# Attention Finds What the Mind Learns to Recognize by Bryant McGill > “Attention is selective, and opportunity is often invisible until you know how to recognize it. In the same way that a newly learned word suddenly seems to appear everywhere, a mind trained to look for possibility begins to find doors in walls that once looked solid, because the doors were there all along.” > **— Bryant McGill**, *All Is Well Within When Pain Becomes a Seed of Change - Livestream (Oct 2015)* ## Sources and Context - **Source:** [[livestreams/All Is Well Within When Pain Becomes a Seed of Change - Livestream|All Is Well Within When Pain Becomes a Seed of Change - Livestream]] — exact quotation from the developed livestream document. - **Conceptual context:** Goals, learned categories, expectations, salience, and prior experience tune what is noticed. Training can therefore make previously invisible patterns or opportunities easier to detect. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/Analog Cognition and the Architecture of Continuity|Analog Cognition and the Architecture of Continuity]] - **Article:** [[articles/Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter!|Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter!]] - **Livestream:** [[livestreams/All Is Well Within When Pain Becomes a Seed of Change - Livestream|All Is Well Within When Pain Becomes a Seed of Change - Livestream]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Selective Attention|Selective Attention]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Attention is selective, and opportunity is often invisible until you know how to recognize it. In the same way that a newly learned word suddenly seems to appear everywhere, a mind trained to look for possibility begins to find doors in walls that once looked solid, because the doors were there all along.” — Bryant McGill, All Is Well Within When Pain Becomes a Seed of Change - Livestream (Oct 2015) https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-bryant-mcgill-attention-learns-recognize ```