Latest / The Karen Kenney Show / BEWARE OF THE INFLUENCERS

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BEWARE OF THE INFLUENCERS · The Karen Kenney Show

0:01
Karen Kenney: Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney
0:03
show. I'm wicked excited to be here with you, and I'm going to
0:07
tell you, I just, I'm just going to, oh my God, Jesus, help us.
0:12
I'm just going to keep this one like, probably pretty short. I'm
0:16
considering this episode just like a little PSA, little PSA,
0:24
from my heart to yours, from my brain to yours. And for, maybe
0:28
for some of the younger viewers, right? Like those are the people
0:31
who are Gen X, who are like my generation. You remember the
0:34
PSAs? A PSA is a public service announcement for those of you
0:38
who might be a little bit younger and you're like, what's
0:40
a PSA? Because so many people don't watch live TV. I don't
0:45
even know if they do PSAs anymore, but back in the day,
0:48
when we were kids, teenagers, whatever, you'd be watching TV,
0:52
and all of a sudden it'd be like, this is a PSA. This is a
0:55
public service announcement, and this is what it is. And I got
0:59
the exact language so I wouldn't mess it up. So a PSA was a
1:02
message that was add or published at no cost to the
1:07
public. So this is basically it was to the purpose of a PSA was
1:10
to serve the public interest. It wasn't for profit by some
1:14
company. Some company wasn't making money off of making this
1:16
announcement, right? And it often had sponsors, like
1:21
nonprofit organizations or grassroot movements or sometimes
1:25
it was the government Okay, and it was usually done over TV or
1:29
radio or web or print or whatever. And what it was used
1:33
for was to raise public awareness about a significant
1:36
social issue, to educate people or to encourage positive
1:40
behavior change, which is really kind of cool. And these
1:44
campaigns aim to influence attitudes on topics like health
1:49
or safety or literacy or environmental protection. And it
1:54
kept it very simple. It used clear, concise and sometimes
1:57
emotionally impactful messaging to prompt action. Now, growing
2:02
up, some of the things that we heard about, we learned, Smokey
2:06
the Bear, right? Only you can prevent forest fires, right? So,
2:10
where there is forest fire prevention, there was drunk
2:13
driving awareness. Friends. Don't let friends drive drunk,
2:17
right? There were health screenings. They would tell
2:19
people to get checked, you know, for cancer or for heart disease
2:24
or, like, whatever they were like, sometimes ads about
2:28
animals, like making sure you get your animals neutered or
2:31
spayed, and things like that. And then, obviously there were
2:34
things about environmental conservation, so PSAs were,
2:38
like, always really helpful in a very normal pot of us growing
2:42
up, I think as adults right now, I think of as people right now
2:47
who are kind of experiencing and being bombarded by so much
2:52
information on the interwebs, like every time you turn around,
2:57
your phone is literally like a tiny computer, right? People are
3:00
on their phones all the time. We all know this, right? So we are
3:03
constantly bombarded from our phones, from the internet, from
3:07
TV, whatever. You have all these people that are Hawking their
3:12
way as you have all these people that are quote, unquote,
3:15
influences, right? And I did a podcast so long ago, and I
3:20
basically said we're all influences, meaning we all
3:23
influence each other in our day to day lives based on how we're
3:28
showing up, how we're talking to each other, how we're presenting
3:31
if we're being kind, if we're being dicks, what we're selling
3:34
like what we're doing, we are all constantly influencing each
3:37
other. But now there is a whole group of Grifters, right?
3:41
There's a whole bunch of people out there Hawking their wares.
3:45
And if you are unawares, right, I say that I know bad grandma.
