Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello, wonderful, amazing, interesting, cool, fabulous people. I had a conversation in my coaching program a little while ago and I've wanted to sit down and do a podcast on this. But, generally speaking, I don't do content. That's negative, and the only ways that I could think to phrase this in the past when I wanted to talk about this was, I don't know. It felt negative when I thought about sitting down to talk about it, so I didn't do it. But recently, with all of the work that I've been doing on peace and happiness and love and joy and moving towards what we want rather than what we don't want, I thought I would have another go at this conversation. So this conversation happened I don't know, maybe a year ago, and a bunch of the coaching clients and myself were talking in our coaching program about, you know, some of the guys were mentioning that they'd been feeling quite a bit of like stress and like fear of missing out and almost like addiction from social media, from Instagram in particular, but pretty much you know every social media app. And we had this conversation and I'll read out little bits and pieces of what I wrote. Actually, I might rewrite what I wrote because I used to be a lot more. I won't say negative, but I believed my own stories a lot more back in the day. You know, a year or so ago, I was a little bit more forceful with some of my opinions and even that is me being, I wouldn't say, hard on myself, but anyway, let's talk about this. So what I wrote back then, or what I said back then I think what I was trying to get across back then was that if you think about what the purpose of social media is right and, to be clear, I love social media.

Speaker 1: 1:51

I really, really, really do. Obviously, you're listening to this. Well, you're listening to this on a podcast. I don't know if that counts as social media, but I have a YouTube channel. That's social media. I have a Twitter. I have an Instagram. I use Facebook for my coaching program or part of it. We use Discord for part of our coaching program. So I clearly love social media. But if you think about one of the purposes of social media and a lot of businesses and you know ventures in general the purpose of social media is to keep you on social media. You know the way that the business model is set up is the longer that you can spend on social media, the more money that the company makes, you know it makes sense. And so if you think about that, that mission comes before anything else. At least that's to my observation. That's what comes first from most social media.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Most social media doesn't necessarily want you to be happy. Now, I don't think that they want you to be unhappy, but it's just not really something that they're thinking about. And if you're a little bit unhappy but you stick around on the platform, I think that'd be okay with that. That certainly seems to be the impression that I get from most social media. And again, none of this. I don't think any of this is nefarious. I don't think the people that make social media or work on social media platforms or contribute to social media platforms I don't think they want people to be unhappy, but it's not really something that they're thinking about or concerned about. It's more. You know the grinding of can we get more people to stay here? Can we make the advertisers happy? Can we make the shareholders happy?

Speaker 1: 3:26

I think there's a lot of market forces going on, a lot of things going on, and so if you step back and just look at the whole picture, I think social media, more than anything, just wants you to be on social media. However, for a lot of you, for a lot of us, that might be a little bit counter to some of our goals. Right being on social media permanently, like spending a lot of time on there, can start to feel like you're more passive or you're more of a consumer. You know you're clicking on everything, you're liking things, you're watching things, especially on, you know TikTok and YouTube shorts and Instagram reels and all of that you can kind of get into, or it can be tempting to get into a little Bit of mindless zombie scrolling. You know what I mean just kind of passively consuming the content, and I get stuck in this all the time. I do this all the time. I'm actually quite good at pulling myself out of it these days, but you can sort of feel a little bit like a hamster in a wheel or like you're plugged into the matrix or something. And so this conversation that we had back in the day In my coaching group was you know methods in ways to sort of pull back a little bit and focus on the things that you want rather than social media. So focus on the goals, focus on Self improvement, focus on connection with other human beings or your friends or any of that.

Speaker 1: 4:47

And again, to really be clear here, I don't think social media is bad. I'm not going to say that it's evil or my god, they're trying to make you a zombie. You know I'm not going to. I'm not going to go on a big Andrew Tate rant or something about all of these people that are supposedly out to get us know. Everybody's trying to do their best. Everybody in social media believes that they're a good person. There's a really great philosophy by Socrates who said everybody is just trying to do, or everybody is doing, what they believe to be the good in every moment. Nobody really thinks of themselves as evil. That includes people like Hitler. They literally think they're doing good. And so Everyone in the social media scene, everyone who makes or contributes to these platforms, they're not bad people. They're just trying to do a good thing with trying to do their best. So I make that really clear. I feel like I've said that point a hundred times.

Speaker 1: 5:37

But yeah, the point of social media a lot of the time is to stay on there and to consume, and I've even said this in my content plenty of times. I would prefer. Well, I want you to do whatever you want to do at the end of the day. But if it was a choice, I would prefer you to go outside and take some action and make some friends and talk to some women or talk to some men or Whoever it is that you're interested in and lose a little bit of weight if you want to when work on your goals and never consume my content ever again. I would prefer that over you watch and listen to everything that I put out like I would prefer you to go and do the things that you want to do and obviously, again, it's not binary.

