The investment with a guaranteed return
What if I told you there was one investment you could make that has a guaranteed high rate of return?
Most people would want to know so that they could immediately invest. This is what all people seem to be looking for, yet most misuse this investment every day.
The investment you make, that I can guarantee a return on, is the investment you make with your ATTENTION.
Wherever you place you attention, you will receive that back, you will move closer to it. Be deliberate with it. Be judicious with it.
Just think about a simple example of going to a movie. You spent 2 hours with your attention devoted to it. What did you get when you left? Most likely, more thoughts about that movie, more conversations about that movie.
Your life moved for a bit in the direction of that movie. If there is a place you want your life to go, you must be paying attention to more things in that direction. Cut out negativity; cut out the extraneous and the frivolous. We don’t have to be perfect with our attention, but we do have to invest a significant portion of it toward things like where we want to go.
I am sure you can think of several occasions where you have explained critical information to someone, that they needed to know to solve a problem they were dealing with – yet they asked you the same question 10 minutes later. They had not been paying attention. Sometimes that person is us! If we keep our minds on what we want, we are more likely to collect the information that will be the most helpful for our goal.
Several years ago, I realized that this was happening with me through watching television. I had a few shows I would watch for entertainment, and after I watched them I felt that my creativity had been dampened. My mind was stuck in that entertainment place and less able to access the creative places. How often do we really “watch just one episode” and then get back to that project?
Your attention is your investment. You are guaranteed a return on this investment. Where will you put that investment? You’ll serve yourself well if you put it toward something you want more of in your life.