Living Life Distracted

Pay attention!

How many times have we heard that growing up? From our parents, teachers, coaches, employers, and peers? Likely, far too often before we want to admit.

Yet how much of our lives do we live distracted? Oblivious to what's happening around us?

How many opportunities to say, do, start, accomplish, or finish something that could change our lives (or the lives of others) for the better are missed, simply because we're living life distracted?

How many chances to become better, faster, stronger, smarter, more equipped, more prepared, or more successful have we missed out on because we were not AWARE, not paying attention to the world around us?

There is a significant cost to living life distracted, your future success.

Yet, sadly, far too many people blindly pay that price every single day of their lives, oblivious to what COULD be, if they only stopped walking through life unaware.

The great innovators of the past, names like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Madame Curie, George Washington Carver, and Nikola Tesla, lived their lives in constant fascination with the world around them. They saw the challenges of their day as opportunities, and they seized upon them. In doing so, they made the world a better place to live.

It has been said the wealthiest place in the world is the cemetery. In its hallowed ground lie the inventions never created, the businesses never launched, the books never written, the songs never penned, the medical advances never discovered, and the lives never fully developed to their full potential.

Why?

Because these people lived distracted lives. They walked through life, but never really LIVED life. They never discovered, developed, and deployed their own unique Black Belt Leader Within to become a world-class, Black Belt Master at who they are and what they do.

In part, I blame parents who are SO busy living their own lives, they forget their calling as parents, as leaders, is to prepare their children to lead themselves well and make good choices. The role of a leader is to train and equip those who will one day take their place. This starts in the home.

We stick our children in front of a TV, a tablet, and that becomes their babysitter, their teacher, and that becomes the example that molds and shapes their lives.

Television teaches our children to think in 7-8 minute chunks, and then enjoy the myriad of distractions we call commercials, all taking our focus off of becoming the best version of ourselves by distracting us with the next, new shiny object. In doing so, it conveniently separates us from the money we could use to invest in ourselves, improve ourselves, or start a new business endeavor.

Millions of children around the world now have a smartphone, giving them unfettered access to a world they are not mentally and emotionally equipped to deal with, making them the willing prey of the predators who lurk therein.

Some recent studies show we're spending an average of 2-1/2 hours a day on social media, mindlessly scrolling our feeds and consuming content that keeps us distracted, and is feeding a growing sense of isolation. Gen Z, those 18-25, are spending as much as 4-6 hours a day on social media. With that comes anxiety and depression, which only serve to feed even more distraction.

In part, I blame educators who have stopped teaching our children HOW to think, how to pay attention to the world around them, how to channel that childlike curosity into meaningful pursuits, and helping to cultivate and develop their giftedness so they can rise to their full potential and step into their greatness.

Today, the education system seems to be more focused on teaching children WHAT to think, attempting to put them in a box and essentially telling them you can be this, but nothing more. They are taught NOT to pay attention, to think for themselves, but to mindlessly go through life doing as you're told to do.

This is NOT the education system that birthed the creative innovators of our past. Nor is it the education system that has birthed previous generations of thinkers, philosophers, authors, entrepreneurs, and creators.

Rather than encouraging and rewarding the pursuit of excellence, the education system continues to dumb down curriculum, lower standards, making it easier for the next generation to accept average, mediocre, or lackluster as the acceptable standard. Under the guise of equity, they don't help those who are struggling for a number of reason to unlock their potential, they simply drag everyone else down to the same level by lowering the standards of measuring success.

What we reward, we get more of.

When we reward the fact it is okay to simply do the minimum required, and we make it clear that being extraordinary or successful is no longer the goal - we encourage the next generation to live their lives distracted.

But at some point, we have to have that difficult conversation with ourselves. We have to look ourselves in the mirror and admit that WE are living a distracted life.

Why?

Because we've allowed other people, other institutions, to dictate how we will live our lives. We've accepted that living a status quo life, just like everyone else, is enough. We've chosen to settle for less, and we've said NO to those lofty hopes, dreams, and ambitions we had as a child. We've given up on our future selves.

We live distracted lives by default because we choose to live life this way.

There is a cost to living life distracted, and that's your future success.

And until something changes, nothing changes.

But, there's a cost to paying attention as well.

I believe within each and every one of us there is a Black Belt Leader waiting to be discovered, developed, and deployed to do great things. The seeds of greatness lie dormant within us all until we begin to nurture them. And when we begin to nurture those seeds of greatness, they take root, grow, expand, and our lives are never the same as a result.

This requires that we challenge the status quo, that we question the limiting beliefs we've accepted as truth, even though they are lying to us every day. It requires we STOP doing the things that are holding us back and START doing the things that will move us forward.

There's a cost to that.

We have to PAY ATTENTION to our thoughts, as they govern our saying and doing. As we think, we become! Therefore, we have to improve the quality of our thinking because the quality of our thinking dictates the quality of life we are experiencing.

There's a cost to that.

This requires that we reprogram our mindset to see, seek, and seize the endless opportunities that are before us every day. To do that, we have to embrace the fact that the quality of thinking that got you to where you are today will at best only keep you there. It won't move you forward.

It requires that, daily, you read, learn, stretch, grow, and improve the quality of your thinking. You do that through a personal growth program. You do that through investing in a mentor or a coach who can help you go from where you are to where you truly want to be.

It requires that you turn off the TV, you stop mindlessly scrolling social media, you examine those you've allowed in your inner circle and replace those who are holding you back with others who will propel you forward.

It requires you to turn off the radio, stop binging streaming services, and start listening to podcasts of individuals who will teach you how to lead yourself well, make good choices, and help you discover, develop, and deploy your potential so you become a Black Belt Master of your chosen art, profession, skill, or trade.

There's a cost to that...but the reward is priceless.

Or, you can keep doing the same things the same way you've always done them, and live life distracted. If you choose to do that, you'll add to the vast wealth of untapped potential, unrealized greatness, lying dormant in cemeteries around the world as a testament to another life not really lived.

You're paying the price one way or another.