Speaker 1: 6:18

I want to make that very clear in this podcast. This podcast isn't a call to action. I'm not telling you to get off social media or reduce your social media. No, I'm just sort of talking through I'm about to talk through Some of the happiness that I've felt from reducing my social media. You know particularly the mindless scrolling and consumption, and I still do it, you know, from time to time, and it brings me tremendous joy at times and it brings me tremendous productivity at times, because I know I can Watch a little bit of mindless content at the end of the day after working on my goals and stuff like that. So I still mindlessly consume from time to time, but reducing it and, more to the point, not just reducing it but focusing on the things that I do want. Focusing on my goals myself, improvement, my girlfriend Imogen, all of you guys and girls putting out content, being part of this community, building things like focusing on that stuff has brought me a lot of happiness and a lot of Peace. There's a good book that talks about this stuff. It's by David Hawkins, who is one of my favorite authors, and the book is called in the world, but not of it. In other words, the book is about how to live in the current world but not get caught up in it or not be like of it, so to speak. And I've found a lot of peace from sort of pulling back a little bit and not getting caught up in drama or internet discussions.

Speaker 1: 7:43

Or Did you hear what this person did? Oh my god, this person did this. Who's right, who's wrong? You know left versus right, what's the political situation? I don't even know who the prime minister is. I don't know who the prime minister, which you know for you Americans, is our version of the president. I don't know who the prime minister is of my country right now and I don't suspect I will ever care Like I'm happy for them to do whatever they want to do with politics and believe all of their stories and get swept up in all of that drama and angst and stuff, but I just don't really have any interest in it. So I live in the world but I'm not of it. I couldn't tell you what wars have started and who's fighting a war right now. I don't know the situation in Ukraine and Russia. I only recently found out about Israel and whoever they're fighting. I think the war had been going on for like five days before I found out. So I pull back from all of that because to me that's just people doing what they're doing. People have had wars since the dawn of time. It's not really interesting to me if there's a new one. But, by the way, none of this is a judgment or any of that. So if you do enjoy the news, if you do enjoy all of that, have at it Beautiful.

Speaker 1: 8:55

This podcast again is more just about my own discussions and my own pathway to peace from pulling back from a lot of that stuff. So the book that I mentioned in the world but not of it by David Hawkins. There's a quote that really resonates with me from that book. He says when the weight of the world feels heavy or overwhelming, dr Hawkins suggests that we wear the world like a light garment and I kind of like that. The world is just like a little thing, that's a layer on top. You don't have to like get swept up in it and then that leaves you to sort of or leaves us to sort of focus on ourselves and focus on the things we want, rather than being reactive.

Speaker 1: 9:35

I think most people go through life being very reactive to things and whatever the world does, whatever the universe does, they have to get pulled in or they get pulled in different directions and drama and anger and fights and discussions and who's right and who's wrong, and making things binary. You know, left versus right, me versus you, men versus women, who's correct, andrew Tate versus everybody else. You know, I think, when you can pull back from that or at least in my own life, when I've pulled back from all of that, which has been something that I gradually did over several years, it's not like I just immediately was like all right, I'm cutting out all social media, I'm cutting out the news, like, fuck this, I'm going to let go of all drama. No, it was like a slow process for me, but moving away from that sort of us versus them mindset, that low level sort of smaller self mindset, and moving up into, I guess what you could call my higher self or my greater purpose, or just focusing on the things that I want, that I'm actually interested in, because I don't think most people really care about drama. It's just that you get caught up in it and then afterwards we say to ourselves, why the hell did I get so angry about that? Well, because you just got caught up in it and that's OK. But anyway, this has been a process for me.

Speaker 1: 10:48

So, yeah, had this big discussion with the clients about social media and moving away from it a little bit, or reducing it a little bit, or at least a better way of phrasing. This is focusing on the things that we want, and I've noticed that with a lot of clients that have done this and focused more on the things that they actually want, their goals, their friends you know, women if you're a guy, men if you're a girl, whatever, it is Focusing on those things is made them a lot happier. So, as for some how to's if. If this stuff resonates with you and you go, yeah, I wouldn't mind cutting down on social media a little bit. And again, if you're quite happy with your social media consumption, amazing, I love that. But if this resonates with you and you say, hey, I think I would like to look at a little bit less social media. I think I'd like to be a little more intentional with my time and my eyeballs and, I guess, my attention and where I spend it.

