Attention Getter

A few years ago, our mission team was headed to Arizona to work on the Apache reservation. We had arrived at the Atlanta airport and our group was waiting for me to give them some check-in instructions once I talked with the airline. Once I knew our plan, I walked over to our team and said (somewhat loudly), “If everyone would gather over here, I’ll tell you what we need to do next.” Thankfully, our team responded well and moved in closer to hear me. The unexpected result of my announcement was that another ten travelers moved closer to our group as well even though they had no idea who I was. Apparently my voice was enough to get their attention and pull them in to our conversation.

This had me thinking about what it takes to get our attention. What conditions have to be right for us to notice a change in our surroundings? How focused do we need to be on what’s happening around us to detect something new? Does it take great tragedy to get our attention? Is there a need within us to hear something different? Much like the people in the airport, we can be moved by a voice which commands our attention. The question is what voice we let speak to us in a way that pulls us away from our current path.

Now What?

Gaining someones attention is not guaranteed to be an easy task. Whether it's your family, friends, colleagues, or people in your community, this commodity is precious and you don't want to waste it once you have it. Businesses, leaders, marketers and politicians expend ridiculous amounts of energy simply trying to gain the attention of their customers, followers, consumers, and constituents. Sadly, once that focus is directed so many of them have nothing of value to say. It certainly seems like an incredible amount of energy invested that produces zero actual gain.  

Getting their attention is the first part of the equation. Make sure you have something of value to offer once they're listening or you'll have to work twice as hard to get them next time.

Directed Misdirection

 I watched a TED Talk today and found it hilariously fascinating as your attention was directed one way while something else was going on in another direction. It's a fantastic example of how your mind processes and how and how quickly we can get someone to see what you want them to see.

Bit By Bit

We had a clean up day at Northridge today with 35 dedicated souls, which was extremely productive

for a three hour period of hard work. It gave us the time to get some new things done, but to also deep clean and spruce up areas that had been neglected for some time. It's often easy to let things go for a while, but eventually the mess becomes great enough to do something about it. The problem with waiting and allowing it to progressively worsen is that it takes longer to get it back to normal. If we'd just work at it a little bit at a time we'd find it stays in better condition and doesn't take a comprehensive, intense cleaning session to improve it.

Sounds like a lot of different things in our lives, doesn't it?