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Mega Focus and the Attention Revolution with Adam Williams · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Adam Williams, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Paul Taylor, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: the invite.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I have a copy.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: It's a pre-order copy, so very special, of your upcoming book,
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: which is Megafocus. Join the attention revolution. It's a subject
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: that is pretty dear to my heart.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I talk about it in corporate talks. My wife, Carly,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: talks about it.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: You'll like this. In Japanese psychology, they say that the
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: most powerful, which my wife's an expert in, they say
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: the most powerful thing in your life that you have
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: control of is what they call your flashlight of your attention.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, flashlight, floodlight, flashlight or spotlight, etc. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, well,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: we would get on famously.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: And there's heaps of really cool stuff in your book.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: But before we.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Get into this, I believe that at some stage you
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: put your wife's engagement ring at the bottom of the
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Sydney Harbour.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I was trying to be exotic. It was a funny story, actually.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: So I remember it was a Friday and I thought,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take the day off from work and
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: I'm going to propose. I want to do something like
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: a bit different. So we went down to our favorite
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: place in Sydney, Little Harbor Beach. And what I'd done,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know how I did this without her not knowing,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: but we lay on the jetty and I said, look,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I'm going to quickly go in before you go in.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: And she's like, yeah, okay, cool. I'll just get some
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: sun first. So on a towel, I had glued Marry Me,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: my wife's name's Kirsten, Marry Me Kirsten in shells from Perth,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: seashells from Perth, and I'm a Perth boy. And then
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: in the middle, I glued the ring box. So in
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: my board shorts, I had the engagement ring. I had
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: this towel with Marry Me Kirsten on it. I've run down,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: jumped into the water, swum around, looked for a place,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: put this towel on the bottom of the ocean. covered
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: it with a little bit of sand to weigh it down,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: and so it looked like it had been there forever.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: And then I dived down and I stuck the ring
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: into the ring box. Right. Anyway, so I just sort
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: of did a few laps on keeping my eye on
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: it because I obviously didn't want anyone else to find it. Fortunately,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: there was no one else there that day. Eventually, my
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: wife comes in, and this is some time later, and
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I called her over and we're snorkeling. I said, well,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: have a look over here. So she snorkeled over and
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: saw it. And it was the funniest look on her face.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: She couldn't figure out what was going on. She was like,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: that's it. But of course, she's got a snorkel in
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: and the goggles. So she looked really, really funny. And
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: then I had to go dive down to get it.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: But the tide had come in a bit since then
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: and I was struggling to get down there. So I
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: eventually got down there anyway, grabbed the ring, big screams
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: and yeses and all that and happily ever after.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: You romantic son of a gun, you. That's pretty awesome.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Do my best.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Preach me to shame. Yeah, very good. So let's not
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: talk about it.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Let's shift our attention to talking about attention.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Please do.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: So we live in, many people have heard this, right?
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: That we live in the attention economy.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: And that there are so many businesses out there and
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: their whole model is is on getting your attention. Now,
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: you used to be on the other side of the fence.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: So just give our listeners a little bit of a
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: flavor of what you used to do, the roles that
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: you kind of worked in, and how you got interested
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: in the topic of attention for a book.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So for around 30 years, I worked
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: in the attention economy in advertising, creative innovation, promotions, events.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: But it was in that creative and innovation area that
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I started to work with a neuroscientist and psychotherapist to
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: sort of understand how do we get people's attention whilst
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: trying to capture consumers' attention and convert that to behavior
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: for clients. So I did that for a long time.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: That really got me interested in the concept of attention.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And then one day a few years ago, I switched sides.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: I woke up one morning And I remember I was
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: sitting on the side of my bed. Sun was streaming
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: in and I've got my phone in my hand. Now,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: at that time, my daughter was about four years old
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and she would run into our bedroom every morning, jump
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: into bed for a cuddle and a chat. And it
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: was the best part of the day. And that's how
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: we'd start every day. But at this time, I was
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: working with companies across America and across Europe. So they're
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: in another time zone. So I'm waking up early and
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I've sort of had a restless night sort of with
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: an ear open to the phone, which is right beside
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: my pillow because, you know, I'm trying to keep in
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: touch with everybody. So I get up and I'm checking
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: my emails. And I caught myself and I went, what
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: are you doing? Your daughter's right here. This is the
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: best part of your day. Just put your phone down.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: This isn't important. It can wait. And I remember thinking, oh,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: just one more email, one more email, one more email.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: And then I went from the emails, then, oh, I'll
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: just check this website. And then I'll just check this website.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I'll just check this one. And I realized I can't
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: do it. I can't actually put my phone down, even
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: though I know this isn't particularly important. The thing most
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: important to me is sitting right up against my back.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And as frustrated and disappointed in myself, And as angry
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: as I was, I did the same thing the next day.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: And the day after that, and the day after that,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: I got angry and angry. And then after a week,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: then it's just, I finally got control back. And it
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: made me ask this question, have I lost control of
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: my attention? What is going on with my attention? And
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: why wasn't I able to put the phone down? And
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: then that made me examine everything in my life, you know,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: from where's my attentional compass pointing to what my habits
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: were in any given day. So that's how I got
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: to this point, really.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very interesting.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I was on a podcast with Dylan Friends a while back,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: and we were talking about attention. And I was talking
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: about doing an attention audit, and he said, oh, a
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: bit like an attentional heat map that they do in sport, right?
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: In like the AFL, and there's the heat map of
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: where the players actually are. So I actually put it
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: in my book. to talk about that attentional heat map.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: And you do something very, very similar as well, right?
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Which is pretty cool. I think that's that.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Whole idea of people need to be aware of where
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: they're placing their attention, right? First and foremost. But the
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: other thing I want to talk about that was in
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: your book that is very similar to what I do,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: you talk about your life in years and then scrolling.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: And I've done a similar thing, right? And I've got
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: it on the other screen that I had worked out,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: but it's very aligned with yours. Like if people look
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: at their phones right now and see how much time
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: they spend on, whether it's social media or total phone time, right?
