What you pay attention to, you become. So do you want to become the things you're paying attention to online, or do you want to become more like your Lord Jesus, or do you want to become a better dad, or a better mom, or a better spouse? Because that's what you need to pay attention to.
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times best seller, The Five Love Languages in Today's World of constant hurry and distraction, it can be difficult to focus on what's important. Author and speaker Paul Angoni wants to help you pay attention to your life.
Paul wants to help you embrace the life changing practice of listening to your day. We'll talk about it straight ahead on this summer. Best of broadcast. Find out more at building relationships.us. Here's an observation as we begin. Gary, you seem to have learned early on in life how to pay attention, which is partly about listening. Well. How did you learn that practice?
Chris, that's a question I've never been asked. How did I learn to do that? Uh, no. I am very much into the moment. You know, my wife has a saying. Wherever you are, be all there. Yes, and I've tried to follow that through the years. You know, if I'm counseling a couple, they have my full attention for the time that I'm with them, and I try to be sensitive to people around me as I walk out of a restaurant. You know, if I see somebody, I don't
even know them. But I might make a comment about how wonderful the food looks or hope you leave something here for me. Or, you know, just I just enjoy, you know, interfacing with people. And, uh, I guess my parents, neither one of them were quite like that. But I think it's it's been a growing thing, too, because I'm not by by nature, I'm not an extrovert by any means. Right. You know, when you pay attention to people around you, they'll almost always respond in a positive way. Because in
our world, especially today, we're not talking to people. We're not interfacing. We're just each doing our own thing. Even in the airplanes, they don't talk anymore. In airplanes, most people just sit there, you know?
Yeah. You know, the the observation I have about you and the folks listening don't know this. When we do a Dear Gary broadcast and we play the questions for Doctor Chapman, it is the first time he's hearing them. He he doesn't hear these ahead of time. When we record it, that's when he hears it the first time and he will pick up on things. And I've probably heard him 4 or 5 times. He will pick up on things in the question that he responds to and
remembers and addresses, because he listens so well. So I think there's a part of a spiritual gift. It's part intentionality on your part, but it's also part of the way that God has made you to really listen well. Which leads right into our guest today. He's one of the nation's sought after voices to young professionals, people going through change in transition, and those who want to live intentionally. He's the best selling author of 101 secrets for Your
20s and 25 lies. 20 somethings Need to Stop Believing. He has a master's degree in organizational Leadership, and his new book is our featured resource. Paul and Johnny has written Listen to Your Day The life Changing Practice of paying Attention. Find out more at building relationships.us.
Well, Paul, welcome back to Building Relationships.
Oh, thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. You know.
Last time you were here, you talked about millennials and some of the struggles that they're up against in today's world. But you're encouraging every age to learn to pay attention, right?
Yeah. That's correct. Yeah. I wrote my initial books, you know, 101 secrets for 2025 lies, 20 somethings, Stop believing. Because I basically I felt like such a failure in my 20s. It was a real struggle. In my 20s, I became passionate about that specific decade of life. And how do you do it? Well, well, that was the same with this new book. Listen to your day. The life changing practice of paying attention is I felt like I was
failing at my ability to pay attention to what's important. Yeah, I felt like I was really losing the skill set and the art of paying attention.
Well, so is that what got you interested in this topic and writing this book?
Yeah, it really was. You know, and I think for many of us, you know, just even that that setting on your phone, I don't know if anybody has the setup where it tells you at the end of the week how much time you've spent on your phone. Uh, it was really quite alarming for me where, you know, I would look at it and it would say five, six, seven hours a day that I was spending looking at my phone. And obviously we can be distracted by lots
of things. You know, it's not just our phones, but obviously in today's age, you know, that's one of the biggest distractions. And I felt like I was I was really losing that intentionality of my attention, and I was missing so much of what was going on right in front of me to where, you know, I couldn't even focus for five minutes to read a book, which is hard when you're an author, and then you need to
write a book that becomes even more difficult process. So I really had to I really had to live what I was researching, what I was writing. I had to live that so that I could write this book.
Yeah. So you say that our whole lives are influenced by what we pay attention to. So what do you mean by that? And can you give us some examples?
