I've talked about sacred time. So about four, about four months ago, I felt a really strong urge to start my morning with prayer and reading scripture. It actually started with reading scripture. And I was into it like for a couple weeks and you know, I was like feeling renewed. And then somewhere after a couple weeks, I, I found myself waking up with anxiety, thinking, crap, I've got so much to do today. I've got 8 million things. I've got this webinar, I've got, you know, at least 80 Voxers in, in my phone. I'm just gonna do that stuff first, and then I'm gonna read the scripture, then I'm gonna pray. And I, I just felt like what I believe was the Holy Spirit saying, no, I want you to give me the first fruits of your time. The very first. And not because God is greedy, not because he can't work at any other time of day, you know, because that's silly and that's where we can get really trapped in legalism. But I felt a very strong sense of everything about your day will be different if you start with a fresh brain on me. And you will be more efficient, you will get more done in less time. You will have a different output, you. Your attention. And that's where attention is going to come in. Your attention is going to pick up on different things. And so I, for the first time in 44 years of life, and I've been a Christian my entire life, except for the 12 years when I completely deconstructed my faith, I have never been able to have a habit of first in the day time with God until now. And part of the battle that I've had to do is say to myself, okay, it's about my attention. Where is my attention going first thing in the morning? Now, if you're not a religious person and you're listening to this podcast going, julie, where's the business advice? I'm gonna draw a picture, a parallel here, because attention is this unbelievable power that we have to focus on. It's prioritizing focus. Like, what are we going to focus on and think about? Even just in your business, if you focus on mistakes, you focus on failures, you focus on competitors, you focus on the headlines in the news about how everything's going poorly. Even just watch as your attention sort of moves with the algorithm. You know, you. You spend too long on Instagram, on. On one particular reel, and then all of a sudden, you start to see more and more and more. And if that attention is on something negative, then you are going to start to craft a worldview. Maybe not permanently, but at least for that day. You're going to craft a worldview that skews negative. And you're going to do this in your business. You're going to CR stories about your funnel, stories about your customers, stories about your team members, stories about everything that's going to skew negative. And so we have this power in our hands. Because if I go outside on my farm right now, there are probably 10,000 things in nature that I could pay attention to. And if I'm not paying attention right, if I've got my. My earbuds in and I'm listening to a podcast, I'm. Where is my attention? My attention is to my ears. My attention is to what I'm listening to. I'm probably going to miss a lot of what's going on. Now, if I go outside and my attention is to what animals are out here in my yard right now. And I. I did this exercise this morning before I did this Podcast, I'm like, I'm going to go outside because, you know, I see a ton of animals, but I'm going to go outside, I'm going to turn my attention to what animals might be outside. I found a snake, I found a couple of lost turkey babies. I obviously saw my chickens and my bunny. I saw wild bunnies, I saw a pair of fighting squirrels. I saw a bluebird dad dive bombing a house finch for dare coming to the bird bath, right? I saw like six or seven animal interactions that I would have completely missed if I was walking with my headphones on. And my podcast. Now I'm not. Podcast is bad, okay? So hear me like, the podcast might be completely life giving. What I'm trying to prove is the power and agency inside of attention. And so ever since I started changing my mornings to focus my attention on scripture, on God, the entirety of my day has shifted. Okay? Now, you know, if we think about attention as, as agency, and we think about it as business owners, and we think about it as marketers, every single one of our potential customers has the same agency and power. What are they paying attention to? What, what is the algorithm showing them and teaching them? And I think what can be really disheartening for people who are like ethical marketers or they're not natural marketers, but they're, they're great teachers is you don't want to play the attention game, right? There's this sense of like, oh gosh, do I have to, do I have to dance in front of the camera? Do I have to turn my, you know, 3,000 word article into a sound bite that people will pay attention to and you don't have to, right? There is, there is truth that says that people who are paying attention to the right things will eventually stumble upon your content, even if it's not designed for the algorithm. But there is a reality that if you are selling, I don't know, let's just say you're selling finance coaching and you are not very good at marketing. And there are a whole bunch of finance coaches that are good at marketing. They're going to win the attention game. And attention, the attention game has nothing to do with actual credibility. It has nothing to do with whether or not they're the right person for the job, right? And so if you as, as, you know, a mission driven or impact driven business owner are not jumping into the game of attention, you are essentially saying it's okay that all of these other people get the attention. That's what you're saying through your Passivity through your unwillingness to step in the game. And honestly, I'm preaching a little bit to myself this morning because I. I relate to this. I am a great marketer, and when I want to be a good marketer, I can be a good marketer. But it is not my natural personality. And so it's a skill that I've developed. But if I default to my natural personality, I don't like video. I don't like being on stage. I like being in a hoodie and yoga pants, having deep conversations with one or two people at a time, living in my farm with my animals, and never going on a plane again. That is. That is my default. Right. But I know that by doing that, I am saying, okay, that means that all of the other people who are way better at the attention game or willing to play the attention game are going to go ahead and get the market share. And I'm okay with that. And am I. Am I really okay with that? And in some cases, if they're great, sure. But if they're unethical, no, I'm not okay with that. And it is my. This might be strong to say, moral obligation to be in the attention game. And you might be rolling your eyes and thinking, well, I don't, you know, I don't want to have to do certain things. And I'm not suggesting that you have to play the attention game the way other people play it. Okay? And I'm going to give you a real example of this here in a second in my own. In my own life. But it does mean you need to show up in a way that works for you, that people who are looking will find there is the key. This is not about taking away attention from somebody else to try to get them to pay attention to you. You know, like, I think about my dogs out in the. In the field, you