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: If they're spending two hours a day, right? I used
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: to use that to 100. You go from, I think,
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: 5 to 85, right? Something like that. But if you
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: spend two hours a day from you're five years old
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: and you live to 85, that's a total of 6.7
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: years on your frigging phone. And if you spend three
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: hours a day, it's a decade on your goddamn phone.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes. And that's somebody such as yourself who's aware
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: and works in this field a bit. But imagine if
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: you've got a kid today and they're just spending four,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: five hours, six hours on their phone a day from
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: an earlier age. Mine went from 40 to 85. But similarly,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: so I've created this attention tax calculator, which is on
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: my website now. And there's an important distinction too, because
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I initially created this calculator where if you spent five
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: hours on your phone, it was all the attention tax.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: So that's all wastage.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: But it's not actually true. Sorry, take a step back, Adam.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: What do you mean by attention tax?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: So the attention tax is like, I consider it, it's
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: misallocated attention or it's paying attention to the wrong things.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: And that can only be identified by going, what is
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: this attention displacing? Where else could my attention be and
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: is that more valuable than what I'm doing at the
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: moment or more important to me?
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: So what's the opportunity cost of where my attention is going?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the opportunity cost of what I'm doing now and
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: what I'm paying attention to. So I think every individual,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: every organization is paying this on scale and we're not
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: really sure of what we're paying. So the attention tax
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: calculator initially went, oh, well, if you've got three hours
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: on your phone a day, that's three hours of attention tax.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: But then I realized, well, that's not strictly true. You
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: could be legitimately working because it is a tool now
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: of business like anything else. It's really just saying, be
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: conscious that you're spending that much time. And then how
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: much beyond the time that is purposeful are you spending
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: on your phone? So I calculate that. But it's not
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: just that. There's so many different things. You've got to
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: start with how much sleep you're getting because that affects
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: your energy. And that allows you then to dictate how
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: many productive hours you have in a day that you
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: can direct your attention. If you're sleeping 12 hours a day,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: you've only got 12 hours of attention to direct if
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: you're sleeping six. And then it becomes a lot harder, obviously,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: as your energy stores deplete.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: And it's really good. I think you break down.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Here's the amount of weeks that you have if you're
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: living from 40 to 85.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Take off the sleep, right? Take off this and that.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: As a third, generally.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: And then discretionary use of attention, which is– I think
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: it's hugely important that people do that as the first step, right?
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: It's the whole know thyself.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: You've got to have awareness before you do anything about it.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: And you've got a couple of really nice little tools
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: in the book. That's what I like about it. It's
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: a real pracademics book. I like to call myself.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I like that term.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: You've got the theory, but then you've got the applied
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: practical stuff. So we talked about the attention tax and
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: a bit of an attention audit. Now, you say in
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: your book that attention matters more than talent, intelligence, and motivation.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: So what do you actually mean? What do you mean
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: by that?
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Sort of tied this to I read an article about
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: time management is out, attention management is in.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No matter the time or how clever you are
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: or how much talent you have, if you're not paying
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: attention to something, it's not going to be done or
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be done well. Like if two people,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: you know, of let's say differing abilities, one hour to
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: do something, the hour isn't the thing that gets things done.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: It's not the time. It's the attention that you put
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: into the task. Somebody could dick around forever. It's the
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: real tortoise and the hare thing in a way, isn't it?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: So that's what I mean by you can have all
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the talent in the world, but if you don't go
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: and apply that talent with deliberate practice by paying conscious
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: attention to your craft, then you're not going to go
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: as far as somebody with average talent who puts the
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: work in. So that's sort of what I mean by
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: it surpasses or it's more important than the talent you
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: have as an indicator of your success, let's say.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: And then we have.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: all of these attention thieves that happen in the workplace.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: And you talk about this.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: I talk about this in my talks, but you also
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: mention in the book, like if you get distracted, you're
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: on a task, you're doing something important.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: That little email thing pops up. And you go and
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: you think, oh, just go and look at that email.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: You know, it's generally a minute or two before you're
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: back on task, right? And then there's all sorts of
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: other disruptions like the phone or the internal Slack or
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: those sorts of things, right? People don't realize, do they,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: how much when they're distracted, how long it takes them
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: to get back fully focused on the task at hand.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Well, there's a couple of things here. Number one, Microsoft's
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: research says that the most pinged employees, they will get
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: a distraction every two minutes from meetings or notifications or emails.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: So that's absolutely ridiculous. You cannot do any deep thinking
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: or good work or be productive if you're interrupted every
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: two minutes. And then you've got things like the research
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: from Gloria Mark, which says that once you're interrupted, it
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: takes you 23 minutes to get back to the task,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: to full focus on that task that you were doing.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: And you'd know this, like you might, someone might drop
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: by your desk or give you a call and you,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: let's say that call only takes five minutes. But then
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: you've had that break. So you've disengaged and you go,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: while I'm disengaged, I'll quickly check my emails and then
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: I'll quickly reply to that. And now I'll do that. Oh, Well,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: now I'm sort of disengaged. I'll go get a coffee
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: or I'll go do something else or I'll call that
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: person back. So it's not just, I like to say,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: you know, quick question is one of the great myths
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: of the modern workplace. There's no such thing as quick question.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And importantly, and I think you relate to this too,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: the person that comes up to your desk for a
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: quick question, they're prioritizing their attention over yours because they've
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: got a discomfort of not having the answer. that they're
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: trying to avoid. They're like, I need this. It's uncomfortable
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: for me to not have that answer right now because
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: we're in generation now. So I'm going to interrupt somebody
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: else to soothe that discomfort I have. So I sort
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: of look at it in a little bit of a
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: different way as well.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. And so what do you think is behind?