Yeah. You know, and a great example is, you know, what we would call an expert. You know, I think an expert is a great example of somebody who has paid attention to something to a, to a focused extent more than anybody else. You know, an expert doesn't have to be who's just, you know, way more hyper intellectual than the rest of us. No, I think it's the opposite. I think they've just chosen to focus in on something, uh, with a heightened, focused intensity because they're passionate about it,
because they really care about it. You know, that's that's you, Doctor Chapman. You focused in on relationships because.
You're.
Passionate about it. And so you're an expert at that because you've just given it your focused attention. And, you know, that's what a doctor is. You know, a doctor doesn't just become a doctor overnight. They literally become what they've been paying attention to for years and studying. And really, we really hope that our doctor has done a good job at paying attention to that. Uh, when they're opening us up for surgery, we hope they've really focused their attention. Well, correct.
You know, and that's the same for all of us. You know, we have to we have to focus our attention and then we start becoming what we're paying attention to. Yeah. You know, so if all we're paying attention to is the headlines on Twitter, you know, we're we're going to become what those headlines are. And I think that can be a scary thing for many of us.
I think many of our listeners can agree with what you're saying, likely seeing it in ourselves, to be sure. Now talk about the term that you used or one term you used. Obsessive comparison disorder. What is that and how does it affect our attention?
Yeah, that's it's a it's one I coined years ago back in 101 secrets for Your 20s. And I just see it as such a problem in today's age. You know, you used to have to go to your ten year reunion or 20 year reunion, right? And that's when you would be buddy up and down to see who's who's
doing better than whom. But you just had to fake it for one night, you know, lose some weight, get a toupee, rent a BMW, you know, whatever it took just to fake it, that you were, uh, you know, you were a success, that you were doing something great with your life. Uh, you know, snapshotted images, those edited
and filtered images with everybody else. And we're obsessively doing this, you know, at the back of a line or waiting in an airplane or an elevator, you know, any awkward, boring, quiet moment where maybe we would even prayed in the past, you know, please, Lord, help me in this situation or talking to the Lord. Now we're replacing it with our phone and pulling up all these images and obsessively comparing ourselves. And man, how damaging is that to our peace? To our well-being.
That's for sure. Well, you know, I spend a lot of my time reflecting on the five love languages because that concept has so changed my life and the lives of a lot of my counselees, and as well as millions of people who have, you know, gotten the concept. But I'm sitting here thinking that whole concept relies on the ability to pay attention to others and to yourself, right?
Yeah, it's so important. And in my book, Listen to Your Day, I focus about four chapters on the topic of relationships, and I talk about your book, Doctor Chapman, because it is so important, I think, that the love languages have been so revolutionary for so many of us. But it really does start with that. That first ability of am I paying proper attention to the person across from me? Because really, it's hard to enact those love languages. It's hard to notice them if you're not paying attention
to that person. And how do you how do you enact that love language if you if you're not there in the moment and seeing and hearing what they're going through so that you can then figure out, okay, I this is when that love language needs to come in. This is the time. This is the place. Because I'm paying attention to that moment. And if we're not, man, it's really hard. It's really hard to love anybody. Well, if you're not paying attention to them.
You know, one of the ways that you can pay attention in relationships is to listen well to the other person. Can you give us some some tips on how to do that?
I think we can all relate that. Maybe we don't listen as well as we think we do. Um, and maybe it just takes asking our spouse if we're a good listener or not. Maybe we don't want to ask that question. Um, or do our coworkers, you know, asking or even asking our coworkers. And maybe that's a good exercise to start with. If we want to be humble and really start working at this, start asking the people, the most important people in our lives, maybe our children,
and ask them, hey, do you think I listen well? Mhm. That might be a surprising conversation for many of us to have you know, and but there are simple things we can do. This is not this doesn't have to be rocket science. You know, it's even built into the phrase when somebody might say to you, can you please give me your undivided attention. And I think that's a great place to start because so many, so much of our attention these days is divided. You know, it's divided
between so many things at the same time. So some simple things like sitting down with somebody and looking at them in the eyes, uh, you know, your, your body language, pointing your, your body towards somebody. Um, you know, you can even go to a coffee shop and study people, you know, don't do it. Don't stare at them too long. Um, but study conversations that are taking place. I did this when I was writing the book, and I and I watched a couple as they were talking and their bodies
were kind of tilted away from each other. And then I watched the gentleman. I could tell this conversation was getting serious, and he and he literally rotated his chair so that he would point his shoulders and his face directly at the person instead of being at an angle, and even that simple thing. And he leaned forward. And then I watched that other person reciprocate, and they leaned forward.
