Ignore The Noise

“Ignore The Noise” is the best piece of advice I ever got. I love it so much that one year as a gift, a girlfriend wrote and framed the quote so it could hang on my wall.

It’s simple. And that’s why I love it.

Let me tell you what “ignore the noise” means to me…

In my twenties, I was a bundle of energy striving and struggling to prove myself to the world. When I wasn’t working, I was working on something else! I was plenty busy, but at the same time I was also struggling to achieve the clarity and impact I was striving for.

One day, I was sharing this with a beloved mentor whose response was: “ignore the noise”. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. When I asked him to explain, I remember being offered another, “ignore the noise”. I got the message! This was something I needed to deeply reflect upon.

At first, and for a while I didn’t fully understand the lesson. So I keep sitting with it. Over time I began to realize that my spirit and energy were being crowded out. I was overwhelming myself with…stuff. I felt like I couldn’t keep up.

Books, newsletters, podcasts, etc. Social media. The latest whatever. I was consuming too much. And it was mostly crap. Topical Transitory Stuff that fires off dopamine, etc. but is “mental junk food”. And I say that without judgment. Your information diet is yours to curate…

I thought this stuff would give me an edge. Eventually I learned that only great stuff gives you an edge, and then only if it’s balanced within the context of your life. And even then, stuff has diminishing returns. What really gives someone an edge is doing things and learning along the way. Creating more than consuming. Bias for action.

This lesson blossomed over a period of months as I stripped away things like television, social media, and other attention takers. I reduced the volume and increased the quality of the written information I take in via books, etc.

During this time I came up with clever methods of evaluating stuff for inclusion in my information diet. I tried many approaches, but ended up settling on the following filters:

• has it stood the test of time?
• did someone in top .1% of their expertise create or share it?
• was it recommended by at least 3 trusted friends who have good taste?

These filters cut my information diet down by 99%.

When it was all said and done, I began to experience an expanding feeling of potential. Creative energy began to reveal itself and grow. The space once filled from the outside was being filled from the inside. And as these changes continued, I found myself becoming happier in life and more effective with my focus and energy.

To this day, nearly 10 years later, I still strive to always be reducing the volume and increasing the quality of information I consume.

The result is clarity. And space for the ideas and energy inside me to emerge. And focus that can be used to pursue those ideas.

I still make time nearly everyday to read, listen to a podcast, etc. but these days I have a small highly curated selection of awesome things that I’m excited to enjoy. Even still I can’t get to it all, and it pains me to delete some of this stuff. But I think that feeling of hating to delete something is how you know you’ve got good stuff to begin with.