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Because I relate to that as well. You get distracted
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: by something and then you just check an email and
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: then you maybe check the sport and then it's like, oh,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: go and get a cup of tea. So what is
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: going on in our brains there? Is it a bit
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: of comfort seeking because we've been working hard and it's like, oh,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: a little part of your brain.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Goes, you deserve a break. Now that your attention is broken,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: go and do these things.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: What's happening? For me, and this is probably a core
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: part of the book, I sort of come at it
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: from the other side of the coin that you're talking about.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: which is that, you know, there's many very credible researchers, scientists,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: you know, Kahneman, who have spoken about the two modes
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: of thinking, you know, thinking fast, thinking slow. So for
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: those who aren't aware, we've got two modes of thinking.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: One is automatic and fast, and the other is more
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: deliberate and slow. So I call the fast one, that's
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: the builder, and I call the slow one the architect.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: So the architect designs things the life you want and
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: consciously places things wherever and it plans your life. The
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: builder decides what actually gets done. A lot of the time,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: that's your autopilot. But the builder, I think increasingly, the
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: world society technology is training the builder to be stronger,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: which makes the architect weaker and we don't engage it
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: as often. The reason why that's, and we need both.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: There's not a good or a bad. They're both absolutely essential.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: So which one's fast and which one's slow, sorry, in
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Kahneman's model?
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: The builder is the fast one and the architect is
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the slow one. So the architect's designing your life, the
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: builder is effectively executing your life. And it's on autopilot
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of the time. Now, what we don't want
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: to happen is for that to have too much control
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: because that has three particular goals it's trying to achieve.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Number one, it wants to conserve energy. So I think
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: from a evolutionary point of view. Obviously, once upon a time,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: energy was scarce. We never knew when the next meal
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: was going to be or when we'd have to run
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: like crazy to avoid becoming the next meal for something
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: with bigger teeth than we have. So that's the first one.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: It's conserve energy. If something requires energy, a lot of
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: the time your brain's going to go, eh, let's not.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: It's easier to sit on the lounge or do something else. Secondly,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: it wants to avoid discomfort. So if something is uncomfortable,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: having an uncomfortable conversation with someone, writing that business plan,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: anything that uses heavy cognitive thought, that's a bit tough.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: How about I tidy up my desktop instead? How about
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: I check the emails or go for a bit of
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: a scroll? Because that's easier and that doesn't take much effort.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: No discomfort there. So that's the second one. And then
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: the third one is seek immediate reward. So obviously... The
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: things that we really want in life and the things
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: that are worth achieving sit on the other side of effort.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: They require some effort. They sit on the other side
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: of discomfort. Those things worthwhile, they do make you uncomfortable sometimes.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And then the rewards we get from them are sometimes
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: uncertain and they're not immediate. They're sometime into the future.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: The brain wants it now. It's like, I want an
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: immediate reward. So it can delay. So I think an
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: important part to note here is that Just because something
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: is important doesn't mean it's going to get your attention.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: It could be quite the opposite. It could not get
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: your attention because it's associated with some kind of risk, effort,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: and discomfort, and the rewards are uncertain.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think anybody can relate to if they
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: went to university or even studying at school that my
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: room was never tidier than exam time.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: Right? Because you know you have to be studying. You
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: know you're supposed to be doing stuff. The brain goes,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: frigging hell, I don't like that. That's uncomfortable. But it
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: knows it needs to be busy. So it focuses your
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: attention on meaningless shit that's easy to do that will
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: make it feel like it's okay because I'm being busy, right?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's like a to-do list, right? The more
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: things you write and the more things you tick off,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: the more productive you think you are, the more momentum
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: you think you've got. But the funny thing is I
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: think one of the tasks ends up being let's transfer
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: all of the important things I didn't do onto the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: next day and onto the next day because I've spent
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: my time doing all the easy stuff, all the stuff
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: that requires little effort, all the stuff that doesn't make
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: me uncomfortable and I'm delaying targeting that stuff that's really
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: important to me that has to be done. But also...
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: I think in your example of having a tidier space,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: sometimes to be mega focused, the answer is just to
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: have less to focus on. So remove all the distractions. Yeah.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And I like to think of, sorry, are you going
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: to ask me a question?
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: No, I was going to, because you have a whole
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: chapter on this, Remove to Improve.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: But actually, let's take a couple of steps back because
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: I think we've jumped to later chapters in the book now.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: In order for somebody to get clear on what's important,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: to them, have you got any tips or exercise? Because
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: I think this is pretty fundamental, isn't it?
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: He's actually looking at, first of all, where am I
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: spending my time?
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Doing a bit of an attention audit.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: And then actually going, well, is this aligned with what's
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: important to me? Is this aligned with my life plan
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: that the architect has been building? Or am I just
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: off building meaningless shit, right?