know, if they get a. Catch a scent and they're, you know, on a scent, and I'm like, the dog's attention is on the scent. And for Nala, that means no, nothing else matters. Right? Her attention is very, very focused. So I will take out a piece of chees, a piece of a hot dog, and I'll wave it. Why? To try to move her attention elsewhere. And that sometimes works and oftentimes doesn't. And so I think when people think about attention, they're like, oh, okay, I see my competitor over here. She's dancing and she's pointing to these things on these reels, and everybody's paying attention to that. And now I have to do that so that people's attention will come to me. Right. But that's not necessarily what you have to do because you may not want it to be your mission to try to pull attention away from people who are perfectly happy to watch a dancing monkey do that. Right. And again, no moral judgments on any of it. But what you can do is say, this is what I'm willing to put out there, trusting that the people whose attention are tuned in will find me. That's a little bit different. It doesn't mean you're not in the game, it just means you're not playing it exactly the same way someone else is. And so I have been, I'm going to just give you a tangible example. I have been exploring some of my spiritual awakenings through my Dandelion Report. It's a substack newsletter. I am highly aware that if I were to start a YouTube channel, which I'm still on the fence about, but if I were to start a YouTube channel and start discussing these things on video, I might get more attention. Right? And I, and I haven't completely written off the idea. And I know that people who watch YouTube videos of folks that are talking about these issues, these spiritual issues, they watch videos more than reading long form articles. Just in general, like our world is, is way more visual than it is written. However, right now, for this moment today, my commitment is to write and to write long form articles that have nuance and have depth and to post those articles on my Facebook and on Instagram, even if people aren't fully interested. Why? Because I know that the people who are looking for that content whose attention is already turned in that direction, will find it. That doesn't mean I'm going to beat out the market share. That does not mean I'm going to become, you know, the next great influencer, because that's not really what my goal is. And in order to, to really beat out market share, you do have to, in a way, steal attention. That's a different game. But for a lot of you listening, you're just having a hard time even getting yourself out there. And I'm saying get yourself out there because the people whose frequencies are tuned in and are looking for that are going to find you. But if you don't show up, they're not going to find you. And so I encourage you to think of this concept of attention with reverence. Number one, you have an incredible ability to shape your worldview and your perspective by what you choose to pay attention to at any given moment. And the more you pay attention to a particular channel or a particular environment, the more you're going to see that isn't that it wasn't there, it's just that your attention is bringing it to light. And in the same vein, as you are in business, as you are thinking about the attention of your customer, you don't necessarily have to go right to, how do I steal the market share and get all the attention on me? But you do have to think, hey, if there were people tuned in to this frequency paying attention, would they be able to find me? Would I be there? Would I be showing up or would I not be there? And so hopefully that gives you some help and insight. I know that kind of meandered around, but I want you to think about attention. And the last thing I'll say is this, that when we focus on attention, it's really easy for us to measure our success based on the response, right? Because think about it, attention as an idea is about getting a response, right? And so a lot of reasons why people don't try to get attention is because they can't handle a lack of response, because then it, it's failure, right? So if I stand up in a crowd and I raise my hands and I go, hey, guys, pay attention to me. And nobody listens, well, that is experienced in my body as rejection. Nobody's paying attention. And so it's very easy to attach response as a way to measure whether you got attention. And we need to change that if we're going to stay consistent. And this morning as I got out of bed and I was like, oh my gosh, it's Monday. I have so much to do. I, I, I need to just answer. There was like, I'm not kidding, like 90 voxers. And I felt like God said, no, remember what, remember what you said? And I was like, yeah, I know. And I knew. I'm so, I'm reading the Bible like chapter by chapter. So I'm not doing a top and topical studies can sometimes be fun because it, like, can speak to you in the moment. Whereas when you read like chapter by chapter, some days you open up and you're just like, king Uzzah did this. And you're just like, okay, cool. What does that have to do with me? You know? And so I was feeling a little bit of that when I got up this morning. And I knew I was on Isaiah 6 and I was like, okay, Isaiah is like so doom and gloom. Talk about paying attention to the bad things. I was like, okay, I Mean, I said I was gonna read this book, I'm gonna read it. And wouldn't you know, Isaiah 6 this morning was this moment between God and Isaiah. And Isaiah is agreeing to speak this word. And God's like, okay, but just so you know, it's not gonna work. It's gonna fail. Nobody's gonna listen, right? And so it was funny because in, in the scripture, it was basically like, you need to go get the attention of the Israelites. But, oh, by the way, nobody, nobody's gonna listen to you. And I thought, isn't that interesting that his assignment was to get attention, But God was warning him that the success would not be perceived, right? Because normally you're thinking, okay, I have a message from God. Like, you're gonna listen, right? Like, and that's how I'm going to know that it was successful. And God was preempting that, saying, no, it's not going to be successful. So what was the measure of success? It was Isaiah's obedience. It was the relationship that he had with God saying, yes, okay, I'm going to do this. And then he did it, irrespective of the response. And so despite this ancient, ancient book that oftentimes feels like it has no relevance to what's going on in our day to day, I read it and I was just dumbfounded as I thought, man, this is like the other side of attention. This is like, sometimes we don't want to get attention because we don't want to feel the lack of response. But maybe the response isn't the measure of success. Maybe it's our commitment and our obedience to doing the thing we're called to do. So that is my, my podcast for today. It was more spiritual probably than you're used to, but I hope it helps and I hope it gives you food for thought. Talk soon. And there you have it, folks. Another dose of Million Dollar Grit. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped, and ready to face your own entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until next time, embrace the struggle, harness your grit and keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie, and this has been Million Dollar Grit.