A List of Things That Repel Success and Money

Here is a list of things that will distract you and steal your attention, none of which will help you succeed, and none of which will get you paid. In fact, a focus on these things will literally repel success and better financial results.

• Hillary Clinton’s emails. Donald Trump’s presidential bid. Bernie Sander’s failed presidential campaign. Pictures of Melania Trump.
• Fox News. MSNBC. The Drudge Report. The Daily Kos. Salon. The New York Times op-ed page. The Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page. The New York Post.
• The Bachelor. The Walking Dead. Game of Thrones (my weakness).
• Anything Kardashian. Anything Kanye. Anything Bieber. Anything Swift. Any dispute among famous people, but especially people famous only for being famous.
• Notifications from Twitter. Notifications from Facebook. Notifications from Instagram. Notifications from SnapChat. Almost any and all notifications from LinkedIn. The countless other notifications on the small screen of infinite distractions.
• Just over 98 percent of all of your email.
• Any time spent in a the unresourceful states of angry, frustrated, annoyed, impatience, short-tempered, irritability, or agitated. Also, any time spent feeling sorry for yourself. And, any time you spend believing that you are a victim.
• Complaining won’t bring you any level of success in any area of your life, nor will it help you financially. In both cases, complaining is a cap on your success and your earnings. It is a governor on your success.
• The snooze button on your phone or your alarm clock.
• Worrying about other people’s money. Worrying about other people’s success. Any time spent in the emotional states of jealousy or envy.

Your attention is measured in time, your single finite, non-renewable resource. There are people who get paid for producing content that captures your attention and steals your time (theft is the right analogy here). Your attention is how they succeed, and it is how they make money.

Success accrues to those who pursue it. It is repelled by people who focus their attention on the trivial.

Your time is too short, and it is too precious to fritter away on meaningless, trivial distractions. You have so little, you should be stingy, protecting it for the few things that really matter, none of which appear on this list.