Reducing noise to dial into the signal…
I’m a huge proponent of podcasts and audio learning, especially in the car. I’ve probably mentioned it plenty of times on my own podcast — the ability to listen to other people’s conversations with no skin in the game has broadened my perspective, challenged my viewpoints, and contributed positively to my life.
The other day I was listening to a Huberman Lab episode on learning, memory, and neuroplasticity. There was a segment that stuck with me — the idea that the visual cortex isn’t exclusively for sight. It’s simply cortical real estate, and what it does depends on what’s plugged into it.
In people born blind, that “visual” cortex doesn’t sit idle. Instead, it’s hijacked by other senses — hearing, touch, spatial awareness. The brain reallocates its resources.
That idea sent me down a familiar mental path.
When I was a kid playing RPGs, you’d create a character by rolling stats — strength, intelligence, constitution, dexterity — all capped by a total pool. No matter how you distributed them, the sum was fixed. One stat went up, another had to come down.
Call it the 100% hypothesis.
A fancy way of saying that everyone — no matter how successful, busy, or driven — still only has 100% capacity.
Our days are precious. Our energy even more so.
Which raises an uncomfortable question:
How do we hear what’s important when there’s so much noise around us?
We all have limits on what we can take in and what we can act on. In combat sports, this shows up clearly. Fighters use feints to overload an opponent’s perception — false information designed to tax their nervous system. When a fighter becomes overwhelmed, their reactions degrade. Timing slips. Decision-making slows. They stop returning fire the way they would if their system wasn’t under strain.
Noise wins. Signal gets lost.
Zoom out, and the same thing applies to life.
How do we know what’s calling us if we’re constantly reacting to inputs that don’t matter? Notifications, opinions, content, obligations — all competing for the same finite bandwidth. When we’re overloaded, we respond reflexively instead of deliberately.
Our daily habits form us. What we consume shapes what we notice. What we notice shapes what we act on.
This is as much a reminder to myself as anything else:
Focus on the signals that matter, and deliberately tune out the noise.
So I’ll leave you with the same question I’ve been pondering:
What signals are you missing because of the noise in your life?