3:50
I'm doing it on purpose. But if you are unawares right, about
3:54
like these people, it is so easy right to get hurt, to get
3:59
harmed, to get screwed, to get scammed, to get taken advantage
4:03
of, like, whatever. I mean, I know people not. I would say my
4:08
family, adjacent, older women, who are totally, totally being
4:14
scammed by online dudes pretending to be these young,
4:18
hot men who want relationships with them, and these people are
4:20
sending them money. I'm like, Oh my God. And here's the other
4:24
thing you know right now, with all the Epstein file stuff,
4:28
right names, big names are coming out, the names of of male
4:33
bro science influences, and everybody thought, who just had
4:38
books coming out. And everybody loves them. They have millions
4:40
of followers, and you start to realize, Oh, this guy was pals
4:45
with Jeffrey Epstein, even after the whole world knew that he had
4:48
basically trafficked young women for prostitution. This guy is a
4:52
is a level one, whatever class sex offender, and we're still
4:57
going to be pals with him. I guess the. The only purpose of
5:01
this message today, like I said, this is my little personal PSA
5:06
is I cannot encourage you enough to do your homework, do your due
5:13
diligence, and nobody really is going online. Right to how do I
5:21
say this to basically tell you what a shit bag they've been,
5:25
what a deviant they are, what a like, what like, what a like, a
5:29
sick person they are, right? Everybody's out there like
5:32
Hawking their wares. And I started thinking about this when
5:35
I saw the word influence. There's a quote that I love from
5:39
Bruce Lee, and he says, A good teacher can never be fixed in a
5:45
routine. Each moment requires a sensitive mind that is
5:50
constantly changing and constantly adapting. A teacher
5:55
must never impose this student to fit his favorite pattern, a
6:02
good teacher. Listen to this line. A good teacher protects
6:06
his pupils from his own influence. A good he says, a
6:11
teacher is never a giver of truth. He is a guide, a pointer
6:17
to the truth that each student must find for himself. He says,
6:21
I'm not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore
6:25
yourself. I 100,000% agree. You heard me. If you listen to my
6:33
podcast the last couple of weeks, I always say, I as a
6:35
teacher of anything, I am not interested in creating
6:38
codependence. I am interested in creating independence. I always
6:42
say, any good teacher who's teaching something right an
6:46
external teacher, because I believe we all have internal
6:50
teachers. I think we all have this knowing, this divine
6:55
intelligence. Yes, there are things that we need to learn
6:58
from other people, because we don't have that skill set like,
7:03
really, I'm talking like tangible physical skills, right?
7:07
We do often need external teachers to teach us very
7:12
specific physical skills. And within us, we also have a divine
7:18
intelligence. Some people might call this intuition, some people
7:21
might call it gut instinct. You can call it spirit, Holy Spirit.
7:25
You can call it divine intelligence. You can call, I
7:27
always say, you know, GPS, God's pretty smart, right? There is a
7:31
part of us that is usually aware, oh, this person isn't
7:36
safe. Oh, this person, like, you get that funny feeling, but then
7:40
you just want to, like, push it away, right? All the red flags
7:43
come up, and you go, no, well, so and so says they're nice. So
7:47
and So says me. I reserve. I reserve. I can't usually tell
7:54
how I feel about a person until I meet them, either in person or
7:59
I have some sort of a zoom call or whatever, but I like to get
8:03
my eyeballs on people and put them in a room with people, and
8:06
I like to see how they act all throughout the day, because it's
8:09
really easy to get on stage and to get online and pretend that
8:13
you're a certain kind of person, when in your day to day life,
8:16
you are not that person.
8:18
And you you sell, you sell a good you like you do a good job
8:22
selling, selling this idea of you, but that is not who you
8:27
really are. And I just think that right now online, it is
8:31
rampant. It is rampant. And I said, you know, a lot of times
8:35
we give our power away to quote, unquote influences, to people
8:40
you see online that have a huge following, or just had a book
8:43
come out or whatever, and and I'm always like, these are just
8:47
regular people who get wicked good at marketing, or they hire
8:52
a marketing team to help them craft a brand. And I jokingly
8:57
say to my friends, remember when people? Remember when we weren't
8:59
brands? Remember when we were all just like people. We're all
9:02
just like normal people. And so as stuff continues to come out
9:07
and come down in the Epstein files, and names are going to be
9:11
named, and I'm just like, You guys look, you're going to start
9:14
to get a little disappointed, you're going to start to get a
9:17
little like, horrified. You're going to be like, Oh my God,
9:19
that guy or that person or whatever. Yep, them too. So I
9:25
just want to say, please use your critical thinking. Please
9:30
use your discretion. Don't just follow people willy nilly. I go
9:36
in all the time and I look at stuff and I'm like, I don't even
9:38
know who this person is. Like, I don't even remember this person.
