The secret's not secret: Time is MORE than money

Time is worth more than money, pay attention...

The information age was great. What would you like to know? You can learn it! If you have time to look beyond the first page of google results, you might even learn it for free. Who would you like to learn from? You can web 2.0 follow them around all day! And if you have time to think about their posts enough to reply with understanding compassion, you might just get a discount on their next class, or... meet them in person!

That's right, if you have time to type the right combination of letters on a keyboard, you'll receive all the most relevant wisdom of the ages (and up to the minute breaking news)... but then you'll also need time to read, listen, or otherwise experience that information. Understanding requires experience. Experience requires time. So you might want to google the phrase, "where to find time". But I'll save you the time of doing that and just give you the answer right now.

The most valuable piece of information the information age has to offer is...

Noone on Earth has more hours in their day than anyone else. You can compare your money, assets, liabilities, ethnicity, relationships, social web followers, and so on, but you have just as many hours in your day as everyone else.

So to reach your goals, you need time to find better information, and connect with better experts, and experience that information, and test that information, and refine that information, until you are successful. But you've discovered that you already have as much time as everyone else. So what's missing? Is it money? Fame? Plastic Surgery?

Does money make any of the divorced and materialistic parents separated from their children better parents? Does fame make the top 10 rappers on MTV's video countdown more talented than the dozens of talented MCs winning a featured spot at their local venue or battling on GrindTimeNow? Did plastic surgery make Michael Jackson more attractive or Donda West happier (R.I.P. to both)? The answer is clearly no, so let's get back to time...

We learned from the information age that we have the same time and access to knowledge as everyone else, but let's PAY MORE ATTENTION to what that REALLY MEANS:

Time is not as simple-minded a concept - as the people who think it is - think it is - LOL! Hours and minutes are not set in stone, as we will see more clearly with earthquakes shifting the Earth's axis and the duration of our days. Don't Worry, I know better than to bore or offend you with a showcase of intelligence explaining a concept that goes beyond first grade addition - LOL!

But to reach your goals, you must understand that time is really a comparison of 2 numbers. It's a contest between 2 activities. Like any sport with 2 teams... at the end of the day the winner is determined by comparing one number to another. For example, the number of times the earth spins around its axis versus the number of times it revolves around the sun is usually about 365.25 to 1. Since this doesn't change much, we are smart to base our calendars, holidays, clocks, and appointments on this comparison.

Our habits are the same. Since we tend to crave, or be compelled, to do the same things on a daily basis - businesses both legal and illegal are smart to base their income on what people regularly do. Maybe not smart enough to guide their customers to healthier, happier, more fulfilling lifestyles - but they are smart enough to pay their bills.

This is how the Attention Age is emerging from the Information Age. Humans don't change the number of times the Earth spins around every year, but we CAN CHANGE the number of hours we spend on each activity each day. The Masters of the Attention Age will be able to completely eliminate the time spent on things that don't help them achieve their goals, while maximizing the time spent on things that do help them achieve their goals.

As IntangibleWealth recently hinted, it doesn't matter what your particular goal is, or even your current level of experience. But it does matter how much Attention you Pay to your goal. Attention is measured in time. Not hours, days or years, but more importantly... how many times you chose to focus on reaching your goal versus how many times you let your focus go to something else. If you really look at these 2 numbers through honest eyes, you'll probably want to cry - LOL! Then your mind will exercise it's right to come up with the most brilliant rationalizations for why it's okay. Most of them will concern other people - and their flaws. If you're really smart, you'll come up with an argument about how Motivated Morons never get anything done. You'll tell yourself you don't know enough to do anything about your goal.

The truth is that history is tragically colored with the repeated strokes of motivated morons achieving more than their unmotivated brilliant peers. The tortoise and the hare is a nice story and we are happy for the tortoise. In real life, when uncaring morons get to their finish goal before compassionate, brilliant slackers, the results are horrible... and the consequences effect all of us. This is serious business, Hitler was just one example.

So don't worry about being a moron, because regardless of how ignorant or untalented you think you are, the continued decision to focus on your goal will make you a winner. And what's really funny, is that brilliant people are just morons who keep focusing on something until they get it - talented people too. Even if you're unsure of the best way to reach your goal, you can reserve time to practice what you do know. Which means, when you do discover a better activity to reach your goal with... you've already reserved time and space to do it in. If your heart is in the right place, your success will take us all to a better place, even if you start out moving in the wrong direction.

I think a lot of people take an overly optimistic or pessimistic view of goal achievement, because they miss this point and see it as a mysterious thing. If I practice at my local basketball court every day, I'll be better prepared for the NBA than if I just wait to be recruited. If I record into my cel phone every day, I'll be better prepared for the professional studio than if I just wait for a super producer to find me. I'm sad reflecting on all those who became bankrupt or suicidal after winning the lottery... but I understand. They simply weren't prepared to use the thing they so desperately wanted.

The age of information didn't make us all smarter, it just revealed the age of attention. As my bro Darren inspired me to realize through his recent blog post, the kid who studies a language every day with an old dictionary, will be better prepared to speak it than a kid who owns the most expensive language software but never uses it. And chances are that kid with the old dictionary will eventually come across that expensive software too... and know exactly what to do with it.