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, am I climbing the wrong mountain? Am
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I getting really good at climbing, but I'm not where
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I thought I would be? I'm on the wrong peak.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: So yeah, there's a few things here. There's quite a
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: bit in the book about this coming at it from
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: different angles, I suppose. So one of the first things
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: in the book I ask people to do is ask
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: who I am, what do I want, and what do
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I do? And to see if those things are aligned.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Is what you want aligned with who you are? That's
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: incredibly important. And is what you do aligned with what
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: you want? Because otherwise you're not going to get it anyway.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: So alignment is incredibly important, as you mentioned. Then there's
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: obviously looking into the attention mirror, or you can jump
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: onto the my website and do the calculator and go, okay,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: where is my attention going at the moment? And then
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: that'll give you effectively an attention menu. So what are
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: all those things costing me? Because if you say yes
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: to one thing, you're saying no to everything else. You
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: can't be paying attention to everything. So there is a cost.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's a good cost. Sometimes it's a bad cost.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: If I'm saying on my attention menu, I will be
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: home and have dinner with my kids every night, Well,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: there is a cost to that, and it might be
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: not getting stuff done during the day or having to
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: go back to it when the kids are in bed.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: It might be cost, but you might value that choice
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: more valuably. So you've got the attention, being aware, standing
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: in front of the attention mirror, looking at what it's
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: costing you, and then seeing where you want to make
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the trade. Will I trade an hour of distraction or
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: comfort or whatever it is for an hour of productivity
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: or an hour with my wife or an hour of research, self-development, yoga, fitness,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: whatever it is, what is most important to me that
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: aligns with who I want to be? Because a lot
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: of this is identity-driven, of course. We've got this image.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And so that links to your conditions of happiness. So
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I think we've all got these self-imposed conditions of happiness
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: that frame the conditions of when we will allow ourselves
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: to be happy. And that's getting into the arrival fallacy.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I will be happy when or if I get the
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: pay rise. I get that job. I find a partner.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I get rid of my partner. I buy a house.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I sell my house. All of those things. We put
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: these on us. But is that in a way saying
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: we can't be happy until that happens? So we've got
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: to be really careful about that because the research also
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: says that, yes, you'll get a peak in happiness, but
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: it's temporary. Those things don't make a lasting forever change
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: to your levels of happiness. You will return to a baseline.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: So yes, have goals, pursue greater things, but don't defer
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: your happiness until you get them. You need to be
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: happy on the way there and make sure those goals
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: are your own. not ones you've learnt from culture, society,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: your parents, your friend, mimetic desire, and all those kinds
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: of things.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Two comments on what you just said.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Professor Dan Gilbert has done really cool research on people's
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: happiness and their baseline level of happiness. And because he's
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: had millions of people in his studies, a few of
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: them have won the lottery. and a few of them
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: have become paraplegics, right? And you may be aware of
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: this study. And he found that in both cases, within
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: about a year, they returned to their baseline levels of happiness, right?
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: It's incredible to think somebody can have such great fortune
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: and such misfortune, and then just within 12 months be
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: back to where they were.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I actually think, I was having a conversation
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: with somebody I was familiar about this the other day,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: That we need to stop chasing happiness and we need
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: to chase contentment, right? Which is different. Happiness is just
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: a fleeting emotion and you can't be happy all the
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: frigging time.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: We've been sold.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: We've been marketed this happiness bullshit, right?
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the attention economy doesn't want us to be happy.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it was chasing and consuming. This
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: is the thing. It backs up this, I will be
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: happy when, because we are being sold to everything and
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: why we don't have it and why that's important.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Everything being sold is supposedly the answer to the happiness problem.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: So they need to keep us unhappy, so we keep buying,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: of course.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: And they've created a frigging unhappiness problem so that they
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: can sell their products to us. What did you learn
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: on the other side, right, when you were working with
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: companies around this? Was there any kind of aha moments
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: that you had?
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Not really. Not specific aha moments. I kept... bringing clients
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: back to if you want somebody's attention. Number one, it's
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: got to be relevant to the person. Like, because I
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: worked in a lot of time in creative and advertising. So,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: you know, there's no use following me around with retargeting
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: for a bulldozer. I live in the inner city. There's
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: no relevance to me whatsoever.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: And so this relevance, sorry, Adam, then plays into the
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: algorithm that is fed to us, right?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: By Yes. Because, you know, I look at my YouTube.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I'm not on social media very much, but I go
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: onto YouTube occasionally, and it's the same shit that's in
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: my YouTube feed, right, all the time because it's the kind.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Of three things that I look up, right?
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Well, this is really interesting, right, because I link it
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: back to when, if we can just go back to
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: the builder for a second, because what we pay attention
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: to repeatedly will train the builder on what to do. So,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: for example, if every time we feel a bit of
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: discomfort or resistance to paying attention or effort, we go, oh,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: I'll pick up my phone because that's a good distraction
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: or relief from the discomfort. Every time we do that,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: you're teaching the builder, oh, I got it. Every time
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: I feel uncomfortable, pick up the phone. And so we're
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: giving ourselves this lesson. Same way as the social media
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: algorithms and Google and everybody learn from, oh, I get it.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: You like these things. You click on these things a lot.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: So that's what we're going to give you. Yes.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: So you talked about relevant to the person.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: What else?
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: I think there's an honesty that people connect with. So
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: they've got to see themselves in the ad some way
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: because there's this great saying, you know, I buy what
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I buy. to remind myself and tell the world who
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I am. So a lot of our behavior is really signaling.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: It's trying to signal to the world and create this
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: identity to say, I want the world to see me
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: and think of me in this way. And to do that, oh,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I'll buy that. I'll buy that. I'll do this. I'll
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: do that. And every choice we make really is... some
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: form of signaling because we're a judgmental species and we
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: read those signals and we go, oh, you're that kind
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: of person. So the sunnies you wear, the car you drive,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: where you live, the food you eat, the drinks you order,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: all of this stuff says something about you and people
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: notice and go, ah, now I'm forming an image of you,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: which is a shortcut to meaning, I suppose, you know,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: to go, oh, I get that. Paul's that kind of guy.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: You know, Adam's this kind of guy. And we're judging that.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: And so likewise, I didn't rock up here in a
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: black suit and a tie and collared shirt. That's not
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: sort of me. I'm a bit more casual than that.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: So that's how I am. So every decision we make,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I think we're not conscious of it. But one of
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: the goals we're trying to achieve is to create this image,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: this ideal image of ourselves. which is normally a future
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: image of ourselves.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: So you just mentioned that sometimes we're not conscious. Is
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: there any research that whenever you were on the other
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: side about how much of this is conscious image forming
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: and how much of it is subconscious because we kind
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: of identify with the brand and back deep in our minds,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: we want to be like that. And is there any
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: differences in individuals around that conscious versus unconscious image creation?
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting one because this goes back a few
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: years ago now, so I don't have any specifics. But
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: when we talk about repetition, you know, in advertising, it's
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: the frequency because you've got to get it in there.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And how many times does somebody have to see it?
