Don't waste their attention | As The Crowe Flies | Episode 10

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] As the crow flies on the Bands Crow podcast, welcome Back to the podcast. On Fridays, I sit down to share some thoughts, ideas, philosophies, things that can help you become a tangibly better communicator. And as you can tell from my surroundings, I am actually in Phoenix, Arizona. This week has been a wild ride. I had a chance to address lenders from the Farm Credit System in St. Louis. And then I got on a plane and I am speaking to some of the most advanced farmers in the entire world here at the Arizona Farm Bureau. So I'm so cramped for time that I wanted to make sure that I gave something valuable here, but also didn't eat into the time that people have paid for, for me to come and give speeches and talk with them about concepts and help them and their organization get better at what they do. So I'm gonna try and do both by giving perhaps one of the shortest and most impactful things I ever learned while I was working with my mentor Fred Perla. Many of you'll remember from a few podcast episodes ago when I sat down with my mentor, and you probably noticed how good of a relationship we had, but one of the things that you wouldn't know from looking at that is all of the hours that we spent when Fred was giving me advice. One time I was in Fred's office and I was really frustrated because I had a talk coming up and the organizers weren't telling me what they wanted, and it really felt like all they wanted me to do was to come and entertain them for an hour. They didn't have a problem that they were asking me to help their team come solve. And that's what my specialization is. You tell me what the problem is that you're facing, and I'll use my repertoire of philosophies and concepts to try and offer you a different way to think about your problems so that you can solve it yourself.

Vance Crowe [00:01:37] So I'm sitting in Fred's office and I'm complaining about this, and I'm saying it's not fair. And I wish they had put more time into this. And I said, I don't know what I'm gonna say. And I expected Fred to come back to me with some kind of comment about how I should just think about what they need or what topics do I want to cover, but he didn't. He looked me straight in the eye and he said, Vance, just don't waste their time. You have to value their attention as much as they do, and these people are doing important things, so don't waste their time. So I was pretty frustrated with this advice, and I went back to my office and I just kind of rolled it over and over again in my mind thinking, man, Fred didn't really help me out there and you know, he just wants me to value their time and their attention. And then it hit me, he's right. Actually, attention is the most valuable thing that you own. It's the most valuable thing that everyone owns in any room that you're giving a speech to. And you need to say something that is worthy of their attention. Otherwise, it'd be better for you just to be quiet and not say anything at all. So that got me thinking, and it actually prompted me to call the organizers and say, tell me about the attention of the people in the room. What are they normally paying attention to when they're not here? And what can we do to make sure that we get the most value out of it? That talk ended up being great, but it took me coming to the realization that it's not just about what I wanna say or entertaining or anything like that. Whenever you get in front of a group of people, you have to value their attention as much as they do because attention is the most valuable thing that you own. And that's why I'm so grateful you're here, and it's why I'm gonna make this episode really short, because I don't have a lot of time to put together something else.

Vance Crowe [00:03:08] So with that lesson, I wanna make a quick note that Jared McDaniel, Dwayne Faber, and myself, will be at Aggravation Canada's largest livestock show and one of the largest livestock shows in all of North America on November 26th in the afternoon to do an All-Star joint podcast. We're calling it the Three Brothers Road Show, and we're gonna be there. Dwayne is gonna do a 10 minute comedy set. And then Jared, Dwayne and I are gonna sit down and talk about some of the most controversial issues in all of agriculture, everything from the difference between cattlemen and dairymen, some of the trade issues between the US and Canada, and what are other issues that people are talking about, but you don't hear on the radio or in other podcasts because people sense of themselves. So we're gonna try and make this a conversation worth listening to. We hope you come by. Check out Dwayne, hang out with us during the podcast, ask us some questions during the live taping, and then hang out with us as we get a few beers up in Regina Saskatchewan. Hope you'll be there on November 26th, and check out the Aggravation website for more information. So with that, I'm gonna jump outta here. Thank you so much for joining me. I am so glad you're here.