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Are you ready to take the steps necessary to thrive? Join us every episode as host Adam Gragg discusses what is holding us back and how to move forward with purpose, along the way developing healthy relationships and navigating life transitions while overcoming fear, stress and anxiety. Adam is a family therapist, mental health professional and life coach helping individuals and organizations find the transformational clarity that unleashes hope. Live the life you want, the legacy you decide.
Ep122_attention_pt1
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] So I sat down last night to check the news on my phone and I was going to do it and committed to doing it, at least I thought I was, for five minutes and ended up getting sucked into my phone for over 25 minutes. And it's discouraging. It's demoralizing. It's life [00:01:00] sucking. It's not good. And then I feel horrible because I didn't keep a promise to myself.
I made some kind of commitment to myself. ~So I.~ And I'm convinced there's a real ~cascading, ~negative cascading effect when we get distracted that starts a chain of events in our life that ends up potentially derailing our entire day when we don't get it under control. So, today we're going to talk about you own your attention.
It's your property. You own it. This is episode number 122 of the Decide Your Legacy podcast. I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I've been a coach, a content creator, and speaker, mental health professional, for 25 years. I help people. My passion is to help people find clarity, to face their biggest fears, ~to ~to develop the confidence they need to live their legacy.
And I talk about stuff I struggle with myself. I don't have it all figured out. I'm a fellow traveler. You can teach anything that I talked to you about to your six year old and they can grasp the concepts as well. I want to share with you something uncomfortable that I have done [00:02:00] recently because I don't find much more important to you improving your mental health and facing your fears and not much more damaging to your mental health than just playing it safe. So I went to a coffee shop today and I asked some strangers different questions. The question was, what's a distraction that you have in your life that makes you angry? I talked to three different people and got three different answers. So one said, it makes me angry when my kids distract me.
~Okay, and then we, I asked her what she could do about it. It was a great conversation. Interesting. ~So another said, doesn't mean she felt good about it, but another said that they have this sense of urgency when something is out of order that they have to fix it right now. And that was very frustrating.
And another said that all the notifications that pop up, well, really, It makes her angry that she isn't aware at how life deflating it is when she gets consumed by distractions. So let's start with an action today because this is the podcast you do. You don't just listen to it. You get to take an action, an uncomfortable action as [00:03:00] well.
So what's a distraction that makes you angry in your life? Write it down, speak it into your phone. What's a distraction that makes you angry? The value of your attention is priceless. When you allow for distractions and detractors and fear to take control, you will pay with your attention.
Warren Buffett said, price is what you pay, value is what you get. Professional pitchers, they have to throw the ball over a 60 From a 60 feet out, 60 feet, 6 inches, okay, over a 17 inch plate, home plate. They don't have to hit. Some of them can, but very few historically have been able to. They don't have to even know how to field the baseball.
Their focus is on throwing their ball, the ball. That's their attention. Every once in a while, you have this crazy outlier like Shohei Ohtani who makes 70 million dollars a year. ~Shohei Ohtani. And that's what he's making. 700 million over 10 years. He, he's an anomaly. ~Max [00:04:00] Scherzer, Justin Verlander, I believe they're the highest paid pitchers in 2024, both make over 40 million a year.
That's insane. They're so zoned in and that's what we can do when we zone in our attention. We can do incredible stuff when we're willing to say no to all these distractions. And zero in on what we're going to focus on right now, whether that's some aspect of our career, whether that's our people skills, whether that's being a dad, whether that's being a great spouse, whether that's being an engineer, ~we can do amazing things when we focus.~
And there's three keys to you owning your attention. Three major things that will have a huge impact on your life if you zero in on these. And that's one of them is to start your day off the right way. One of them is to end your day the right way and to zero in and Focus on this and do whatever you can to fight for it and the other one is to take back, to identify and fight that fear that is keeping you distracted.
~That you're not addressing crucial stuff that we are going to address today.~ So those are the three points and let's jump into the first one. Start your day off right. Those who can focus [00:05:00] their attention and not be distracted, that's going to become the modern day superpower. The people that can stay on track and get things done.
They're intentional with their attention. They have a plan and a routine that they follow. Starting your day off right is something within your grasp, and it's going to be unique to you. I'm going to share with you in a moment what I do to start my day off right that helps me, and it may or may not help you.
