Tag: attention

Out of the Shadows

It was a beautiful afternoon.

Outside my window, sunlight radiated through blue skies. The branches of the trees barely budged in the light breeze.

It was one of those mid-winter days in Texas that just begged everyone to get outside. To enjoy the temperate conditions before they gave way to the muggy slog of spring and the searing heat of summer.

But on this day, I was not heeding the call. On this day, I remained indoors.

I was recuperating from a recent ankle surgery. And I had been ordered to wear a protective boot whenever I was away from home.

Getting that boot on my foot was quite a challenge. Walking in that boot was another. And cleaning that boot was no picnic, either.

It seemed prudent to avoid all of this when possible. So, I tended to stay indoors — even on beautiful days like these.

Although I craved the light, I remained in the shadows.

That protective boot now sits in my closet, collecting dust.

But my memory doesn’t.

I might have recovered from my injury. But all around me, I see plenty of others amid their own tribulations.

At the ballgame, the grocery store, and the airport, I see the marks of recuperation. People are sporting slings, crutches, and protective boots. And I feel for them.

This is not a Baader-Meinhof situation. That happened when I purchased my SUV, and then suddenly noticed dozens of others like it.

No, I had noticed people with disabilities before. But where I’d once gotten out of the way of them, I now did what I could to help.

I would hold a door open for them or give up my seat to them. All with a knowing nod.

I understood their plight. And I wanted to lessen the burden.

In late 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.

For a generation, the treacherous concrete barrier had defined the divide between East and West, between communism and democracy. But now, it was gone. And the USSR would soon follow.

The Cold War was over.

I was playing with Matchbox cars and watching Sesame Street when this occurred. I understood little of what was going on.

But now, as an adult, I frame my life story around this event. I was born during the Cold War but grew up after it.

This narrative is factual. But it omits another seismic event from that time.

In mid 1990, the United States Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. The legislation afforded protections to anyone facing an impairment.

In one fell swoop, it brought those with disabilities out of the shadows and into the light.

Remnants of this legislation were everywhere during my youth. Public facilities were being retrofitted to comply with the law. Public announcements were educating the masses on the accommodations.

And yet, I couldn’t quite relate. I was able-bodied and had no reason to believe I wouldn’t be. This wasn’t my fight.

So, I continued to ignore the narrative around me. I would pay no mind to the revolution at home, and instead wax poetic about events that occurred far afield.

It would take three decades for me to change my tune.

When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, we got a glimpse of the shadows. Confined by lockdowns, business closures, and mask mandates, we all got to see how the 26 percent of Americans with disabilities live.

Like many, I loathed this experience. I did my best to get some distance from it as the pandemic receded.

But I could never fully escape.

About two years after the COVID shutdowns, I was to meet my family in Houston for a vacation. A few days before the trip, my mother informed me that she would be showing up in the Bayou City in a wheelchair.

I knew my mother had been dealing with some knee issues. But I was still caught off-guard by this announcement.

As a longtime Texan, I knew my state wasn’t the easiest to navigate by wheelchair. And I spent hours ticking through contingency plans.

What if we needed to change up our seating at the rodeo? What if the Johnson Space Center had exhibits that were only accessible by stairs?

Everything ended up working out just fine. But I remained hyper-aware of the challenges facing those with disabilities.

Then I went under the knife and experienced those challenges firsthand.

As I navigated that time in the shadows, post-procedure, I was introspective. I was ashamed of how badly I’d overlooked those with disabilities for so much of my life. And I was determined to do better.

I’ve lived by that creed ever since.

I’m determined to show compassion to those with disabilities, helping them emerge from the shadows. And I’m hoping my actions inspire others to do the same.

This might seem like a noble quest. But it has its challenges. And perhaps not the ones you might think.

The Washington Post has employed a slew of high-profile journalists over the years. Perhaps the most recent of these is Taylor Lorenz.

Before joining the Post, Lorenz made her name writing about internet culture for the New York Times. As the online world has evolved in hyper speed, Lorenz has covered every bit of it — garnering both acclaim and outrage along the way.

If you follow Lorenz on social media though, you’ll find something else. Namely, a long-running critique of loosened COVID pandemic restrictions.

In much of American society, this point is a non-starter. The worst of the pandemic has passed, medical interventions are now available, and a yearning for normalcy percolate.

But Lorenz is either immunocompromised or carrying the flag of those who are. She will not stop criticizing the world for “moving on.”

