Deadly Distractions!

We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. -Hilaire Belloc, (1870-1953), Anglo-French writer and historian.

Advertising Tidal Wave

1000 to 3000 marketing messages a day, maybe 365,000 in a year; could you handle that? What would it do to your brain? Could you actually sift and sort through all that information? What would it do to your ability to focus? Focus on what? Is it even possible with that many distractions to even figure out what’s important you? The world of marketing trying to convince you that you have no chance of getting what you want without their product or service! Well this is actually what’s happening to us every day!

We also seem to be obsessed these days with happiness. It seems like we actually need some “happiness expert” to show us the way and yet it always seems like we’re chasing a ghost. Eventually we get so overwhelmed that we turn to the “get happy fast” pill to take the shortcut to utopia. Why not? After all, we rationalize that the world has become so complicated that there probably might not be any other way to get there.

Russian Playboy

Although the situation might seem a bit desperate, there may be a way to fight back that’s not so hard after all. Let’s start by taking money out of the equation because there’s certainly enough evidence to prove that having a lot of currency will never in itself buy happiness; and just as an aside, what is happiness after all? According to dictionary.com it’s good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy; and how do we know when we have those? Well if we asked Aristotle, he would argue that we achieve it when we reach our goals that we clearly set for ourselves. That in turn opens the flood gates in our bodies as the happy chemicals get released naturally.

Thinking about this one night, I tuned in to 60 minutes to watch the story of Russian billionaire, Mikhail Prokhorov, the potential buyer of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets. The story itself became a microcosmic example of the crazy distracted world we have become as his tale twisted through the tabloid world of sexcapades and Russian politics, but I remained focused on the man himself. Even though they portrayed him as a playboy, I could see more. He was sharp and focused. As they interviewed him in his office I finally found the smoking gun as to why this guy was who he was!

Slaying Distractions

As they panned the room, the interviewer noticed that there was no computer. What? No computer? No instant access to the world markets? How could he possibly be so successful but so out of touch? As he fielded the questions, he simply stated, “we have too much information…we couldn’t possibly handle it all.” What was he talking about…what if we missed the news about the latest and greatest…the be all end all?

So here was this guy acting so non-chalantly about all of what had happened to him and his major lesson was that we have too many distractions and it’s as easy as shutting it down. I had heard this before. It’s right there for us to read all about it in Napoleon Hill’s Law of Success by focusing on a Definite Chief Aim and eliminating all that gets in the way of achieving it. I’ve also been the apprentice for the last 5 years to a real estate revolutionary who has changed the way residential real estate is sold; but even with a back stage pass, I find him to be elusive when anything steals his focus or time to get what he wants…and I finally get it!

Tags: advertising, Hilaire Belloc, Inspiration, marketing, Mikhail Prokhorov, Motivation, Napoleon Hill, Self Improvement