It'll give you some inspiration though, some ideas, because it'll show you what's working for me, what has worked for me, what I strive to do every day. Not perfectly. Make it a seven. It takes time. It's taken time for me to build this habit. There's parts of it that I still struggle with, but I strive to get it done every day.
Now, you will be at a place in your life when you realize, and you sense the pain, that I am wasting all this time. I am not owning my attention. It's getting sucked into these other situations and this drama and other companies wanting my attention, and I'm not doing the stuff that I want to focus on the most.
It's taking me [00:06:00] to a place that I don't want to be. It's depleting me. It's defeating me. I'm discouraged. You know, it's been said, and you've probably heard this when it comes to marketing, that you have to hear something ~seven times, an advertisement ~seven times before somebody remembers what it is. Or if you run a company, that your employees need to hear something seven times before it actually sticks for them.
And I believe that. I mean, it's frustrating to think that someone has to hear something seven times. ~You know, certainly it with its, when it's a policy or it's a procedure. ~But when it's a core value, when it's something that you want to stick, you have to repeat it and be creative about it. If you're a leader, and many of you listening are, your responsibility is to communicate with your team in a way where it actually sticks.
And so the core values that you have in your organization, whatever they may be, you're going to have to repeat them a number of times and it's never going to stop. You're going to always be communicating and over communicating this kind of information. Do it in a respectful way, have a good tone, ~but okay.~
So you're Start of the day, just imagine for you, if you can imagine your day for a week, you starting off at the same time, getting up at the same time in the morning and doing the same routine every day, even though you're discouraged, even though you don't [00:07:00] want to, ~even though at times you feel like it's not really worth it, ~even though you want to sleep in and you feel that feeling and you're able to rise above it, what if you had that kind of success and you actually do it for a whole week?
Imagine how you would feel. I mean, you would feel, I would guarantee you that at the end of that week, you'd feel like this is so worth it. Because you're treating yourself with respect. You're following through for yourself. You're showing up for yourself. So here's what I do in the morning. I get up at 5.
30 every day. So I want to get up every day and I don't have a day off. So even on Sundays, even on Saturdays, when I'm at my best, I'm getting up at 5. 30 a. m. That's when my alarm goes off. And then I use the bathroom, of course. What I've done in this is recently a new habit that I've started to make stick is I put on my headphones and I start listening to a book that I've been listening to on Audible, whatever that book may actually be.
And then that perks me up a little bit and I go out and I start coffee and I get up before, my daughter gets up, 99 percent of the time. So after I get up, put my headphones on, I will use the restroom, put my headphones on, and make coffee, start coffee, then I come back and [00:08:00] make my bed, which I don't always want to do.
It's like the first hard thing that I do, and I make my bed, I put the pillows on, all that. You know, and I drink a big glass of water, 32 ounce glass of water, right in the morning. Yes, first thing, fresh cold water. I like it. It doesn't go down fast, but I think it tastes really good. While the coffee's making, then I grab a cup of coffee and I sit in a comfy space.
Now lately, because the weather's been really hot during the day and it's been nice in the morning, I'm sitting outside on my back porch ~and I will show you a video of my back porch. If you click the link, you can see it. There's a little short that I made of that. It was kind of cool with my dog. ~But then what I do is I have this routine that I do my daily five and five, five things that happened yesterday that were positive, five things I'm excited about later today.
I have a Bible reading plan devotional thing that I go through, whatever it is, at The time. I mean, lately it's through the Bible app and it takes me about 15 minutes to do it, and then I read a book for 15 minutes. So that's my deal right there. So I'm, I'm sitting down for half an hour drinking my coffee, and that time before where I'm getting ready takes usually about 10 minutes or so.
So that's about a 45 minute period of time, block of time that I can do. I don't bring my phone wherever I'm doing my reading and devotional time, I keep it [00:09:00] away and, or my, and my journaling time. So those things happen right there. ~So, so that thing, it's, it's five. The five and five. I do it in about five minutes.~
I do it quick. Okay, so ~reading, ~reading the Bible time is about 15 minutes and then it's about 15 minutes of reading. And so the whole thing is about 45 minutes. So my challenge for you is to not take my routine, but to figure out your own and to give it a month to settle in and to start by just writing something down and think idealistically.