You know, because we match each other's body movements. And I could tell that the conversation really picked up because basically that that person made an investment in the relationship with their with their body language. And it was really simple, but it had a profound effect.
Yeah, I can certainly see that. Well, you know, all the love languages first start with our ability or inability to pay attention, you know, to the other person. So what's the relationship between building healthy relationships and our attention?
Yeah. Again, I think our connection and meaningful relationships, it all begins with paying proper attention to somebody. And so another thing that we can do and and we you touched on this at the beginning of the episode. It's something that you're really good at. Doctor Chapman is asking good questions of somebody. And so I even encourage younger people, let's say you're even going to like a networking event.
You know, those would always terrify me. You know, you felt like you had to like, you know, give out your business cards like you're, you know, a car salesman or like you're in the Wild West and you're like, pulling out your business cards as fast as you can to hand them out to people and tell people you're 30, you know, 32nd elevator pitch. You got to have that
down to tell people how amazing you are, right? And I started realizing that what that was all wrong, you know, and I started encouraging younger people don't network like a machine, you know, go in relationship like a person. And and the and the way you start doing that is don't even worry about talking about yourself. Throw out the elevator pitch nobody Nobody cares, to be honest. Go in and
ask other people really good questions. Yeah, and try to get the other person talking about themselves for the first five minutes. Almost make it a game. Can you ask good questions to somebody else so that they'll talk about themselves for the first five minutes? And I bet you when they leave that conversation, even if you haven't said more than two words about yourself, What is that other person going to be thinking about? You? They're going to
be thinking, man, I really like that person. Wow. I really connected with them. I'm going to I want to introduce them to my boss, to, you know, whatever it might be. And they might not even realize that you never even said a word about yourself, but you just showed them love and respect by asking them good questions. And now they like you.
That's for sure. You know, my wife can strike up a conversation in the grocery store, and she's really good at asking questions. And in 30 minutes, she knows the whole life story of that person. So questions are important.
Exactly.
Now you use the the word currency. Attention is a currency. What do you mean by that phrase?
Yeah, it's it's actually built into the phrase. It's right there, you know, pay attention. And I think it's helpful to even think about it in those terms of what payments are you making with your attention. So what are you investing in with your attention? You know, are you investing in, let's say, your children, are you making payments with your attention, with your children, or are they just a distraction, or are they just in the way? Or are they a
nuisance as you go and do more important things? Hmm. Well, that's probably going to show up in your relationship with them. Yeah, right. You know, it's kind of that old adage that, you know, kids are misbehaving, you know, the real troubled kids. It's just a cry for attention, right? Yeah. And so it's like they'll do whatever it takes, good or bad, to
get their parent's attention. And, uh, and I even see that, you know, in today's age, you know, we talk about younger people being narcissists by all the selfies, you know, showing selfie after selfie on the internet. And, you know, it's a bunch of narcissists. Well, I don't really see that, you know, narcissists. You know, back to the old mythology. You know, he fell in love with his own image, you know, and that's why he couldn't leave the pond, right?
Because he fell in love so deeply with his own image. I don't see that with young people and them posting selfies. I see it as a cry, as a yearning from their heart for somebody to see them, for somebody to hear them. You know that there's that cry that's a yearning of their soul. And so they're doing it in this kind of misplaced way. But let me show another picture to get validation. Yeah. And so we as parents, even in that way, we can pay attention and we
can make those investments in our kids. And then also, where are we in debt to our with our attention? Are we in debt to CNN and Fox News? Is that getting our choice attention every day, or to TikTok or Instagram or whatever it might be? Where are we in debt to with our attention? Because we are in
an attention economy. Everything wants your attention, so we have to fight and be intentional about paying our attention into important places that we're going to reap the dividends for the rest of our lives.
