The Trophy Shop
Why Attention Will Never Be Enough
I didn't realize it at the time, but a visit to a trophy shop in my youth was a foreshadowing of the attention economy.
The Two Sides of Attention.
We hear a lot about the attention economy these days, and usually the story is told from the corporate side. Attention is today's most valuable resource. Sophisticated algorithms track our interest and clicks, and the attention they capture is bought, sold and traded like any other commodity. And like any finite resource, there is only so much to go around.
But there is a flip side that gets far less discussion: the view from inside that economy, where the rest of us are just trying to garner a little attention of our own. Everyone wants it, including you and me. And if attention is limited, we have to compete for it. There is so much information, and so many people online, that attention has become hard to attract and quick to evaporate. Influencers and marketers at all levels struggle just to be seen. I understand that struggle. When I was developing a marketing plan for my book Seeker's Mindset, a friend asked me to name my biggest competitor. I answered: the noise.
But I think even the fight to be seen hides a core misconception. The problem isn't only that attention is scarce. It's that attention is not what we are really seeking. And to explain what I mean, I have to take you back to that trophy shop.
When I was a child, I went into one with my mother. We had come to order an award. While she talked to the man at the counter, I looked around the showroom at trophies and plaques, small and large, simple and elaborate. There seemed to be an award for everything.
What surprised me was that they let us in at all. It was an award shop. Anyone could just walk in, order an award, have their name engraved on it and display it on a shelf or wall. When I said this to my mom, she agreed that they could. But it wouldn't mean anything, she told me, because the person hadn't done anything to deserve it. It would be hollow. In effect, a lie — not only to the viewer, but to oneself.
Attention Is Not Recognition.
That memory surfaced recently while I was reading Chris Hayes' book The Sirens' Call. In it, he draws a distinction between attention and recognition. The two are easily conflated, though they're distinct in both meaning and experience.
Attention can come from anyone, in any form. It can be desirable, like applause from an audience, or it can be the flashing red lights in your rearview mirror. Either way, the focus is on you, and it can come from anywhere.
Recognition is different. It is exclusive. It can only come from your peers. Hayes uses the Academy Awards as an example. Being inducted into a sport's Hall of Fame is another. A crowd can give you attention and applaud your effort, but only your peers can recognize what you actually accomplished, because their own experience and expertise let them understand an accomplishment's true depth and meaning. These are high-profile examples, but meaningful recognition can be as simple as Employee of the Month. Attention can be nice, as long as it isn't those red lights. But it is ephemeral and doesn't sustain you the way being recognized does.
Which brings me back to the trophy shop. What my mother was really saying, I realize now, is that a trophy you buy for yourself might get you attention, but never recognition. To garner attention, we do the social media equivalent of jumping up and down, saying "look at me." There's no judgment here. In effect, I'm doing the same thing with this post, working to gain attention in order to convey an idea, and yes, maybe sell a book or two. My point isn't that these efforts are bad or unjustified. My point is that a like, a share or a follow is not recognition. It's attention. And it's only satisfying for a moment.
A Thirst That Can't Be Quenched.
Back in 1851, Arthur Schopenhauer wrote: "Riches, one may say, are like sea-water; the more you drink the thirstier you become; and the same is true of fame."¹ Today, I think Schopenhauer would write "attention."
If you doubt that the need for attention is a thirst that can't be quenched, consider some in the billionaire class. At that level of prominence, where would one even find recognition? The few capable of granting it are the competition. Yet the need for validation is a human trait no one escapes. Hence you get scenes with chrome-plated chainsaws, billionaires racing one another to the edge of space and a social platform bought outright just to own the megaphone. A sports car launched toward Mars. A wedding staged for a global audience. These aren't the moves of people starved for attention. They're the moves of people who have all the attention in the world and are still thirsty.
We see the same at the heights of political power. With no peers to grant recognition, the craving for public validation, for monuments and legacy, is insatiable. And like a trophy you buy for yourself, the award rings hollow. That disappointment drives some to seek another, often grander, attention fix.
The Answer Is in Your Why.
So if attention fails to quench our need for validation and meaning, and recognition is hard to come by, what do we do? Where do we find validation in our day's work, and yes, in our social media outreach? The answer is in our why. It isn't what someone else is doing — the likes, the shares, the follows — that feeds us in an attention economy that won't stop screaming. It's our why: our sense of meaning and how we feel about what we're doing.
Why. It's a simple, three-letter word. But defining your why, the purpose that motivates and steadies you amid the shifting tides of our modern world — and then living it in your thoughts, words and actions — is no simple task. Still, in a life that won't stop moving, perhaps the most meaningful recognition isn't the kind Hayes describes at all, but the recognition that comes from inside: not a trophy you award yourself, but the inner knowledge that your daily intentions and actions align with the truest version of who you aspire to be. Every day, striving to be someone, not something.
Notes:
¹ Schopenhauer, A. (1974). Parerga and paralipomena: Short philosophical essays (Vol. 1; E. F. J. Payne, Trans.). Clarendon Press. (Original work published 1851).