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: To remember it, you know, but that then is linked
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: to the relevance and the engagement and, you know, all
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff in the content and how it's communicated.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: If it's super relevant to me and I have a
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: problem in that moment and then I see the solution.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I'll buy it.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: I'll buy it straight away.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: I don't need to see it seven times. I've got it. However,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: you know, I had a meeting once with this betting
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: company and they only wanted to do two weeks of advertising.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: And I thought, well, this is interesting. So I said
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: to them, how often is somebody in the market to
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: buy a new bed, a new mattress? And they said, oh,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: probably two weeks for every 10 years they're in the market.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: They're buying a mattress every 10 years. And I said, okay,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: we'll just advertise for two weeks and you'll be sorted then, right?
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: I sort of looked at me and I was like,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: You know the point I'm getting at, right? Every two weeks,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: there's someone new coming into the market. The world doesn't decide,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: you know, we bought a mattress here, and now in
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: two years' time.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: We're going to buy it at the same time.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: It is now National Mattress Buying Day in Australia today.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Go.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. And it's the same thing like
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: environmental and contextual factors. I created this thing, actually, where
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: there was already contextual digital dynamic advertising. But when I
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: was working for a radio network, I created this thing
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: that allowed us to create radio ads in real time
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: for terrestrial radio. So if it did get over a
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: certain degrees, if it was a certain time of day,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: you could basically link any data to change the ad
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: in real time because all the research said that context
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: really matters. So a simple way of thinking about that,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: and here's some research, I suppose, is that it's like saying,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: try to sell an air conditioner to someone in the
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: middle of winter. It's not ideal, you know. Try to
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: sell someone dinner before breakfast.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: No.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: So you've got to think about all these contextual factors.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: And so I remember doing one for McDonald's, I remember,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: where about the different coffees and the different breakfasts they have.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: And so depending on what was going on with the
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: weather and what time of day it was, it would
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: change the menu items and the coffees and the creative
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: itself so that it was speaking to you in the moment.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: and it was relevant to you at that moment. So
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: contextual relevance is one thing, and then there's personal relevance
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: is another. Those two things work hand in hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: And so for us on the other side then, using
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: this kind of knowledge, like how do we use this
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: knowledge to reclaim our attention and our time? So I
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: think what you thought about earlier is like thinking about
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Who do I want to be?
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Who am I? What do I want? What do I do?
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: And see whether there's alignment and misalignment.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Any other steps then and any other little things that
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: we can think about based on the way that people
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: advertise to us?
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Yes. So I've got this, we've spoken about signaling, you know,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: and we buy what we buy to remind ourselves of
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: the world who we are. And that is arguably the
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: fifth key purchasing criteria. I keep it. aside, but I've
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: got the four key purchasing criteria. And this is what
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: gets our attention in the marketplace and why we buy
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: what we buy aside from signaling. Number one, we buy
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: on price, but it's not what people think. People think
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: when I say it's price, it's price value or affordability.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: And we don't always buy according to what's the cheapest.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: We don't always buy the cheapest house in the cheapest suburb,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: the cheapest street or whatever. Or we don't always buy
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: the cheapest watch. Sometimes we buy things because they are
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: the most expensive, because the most expensive says quality, perhaps scarcity.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: And is that a signaling thing, basically? That is a
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: signaling thing.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, that's a signaling thing. But it can also
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: be a trust thing.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Let's say, you know, something I do in one of
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: my talks is that, you know, because this is contextual
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: as well, if I say to you, McDonald's is fast
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: and cheap, and you're really, you know, I just want
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: to get something to eat and have it done with,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: you go, okay, well, fast and cheap is good. If
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: I say to you, I have surgery, I've got a
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: heart surgeon, and he is so fast and cheap, you're
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: probably thinking, yeah, I think I'll go for somebody a
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: bit slower and more expensive, thanks. Because that price is
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: associated with quality as much as it's associated with scarcity
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: and status. So price, value, and affordability also, you know,
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: affordability is relative to your income. What's affordable to one
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: person is not what's affordable to someone else. So it's
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: kind of contextual in that sense as well. Those expensive
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: status giving purchases, they're called Veblen products. And that's sort
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: of the opposite of the law of demand. So law
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: of demand says the cheaper something is, the more demand
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: you'll get for it. And then on the other side,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: a Veblen product, it gets more demand as it gets
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: more expensive. And there's like in folklore, Rolex were like that.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: They were cheap. They put the price up. They started
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: selling more.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: That is very good case in point that when we
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: were overseas recently and I went to buy a pair of,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: you know, those tiger shoes, tiger sneakers.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: And I ended up in a shop.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize that it was like they're kind of
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: all the funky products. It was their really cool store.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: And I went up and just thought, I'm just going
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: to walk in and buy a pair of tiger shoes.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: And there was a monster line. And I said to him,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: there was a guy on the line. I'm like, what's
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: all this about? He says, oh, there's a four-hour wait
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: to get into the store. Because it was all, this
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: was the products, you could only buy them in that store, right?
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: So it was that scarcity that then drives the demand.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: And then it gives you status if you were the
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: one that waited four hours, et cetera, et cetera.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. And there's lots of brands that are really
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: doing that now, aren't they?
