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Your Attention: Your Property: Take back complete control of your attention for the rest of your life.
Every day, there are multiple things vying for our attention — people, businesses, technologies, apps. But many of us don’t realize that our attention is our property.It belongs to us just like any other resource we own. And when we choose what we give our attention to, we can focus fully on our own purpose and on what’s best for us.When you take a step back and think about your thinking, you can take control of your attention, as well as your time and your purpose, rather than allowing others to be in control. It’s up to you.
77 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2021
29 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Dan Sullivan
79 books338 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Dan has over 35 years’ experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner, and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups.
He is author of over 40 publications, including The Wall Street Journal Bestseller: Who Not How, The Great Crossover, The 21st Century Agent, Creative Destruction, and How The Best Get Better®. He is co-author of The Laws of Lifetime Growth and The Advisor Century.
Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and in life. They jointly own and operate The Strategic Coach Inc., with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and the U.K. New workshops are also being held in Los Angeles and Vancouver. Dan and Babs reside in Toronto.
Dan has over 35 years’ experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner, and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups.
He is author of over 40 publications, including The Wall Street Journal Bestseller: Who Not How, The Great Crossover, The 21st Century Agent, Creative Destruction, and How The Best Get Better®. He is co-author of The Laws of Lifetime Growth and The Advisor Century.
Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and in life. They jointly own and operate The Strategic Coach Inc., with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and the U.K. New workshops are also being held in Los Angeles and Vancouver. Dan and Babs reside in Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 18, 2026
First read, 2025.
The simple idea of this book is to focus on my projects, purpose progress interests and achievements 1st and foremost.
It suggests that whenever I feel frustrated, I should take the object of my frustration and ask myself what I’m thinking about that frustration, then what I’m thinking about what I’m thinking. According to this book that will instantly dissolve the frustration.
It suggests that I focus on enjoyable actions that engage agency and create an energy of feeling alive and give a steam that I can achieve specifically actions that I can do today start and complete relatively easily.
It suggests that I filter people who are paying attention in my life, and filter out people who are not paying Attention . It suggests I filter out people who are not focused on being useful to others, because those people are not paying attention for the most part.
It suggests that bothers, by definition, are things that distract me to go outside myself, disrupt me to focus on others, and dysregulate my attention so that I am owned by others. This leads to being negative, failure, and being taken advantage of.
As to the how of owning attention, the suggestion is to simply become present first and foremost, then decide to treat all my experience asproperty, and all my attention as power learning value investment and wisdom. The idea is that this switch to owning attention is a light switch, and that it is better than childhood.
The book concludes with some fascinating words on metaphysics. It suggests that the self is presence. It suggests that wisdom is not persuasive indifferent and learns from its own experience. It suggests that all irritations are a signal of an inner obligation to become present to one own experience. These are unusually powerful and deep insights in a simple and short business book.
Overall, I think the book lacks operationalisation. It is a simple idea which is hard to reproduce, and the author acknowledges this by suggesting that daily habits become an opportunity to become present. Like, brushing teeth. But I think as a call to reform all systems of life, and to be more alert and focused on one’s own experience, is a valuable contribution. I just wish it was more directive and straightforward in its praxis.
Audiobook - time sense, “I am here now”, the past is helpful and future is vision, and most problems occur because one has no presence.
Free services are a ripoff because they cost the most valuable thing in the world, attention and energy.
Presence and control of attention connects the whole life together so doing that connects meaning. Respecting my attention lets me respect their attention.
Meaning is a function of attention that is given and made.
REREAD 2026
Second reading, one year on — 4 stars
This is really a spiritual book in business clothing, and it reads differently once you accept that. The repetition isn’t redundancy — it’s the author returning to the same flame because he needs the warmth again. There’s something honest in that.
The core insight is genuinely devotional: presence is freedom, and everything that pulls you out of your own experience is a form of dispossession. That’s not entrepreneurship advice. That’s closer to contemplative practice — attention as the ground of selfhood, distraction as the Fall.
The emotional urgency that occasionally tips into self-exhortation makes more sense read this way too. This is someone writing themselves back to centre. The reader gets to overhear that.
Still thin on praxis. But perhaps that’s appropriate. Presence can’t really be instructed — only pointed at, repeatedly, until something shifts.
A generous and unusual little book.
The simple idea of this book is to focus on my projects, purpose progress interests and achievements 1st and foremost.
It suggests that whenever I feel frustrated, I should take the object of my frustration and ask myself what I’m thinking about that frustration, then what I’m thinking about what I’m thinking. According to this book that will instantly dissolve the frustration.
It suggests that I focus on enjoyable actions that engage agency and create an energy of feeling alive and give a steam that I can achieve specifically actions that I can do today start and complete relatively easily.
It suggests that I filter people who are paying attention in my life, and filter out people who are not paying Attention . It suggests I filter out people who are not focused on being useful to others, because those people are not paying attention for the most part.
It suggests that bothers, by definition, are things that distract me to go outside myself, disrupt me to focus on others, and dysregulate my attention so that I am owned by others. This leads to being negative, failure, and being taken advantage of.
As to the how of owning attention, the suggestion is to simply become present first and foremost, then decide to treat all my experience asproperty, and all my attention as power learning value investment and wisdom. The idea is that this switch to owning attention is a light switch, and that it is better than childhood.
The book concludes with some fascinating words on metaphysics. It suggests that the self is presence. It suggests that wisdom is not persuasive indifferent and learns from its own experience. It suggests that all irritations are a signal of an inner obligation to become present to one own experience. These are unusually powerful and deep insights in a simple and short business book.
Overall, I think the book lacks operationalisation. It is a simple idea which is hard to reproduce, and the author acknowledges this by suggesting that daily habits become an opportunity to become present. Like, brushing teeth. But I think as a call to reform all systems of life, and to be more alert and focused on one’s own experience, is a valuable contribution. I just wish it was more directive and straightforward in its praxis.
Audiobook - time sense, “I am here now”, the past is helpful and future is vision, and most problems occur because one has no presence.
Free services are a ripoff because they cost the most valuable thing in the world, attention and energy.
Presence and control of attention connects the whole life together so doing that connects meaning. Respecting my attention lets me respect their attention.
Meaning is a function of attention that is given and made.
REREAD 2026
Second reading, one year on — 4 stars
This is really a spiritual book in business clothing, and it reads differently once you accept that. The repetition isn’t redundancy — it’s the author returning to the same flame because he needs the warmth again. There’s something honest in that.
The core insight is genuinely devotional: presence is freedom, and everything that pulls you out of your own experience is a form of dispossession. That’s not entrepreneurship advice. That’s closer to contemplative practice — attention as the ground of selfhood, distraction as the Fall.
The emotional urgency that occasionally tips into self-exhortation makes more sense read this way too. This is someone writing themselves back to centre. The reader gets to overhear that.
Still thin on praxis. But perhaps that’s appropriate. Presence can’t really be instructed — only pointed at, repeatedly, until something shifts.
A generous and unusual little book.
November 14, 2021
Redundant
Such a simple concept and repeats itself through you the book. Nothing important after first 5 min of read, I quickly scan the book and saved my time.
Such a simple concept and repeats itself through you the book. Nothing important after first 5 min of read, I quickly scan the book and saved my time.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews