How to avoid the illusion of attention?

jerome ngassa
2 min readAug 15, 2016

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How to avoid the illusion of attention?

The Silver back gorilla

Take a look at the following story “the monkey Business illusion” on YouTube, this experiment was made by two world renown psychologist Christopher chabris, Daniel Simon in the video, they film two teams of students passing basketballs back and forth. One team wore black T-shirt, the other white T-shirt. Both teams move in circles weaving in and out-suddenly in the middle of the video, something unexpected happens: a student dress as a Giant silver Back Gorilla walks in to the centre of the room, pounds his chest and promptly disappears.

At the end you viewers are asked if they notice anything unusual. Answer: half the viewers shake their heads in astonishment. Silver back gorilla? What Silverback gorilla?

We are pretty confident that we notice everything that take place in front of us but to the contrary that is not the case. But in reality we often see what we are focusing on. So the unexpected, the outlier, the rare even- the unnoticed interruptions can be as large and conspicuous as a Silverback

Perhaps you know the expression elephant in the room. It refers to an obvious subject that nobody want to discuss. A kind of Taboo .So let us call in contrast “The silver back gorilla in the room “an utmost and urgent important topic — we absolutely need to address, but nobody is aware about.

It is not that we miss every extraordinary event. But whatever goes unnoticed from us remains unheeded and therefore outside our expectation. This is why we cling to sneaky dangerous illusion that we perceive everything of importance.

So how do you purge yourself of the illusion of might?

Well confront all possible and seemingly impossible scenarios.

What unexpected might happen?

What is no one addressing?

Pay attention to events silence as much as to noise. Check the periphery not only the centre

And remember that something unusual can be huge and we still fail to notice it.After all randomness does not look random. Hence being big and distinctive is not enough to be seen. The unusual and large thing must be expected, hence random are events random but how they affect some people is not.

Since we cannot predict the outlier, the rare event, the exception, our decision process must be based on the clear consequences of the event on you or how the event will affect us if it’s happen, even we do not know how likely it is to happen. All you have to do is to mitigate the consequences.

Yes invest in preparedness, just as no general ever trust so implicitly in maintenance of peace without as not to make himself ready for a war — which actually may not be wedged has nevertheless been declared. So as the great Scientist Pasteur put it this way “Chance favour the prepared mind.” For more insights and in the meantime get for free your own 5*50 Counter-intuitive natural productivity process that raise your productivity and energy by 50%.Get it now at www.optionalityprofits.com

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