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, yeah.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: And frigging bars and nightclubs do it, right? They have
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: queues and lineups and you line up, you get in
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: and there's hardly anybody in the bloody place.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Well, it's like cheap in a way, aren't we? Safety
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: in numbers and all that kind of stuff. And it's
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: social proof. If you see a line or lots of
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: people inside a place at a restaurant, you go, well,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to go to the empty one. That's
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: got no social proof at all. So the first one, price, value,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: and affordability. And I'll just wrap that up by saying
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: we determine value by a couple of things. We determine
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: value by how something is priced compared to the things
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: around it. So if it's priced competitively to the things
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: around it, we go, oh, that could be good value.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: So it's relativity.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: It's relativity as well, yeah. Because another example I give
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: is like a baked beans. Let's say home brand baked
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: beans is $ 2. Heinz baked beans is $ 4. The question
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: people ask themselves subconsciously is, am I saving $ 2 by
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: buying the cheap one or am I wasting $ 2 by
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: buying the cheap one? So I buy the $ 4 one,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: I get what I pay for, great, because the $ 2 one,
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: it's going to taste like rubbish. I'm not going to
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: like it. I'm going to waste that money. Or if
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: the $ 2 one tastes every bit as good as the
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: $ 4 one, I'm wasting $ 2 if I buy the $ 4 one.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: So we're making these assessments all the time. So then
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: we go, so price is number one. Performance and functionality
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: is number two. And that really is, does this thing
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: do what it says it does as well as it
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: say it does? And that's set by expectation. So I've
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: got a certain expectation of how this thing will perform
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: and how long it will last, how good it will taste,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: how light it is, how heavy it is, how durable
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: it is, whatever. So it's all of those kinds of things.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: So if it meets our expectations or surpasses it, good value.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: If it doesn't, bad value. Then we've got convenience. Is
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: it easy for me to deal with you, to buy
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: from you and ongoing, et cetera, et cetera. And then
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: the last one is emotion. How does it make me
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: feel about myself? How does it make me feel about
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: the product itself, about the purchase. Will I have buyer's remorse?
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Does it serve my goals? How does it make me feel?
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: And generally, that's going to surpass everything else in terms
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: of the weight of what you're doing. There might be
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: something that makes you feel really good and you really
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: aspire to have it. You can't really afford it. You
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: go buy it anyway. Or it's really hard. It's not
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: very convenient. but I really want it, so I'll go
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: get it anyway. So that emotion one, and people in
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: advertising know this, it's like, go with the emotion. People
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: will act on emotion and then they'll justify the purchase rationally.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: So the decision is made emotionally, they rationalize the decision emotionally.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, absolutely.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: We're very good at rationalizing our emotions after we've had
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: the emotions enacted on them, right?
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I love cars and I once was saying
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: to my wife, you know, we should get a new car.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: I think we should get a new car because your parents,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: you know, they're getting a bit on in age. And
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: if we get a four-wheel drive, then the seats will
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: kind of be at hip height and the car will
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: be easy to get in and out of, just slide
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: in and out. What a great son-in-law am I? Fantastic.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Let's get a new SUV. Now, the problem with my
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: argument was that parents live in New Zealand and we
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: see them like once a year or once every two years.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: I just really wanted a new car and I'm trying
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: everything to justify it. You know, so there's that and
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: then there's all the good tax breaks there and this,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: that and the other. Yeah, we tell ourselves stories. That's
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: what we do to justify our wants.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: 100%. So you then have a chapter, a whole chapter
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: on attention addiction, right? And you break it down into
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: giving attention and getting attention. So talk us through those concepts.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, I think we'll all relate to the giving
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: attention one, which is, I think we've all reached for
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: our phone at some stage, not because something's happened, but
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: because nothing did. We just like, we've got a moment
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: to ourselves and we want to fill the brain with,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: oh no, I've got my own thoughts, nothing's stimulating me.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: So I talk about in the book, infobesity and infomania
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: and infobesity, it's what it sounds like, right? There is
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: just so much content out there and so much information.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: We could never consume it in a million lifetimes. So
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: on one hand, we've got all this information available to us,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: coming at us 24-7, and it's always within an arm's
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: length from us because we've got our phones. And then
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: that's infobesity. Then infomania is our addiction to it. It's
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: like we want the information intravenously pumped into our bodies
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: and So we're stimulated all the time because that soothes
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: any discomfort. It stops us thinking about the things that
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: might make us uncomfortable or the things we shouldn't be
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: doing or where we are in our lives. And I
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: call discomfort the great anesthetic because it can stop us.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: It can allow us not to feel the things that
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: we don't want to feel. Feeling uncomfortable? Cool, I'll have
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: a scroll. Feeling a little bit anxious or depressed? Cool,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: I'll jump on my phone as well. So anything we're feeling,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: we go, great, I'll use the distraction as an anesthetic.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: And I'll tell you a great example of this is people,
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: two examples, people standing waiting for their coffee and people
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: in lifts. When I get into a lift, I'm always
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: intrigued as to if somebody else is in there or
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: somebody else comes in there, how quickly it is before
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: they take out their phone.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: You sure it's not just you?
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: No, I deliberately will stand in a lift and not
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: look at my phone just to kind of like be
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: aware of, because it's like now, anytime people have a
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: spare minute when they used to have small chat with
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: somebody else, It's like buying something. And I think it's
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: back to your idea of discomfort. I feel a little
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: bit of social discomfort. So I'm just going to use
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: my phone so it looks like I'm busy, right?
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I sort of say something similar in that
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: we've lost the ability to wait. We can't wait for
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: anything because the moment we do, the moment we're disconnected
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: from stimulus, I need stimulus. So, okay, now I'm on
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: my phone. And that robs us of opportunities as well,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: of course. So that's sort of our constant need for
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: stimulus is our attention addiction to giving attention to things.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: And look, I'm sure you're familiar with the research about
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: the experiment where people were given 15 minutes just to
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: be left alone with their own thoughts, or they could
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: press a button and give themselves an electric shock.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not familiar with this.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it's in the book. And I think
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: it was 60% of men chose to push the button
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: to give themselves an electric shock, despite saying beforehand they
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: would hate that because it's going to hurt. But just
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: to sit there for 15 minutes.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Because the alternatives was to just sit and be alone
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: with it.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no stimulus whatsoever. Just sit there for 15 minutes. Yeah,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: and so that discomfort builds up and builds up and
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: builds up. They don't have a mobile phone for the,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: you know, the anesthetic of the distraction. So, bang, let's
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: see what this does. How much does that hurt, I wonder?
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: So they give themselves the shock. Now, men did it
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: more than women, but it's a really interesting experiment, isn't it,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: to say.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Isn't that ever.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we can't just sit with our own thoughts anymore.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: We need, because we are addicted to giving our attention
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: to something for the constant stimulus.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: Now, the other side- That's a killer. Sorry, just to interject,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: that is a killer of creativity because so much creative
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: stuff comes from boredom. You just need to look at
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: kids to understand that, right?