Yeah, well, uh, I had never thought about attention as a currency, but I get it. Paying attention. Uh, in chapter five, you write about the importance of awkward, boring, quiet spaces. Is there a place for the mind to be silent? And how important is that?
Oh man, you know, our minds weren't made for constant noise. They just really weren't, you know? And I almost equate it to, you know, that sponge at your kitchen sink, right? That, uh, that probably smells a little bit. And you probably should have thrown it away, you know, a few weeks ago. And yet we keep using it all the time, like it's still cleaning our dishes. It always baffles me, you know,
that we do this. Yeah. Um, but but a but a sponge, if it's constantly in water or if it's constantly soggy, you know, it becomes that way, it becomes mildewy, it becomes, uh, smelly because it's never been given that chance to dry out. Yeah, and I equate that to our minds. You know, we're not giving our minds the ability to just dry out, to be at quiet, to be at peace, to be at rest, to be praying or meditating, you know, asking God, fill me with your thoughts.
Fill me with your peace, you know. And if we're constantly giving ourselves a noise, you know, we're becoming that sponge. That's just it's constantly in water and it kind of begins to smell and lose its effectiveness.
Mhm.
Why do you think so many of us are uncomfortable in these, you know, quiet spaces or other things are going on and we just feel like, you know, we're not wasting time though are we.
Yeah. You know I think I think we've lied to ourselves a little bit that we always have to be doing something. Yeah. You know, and I think we've kind of lost it on the altar of productivity sometimes, where I always need to be productive. Yeah. But actually I would argue that by always jumping on your phone, any, any, you know, any space, any boring moment that you have, you're probably being very counterproductive. That's probably the least productive
thing you could do. Yeah. And actually, I found while I was writing my book, I started, uh, scheduling into my day a 30 to 45 minute walk where that was on my calendar, and I would schedule that in and I wouldn't listen to anything. You know, as amazing as this podcast is, you know, I wasn't listening to any podcasts. You know, I was just listening. What? Listening to my day. I was listening to the Lord, and I was just listening to the birds and my footsteps
on the ground. And I'm telling you, those 40 minutes I wrote so much of my book on those walks because that's when I was getting the ideas, you know, aha moments. They don't happen by accident. Yeah, they happen in those quiet, still moments where our minds and our hearts are at rest so that the Lord can speak to us and we actually are listening.
I've had a personal devotional time with God, of course, for years, you know, but in the last, I don't know, 3 or 4 months after I read the scriptures and talk to God about what I've read. You know, in that conversation, I've just been sitting there and saying, father, I just want to sit here in your presence and just enjoy your presence. And it's absolutely incredible. You know, the sense of warmth and awareness that that he's with us,
you know? Uh, so, yeah, I'm identifying with that for sure. Wow. Hmm. Uh, why is it important to intentionally decide where our attention is placed? Because we're the ones that decide that, right?
Yeah. You know, I think there's been a lot of studies, uh, through psychology and neuroscience, that's been studying attention and our ability to pay attention. And I dive into a lot of that in the book to kind of get the neuroscience behind this as well. And there's a theory called inattentional blindness. So actually, psychologists have been somewhat alarmed or surprised that we actually don't see so much of what
comes in front of us every day. Mhm. Uh, so I mentioned a video that's maybe some of us have seen a video like this. I'll do this in my keynotes when I'm talking to leaders, you know, about attention and paying proper attention, where there's a team in white and a team in black, and they're throwing the ball around and the narrator asks, how much passes does the team in white make? And I tell people, you know, really focus. I want to see who's paying attention in
the room. And the video starts going. They start throwing passes around, and the narrator stops and I say, well, who got the answer right? And everybody shouts out, seven! And sure enough, the answer is seven, you know? And everybody cheers. It was seven passes, but then the narrator stops and says, but did you see the moonwalking bear? And everybody's like, what? You know, and they rewind the video and sure enough, a man and a full size
bear costume moonwalks across the entire screen. But you don't see them. Yeah, because you only see what you're looking for. So really paying attention is not a passive endeavor. It's an intentional choice. Yeah. So we actually make our minds up and we choose what we pay attention to. You know, that's why you can see somebody who's made their mind up, even when they're going through the worst things in their life. And we know people like this. They're going through such
hard things, but they're still joyful. Yeah, they're still at peace. They still have rest in their lives. It's because they've chosen to pay attention to the good things instead of dwelling on the bad. That's an intentional choice that they've made. So attention is not a passive thing. Paying attention is an intentional choice. Yeah.