I can see where Lorenz is coming from, to a degree. There are some similarities between being injured and immunocompromised — particularly when it comes to societal isolation.

It was frustrating when I found myself alone in the shadows. Still, I never once expected others to stay inside during my recuperation, just because I was deprived the outdoors. That would have been an unreasonable request.

It’s no more feasible for the immunocompromised to demand that the world remain perpetually locked down. It’s several bridges too far.

So yes, Lorenz’s advocacy should remain off the table here. But so should the status quo.

It’s time for us to embrace the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s time to provide reasonable accommodation to those we’ve banished to the shadows.

That means awareness. It means compassion.

It means giving a hand up, but not necessarily a handout.

Making this compromise might seem daunting. But those with disabilities are making compromises of their own too.

We owe it to them to meet them halfway.

Attention to Detail

It’s the little things.

We’ve all heard this phrase a time or twenty.

It might sound cliché. But it rings true.

We celebrate big dreams and grand visions. And yet, it’s the minutia that so often determines whether those dreams are realized.

This reality is not sexy or glamorous. But it’s important and worth discussing.

Quality assurance.

It’s a clunky term. One that seems like it belongs in a legal textbook.

Still, it’s one of the core principles of commerce today. Most modern businesses have a quality assurance process. Some even have an entire department committed to QA.

The goal of quality assurance is straightforward — catch and correct defects before they reach consumers. And the key to success in this venture is an unwavering attention to detail.

We tend to take quality assurance for granted — except when it fails. Stories of tainted aspirin, listeria-laden ice cream, and faulty aeronautical equipment have become infamous over the years.

These developments have given the quality assurance discipline a black eye. But it deserves better.

You see, there was a time when quality assurance was nonexistent. Items were crafted piecemeal, unbeholden to stringent production standards. If something went wrong in the manufacturing process, it was an unlucky consumer who suffered the consequences.

Then along came Henry Ford. The purveyor of the Model T automobile brought the concept of the assembly line to the mainstream. Instead of small groups of engineers building one vehicle at a time, a litany of workers mass-produced them in sequence.

Each employee was responsible for their own portion of construction. And those responsibilities included stringent attention to detail.

After all, workers on Ford’s assembly line had but one job to do. And they needed to do it with expert precision.

Thanks to the assembly line, the promise of the Model T was twofold. Not only would the vehicle be readily available for consumers, but it would also be reliable. This allowed Ford to price it affordably, spurring the world into the automotive era.

Soon, the assembly line proliferated across the industrial world. And with it came a broader adoption of quality assurance.

Through this process, attention to detail went from a nice-to-have to a silent expectation. But then, we forgot about it.

For shame.

I was in my baseball uniform, practicing catching fly balls when I heard the booming voice of my head coach.

Bring it in, he said.

I jogged toward the infield, where some of my teammates had already gathered. We knew a speech was coming.

Y’all are in middle school now, the coach began. You’re a long way from applying to college. But when you do, you’ll need to take something called the SAT. Does anyone know what that stands for?

We were silent.

Standard Aptitude Test, the coach continued. They’re measuring your aptitude — what you know.

By now, we were all confused. We were here to play baseball, not learn about a strange test that was years away. What on earth was this coach talking about?

We all need to improve our aptitude on the baseball diamond, said the coach. Sure, y’all can hit, catch, and throw. But how well do you understand the game and the different situations you’ll face? How closely do you pay attention to detail?

These words awakened something in me. Something I didn’t know was there.

I wasn’t the biggest, strongest, or most talented kid on the team. But now, I had a clear purpose — to pay attention to the details and use them to my advantage.

This process didn’t do much for my baseball exploits. I never even made it to the varsity level in high school.

Nonetheless, it had a profound impact on my life.

Sweating the small stuff gave me a semblance of control in a world that often lacked it. And as I grew older, this focus endeared me to others.

Now, attention to detail is a core component of my life. I break each day into processes, and I think about everything that belongs in each process. When something is missing or off-kilter, I take note of it. And if I have the power to fix it, I do so.

I have no doubt that my focus on the minutia has been critical to all the success I’ve seen. It’s changed the way others see me, and the way I’ve seen myself.

But while attention to detail has made a difference for me, it shouldn’t be a differentiator.

Some years back, I attended an insurance seminar. At the podium was the chief executive officer of one of Dallas’ largest brokerages.

At some point, someone asked the CEO about his thoughts on a startup company that had been making waves in the insurance industry.

Their loss ratio is 126, he flatly replied. They’re paying out $126 for every $100 they bring in. It’s bad business and it won’t last.