Speaker 1: 11:40

What I found is a few different extensions and things like that that have really helped. There's one for chrome, which is a chrome extension called news feed eradicator, and what it does is it replaces the news feed. You know, when you go on like instagram or twitter or facebook or any of these apps, and on the homepage there's like your news feed, there's all of the different stories and advertisements and stuff like that. This extension again it's called news feed eradicator. It takes that away, so there's no news feed, and it replaces it with motivational quotes. I really like this because every time I go to facebook is again, I use facebook, I use it for my coaching program. I use twitter. I post on there, I post my content on there. I use instagram, but anytime I go to these platforms to post something, I get to see this cool motivation, like a different motivational quite each day and like this fucking cool, and some of them have been really good quotes that I then share with my coaching program and my guys look at this. I love, fucking love this quite. Let's talk about it.

Speaker 1: 12:37

So news feed eradicator has been amazing for me, for youtube, because for me, youtube has been the platform where I spend the most, I guess you could say, unintentional or mindless time. There's a chrome extension I use, called on hook, and another one called hide youtube viewers and likes. So the first one was called on hook and what this one does is it removes like the homepage, like the news feed, I guess you would say the recommendations, the algorithm. It takes that away On any video that you're watching. It doesn't come up with. You know, at the end of a youtube video has all of the like, next recommended videos and goes hey, watch one of these. It takes that away. It takes the sidebar away on the right hand side on youtube when has all the recommended videos, takes that away. You can get it to hide comments. You can get it to hide likes and viewers and all of that. But I use a separate extension for that, called hide youtube viewers and likes, because, for me as a content creator, I found that I was often comparing myself to other youtubers.

Speaker 1: 13:39

You know, I would look at people with millions of subscribers and say I'm not as good as them, I'm never gonna be like them. Or I would even look at subscribers that had less subs than me and I would feel I used to feel a sense of like, pride of like yeah, I'm doing a good job, like, cuz I have more than this guy. And that just made things binary. It made it a me versus them thing. It disconnected me from my fellow human beings. Right, like it's hard to feel some peace and love for your fellow man and woman when you're comparing yourself. Like it's some sort of dick measuring contest. Right, this guy has more subs than me, so he's better. Yeah, I have more subs than this woman, so I'm better, and so this extension really has helped me with that. Again, it's called hide youtube viewers and likes, and I can't see how many subscribers any channel has. I can't see how many subs I have on my own channel, though I roughly know, because image and cam will tell me like every now and then, or you guys and girls will tell me I'll get comments from people saying congrats on 8000 subs in a minute. Fuck yeah, thank you. Cool. And it also hides the likes, so I can't see how many likes I got. So, yeah, I really love those extensions.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Again, if you just want to grab, if you're interested in this, just the unhook one is more than enough. It hides all of the Algorithm stuff and All of the stuff that keeps you mindlessly or keeps me mindlessly consuming. I also don't have any of the apps installed on my phone, so, like I don't have like twitter, instagram, facebook, youtube or any of that installed on my phone. For youtube. I did a because I still use youtube a lot on my phone, but I have a hacky like I hacked. It's not hacking, but on android you can basically do something called side loading apps, which is where you install an app that's not on the play store. It's not like an official app and there is one called new pipe. So new pipe, pip E, and basically this is like an amazing version of youtube.

Speaker 1: 15:36

It takes a little bit to install it. I don't know like maybe five, ten minutes of googling to install. It's not that difficult, I think you can just go to like NewPipecom, and they have instructions, but it hides everything. Like you can customize the shit out of it. So there's like no algorithm, no recommended videos, no comments, no likes. You can just hide everything. And I really like that.

Speaker 1: 15:57

Because then when I go on the app on my phone I have to be very or I am very intentional about what I watch. So like it doesn't recommend me, there's no algorithm, there's no recommendations, and so if I want to watch a video, I have to think for a little bit and be like what video do I want to watch? Or what channel do I want to watch? Who do I want to go and check out and see if they have any new videos? And just that alone has made me a lot more intentional with my consumption and I find that puts me less in that zombie. You know, my brain isn't working because I'm just a zombie mindlessly consuming. It takes me out of that mindset and puts me instead in like what would I like to watch? In other words, I'm basically asking myself what do I want? Like what do I actually want to consume right now?

