By Brad Burton
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November 23, 2023
In the past 40 years, despite tech advances we haven’t upgraded our RAM speed. Memory. Our lives have transformed dramatically, with devices & screens… As a kid, we had no tech. The “wireless” radio, as my Gran called it a throwback from WW2. Tech wasn’t central to our lives or homes, people used to do things like talk to each other, draw, sing, dance without pointing at invisible answers. We had a telly, but 3 channels, 10h of generic “Blue Peter type British” programming. Now, our homes are tech hubs, wanting our attention. This influx of tech has bombarded us with too much info, turning our brains into overwhelmed processors. Our identity as people, is no longer our identity. It’s this mishmash of input, cultures, extremes, everyone’s a youtuber, podcaster, TV show, doing what they can to get our attention, you also have to keep up with music, fashion, brands, food… you get the point, unlike computers our mental capacity hasn’t evolved. This post and nice photo. Stopped you. Case in point. This overstimulation is like having too many windows open, or progs on a computer with limited (Memory) RAM, leading to a slowdown. We’re depleted before we get around to just being us. I’m working with biz owners of ALL size who come to me with a business problem. And more often than not the business problem, is them. They are OVERLOADED… working harder and harder, to get both demoralising & diminishing returns, walking wounded they start on a downward spiral of apathy “the stress is now impacting my marriage, i’m eating and drinking more. I’m just not happy.” They find themselves wanting to get away from the pressure, by scrolling at night.. disrupting sleep, and then too tired to find a way to stop, as they coffee themselves into their work more exhausted than the day before… It’s a cycle fuelled by the endless influx of pointless stimuli without the mental capacity to ever process it efficiently. If a computer slows down with a specific program, we stop running that program. I’m on to something here, this is a modern dilemma, too much input, not enough processing power. This overload now affects our choices, from disrupted sleep to reliance on coffee (i’m 5 a day still, so let’s not pretend i some saint. I’m not) and sustained and unhealthy eating which gets us into a cycle of being unhappy with our weight, and how we feel. It’s like we have become a hive mind. unable or willing to think for ourselves. We make short term choices based on what others do, not what’s necessarily what’s good for us medium/long term. Choose life. Your own one. If you are serious about wanting to fix your business problems. Maybe you start with fixing your problems first. You can’t increase your RAM speed. I’ve tried, and if you are giving it a go right now. You’re probably on the path to burnout. You need less input, to improve output. That. Is how you get out of the situation you currently find yourself in.