Idealistically, like this is how it would go if it was in an ideal situation where it was just going great, everything's working and clicking and all that. So you're aiming at the ideal and then you're measuring your progress backwards. So I didn't look at this and create this routine and say even a month after starting it, I mean, this has taken a long time to figure this thing out, and I have different spaces that help me to relax and it's cold outside.
I sit in a different place than I do ~when it's ~when it's hot outside and it's cooler on the back porch. But I will sit in the front. and I like to be around people. Sometimes I will have the routine and go to a coffee shop and do this. I have done that for consistent periods of time as that's a cool place as well.
These spaces that help me focus and when I actually [00:10:00] do, obviously I have days when I don't do this sometimes, I mean I have bad days and good days, but I get it done. These days, you know, 80 percent of the time or so, and that's at least I feel good about that. But again, you measure your progress backwards.
You set your aim forward. You set your aim towards the ideal. You measure it backwards. So you write this out and just put it on a piece of paper. And I'd love to even see it. You know, this would be a great thing to share and to send to me at Adam at Decide Your Legacy. If you want to share it with me, I promise you that I will check out at least the first 20 of you that send those to me and give you some feedback on it, if that interests you.
And. I would love, I mean, the feedback I'm going to give you is just encouragement. ~I mean, ~basically, because I don't know what's going to work perfect for you. I mean, I may have a little bit of feedback, I guess, if it's like too much, possibly, but I think you could send it just because it's going to give you some accountability and be inspiring.
And, you know, it's kind of cool to have some accountability in your life, just naturally. So, so what are you going to do to start this routine? So that's the first step is just to clarify it, get it down, and then you can start it. So the [00:11:00] next key is your evening. Okay, so I start off my day right when I end my day right.
I end my day right when I've started, more likely to end my day right when I've started my day off right. So if I make a mistake and I don't start my day off right and I don't end my day off right, well, I just commit to myself to not do it two times in a row. So you got to have this attitude that you're going to give yourself some grace because some mornings you're just not going to feel good and you're going to not get up when you want to get up and you're not going to have the routine because there's a crisis going on and you got to deal with that crisis or you didn't get a project done for work and you got to wake up and get ready for that speaking presentation that you have or get ready for that performance evaluation because you dropped the ball.
But the key is, is to forgive yourself quickly and then make the correction so you don't do it two days in a row. So, the end of your day is a routine as well. And it's going to be a different routine than it is for you, than it is for me. I like to start my evening routine at 8 p. m. And start the winding down [00:12:00] process.
My bedtime is 9. 30. That's my goal is like eyes closed at 9. 30, eyes open at 5. 30, and that's what I have in my calendar and my schedule. That's my goal right there. So again, it's not perfection, but I'm striving to do better than I did last week and yesterday and striving to, if I mess up, have a better day the next day.
That's my goal. If I end my day following through a routine that I do consistently, I find that it's easier for me to focus because that routine keeps me focused. It's that intentionality that keeps me from getting sucked into any kind of distraction that could happen. And there's tremendous amount of distraction when you get up and when you go to bed.
Intentionally focusing. Intentional with your attention and that plan is able to direct me because I know what's next. I know what has to be done and I know it's going to be annoying and irritating at first. So what I like to do personally for my evening routine is eight o'clock, you know, that's it.
I'm grinding, I'm winding down. So that's brush my teeth. No [00:13:00] more food. In fact, I try to do no more food after 7. 30. I floss my teeth, and then I pull out my journal, and I sit in a comfy place without my phone, and sometimes it's in my bedroom, sometimes it's out on the sofa with headphones on, sometimes it's somewhere else like the back porch or the front porch.
I have my little spaces, and then I do my evening three and three. And what that is, is I focus on the three wins that happen during the day, whatever it is. I mean, I'm not picky about it, I'm not perfectionistic about it. Three wins, and then my three wins for the next day. And those are really my three objectives for the next day.
And that can take me about five minutes. Now, it hasn't always taken me five minutes, and sometimes it takes me more time, but in general, it's about a five minute activity now when I focus in. Now if I get distracted then it's going to be a 10 15 minute activity. If I'm focused, then it's going to be a 5 minute activity because I'm channeling the energy in my brain to make sure it is actually focusing on the right thing.
You know, on your Apple Watch, there's a timer app on there and [00:14:00] I've just started to use this in recent weeks, actually, and there's like a 3 minute, 30 minute, 15 minute button. Sometimes I hit that 3 minute button when I look at the news. I hit that five, 15 minute button when I'm doing a 15 minute reading activity.
