A bid for your attention.

I originally learned of a similar concept in my parenting research. Essentially the idea goes, when you have a child who is challenging, their challenging behavior is a bid for connection. 

“I’ll put my bid in here and see if I am accepted.” 

The child wants connection but is unclear how to request it. Im changing connection to attention for the sake of my point. I do believe “attention seeking behaviors” in children are requests for connection. But when we apply the “bid for attention” to marketing, it makes me pause for where my energy is going. 

This has been rolling around for me for awhile now. For the Wild podcast recently re-aired a conversation with Jenny O’dell, the author of, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy 

Jenny puts into words what I’ve been trying to express. Immediately, I downloaded her book (at the time it was free on audible). She explains your attention is a currency and where are you spending your attention. And eventually you realize your attention is your time. We all know our time is precious, so are you tuning your attention to what you choose? Or are you allowing the “powers that be” (you fill in the blank) choose for you. 

This was a powerful shift for me. 

As I’ve been developing the next arm in my business, I’ve been going down a different route for getting my information “out there.” One could say it’s a bit more of a traditional route, less on social media.

Something happened to me during the pandemic. All of the marketing and advertising I saw, started to rub me the wrong way. I felt cringe about everything. It all seemed like a bid for attention that was disguised as a bid for connection and that was a wide net reaching who? Now many of the experts will tell you to cast a wide net. Cast a small net. Discover your niche. Only talk to who you want to work with. Know your worth. Charge your worth.

All of these things seem like you need to know what you’re looking for. How can you figure out what you’re looking for? I believe that’s gonna take some soul-searching. And I’m not sure if anyone can do that except for you. You can find guides and listen to experts but it will require that you sit down with you. 

A bid for connection is natural. We can see that from children. We all put in bids for connection constantly. It just seems like a lot of energy to be consistently putting out bids for attention when you may be looking for a bid for connection. 

So, what are you looking for? Let’s discover it, schedule a call with me.