Posts Tagged ‘Attention’

I wanted to share a story that I read today. The story has to do with the gift of listening…

“Decades ago the editors of Psychology Today magazine staged an experiment to establish the effects of listening and asking easy, probing questions. Staff members flew to LAX from New York. The editor flew in later, with the intention of meeting his seatmate and getting to know him on the five-hour flight. For the duration of the flight, the Psychology Today editor asked questions and listened. He asked more questions based on what he felt his seatmate wanted to talk more about, and avoided areas he felt he didn’t. His total “purpose for being” during the five hours, was to have the conversation be all about his seatmate.

As suspected, throughout the flight the seatmate never asked anything about the editor, not even his name. Read the rest of this entry »

Volkswagen had just launched the VW Beetle in 1960 to the U.S. market. Detroit was busy making vehicles which were expanding in size to suit growing baby boomer families. The Beetle was certainly unique in looks but that didn’t appear to be such a good thing..it wasn’t selling. To top things off, the round, lady-bug-like vehicle was produced in Wolfsburg, Germany at a plant recently controlled by the Nazis. To solve the problem, Volkswagen hired ad campaign manager Doyle Dane Bernbach. Mr. Bernbach came up with a print ad featuring a very small picture of the Beetle in the upper left hand corner of the page with the words Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever been in your car driving to a particular destination only to arrive and realize that you didn’t remember seeing anything or anyone along the way? Or maybe you started eating your dinner, took a few bites and then noticed the plate was completely empty. I think we’ve all had similar experiences. These are examples of mindlessness…we’re on “autopilot”.

We all fall into habits that result in our not being present or tuned in to our own lives. By doing this we might miss out on some amazing opportunities. Or we might be unaware of some really important information related to Read the rest of this entry »

Let me start out by saying…I don’t think multi-tasking makes sense and it does not make me more productive. But, before you pass judgment, hear me out. Then, I’m open to a lively discussion on the topic…

I turned to the internet for a definition of multi-tasking and found the following definitions:

performance of multiple tasks at one time; and

execution by a single central processing unit of two or more programs at once, either by simultaneous operation or by rapid alternation between the programs.

First, I’m going to challenge the idea of performing “multiple tasks at one time.” The brain can only do one thing at a time. It may be able to switch Read the rest of this entry »

Wow! We had a garage sale last Saturday and raised enough money to buy a gently used hot tub, landscaping plants AND patio furniture! We spent two weeks gathering things together…from our house and friends, family, etc. We offered to “pick up” if they wanted to de-clutter their space and donate their unwanted items. We stored everything in the garage until the night before. We “organized” everything in the back courtyard. Saturday morning at 8am we put a sign on top of one of our cars in front of the house…and, voila, we were busy, busy!

We brought down the sign and closed the doors at noon. We gathered all the unsold items. One shopper had left us a business card from a thrift store in town telling us they would pick up any of the leftovers. We called, they came, we filed one trash can…and we were finished.

On Sunday we browsed the ads on craigslist.com and struck gold…$695 would get us a gently-used, 6-person hot tub DELIVERED that afternoon! The boys waited for the delivery while the girls went off to spend the remaining money on plants and furniture.

Now it’s Wednesday. The hot tub was operational and used by everyone last night. Plants were put into the ground on Monday and Tuesday. The furniture is due to be delivered in a couple days. I’ll be sure to post pictures when everything is put in place.

What can I say, the potential’s unlimited. We all wanted a hot tub but someone said we “couldn’t afford it”. Well, as long as we all thought that way, we were absolutely right. We would not have a hot tub today because we would not have given it any attention whatsoever. Instead, we said let’s see what we can do…let’s see what’s possible. Let’s take one step in that direction and see where it leads. The rest is history.

Take the first step. Figure out the next one after that! That hot tub is sure making today a Better Day for me…what would make your day better?