And so I stay focused. Again, it's a superpower. And it frees you up to do all this other great stuff with the other time that you have because you're efficient with your time. I love the fact that I can start work at eight, I can end work at five. I don't always do that ~and then work at five, ~but I'm getting better and better at it so I can cut it off and then I'm more productive because I'm more focused in between.
These distractions, I'm minimizing. I'm learning to say no. I'm learning not to get stuck onto someone else's agenda because that's what they want from me. They have a different plan for my time than I have for my time. And they're not respecting my time. People aren't often respecting your time, but first and foremost, you have to respect your time.
You have to be able of a point in your life where you love yourself enough that you're not going to get angry at yourself anymore for being distracted and sucked in to other companies and other people's [00:15:00] that what they want to do with your time. That's crucial right there. So as I'm winding down, I want to walk you through this again.
~8 p. m. Oh, I forgot this. Okay. So ~8 p. m. brush, brush my teeth, floss my teeth, but I make lunch for the next day. If it's a work day. Crucial for me. And I really like doing that. It's a great way to start your day because it's already made. I don't have to get distracted by it. So the end of the day, it prepares me for the next day.
I do my three and three. That's the three wins of the day. Three objectives for the next day. I read for 15 minutes and I don't have a phone in my room. I don't have a TV in my room at night. I have an old fashioned, old school alarm clock. ~That's ~The next thing I do is ~I, I, I ~I focus on whatever items I need for the next day.
~Okay. ~So that process has started with me making my lunch for the next day, but sometimes, ~well, in fact, all the time, ~it's ~whatever I focus on, ~whatever clothes I'm gonna wear the next day. And I think about like, am I getting up to workout? Is it a workout day? I work out ~mo most, ~mostly in the evening after work.
But some days I do decide that I'm gonna work out in the morning. I'll think about it the night before. Ideally, that's it. So, and then, if it's something, a book or, that I'm going to read in the morning, I have that [00:16:00] out as well. So, I have a certain book that I might be reading, I'm going to have that convenient.
~So, the things that are convenient in my life, I had, ~I had a friend, a co worker actually, he challenged me to, at night, have some kind of a quote you're memorizing, or a poem that you're going to focus on, or a scripture verse you're focusing on, and then you have that first. on your mind in the morning.
You have that on your mind right when you go to bed at night. I've done that before in the past, but that was a challenging thing that he challenged me with. So kind of cool. Thanks, Lloyd. That's good stuff. So I like thinking about it as it is going to make everything better when I'm focused on intentionally channeling my attention.
So an action you can take here is again, ~like, just like the morning routine, ~start by just writing out your ideal evening. You know, what time are you going to go to bed is a great thing, but then what are you going to do? When are you going to wind it down? And then what kind of actions are you going to take?
My stuff is just an idea for you. And my daughter would be the first to tell you that I've had seasons of my life when I haven't done these things as well as I have now or as well as I have in the past, because I go through ups and downs. ~Like, I'm embarrassed sometimes even sharing this stuff. ~I want to give it as an example, but don't look at me as having all this [00:17:00] figured out.
~I mean, you know, ~I try to share that I'm a work in progress and I've had some really good couple months on focusing in my morning and evening time. But ~you know, ~I've had tremendous difficulties with sleep at times in my life. ~I mean, ~so much so as I've shared before with many of you that ~I've ended up, ~I once ended up in the hospital because I hadn't slept ~for, ~for what I believe was four nights in a row.
And what I have found is obviously it's harder to do your evening routine and morning routine when you're struggling with sleep, but it's also essential to get it snapped back into place because that's what's going to help you with those sleep habits again. And if I have something to focus my attention on, like my morning routine and my evening routine, ~it, ~It minimizes the worry.
I mean, that was what was going on for me. I was dealing with tremendous amount of processing grief and stuff going on in my life. So I was worried all the time and I was stuck in my head with all I knew and everything. I mean, like with just being a therapist for 25 years or whatever, but at that point I was, 22 years or whatever, I mean, I got stuck in my head and I was worrying, but your routines get you out of that.
You know, just like having a workout planned and you [00:18:00] go and you do it even though you don't want to, but you go and do it. That's going to channel that mental focus towards something that's productive and get you out of that anxiety and towards something that's much more hopeful. You're focusing on being productive.
