The Key To Everything - Add This One Element To All You Do

Superior Experience

Welcome to the Second Mix Podcast where we reflect, revise, and remix our lives. I am Matthew Bennett – first day of March and Spring is beginning to show up in my home town. I have a mission to take it all in this year, and not miss a beat. I want pictures and smells and sounds and fun, and to feel the wonder of just being alive. Because it is wonderful. 

I was writing in my journal on Friday, reflecting on how I can become better. Specifically I noticed that I wasn’t being very patient, gentle, or kind with my family. (I wasn’t being unkind, I just wasn’t actively being kind.)

My first thought was that I needed to step these things up a notch, and in a flash of thought I wrote down the words “SUPERIOR EXPERIENCE” – I don’t want my family to have a kind, or patient, or gentle husband and dad. I want to give my family a SUPERIOR EXPERIENCE. Something above the norm, above the expected. 

I realize that I can give that to them. Not just going through the motions of life and doing what I’m supposed to, but to be actively engaged in giving them that experience. 

How can I make their lives better as a result of my being on this earth?

I asked my journal, “how do I do that? How can I create this superior experience.”

And as I often do, I heard the voice of Jim Rohn in my head saying, “wherever you are, BE THERE!” being there, being in the moment. 

And that is how I intend to give my family a superior experience. Because I realized the key to everything, really. The key to unlock all of this is ATTENTION. 

So it’s not just patience, but attention + patience

Not just kindness, but attention + kindness

Not just gentleness, but attention + gentleness. 

You can take any quality that you want to have, and add attentiveness to it, and you will multiply the result enormously, and create a superior experience for anyone you come in contact with. 

We all know that we live in a world that is constantly fighting for our attention. And it’s hard to break away from all of that and actually give that attention to someone else – but that is the mark of someone who will provide a superior experience. When you take the time to give your full attention to someone, you are saying “You are important, you mean something to me, you are valuable, and I care about what is going on right here, right now.”

Now, patience probably originally meant attentive patience, but we’ve dropped that meaning and watered down the word. Now, all I have to do to exhibit this new kind of patience is this: when someone is being annoying or irritating, if I don’t express my own annoyance or irritation, that’s considered being patient. I don’t think that is genuine patience. 

Patience isn’t the struggle against saying something, it’s not the virtue of holding in what you really feel. That’s not it. This allows you to pat yourself on the back, and congratulate yourself – but why see yourself as some kind of a noble victim when you can be so much more. When you can ask yourself – WHY DOES THIS IRRITATE ME? WHY DOES THIS BOTHER ME SO MUCH? WHY IS MY MIND REACTING THE WAY IT IS?

And I’ve found the cure – a cure so counterintuitive that I’ve never heard it anywhere before. Being attentive and in the moment – truly giving your attention to whatever is annoying you – that is what will dispel your irritation. 

And it makes sense. You see, our attention is always being pulled towards what we decide we want. And we get irritated when something or someone starts pulling attention away from what we want. But as soon as we willingly shift our focus to the annoying things, then that is our new focus – since it’s not pulling attention away from ourselves anymore, it has specifically lost its power to be annoying. 

Simple, not easy. But that is how you give someone a superior experience. 

Gentleness. I will eventually have an entire episode devoted to gentleness, and the economy of energy, and what I learned being a professional magician - but for now, one aspect of being gentle is to add attentiveness to the situation and the person. 

How loud do I need to yell at my kids when they are being bad? Not very loud. I have to give just enough energy to handle the situation without going overboard. Without losing my cool. You can shoot a missile at a rabbit. It’s effective, but there’s no more rabbit. So what is “just enough?”

This is where attentiveness comes in. If we’re not paying attention to the situation as it is, then we won’t know how much is enough, and we’ll go overboard just in case. But if we ARE attentive, we will be able to at least guess the amount of pressure it will take to make things happen. 

It works with kindness, too. Just being kind, you can be overly kind and it actually makes you look needy. But to find out how you can be kind, it requires attentiveness. What does this person really need? How can you become more valuable to THEM?

It requires attention. Then you’ll be giving people not just “niceness” but genuine kindness – fulfilling something in their lives that they were mission. 

Attention/attentiveness is the key to providing this superior experience. I don’t want my friends to tell people that I’m a nice guy. I want them to say, “you’ve got to meet this guy. He’s interesting – he’s unique – he cares about you – he listens to you. When you’re talking to him, you know that he is right there with you.”

I want my family to know that they are experiencing something different when I’m around – something special – not the norm of this world, but an experience that is on a higher plane. 

I may not be able to hit this goal, but I can be better. And why not try to hit the goal. Why not give my utmost to try to give this to people? Why not provide a superior experience – first for my family, then for my network, then for the world at large? Why not become the biggest influence I can become? 

What would your life look like if you began to add attentiveness to all of your values, and to all of your skills – even the ones you aren’t so great at?

What would it look like if you began to provide superior experience to your family?

What would your life be if you began to provide a superior experience to your boss?

Or to your customers?

I think when you boil it down, the best of the best in the world add attentiveness to everything they do. They are in the moment  - they are physically and mentally present wherever they are. 

Someday, I want to be one of the best of the best in the world, so I am adding attentiveness to the top of the list in all I do. 

Thanks for listening – If you liked what you heard today, or if I’ve helped you in any way, then subscribe to this podcast so it keeps popping up on your phone. I’m doing this every Monday and Thursday, and I’ve been thinking about adding some book reviews and guests on another day. Give me 5 stars wherever and whenever you can. 

Also, if you know anyone else who would find this personal development information useful, please share this with them – they will thank you for it someday. 

I’ll be back on Thursday – until then, keep reflecting, revising, and remixing your life. I’ll cya soon!