{"id":1504,"date":"2012-12-03T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T19:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/?p=1504"},"modified":"2012-12-03T12:00:38","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T19:00:38","slug":"paying-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/career\/paying-attention","title":{"rendered":"Paying attention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>About 15 years ago, I noticed that I had a choice for what I paid attention to, and that it made a fundamental difference.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a recent example:\u00a0 In connection with the recent election in the US, we were all overloaded with a huge amount of signals.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not talking just about pro-Republican and pro-Democrat, which would be quite predictable.\u00a0 <!--more-->In addition, I was overwhelmed with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A much larger number of ANTI messages than PRO messages<\/li>\n<li>Deep discussions around particular issues such as religious freedom and the economy<\/li>\n<li>Local issues such as legalization of marijuana and civil unions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was one thing to watch all this happening on commercial TV (I understand that $7 billion was spent on the presidential campaigns this year), but we were wearing out the mute button on the remote control.\u00a0 So it was tolerable.<\/p>\n<p>Worse, for me, was the traffic that sprung up in my email and Facebook.\u00a0 Those forums are driven much more by emotion, and have no restrictions on being factually correct.\u00a0 As a result, I could get quite depressed about the nature of these discussions.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, I find that there&#8217;s certain groups and people which tend to drag me in the wrong direction.\u00a0 I would like to think that I&#8217;m optimistic, intelligent, and family-oriented.\u00a0 But after I talk to certain people, read certain newsletters, or listen to certain podcasts, I turn into someone I don&#8217;t like.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, I&#8217;ve had to limit this kind of contact.\u00a0 I have to consciously NOT pay attention to certain information, because of the effect it has on me.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the fascinating question, and I&#8217;d love to hear your feedback on this:\u00a0 What&#8217;s the difference between limiting information because it&#8217;s not good for me, versus limiting information just because it&#8217;s unpleasant and I might disagree with it?<\/p>\n<p>For me, it comes down to whether that information helps me to make intelligent choices, and to grow toward the person I&#8217;d like to become.\u00a0 That means I need to be open to different ideas and points of view, but not necessarily internalize it until I&#8217;ve had a chance to think more deeply.<\/p>\n<p>How do you figure out what YOU pay attention to?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 15 years ago, I noticed that I had a choice for what I paid attention to, and that it made a fundamental difference. Here&#8217;s a recent example:\u00a0 In connection <a href=\"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/career\/paying-attention\" class=\"more-link\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,42],"tags":[49,15,32,41],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-carl","4":"has-more-link","5":"post-1504","7":"format-standard","8":"category-career","9":"category-newsletter","10":"post_tag-balance","11":"post_tag-career-coaching","12":"post_tag-coaching-principles","13":"post_tag-influence"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1505,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions\/1505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}