Gary, I think that this is one of those relational things that in marriages and friendships, whatever, If you only see what you're looking for, then you're not seeing what you're not looking for. And so that that could change a marriage. It could change a church, couldn't it?
I think this the concept of this book, the heart of this book is something we need to we need to regain in our culture.
Yeah.
What do you say about that, Paul? Have you seen this? Have you not seen the moonwalking bear in your own marriage?
Yeah. You know, I have. I and really again, forced me to live out what I was writing. So I even took the, uh, you know, I took the time to, you know, when my, let's say, my wife and I are going to have a serious discussion. You know, we all know these, right? Where you're kind of dreading talking about something that's important, you know? And I'm passive aggressive. I don't like conflict, so I run from it. You know, that's kind of what I learned from a young age
is when conflict was going on. I would run in my household, I would hide and and I feel I do the same thing. So I've had to become better at that. But but I made a choice and I thought, well, let me just try this, you know? And so instead of just going straight to, here's what's bothering me about you or here's what I'm annoyed with, you know, I tried to I tried to pay attention and really set a foundation for the conversation by directing our attention to,
you know what? I know we both really value, trust and respect with each other, and I know we both want to build a better relationship every day with each other. And that's why I want to talk to you about this, because I want us to just keep doing a better job at building this trust. Yeah. So so directing our attention to the foundation, to. Hey, we're both in this together. You know, we're in this foxhole together, basically. You know, we both have each other's backs and we're going to
look after each other. And to do this better, I want to talk about this. And that really had a more profound effect. Instead of me just you. Right. Just throwing it right in their face. Yeah. Which I think is what happens most of the time. You know, instead of serving it up kind of on a platter in front of somebody, we just take that platter and shove it right in their face and say, listen to me. Well,
that that doesn't have a great effect. I think most of us have learned in our marriage that that's not a great place to start.
Well, that's that's a powerful point you just made. Tell them why you want to talk about this. You know, the foundational thing we want to keep growing, you know, and I know you want to keep growing. Paul, we've been talking about and then so far that in our culture, we seem to have lost the art or the skill or the practice of really paying attention. Why is that? Why do you think we've gotten to this place and and what's the hope of regaining it?
Yeah, I think I think this is such an important topic. Obviously, you know, this is why I wrote about it, because I think there is such a battle for our attention these days. You know, as we spoke about before, we're in an attention economy and every app and, and social media platform, they're all battling for our time and attention. Yeah. And they are getting more and more advanced with AI
and all these different systems. That's tracking our every move, and it's just showing us what it knows we want to see because it wants to suck us in, right? And take our time and attention. You know, we're even even even technologies like that I talk about in the book, the The Infinite Scroll is one technology and that's on something, you know, it's on lots of them. But let's say Instagram Stories, where you click on a story and it
shows you something. And then what does it do? It. It just scrolls right to the next one seamlessly, right? It doesn't even give you a chance to think about it. And they've done that intentionally. And one engineer that I, that I, you know, researched for the book, he called it like behavioral cocaine is what they've created and they've
done it to be as maximally addictive as possible. And they don't want your brain to catch up to what you're watching so that you will continue to just watch ten, 15, 20 minutes of mindless videos, uh, so that you get sucked in and spend more of your time on that platform. So that's why I do think it's so important now more than ever, for us to be intentional with our attention and really take it back, because we used to answer our phones only when they were ringing. Now we're
answering our phones when they're not even making a sound. Yeah.
