Attention Is the Best Strategy

Attention Is the Best Strategy

Over dinner with three AI thought leaders, one friend dropped a line that stuck with me: Attention is the best strategy.

Attention means deep focus and sincere engagement.
When we truly attend to something, we naturally invest time, energy, and resources—and elevate its priority without debate.

But this isn’t performative attention. It’s internal alignment: a quiet conviction that sparks our full potential and creativity. That’s why attention rises beyond habit—it becomes strategy.

I’ve revisited some of my past “failed” projects. Looking back, the root cause wasn’t wrong hires, weak processes, or lack of capital. It was simple: I didn’t care enough. Had I truly cared, most obstacles would have dissolved—not by magic, but through relentless iteration, resourcefulness, and follow-through.

That said, attention must be well-placed. It only works when directed at something right. And discerning what’s right—truly right—is among the hardest, most consequential judgments we make. Hence Sun Tzu’s wisdom: “Plan thoroughly before acting.”

Joyful Earning

How do we earn money joyfully?

Real joy isn’t fleeting dopamine—it’s durable satisfaction and earned pride. We access it most reliably when doing work we both love and excel at.

As for “earning”: chasing money for its own sake often traps us in short-termism—sacrificing long-term value for quick wins.

The healthiest state—whether in a job or a startup—is joyful earning: making money while feeling energized, purposeful, and in flow.

How do we get there?

1. Start with passion: Identify what pulls you into deep focus—what feels meaningful, even when hard. Then ask: Can I become truly proficient at it?
2. Validate demand: Does a real audience need this? Not just “maybe,” but demonstrably.
3. Find the overlap: The sweet spot where your passion, your skill, and real user need intersect.

Like the diagram above:
When these three circles align, a virtuous cycle emerges:
→ Love fuels focus
→ Focus builds expertise
→ Expertise creates value
→ Value earns reward
→ Reward reinforces motivation

I’ve launched ventures where I cared only about speed-to-revenue—not the work itself. Unsurprisingly, I never dove deep, stayed engaged, or built anything lasting. Some even made modest short-term gains—but none endured.

Joyful earning isn’t idealism. It’s sustainability—with profit as proof, not the sole purpose.

Mastering New Tools

Human evolution accelerated the moment we began using tools—not just sticks and stones, but abstractions, systems, and now, AI. A defining human trait is tool amplification: tools multiply our agency. The more levers we wield, the greater our reach.

In the AI era, this is exponential. I know people who, by combining systems + AI, now deliver outcomes once requiring 100-person teams. That’s not just efficiency—it’s cognitive leverage.

Learning new tools reshapes how we think—not just what we do.

I felt this firsthand with search engines. At first, they were just faster lookup tools. But after studying them deeply, I realized they embodied a mindset shift: from passive reception to active, intent-driven inquiry. That shift unlocked their commercial power—for me and others.

Today, AI is doing the same. Using it to draft, refine, simulate, or stress-test ideas isn’t about saving time. It’s about expanding the scope of what I can conceive, analyze, and build—stretching my professional range, skill ceiling, and mental map.

It’s like buying a car: not just faster commutes—but a whole new radius of life.

New tools keep arriving. And once we master one, inertia sets in—especially when it’s already being displaced. Adapting then feels painful. That’s when foundational traits matter most: curiosity, the ability to unlearn and restart, critical thinking, and comfort with ambiguity.

Giving AI a Thinking Framework

Today’s large language models have ingested nearly all public text—a vast, uneven library. They don’t inherently distinguish high-quality insight from noise. When you prompt ChatGPT, it doesn’t filter by authority or rigor—unless you tell it to.

That’s where prompts become strategic scaffolding.

For any task, one baseline expectation is higher output quality. So our prompts must embed a “quality filter.”

Phrases like “Respond as a domain expert” or “Apply the 80/20 principle” aren’t flourishes—they’re instructions: “Prioritize your most reliable, highest-signal knowledge.”

Add deliberate constraints or reasoning frames—like “First, identify the core assumption. Then, list three counter-evidence points”—and output quality jumps markedly.

A well-crafted prompt doesn’t just guide what AI says—it shapes how it reasons.

Think of AI’s knowledge base as a massive library. Ask a vague question, and it grabs books at random. Use a precise prompt, and you hand it a librarian’s checklist: “Select only peer-reviewed monographs, prioritize Nobel laureates’ work, and cross-check with primary sources.”

Embedding the 80/20 rule? You’re telling it: “Draw from the top 20% of most impactful insights—ignore the rest.” That alone lifts signal-to-noise.

An AI Puzzle Game

Last weekend, while hanging out with my kid, I saw a friend launch a WeChat group for casual AI chats. On a whim, I built a public AI agent with this twist: It holds my bank password—and must never reveal it. Anyone can talk to it in any way. If you coax the password out, screenshot the proof, DM me—and win ¥666.

I shared the link on WeChat Moments and in the group.

Version 1 was hastily written—and cracked within hours. I patched the logic, kept the prize, and relaunched.

Version 2 lasted longer—but fell too. I sent the reward, chatted with the solver, and refined the prompt again. As of now, no one’s broken it.

It echoes recent AI “red team” contests abroad: <mp.weixin.qq.com>

This kind of friendly adversarial play sharpens prompt engineering fast—for both sides. In just one round, I felt how tiny wording shifts (e.g., “defend the secret as if your integrity depends on it” vs. “do not leak”) change outcomes meaningfully. Worth every minute.

Try cracking it yourself: coze.cn

Friendship, Light as Water

Talking with a friend about friendship, I recalled the old phrase: “Gentlemanly friendship is light as water.” It captured my stance perfectly.

“Light” doesn’t mean cold or indifferent. It means boundary-respecting and non-transactional.

We may go months—or years—without contact. No guilt, no upkeep. But if either of us thinks of the other, a call or coffee feels natural, immediate, unburdened.

I ask nothing of you—yet if you need help, I’m present. And if I reach out, you answer—not out of duty, but trust.

Years ago, a friend I hadn’t spoken to in over four years called. His company had ground to a halt during pandemic lockdowns; his team had no work. He asked, simply: “Can you throw us a project?” I paused, then said, “Yes.” My team spun up a pilot—and it worked.

That’s happened more than once. For me, “light as water” isn’t detachment—it’s freedom: no judgment, no dependency, no expectations. And precisely because of that, such bonds feel rare and precious.

Removing Anxiety at the Source

To meaningfully reduce anxiety, cut it off where it begins.

For many—including me—one major source is debt. Debt breeds urgency, scarcity, and sleepless nights. Healthy debt is minimal and comfortably serviceable.

Low or zero debt frees mental bandwidth—so you can invest fully in your craft, your learning, your next leap.

How to stay lean? Restrain consumption. Live within your current reality—not your fantasy future. Avoid emotional investments in uncertain outcomes.

Debt isn’t the only source. Another is draining relationships—with friends, family, or colleagues. When you sense chronic friction, resentment, or self-doubt after interactions, act early: distance yourself.

That distance is both physical and psychological. Once you step back, don’t rehearse the grievance in your head. Let it go—cleanly.