One of the best ways to get attention.
In a world full of so many, many people trying to get attention.
Is to not try to get attention.
Attention.
Attention is precious.
Scarce.
And valuable.
And social media in particular has taught us.
(If we chose to interpret things this way).
That attention is the goal.
And as a consequence.
We increase the frequency of our attendance.
We increase the size of our message.
We plump our colourful plumage to the max.
And we wave.
Mouthing:
Me!
Me!
Me!
So that all we are really doing.
Is adding to the noise.
Flip.
But what if we flipped it?
What if.
When we showed up.
Instead of trying to get as much attention as possible.
We endeavoured to give as much attention as possible.
What if we spent our time working out how we could help.
Working out what we can give.
Instead of spending our time working out how we wanted to be helped.
Working out what we can get.
I’ll Start.
I’ll start.
Some people think I write well.
If you are one of them.
If you’d like to write better yourself.
And if you think it’d help you to explore what goes through my mind.
As I write my 3,650 stories.
Stories that I want you to read every single day.
For 10 years.
Stories that now have a following of over 10,000 people.
After 20 months.
Email michael@50odd.co.uk.
And I’ll chat for half an hour to the first two people that contact me.
You can have my attention.
In full.
At a time that works for us both.
And all I ask.
Is that you.
In the coming days.
You help someone too.
2 Comments
Nice one Michael, it reminds me of the “two ears, one mouth .. use them in that proportion” thing I heard years ago. This had a big impact on me. Rather than turning up to clients and trying to “woo” them with my credentials and experience, if I intentionally tried to shut the flip up for a while, and just ask open questions which were 100% oriented towards making them feel comfortable about revealing the realities of their challenge … then the conversations were way better for eveyone, including me. It would be interesting to think about how social media can be used to illicit such conversations, rather than “showing off” stuff we’ve done.
Mark thank you for taking the time to comment.
I’m with you.
Content falls into 3 categories I think:
1. Chest beating.
2. Moaning.
3. Gifts.
Choose 3.
Sorry I missed you a week or two ago.
Next time I hope.
Michael