Reflections on Connection-Centered Leadership - Issue No. 31: Did I Choose Where My Attention Went Today?
- mswonger
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
"I need everyone's undivided attention." I can still hear elementary school teachers saying those words.
Whenever a new concept was about to be introduced or something especially important was about to be said, they would pause the room, wait until the whispering stopped, and ask for our undivided attention.
Even then, they understood something we are still learning today: Attention determines what we absorb.
What has changed isn't the importance of attention. It's the number of things competing for it. August has a way of reminding me of that. May, August, and December seem to move at the speed of the Autobahn. They are months that don't simply fill our calendars; they seem to accelerate life itself.
August carries its own rhythm. School supplies become college move-ins. Family dinners become "one more dinner before..." Conversations become, "We'll see you at Thanksgiving." When our children are young, back-to-school feels routine. When they become adults, the weight of it feels different.
You realize there are only so many Augusts left where everyone gathers around the same table before another semester begins.
This August, our oldest got to be home while she celebrated another birthday. Another daughter got engaged even as we are halfway through planning her older sister's wedding.
That doesn’t even begin to cover all of the work commitments that seem to multiply the second I look away. The calendar filled itself almost without permission. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I found myself asking a question:
Did I choose where my attention went today, or was it chosen for me?
I don't think I've ever lived in a time when more things were competing for our attention. Notifications interrupt conversations. Algorithms quietly learn what keeps us looking. Breaking news alerts us like crashing waves before we've finished processing the first story. Email competes with text messages. Social media competes with books. Busyness competes with presence. Even our own thoughts compete with one another.
We often talk about managing our time. But the greater challenge is managing our attention. Perhaps that's because attention has quietly become one of the most valuable commodities in the world. Entire industries compete for it. Companies purchase it. Platforms measure it. Creators chase it.
Algorithms are designed to predict what will keep us engaged a little longer. Every pause, click, share, comment, and second we linger teaches the system something about us. Over time, it becomes increasingly skilled at deciding what to place in front of us next.
That isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, we’re training the algorithms. It's simply how the system works. The question is whether we are working just as intentionally at directing the information we ingest. Because over time, visibility can quietly become confused with value.
Researchers have found that our brains naturally give greater attention to novelty, uncertainty, emotionally charged information, and unpredictable rewards. Algorithms don't create those tendencies. They learn them. Then they become remarkably efficient at feeding them back to us.
The result is subtle. Importance may be assigned not by weight, but by what begins to feel important because it repeatedly receives our attention.
Wait…what am I being influenced by, and are there important aspects of my life that have been diminished because I’ve given greater attention to the neurological and emotional rewards on a device?
How many days have I reached the end of wondering why I felt mentally exhausted, only to realize I had spent very little attention on the people, work, or relationships I would actually say matter most, because I’m chasing someone else’s agenda?
The problem isn't technology or even algorithms. The problem is drifting. The mental drift that veers off course from intentionality by living by “what feels good” in the moment, and alternating with chasing fires that must be put out.
Fear knows how to capture my attention. So does scarcity, and comparison, and unfinished work, and deadlines, and old triggers, and stories I thought I’d already rewritten, as well as breaking news, new research, shopping, and social media.
Those patterns don't need an app to interrupt my day. They already know how to find me. Technology has created an algorithmic system to harness the attention I give to those interruptions.
I've often said that connection-centered leadership begins with awareness. Before we can change a pattern, we have to recognize it. When we’re on a mental drift, making decisions by what feels good or running from fire to fire, then the hours turn into days, turn into years, and we wonder where time went and why plans weren’t executed the way we had intended.
Before we can choose differently, we have to notice what has quietly been choosing for us. Or what we have let lead us off-course. Perhaps reclaiming our attention doesn't begin with discipline, but awareness.
Awareness that my attention is finite. Awareness that whatever repeatedly captures my attention will eventually begin to shape me.
Awareness that I cannot give my full attention to everything, so I must become more intentional on what—and whom—I choose to focus.
The longer I study psychology, leadership, and faith, the more convinced I become that attention is the front door of connection.
I cannot deeply connect with God while giving Him whatever attention remains after everything else has had first access to my mind.
I cannot become more self-aware if I never stop long enough to notice the stories I am rehearsing beneath the surface.
I cannot offer another person the gift of feeling seen while my attention is divided between them and whatever is waiting on my phone.
Presence has always required attention. Perhaps that is why genuine connection feels increasingly rare. Not because we care less. Because our attention is more fragmented than ever before.
I don't believe the answer is withdrawing from networks that can provide amazing support. And, technology is a remarkable tool. AI is transforming the way we learn, create, and solve problems. I use it almost every day to help manage my time and summarize incoming information into bite-sized chunks.
The question isn't whether these tools belong in our lives. The question is whether they are helping us become more intentional about what matters most, or whether we are losing intentionality to quick rewards and, possibly, connection in the process. The greatest competition for our attention is no longer between good and bad. It is between what is intentional and what is merely effective at capturing us.
None of us has enough attention to pay to everything. We can’t do it all. We have to choose where we focus and what will get our attention. Sometimes the best of intentions are derailed as we are distracted by good, which can be the enemy of great.
Sitting quietly and reconnecting vertically and inwardly allows the guardrails of our personal mission, vision, and values to inform the day's decisions. Instead of chasing what feels good in the moment or running from one fire to another, we can move forward with confidence because our attention has already been directed toward what matters most.
Because where our attention goes, our lives quietly follow.
Maybe the first voice that deserves my undivided attention each day isn’t the loudest one. Maybe it’s the quiet one I’ve learned to drown out.
Questions I'm Sitting With This Week
Did I choose where my attention went today, or was it chosen for me? Am I drifting?
What has been receiving my attention simply because it has become familiar, urgent, or repetitive?
Where do I need to become more aware before I can become more intentional?
What person in my life needs more than a response from me? What if they simply need my undivided attention?
How might my relationship with God, myself, and the people I love change if I became as intentional about directing my attention as the world has become about capturing it?
What is one thing I’ve been neglecting or putting off that I can give my attention to this week? ~ Melissa Swonger, Architect of Connection-Centered Leadership Founder, The Sage Hill Project & Co-Founder, Mind Shifts Lab
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