Yeah. So do you think that that the technology has been a big part of getting us to where we are and not paying attention to the things that surround us?
I definitely think so. You know, and I think it's only going to get more intense. Yeah. There were there was a gentleman called, um, uh, by the name of Vance Packard and he, he wrote about, uh, the master manipulators that were invading the privacy of our minds. And he was really worried about this, and he felt like, man, we really have to protect the privacy of our minds because they're invading it, you know? And he he called it the Hidden Persuaders. You know, this was a book
that he wrote in 1957. Um, you know, he was worried about this in 1957 with the advertising and marketing that was taking place. And people were really alarmed about this. Well, gosh, how much more advanced have those master manipulators become where it's not even people anymore? It's it's not the madmen right in the office drinking whiskey, thinking about how they're going to influence us. These are these are dialed in AI systems that might know us better than our spouse
knows us. Yeah, and that's alarming, you know, and it's it's catering sometimes to the worst part of us. Yeah. To our sinful nature. And that's what it's going to cater to. So I do think it is such an alarming and important part of our history to take back our attention and say, this is mine. I need to choose where I'm placing this and not let some somebody else or something else make that decision for me.
Yeah.
So you were talking about this, you know, the mindless, uh, scrolling, just, you know, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling and our social media and and our mind is still working. What effect can this have on our mental health?
Oh, man. You know, we're seeing those. As you know, Doctor Chapman, you know, all the all the studies that are coming about about, you know, anxiety levels going through the roof, depression levels, um, suicide, you know, especially for younger people, you know, this is an epidemic, you know, and obviously, we can't equate it to just one thing. You know, this is a multi-layered thing in our in
our society. But but I do get alarmed, and especially with younger people, when the email that I would get the most from them. And these are people that are highly connected online that might have thousands and thousands of connections online. And the email I get the most from them is I feel so alone. Yeah. And that's such a paradox in our society to be instantly connected globally. And yet you feel more alone and isolated than ever. Yeah.
You know, and it goes back to that obsessive comparison disorder. Um, it goes back to just that lack of authentic and vulnerable relationships with people, because it's also highly manicured and it's built on this online system. So I think it has great effects to our mental health, this this lack of connection and, and real relationships with people. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, no question about it. You know, the research talks about loneliness, you know, on college campuses, for example, that it's a huge problem here. They are intelligent people
from all over, you know, gathered together. They don't really know anybody, but they're doing all this studying and all the other, uh, things online and, and yet feel alone around people all the time and exposing themselves on the screens to people all the time and yet not having any real personal interfacing with people on an honest level, you know, and building friendships and that sort of thing. It's just it's tragic really, to see, to see what's happening.
Why is it important to do physical things in a physical world?
I think sometimes we forget, you know, that we are physical beings, you know, And, uh, you know, I remember thinking, you know, how how much my back and my legs and my body was hurting from my complete lack of movement. Mhm. Not because I was over exerting myself. It's because I had no exertion whatsoever. I was just sitting at a
computer all day. Yeah. And I think there is something so powerful with doing something physical in a physical world, something that you enjoy, you know, and that could be, you know, something like gardening. You know, gardening for me is something I really enjoy. Or digging in the earth, planting things, seeing it grow, doing it with my children. Uh, you know, they they know all the vegetable plants. They know what's what. And they're out there picking the tomatoes
before I can get there. And that's the biggest problem, is that they they pick the choicest tomatoes and they're gobble them up before I can even know they're they're ripened, you know, but that's that's sometimes the only way they'll eat a vegetable is if it's coming from the garden. And they and they see it, you know, and but those are, those are such important, rich, meaningful times, uh, that we just kind of step in to God's creation. Yeah. To the way that he has designed things and to
get away from the screen. You know, I think we would do more for our mental health by digging a hole in the ground for a meaningful purpose than we would from 15 minutes digging in some, you know, drama, some dirt online. You know, that's what people are dishing
out the dirt online. You would do more for yourself if you just dug a hole in the ground, you know, and you would probably learn more about yourself and you would get more feelings of peace and contentment than than you would the other way.