I reacted to this response with delight. I worked in the insurance industry, and this buzzy startup presented a significant threat to my employer. I returned to the office gleefully predicting the startup’s demise.

It never came.

The startup continued to operate like a leaky rowboat, taking on water and showing no signs of profitability. But Venture Capitalists in Silicon Valley kept pouring funding into their coffers.

I was astounded. But I shouldn’t have been.

The technology industry has long been filled with renegades. Apple captured the world’s attention with its 1984 commercial. Facebook rallied around the mantra Move fast and break things.

The message was clear. Details and protocol were irrelevant. It was all about the vision.

This ethos carried the day for quite a while. But now, it’s facing a reckoning.

Apple has seen more success after founder Steve Jobs’ passing than before it. Facebook is embroiled in perpetual scandal. Startup darlings WeWork and Uber nearly went under due to substantial gaps between their visions and their realities.

While that flashy insurance startup hasn’t met the same fate as the others, it must remain wary. That company will need more than just a visionary idea to survive long-term.

Attention to detail matters. It always has, and it always will.

It matters in technology. It matters in business. It matters in life.

We can ignore the details all we want. We can continue to focus on the flash, the buzz, the sizzle.

But we do so at our own peril.

Yes, the little things really do make a big difference.

And so, I will continue to sweat the small stuff. I will maintain my laser focus on the minutia, day in and day out.

I hope you’ll join me.

Attention or Desire?

Do I want to be an object of attention or desire?

This is a decision we all must make in our lives.

Sure, it sounds like a dilemma that a Victoria’s Secret model might have, but let’s be clear. Attention and desire are words with expansive power and meaning; the sexual realms of our lives shouldn’t have a monopoly over them.

For when it comes to our lives, the choice between attention and desire can make all the difference.

All too often, we set our sights on attention. Attention is what gets us noticed, what gets us famous. Attention is what builds our legion of followers on social media and what keeps us relevant in a culture that moves faster than whitewater rapids. Attention builds relevance and brand awareness, for both or professional ventures and our personal brand. (This Kmart ad is a great example.)

Heck, attention might be what drew you to this article.

Attention seems like a good way forward. It’s easy, it’s productive and it helps us grow our egos. In the increasingly individualistic world we live in, it can seem to have everything we would ever want.

But, attention is a smoke screen. It’s just noise — a lot of noise. He or she who shouts the loudest, who makes the biggest disruption — that’s the person who gets noticed. This is the reason our election season seems like reality TV, why Kardashians and Hiltons hog the actual reality TV limelight and why Nike shoes are now bright yellow.

It’s all part of the show.

And when the show’s over, when it packs up and leaves town, we don’t remember much of it. We’re on to the next big thing, the next attraction.

This is not a sustainable way to build our lives, either personally or professionally. Attention might get us a date, a job interview, a client. But that’s only part of the story.

Attention can get you to the door, desire will get you through it.

Desire is what makes us memorable, what makes us irresistible. It builds a unique, personal connection — one that’s often mutually beneficial. While attention may draw our eye, desire tugs at our heart.

But desire is difficult to attain. To achieve it, we must be consistently display authenticity, aptitude, confidence, empathy and uniqueness. We must stay true to ourselves while being aware of the message we portray to those around us. We must be aware of the needs of others, and how our qualities align with those needs. We must be collectivist, yet individualistic.

It’s a complicated equation — one that’s nearly impossible to fake.

As a search marketer, I think about the challenge of desirability often. Traditionally, my industry has been full of people trying to help their clients gain attention from search engines by whatever means necessary — as visibility meant revenue. However, Google and Bing have gradually made gaming the system nearly impossible. Today, a company or brand must prove itself to be desirable — both to web users and search engines — in order to be visible online. It’s a steep challenge, but one that can pay lasting dividends for everyone if it’s pulled off right.

If desire can make such a big difference in the world of search, shouldn’t we be expanding it to the world at large? Shouldn’t we focus our efforts on evolving, caring, being selfless? Shouldn’t we focus on sharing a conversation with others, instead of shouting through a bullhorn? Shouldn’t we take some time to consider how we fit in, instead of solely perfecting ways to stand out?

Of course we should. And some of us — myself included — have already set our sights on these goals. Some, but not enough of us.

It’s time for that to change.

Let’s focus on what’s tangible over what’s shiny. Let’s focus on forming a personal connection instead of attaining widespread notoriety.

Let’s choose desire over attention. Our continued success relies on it.