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, I call it incubation.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: That mind-wandering, the mind-wandering is the incubation, right?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, yeah. And that's why we say sleep
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: on it, for example.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: You've got a big problem.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: It's not like, come on straight away. And that leads
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: us down another path to- the validity of brainstorms and
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: things like that. On one side, you've got the more ideas,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: the better. But on the other side, how about give
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: somebody talented some time to think about it, incubate it,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: and come up with some great ideas, not just a
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: volume of rubbish, but some really good quality ideas that
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: we're not being forced with that speed to go, no,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: it's now, now, now. Give us the idea now without
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: any time to reflect and incubate. So I totally agree
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: with you. It's so important to creativity as well.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, cool.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: So we talked about giving attention. What about getting attention?
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: What do people need to think about there?
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: This isn't going to impact everybody, but it's really impacting
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: some people, particularly younger generations who are living online. And
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: you hear about teachers talk about kids where they feel
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: real life is an interruption to their digital life, which
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: to the kid is their real life. And they say like,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: they're just zombies. They're like, all teaching and schoolwork is,
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: is an interruption to them getting back online, which is
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: really scary, right? So what a lot of modern society
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: is doing is teaching sections of society, the younger ones particularly,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: that Getting attention is the way to happiness and riches
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: because this person did that and they've got that amount
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: of followers. Of course, everybody puts their ideal life online.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: They don't necessarily put their worst day or that they
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: don't have any money this week or that they failed
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: at that. So it's all put in this sort of
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: idealistic sense and they go, that's how I want to
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: do it and I can make money by getting attention.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: And what happens is they'll do something and then we'll
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: adapt to it. It becomes normal. So then they have
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: to up the ante and then up the ante again,
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: up the ante again, because we develop a tolerance for
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: it and it gets more extreme and more extreme. And
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: so you think of things, and this is without any
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: judgment whatsoever, platforms like OnlyFans where you go, okay, well
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: now I will get into the sex industry for that.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: And then, okay, now I'm showing this much. Now I
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: need to show that much. Now I need to do
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: other things because people get the tolerance for it and
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: we need to get more extreme behavior. And in the book,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I've got some horrible stories of the challenges like the
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: blackout challenge where so many kids have died trying this
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: challenge where you've got to make yourself pass out and
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: video it. But of course, they're trying to get social currency.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. Yeah. And that's not the only one. Some
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: of the ones I didn't even put in the book
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: because they were too offensive and disturbing to talk about.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: So there's a real passion of mine to try to
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: help and protect kids developing brains from what they otherwise
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: would be paying attention to. And that's why early in
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: the book, I say, if you've come here to kick
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: the hell out of social media companies, well, okay, you
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: won't be disappointed. But think about this. They don't come
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: around and buy you a phone and put it in
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: your hand. They don't force you to look at your
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: phone while you're having a conversation with somebody else. They
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: don't pay for your subscriptions. They don't turn the TV
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: on for you and upload the subscription. They don't force
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: you to do any of this stuff. What they do
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: do is they spend tons of money learning how your
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: brain works better than you do. You don't understand it
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: as well as they do. And so the book, in
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: a way, is trying to even that ledger a bit
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: to say, if you understand how your brain works, why
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: you do the things you do, then you can have
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: greater control over what you do, which is the take
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: back control part of the title to say, don't be
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: on autopilot all the time. And let's say, um, outsource
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: your life and what you pay attention to, to what
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: others want you to pay attention to. Cause the whole,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: the attention economy is saying, Hey, we want to, we
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: want to get your attention to focus on our goals,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: not your goals because the attention can't do two things
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: at once. So know what your goals are. and deliberately
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: focus on your own goals, not mindlessly just gravitate towards
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: what everybody else's goals are and you're serving their purposes
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: instead of your own. That's something I'm really passionate about,
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: especially for kids.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because if you don't have control of your attention...
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: It's not like nobody's going to get control of your attention.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: They are going to get all of these different companies
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: or will get control of your attention 100% guaranteed.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Especially when you're not aware of what's going on and
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: what you're doing and how your brain works and what
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: your goal really is. I do ask people, I say,
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: change what you pay attention to, change your future. And
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: that's what the book, at its heart, is what the
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: book is trying to achieve, to say, Are you aware
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: of what you're paying attention to? And do you know
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: what your goals are? If you haven't stopped to think
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: about that, you talk about contentment. My word is satisfaction.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: And I think it's sort of been misused, this word satisfaction,
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: you know. It's like satisfaction, oh, I'm only satisfied. No,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: satisfied is great. So it is a feeling of contentment
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: with what you've got. And then it comes back to
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: what I was saying before about, yes, have big, wonderful,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: wild goals. Don't make your happiness, contentment, satisfaction conditional on
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: achieving them. You've got to be content, satisfied, happy. on
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: the way to achieving them so these are all themes
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: that appear in the book quite.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: A bit yeah and i like you know it reminds
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: me of a book that i read when i was
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: probably in my early 20s and it had a big
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: impact in this hurry excuse me It's called Zen and
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: I haven't read it, but I've heard of it.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: It's a brilliant book.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: And he talks about that, you know, we're all trying
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: to get to the top of this mountain, you know,
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: and we're continuing to, you know, we see the top,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: we want to get to the top and stuff like that.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: But he says there was just one line in the
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: book that hit me. And it was like, sometimes it's
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: better to travel than to get there.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's sort of linked to that arrival fallacy
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: because when you think about it, you say, I could
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: spend my life on the journey and five minutes at
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: the destination.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: And that makes no sense to put your happiness, contentment, satisfaction,
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: make it dependent on arriving. It just makes no sense
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: at all. So I'm totally on that as well. That's
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: a great recommendation. Yeah.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: And I think we started with the link to Japanese psychology.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: I think that we can end with the link to
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: Japanese psychology. You essentially said that in Japanese psychology, they
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: said that your life is based on your attention. Yeah. Because,
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: and I love that as a neuroscientist, like whatever you
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: pay attention to, your brain will commit sales to it, right?