The potential, the opportunity, the progress, and not the obstacle and the pain and the limitation and all the stuff that could go wrong. So that's your action. What are you going to do? You're going to write down the evening routine. And then I challenge you as a bonus to make it stick is just to do that three and three.
You know, you write down the three wins from the day and then your three main objectives that you're going to focus on when you start your day tomorrow. And now the final key is to stop the spiral. So stop the spiral. What I'm talking about here is figure out what the fear is behind your distraction, because distraction is a sign of not focusing on the most crucial tasks in our life.
We're distracted from something, right? So we wouldn't call it a distraction if there wasn't something underneath it that we want to be focusing on that we're not actually focusing on. One of my [00:19:00] core values that I strive for, and I know what I'm doing the best of my life as I'm Facing my fears, consistently doing things that are going to be facing my fears.
I know when addiction is another word for a distraction, that you're engaging in something that's pulling you away from facing your fears and dealing with the core issues in your life. What is the fear that you're not actually addressing? It's easier for me to be distracted than it is to face my core issues.
If I can identify the core issues that I have and start doing something to take a step towards them and not pull away from them, then I know that I'm going to be starting to make progress in my life. ~Even if it doesn't actually feel like it. ~For me, if I can find the meaning and the purpose. in what I'm actually doing, it helps me to see that I'm doing an engaging distraction out of fear.
So if I know I have a bigger vision in my life, I know that I want to impact people at a higher level. I know that I want to move towards these goals with my health. I know that I want to move towards these goals with my [00:20:00] business. I know I want to move towards these relationship goals, and I have this bigger purpose in my life to help other people in some fashion.
So I can just speak for myself, but for me, it's helping. Others face their fears and find clarity and move towards their vision in their life so they can build self confidence after they face those fears. And I see that and I connect people and then I'm driven by that. So this bigger purpose is very helpful for me, adding to my life by not numbing the pain any longer and facing the things that are really crucial for me to face.
So what, would make it so that fear won't be a factor for you. That's the action you can take. If you had a bigger purpose in your life, then what fears would you say, you know, it's worth it. I'm not gonna worry about that embarrassment or that rejection. I'm not gonna worry about the challenge. That uncomfortable emotion, I'm going to let go of it.
It's basically saying ~that, ~what would I do if fear wasn't a factor? What would I do if I had more confidence in my life? What decision would I make that [00:21:00] was different? I know for a lot of people, it's to challenge themselves to face something in their life that they've been avoiding. And it could be something professionally, where if they were able to let go of this fear and avoid the spiral, because that's the distraction.
The distraction is taking you down the spiral. Then they would make different decisions in their life. Here's something you can put your attention to because if you focus on having a bigger vision in your life and you clarify that vision, which you can put your attention into clarifying your vision by hitting the link to Shatterproof Yourself and identifying in the very first section how to clarify your vision.
So this is a mini course that you can go through in a half an hour and it's seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. Clarifying your vision is the first step. That's going to help you channel that focus into something bigger than yourself. It's going to make it easier to have that morning routine, much easier to have the morning routine, much easier to have the evening routine.
[00:22:00] You have to admit that your evening routine and morning routine are off in order for you to want to do something about them. And then you're going to have to have something to focus on. Well, I'm giving you that thing right now. So it's a process you can go through ~to ~to gain more information on inspiration and to take action in your life.
So hit the link to shatterproof yourself, seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. Start your day off right. End your day off right. Stop the spiral of fear in your life. Those are the three keys to owning your attention today, right now. And you can start working on this immediately because today is a day That has an ending to it.
And tomorrow is a day that has a beginning to it. So you can start by making some practical changes. What would be ~the toughest one, ~the toughest change for you? Would it be that beginning of the day or the end of the day? Or would it be that fear and addressing it and identifying it? Whatever the toughest, of these three would [00:23:00] be for you,
I want you to make a comment and give me some feedback on why it would be the toughest for you to address right now in your life. Insight is 20 percent of transformational change. Action is 80%. An okay plan that you act upon on is a hundred times better than a great plan that you do nothing with. So what resonates with you most today?
By the end of the day, I challenge you to apply something from today. And if you want it to really stick, talk about a concept or a tool with somebody else. I'm going to sign off the way that I always do. Make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for. 10 years after you're gone.
You decide your legacy, no one else. I appreciate you greatly, and I'll see you next time. [00:24:00]