The Most Expensive Lesson the Super Bowl Teaches Every Year

What the Super Bowl Reveals About Attention

Every year, the Super Bowl generates numerous inspirational storylines and valuable lessons that hook us as fans for one of sport’s biggest spectacles.

The game itself is highlighted by big plays, missed opportunities, questionable decisions, momentum swings, and many other threads that we obsess over and analyze.

But there’s one phenomenon that shows up every single year, regardless of who’s playing or how the game unfolds, and it offers an important reminder for all of us.

Once a year, most of us become remarkably intentional with our attention.

We minimize our distractions. We prep everything we’ll need to minimize extra trips away from the TV screen. We become glued to all the details of the event including the commercials, halftime shows, and the surrounding pageantry.

In other words, the Super Bowl doesn’t just capture attention, it commands it. Companies understand this better than anyone. That’s why they’re willing to spend roughly $8 million for 30 seconds of access to your focus.

Here’s the reminder I have every year following the Super Bowl: If your attention is worth millions to companies, why do you give it away so casually the rest of the year?

For the other 364 days of the year, almost anything is allowed to buy ad space in our mind and it comes in the form of constant notifications, emails, social media feeds, and direct comments from those around us. Altogether, this barrage of messages are often gift-wrapped in frustration, urgency, disappointment, and overall very unhelpful because they hijack one of your most precious (and limited) resources: Your focus.

The key skill beneath all of this is learning to treat attention as a finite asset that must be deliberately directed (and protected), not casually spent.

The Cost of Unprotected Attention

When we fail to protect our attention, the consequences are problematic: Rushed decisions, emotional overreactions, inconsistent execution, and defaulting to old habits under pressure.

Each of us have “ad space” in our own minds, but it’s limited. Every repeated thought, internal story, or mental loop is an advertisement.

Some are intentional, but most are not. The most influential ones are often running unknowingly in the background of our lives. These internal ads will begin to reinforce behaviors you’re actively trying to change. What you consistently give attention to gets reinforced, for better or worse.

Here’s how NBA superstar, Steph Curry, talks about the power of mindset and why focus is so critical for sustaining success.

Curate Your Digital Classroom

Here’s a practical way to protect your attention without trying to control everything.

Everyone you follow is either sharpening your focus or stealing it.

There’s no neutral content. Every account, voice, or feed you regularly consume is teaching you something including how to think, what to notice, what to worry about, and what to prioritize.

So treat your digital feed like a classroom.

Curate it with the same intention you’d use when choosing teachers, mentors, or training partners. Follow people who clarify your thinking, reinforce standards and values you care about, model behaviors you’re trying to build, and/or challenge you without hijacking your focus.

And most importantly, remove (or mute) anything or anyone that consistently pulls you into spaces of negative comparison, reinforces habits you’re trying to outgrow, sparks debate over areas you’re not concerned with, and so on.

Ask yourself: If my digital feed were shaping my daily behavior, would I be happy with the results it’s producing?

Final Thoughts

You don’t need to overhaul your life to improve your focus. You just need to notice what you’re feeding it.

The top performers aren’t perfect with their attention, but they’re intentional with it.

They decide what (or who) earns access. They notice when it drifts. They create a system to bring it back when it gets stolen.