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Well, interesting. Yeah. So I've just gone into testing this
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: week to validate an attention-based psychometric test, psychometric assessment. So
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: we're doing the testing now. And one of the principles
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: of that is that attention comes first. You need to
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: pay attention to something in order to think about it.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: And you need attention before you then make a decision
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: about something and attention before you take action. So attention
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: lives upstream of everything in your life. Get the attention
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: right first. 100%. And then you'll be more well positioned
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: to have the life you want, not the life you get,
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: I suppose.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: If you are rudderless, right, which is a lot of
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: people are rudderless with their attention.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Or just on automatic pilot, they let the builder
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: do everything for the avoid discomfort, instant rewards and to
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: conserve energy.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: And we end up in the, you talked about a
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: few biases, we end up in the status quo bias
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: where people will often continue to do things that they
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: know are not good for them because changing is more
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: difficult than keeping the status quo.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's hard. And you'd
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: probably have done a couple of these.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: Behavior changes are hard.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one thing that I
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: was looking at and reading was that behavior change is
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: hard because you're also fighting your identity as well and
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: your beliefs. And it's hard to change your beliefs. It's
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: easier to reinforce your beliefs. So that's another reason why
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: we sort of go, oh, okay, I'll look this way
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: and pay attention over here rather than over here because
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: it's making me feel uncomfortable as well. I don't want
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: to change. People don't want to change. It's not easy.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: So megafocus isn't about perfection. It's about just allocating more
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: of your attention towards the things that are more important
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: to you more often. Simple as that. And I should
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: point out that there's two forms of megafocus and the
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: attention taxed. I divide it into macro and micro. Macro is,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: is your attentional compass pointing in the right direction? As in,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: for an individual, yes, it is that mountain I want
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: to climb. That's where we're going. That's what's important to me.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: For a company, it could be, yes, we have the
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: right strategy. Yes, our products serve the needs of our customers.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: a target market. Yes, we have the right people with
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: the right skills to take us forward. So that's the
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: macro megafocus and attention tax. The micro is more the
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: day-to-day level stuff. It's like, how did I use my
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: attention today and in the moment? So the bigger one,
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: once you've done it, you've set your attentional compass, macro, great,
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: I know where I'm heading. Now I've got to execute it.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: So one's like strategy and one's the execution. That execution
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: one is a lot harder because you get to test
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: it every minute of every hour of every day. So, yeah,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: and for me, I can safely say hand on heart, macro,
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: I've nailed that one. All my decisions in the past
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: four or five years have been towards getting me to
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: where I want to go. On a daily basis, I'll
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: still struggle with the attention tax in things like perfectionism.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Because to a certain point, you go, okay, I'm working
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: on something. It becomes good enough. Then all the additional
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: attention I'm putting in it doesn't make a noticeable difference.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: If it doesn't, that's all attention tax. I might write
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: an article in one hour, spend two hours trying to
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: perfect it. No one can tell the difference between one
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: and the other. So that becomes attention tax. I could
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: have put that attention somewhere else. When I'm tired, energy
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: is the fuel of attention. Then I can gravitate towards
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: low value tasks because I just don't have the energy
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: for the other. And also I talk about and question,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: is this the end of effort? Society seems to be
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: hell bent on removing effort from people. And so we're
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: losing that ability. It's like, does it take effort? No.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: What's a way that doesn't require effort? Because I think
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: of all the different inventions that man has created over
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: the years. And look, they've done us very well and
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: saved us time, but really they're saving us effort. And
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: what are we doing with that time and that effort
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: as well? Because a lot of the time you go, well,
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: we're just redirecting it to things that don't have any
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: importance to us at all. So that's what I want
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: people to be conscious of as well. Yeah.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: And that removing effort, I've actually, I wrote a LinkedIn
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: post on the neurobiology of doing hard things. is that
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: the part of the brain, the mid anterior cingulate cortex
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: is the part that is associated with doing hard things.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: I call it the challenge muscle in the brain. And
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: when you exercise it, it grows just like when you
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: train your muscles in the gym.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: And when you don't train your muscles, they atrophy.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: And so that part of the brain shrinks and then
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: you're less able to do hard things. And then you
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: just end up becoming stuck in avoiding discomfort and difficulty
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: and effort. That's another way.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: So we're saying similar things when I talk about training
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: the builder with attention. And I talk about the builder
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: wants to avoid discomfort and effort. And that's the solution, right?
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: You've got to change it and almost reprogram your brain
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: to say, hey, you know that discomfort or that effort
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: that is required when I'm doing something, that means I'm
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: doing something worthwhile. That's a positive thing, not a negative thing.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: Lean towards it. Don't run away from it.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: 100%. This has been awesome. So Megafocus is the book
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: by Adam Williams.
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: And when you hear this, it will either just about
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: to be released and you can get it on pre-order
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: or it will just have been released. But in any way,
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: jump onto Amazon, Booktopia, whatever, and get yourself a copy.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: But also now, Adam, you mentioned that on your website,
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: there's a few tools that people can be allowed. So
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: where do we send them to?
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: That's theattentionarchitect.au, so not. com, just. au. And on it,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: you can find the free attention calculator, attention tax calculator,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: and you'll get a 12-page report out of that to say,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: according to your answers, this is where your attention is going,
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: and this is how you could use your attention better.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: And then in the book, there's 18 different exercises that
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: there's a password in the book too. And you can
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: put that password online on my website and into the
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: center of attention and do them all online as well.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: The center of attention. Very cool. Adam, this has been awesome.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: And I think just really useful for people.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: I think people really need to think about their attention
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: and where it's going because it is driving their life.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: It really is. So it's an important topic. Hats off
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: to you, mate.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Good stuff. Thanks so much. I really appreciate the invite
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: and love meeting you.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Excellent.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: Cheers. Thanks, mate. See you, everyone.