Speaker 1: 16:39

And then I go and watch that, and that was kind of the beautiful part of social media in the early days, right, compared to maybe television or something like that. You know, television was very much mindlessly consuming and I very much felt many times in my life I would just watch television and I would like zone out for like hours at a time. And YouTube came along and it was this like game changing thing for me, because it's like, oh shit, now I got to choose who I subscribe to, who I follow, what I watch. That's amazing. It's like the power is in my hands now, like I'm not a zombie anymore. But then we sort of come full circle, or these apps have come full circle, these platforms have come full circle to now where it's mindless again. So yeah, using this app again new pipe, it is called on Android has just been such a game changer, and then using the unhook Chrome extension on my computer has just it's removed all the algorithm stuff so I can be intentional and very similar to that.

Speaker 1: 17:38

I don't really subscribe to many people. I think I'm subscribed to 10 YouTube channels and for the most part they are channels that barely ever put out content, and so that, as well, has meant that I'm not just like mindlessly fed videos that I don't really care about. I'm very selective with who I subscribe to. It is literally only the channels that I mean. Maybe it sounds dramatic, but the channels that changed my life, or the channels that only put out a video every couple of months and they're very like technical science videos, like there's a channel I love called Technology Connections. There's another one I love called Stuff Made here. So I only subscribe to those sort of things and that's really helped me as well not be so mindless. So yeah, that's sort of my thoughts on reducing social media. I guess, to talk about what it's brought me, has brought me a lot of peace. It really has, because I'm not in that zombie mode.

Speaker 1: 18:32

I'm a little bit more intentional about my time and over the last couple of years I've listened to. It's how I've read and listened to so many books and podcasts and things like that, how I've learned so much because I listened to, like you know, audible or just podcasts on Spotify or whatever. I listened to Byron Katie. She has a podcast and she's obviously one of my favorite authors. She's had a massive impact on me and her podcast is she releases a podcast like every week. She's still going on. She's like 80 and she's still like coaching people or it's not coaching but like doing the work with people, which is you know where. She walks them through their stressful thoughts, essentially, and helps them find some peace and some freedom and reframe things and all of that beautiful stuff. So you know, it's given me a lot more time to be more intentional with my time.

Speaker 1: 19:19

You know, reducing the mindless consumption and again, that's sort of what this entire podcast was about. It's not so much that I've cut out social media, it's more that I've reduced the mindless consumption of it. And I'm not perfect with it, I don't think that was ever my goal, but reducing it a little bit has brought me a lot of peace and happiness and a lot more free time, to be honest. So yeah, that's my story. If you, I tell you what I talk about. So I've talked about this a little bit. I've put a couple of videos out on my YouTube. I've sent emails and articles and stuff.

Speaker 1: 19:55

I just released a video course called Play to Win how I Built a Winner's Mindset, and you can buy this video course for whatever you can afford to pay for it. So even if that is just $1, then you can just pay $1. I don't want anyone to miss out on this. This is basically like my Magnum Opus, like this video cost is everything I've learned over the last 15 years, all of the mindsets and philosophies, but one of the chapters in it is called play to win rather than playing not to lose, and that's essentially the mindset of this podcast that you just listened to. So this podcast is basically me saying rather than focusing on what you don't want, which is, you know, mindless consumption, focus on or I've found it beneficial to focus on what I do want, which is I want to work on my goals. So I want to work on myself improvement, I want to be with my friends. So, moving away from the things that we don't want and moving more towards the things that we do want. That's an entire chapter in the video course. There's a whole bunch of other chapters in there on setting goals.

Speaker 1: 20:54

What to do if you have limiting beliefs or fears or doubts or uncertainties. What to do if you feel hopeless and you don't think you're going to make it. What to do whenever you have a setback or you feel like you failed or you know, life sort of gives you a little gentle slap across the face and says, hey, you don't get the thing that you want right now. What to do in the face of that? I talk about gratitude, mindfulness, accountability, partners, everything like I lit this. This is literally everything that's in my brain. I've poured out into this video course took me about three months to make it really really, really recommend this Again. You can literally just pay one dollar for it. If that's all you can afford, I will leave a link, or there is a link in the description below to it. It's called play to win how I built a winners mindset On top of that.

Speaker 1: 21:39

If you would like coaching, if you would like to talk to me about anything you're working on, anything you're struggling with, I'm still offering those $200 coaching calls. They are now officially one hour. They used to be 30 minutes, but they never went for 30 minutes. They always went for like one or two or three hours. So they are now officially one hour, which means they're probably going to be two hours, but I'm still offering those. There's a link in the description below to those. And if you would like the big hardcore coaching program, that's available as well. Link in the description below to that. So yeah, ladies and gentlemen, that is how I found a little bit more peace with reducing my social media. As always, go out there, crush those goals and have an amazing time while doing it.