Yeah, yeah. You know, you're talking about the garden now. You're taking me back to my childhood because my my father had a garden. And for as long as I can remember, we were out there planting potatoes and beans and all that other stuff and then bringing them in, and my mother canned them and, you know, and we didn't even have television in those days. Okay.
Yeah, I'm telling you how old I am. Well, but those.
Were those those those were those rich, seminal memories, you know, that it's still coming back to you, shows you that level of importance and probably that connection that you grew with your father during those times.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
You know, and again, if we always have devices around and TV and everything, like you said, there's such a disconnect in all our connection.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, you know, we're we're talking about so much information. Okay? We talk about being saturated with information. Information information information. How can we break free from information overload and actually comprehend what we're consuming, understand what's going on.
Yeah, because.
We're kind of blinded to it seems like.
Yeah. Yeah, Again.
I think we've. I think we've bought into a lie of sorts. That information equals wisdom. Mhm. That, that the more information you get, the more wise you are. And that's not necessarily true. You know, and I think we can look in today's age and really paint a pretty bleak picture that the sheer volume of information has not
led to a sheer increase of wisdom. Because, you know, obviously wisdom is is information and knowledge applied correctly in this season and the time and the place that you're living, you know, you could you could say the same thing, but you could say it at the wrong time and
it could lead to a bad outcome. Yeah. So so really we would be better off, I think sometimes of just hearing something, let's say even from a podcast, even if somebody's listening to this podcast, if they heard something that really struck them as profound, I think they'd be really well off to just pause, pause the podcast and think about it. You know, think about what you just heard, write about it, you know, really reflect on that. Because
we again, we get so much good information. There's so many great teachers out there and we're hearing so much great information, but we'd be better off just taking even just one nugget at a time and pausing and reflecting so that we can digest it and we can figure out, okay, how do I translate this to wisdom in my life? How do I really take this in and make it a part of my life? And just instead of just more information that's just going in one ear, out the other?
Paul, we mentioned phones, you know, several times in our conversation here. And you write that often our phones is is really a method to escape. What do you mean by that. And why do you think that's true?
Yeah. You know, I really realized in my own life and as I looked at others as well, that that we've become really good cultural escape artists where again, we can escape any awkward situation that we're in now. And like we even mentioned before, you know, we got, you know, as the the, uh, onset of this conversation, we talked about even like an airplane ride, you know, now when we sit down next to that person, you know, it's like, it's like that ten minutes before you can take out
your devices again. You know, it's kind of like the scariest moment of the plane ride. It's not because you're taking off and flying thousands of feet in the air. It's because I can't have my computer. What am I going to do? I don't want to. I can't talk to this person. Let me put my hood on and just pretend like I'm sleeping, you know, for those ten minutes. And that's how much we dread almost that conversation. But but I started thinking about, you know, we talk about
chance encounters, you know, with people. And I started thinking about it as not so chance encounters because what are the what are the odds that you're sitting next to that person on the plane right now? Yeah. What are the odds? They're astronomical. What are what are the odds that you're in line with that person right now, or that you've struck up a conversation with somebody at the coffee shop? The odds are, you know, out of this world. And so what is God orchestrating? Yeah. You know, and
at least should we give God the chance? And should we at least pay attention to maybe what God is trying to show us, what God is trying to bring into our lives through these not so chance encounters. And I'm telling you, even with what I call an awkward wander at conferences, that's why I encourage young people to do. I say go do an awkward wander around a conference with no set idea what you're doing, just awkwardly wander
around and strike up conversations with people. And I'm telling you, that's how I got one of my book deals, which is awkwardly wandering around in a conference. I went up to the lady selling books at a major publishing house. I complimented her, I complimented the setup. I mean, it was really well done. I just wanted to talk to her. I had no ideas of any. You know, I didn't even think it was possible for me to get a
book deal with them. But just that one conversation with her led me to her introducing me to the VP of marketing, and that's where I got my book deal. And so we never know those not so chance encounters that we're missing every day because we're, again escaping cultural escape artists into our phones and missing what the profound things that God wants to do in our life.
