Note 03 - The Discipline of Paying Attention

I believe that attention is one of the most underestimated creative practices.

And no, not because paying attention is difficult: it asks us to slow down.

We live in a world that rewards speed, opinions, immediate answers, constant output.

Attention asks for something else.

It asks us to stay with a question a little longer.

To resist solving something before we've fully understood it.

To notice, observe and listen.

In my life some of the most meaningful ideas didn't arrive because I was trying harder.

They appeared because I paid attention long enough for them to reveal themselves.

Conversations that lingered, sentence that wouldn't leave me alone.

An artist whose work kept returning to my mind.

A founder repeating the same frustration in different words.

A pattern hiding beneath what first looked like unrelated problems.

In my view, creativity has less to do with generating ideas, and more to do with with recognising them.

The same is true for leadership and business.

Relationships and writing.

The quality of what we create is shaped by the quality of our attention.

Perhaps this is why I care so much about creating space: Space to think, space to feel, space to notice.

When we stop rushing towards solutions, something remarkable often happens - what matters most has a chance to reveal itself.

—

Nowadays I am into asking the kind of question that's worth staying with.

What are questions you love to stay in communion with?