When the candidate next to you is a machine
I like to have lunch at a diner near my office. It’s time to detach from the noise. I turn off email, Slack, social media, and either read or focus on a problem I’m working on.
The head waitress knows me now. We usually chat briefly and she always gives me the best table, my food is always first out, and my coffee is never less than half-full. It’s nice. I have home court advantage there and can just relax and enjoy.
This time, I overheard the woman at the table next to me be incredibly rude to our waitress friend. I watched the energy instantly drained from her. It was clear she was offended by this woman. Everyone around us was plugged into their phones and oblivious. For a moment, I caught the waitress’ eye and I could tell she recognized I had heard. Somehow she knew I felt she didn’t deserve it. And just like that, her mood flipped. She was back and smiling again.
I realized how often I’m just like everyone else was that day. Completely oblivious with my face stuffed inside a phone. It’s so easy to give in. Let the phone take me away from whomever I’m talking to, whatever it is I’m actually trying to make progress on.
Noticing someone being rude at a restaurant isn’t ground breaking, but it made a difference for someone. We’re losing the ability to notice things, but more importantly — the ability to concentrate, focus deeply on something right in front of us. Our minds are controlled by screens, algorithms and notifications — computers that tell us what deserves our attention.
The problem is that observing our surroundings, piecing insights together by learning and mastering complex topics — these are the things that make a difference. These are the things that separate the work you can do from the work a machine can do.
This brings us to Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. In it, Newport highlights (1) “the ability to quickly master hard things” and (2) “the ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed” as the two most important skills in today’s economy. He goes on to explain that the ability to eliminate distractions, make important observations, and focus deeply on your work are the superpowers that the highest performers utilize to their advantage.
“Let your mind become a lens, thanks to the converging rays of attention; let your soul be all intent on whatever it is that is established in your mind as a dominant, wholly absorbing idea.” — Antonin Sertillanges
Are you spending your time on what matters? Are the “converging rays of attention” sourced from the signal or the noise? What are you going to do with your superpower? Or does your device control your potential?
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