You know, I had an experience like that just recently on a on a plane. A man walked in with a long beard and sat down beside of me. And I don't remember how we started the conversation, but he eventually said to me, I have not been in civilization for five months. I've been in Alaska taking people on hunting trips and fishing trips, and this is I'm going home because my mother is sick and I want to
see my mother and dad. And we had one of the most meaningful conversations, you know, and he just poured his heart out to me and, you know, and I walked off the plane and said, thank you, God. The chances of our sitting together, I mean, what are the chances of that? You know, the whole book here is talking about listening to my day. So how can I know if I'm listening to my day?
Well, first off, you know, obviously pick up the book, right? That's the that's the answer, you know, but, um. but no but but but in the book I really do I leave a lot of places for people to write and I'm and I'm asking readers, you know, poignant questions throughout the whole process and giving people exercises so that you can begin to practice paying attention. And again, I do think this is something that we can practice. We can improve upon our ability to pay attention to what's important.
It doesn't just come naturally for many of us, it's something that we need to work on. And I'm telling you, if you do put in that time and that work, man, you're going to see amazing outcomes. You're going to see, um, forward movement in your life, clarity in your life, stronger
relationships and building those stronger connections with people. And, uh, in the last five, six chapters of the book, I even talk about mindset models, which is basically kind of like exercises for somebody to practice paying attention in a different way. So I even have something like the entrepreneurial mindset model, you know, how do you look at your day, listen to your day, but do it through the lens
like an entrepreneur would? Even if you don't think of yourself as entrepreneurial, well, let's think like an entrepreneur today and see what that changes. You know, an entrepreneur. They probably they pay attention to their problems in a different way, where they might see a problem in their day and where other people might get frustrated and get mad. An entrepreneur might see a problem and they might get really excited. Mhm. Someone must have done something about this problem. Let me research.
And then they get even more excited if they figured out no one's even touched this problem yet. Because now that's led to a chance for a product, for their purpose, to step in and solve that problem. Yeah. So there's lots of these different things that they're really helpful to kind of get out of our, our, our, our lane, our frame of looking at things and to look at
our day from different angles. And I'm telling you, it's been really profound for me to to do these in my own life, because I just see I've seen so much different things that I wouldn't have done, because you need that different perspective. Yeah.
Well, you also talk about, uh, you know, giving the mind a path and a purpose for each day. Mhm. Uh, how does how does that bring clarity?
Something as simple as how we're starting our day, you know, and I know there's been tons of books and tons of people have talked about this, but but it's really a travesty if we start our day with distractions. We really have to be intentional about how we start our day. And you have to make your day bigger than your distractions. You know, and this goes back to your your why, you know, this goes back to your purpose, your reason
for each day. And so even starting your day with a question to yourself of what do I really want to pay attention to today? What's important to me today? What do I really want to focus my choice attention to today? And we'll all have different answers to that question. But at least by asking yourself that you're giving your mind direction and a purpose to that day, so that when you do start going down the rabbit hole of distraction, that might be the thing that stops you and say,
you know what? My day is more important than this distraction. So I need to stop because I really want to pay attention to this business idea, to the next page I'm writing, to my spouse, to my kids, to my coworkers. I really want to pay my attention there because again, I want to pay dividends with this investment of my attention. So that's how we start making those intentional choices, to give our mind a map and a pathway to paying better attention. Yeah.
Well, Paul, this has been a great conversation. It's a good book. I hope our listeners will not only listen to what we're saying today, but we'll get the book and eat from these concepts and begin to change some, some patterns in their life, being more intentional to see where they are and to focus on, you know, what constructive things do I need to be doing today that are more constructive than simply just picking up a phone
and seeing what's going on in the world? So thanks for being with us today.
Thank you so much for this rich conversation. It's been an honor being here.
Paul Langone has been our guest, and if you'd like to find out more about his book, go to the website. Building relationships.us. It's titled Listen to Your Day The life changing Practice of Paying Attention. Just go to building relationships. Us now. Coming up next week, our summer best of series continues with a couple who's raising four boys, and they want to tackle the lives our culture is throwing at them. Don't miss it coming up in one week.
A big thank you today to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice. Backing building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening. To.