9:41
When did I follow this person? Like, whatever. And I'm just
9:44
like, unfollow, unfollow, unfollow, unfollow. And you just
9:47
start to realize a lot of times, people with wicked, big
9:50
platforms, like I said, they're just regular people who got
9:54
quote, unquote internet famous. It doesn't mean you should be
9:57
taking their medical advice, their health advice, they. Of
10:00
relationship advice or advice on mental health or spirituality or
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anything. There's a lot of Grifters out there. It's a lot
10:07
of people that can just hang a shingle, call themselves a thing
10:10
and start selling their fucking supplements, or whatever, you
10:13
know, their pyramid schemes and like all that stuff. And because
10:17
people, we know how much influence there is out there,
10:21
because we hear these horrifying, these heartbreaking
10:24
stories all the time of young men and women, young people,
10:28
right, harming themselves, dying via suicide, right and alive in
10:33
themselves because of pressure or things that they're the
10:37
comparing that they're doing, or the things they were told all of
10:41
it, and it just it breaks my heart. A good teacher protects
10:47
his pupils from his own influence, and that's what I
10:50
have always told my yoga students, too. I'm like, don't
10:53
take my word for it. You've got to try things and experience
10:58
things for yourself so you can figure out what's true for you,
11:01
so you can come to realize what's true for you. And I've
11:05
always said, like external teachers, what any good external
11:09
teacher is doing is we're pointing it's like what Bruce
11:12
Lee says, but I've said it a little differently, which is,
11:15
all we're doing is we're pointing back at your own
11:17
internal teacher. So when people start to do like, and I think
11:21
I've mentioned this before in the past, like, you know, in
11:25
yoga culture, you add the word like, the letters j, i after
11:30
somebody. So somebody might call, be called like, they'd
11:32
say, Oh, this is my guru. This is Guru, G, right? And
11:35
sometimes, well, there was this period of time where somebody
11:38
was calling me Karen, G, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no,
11:41
no, no, nobody's guru, Nope, just a white chick from Lawrence
11:46
mass. Nobody's guru. Just don't put me up there. Don't put me up
11:51
on the pedestal. Because I am human and I am clumsy sometimes,
11:54
and I am fallible and I screw up, and I will just let you
11:58
down. Do us both a favor, and don't try to put that on me. My
12:03
greatest job is to Yes, I can share through my own lived
12:07
experience. I can share through my my learning, my training,
12:13
right? All the work that I've done to study and to research
12:16
and to come to try to understand some things, but I am not the
12:21
authority on other people in their life. All I can do is say,
12:25
Hey, have you thought about this? This is what I learned.
12:28
This is what I experienced. Here's this book. This is what
12:31
my teacher taught me. What do you think? Right? I can ask
12:34
really good questions so that a person can decide and decipher
12:39
and discern for themselves what they believe. And it's getting
12:44
extra fucking weird out there, and it's also getting more and
12:48
more and more suspicious and dangerous. And I'm like, I
12:53
believe in the goodness the core, goodness of human beings,
12:58
of humanity. I believe that at our core who we truly are is
13:02
love and kindness and compassion. But I also believe
13:06
that a veil, a thick and heavy veil, has been pulled down over
13:10
so many of our own eyes, and we forget this truth about
13:14
ourselves. We forget who we are and the temptation in this world
13:18
to behave and really
13:21
Unknown: unethical, awful, brutal
13:25
Karen Kenney: Ponzi scheme, greedy, bat shit, bullshit ways
13:29
is so strong, right? The pull is so strong, like when I think
13:32
about the metaphors of of Star Wars, right? The dark side,
13:36
right? The dark side is really strong out there. So this is a
13:41
time, you guys, when I just want to keep encouraging you and
13:44
empowering you to think for yourself. Don't drink the Kool
13:49
Aid. Don't just buy everybody's stuff because, oh, and I'm
13:54
trying not to name names, because my big thing is not
13:56
about, like, calling out people. And I mean, obviously I'll talk
14:01
about, like, certain, certain people and politicians, right?
14:04
When I'm saying something specific about that. But all you
14:08
have to do is Google, you'll find out who I'm talking about.
14:11
The latest name, the bro science longevity coach guy, right? It's
14:15
like these guys, all these male bro science podcasty, promoting
14:19
each other. And then you find out, like, Oh, they're in this
14:22
network of like sickness, like, this is not soothing. This is
14:26
not good. So it's just again, I just want to encourage you to do
14:32
your homework, do your research, find, listen, listen and trust
14:36
your own intuition, your own in a teacher, your own internal
14:40
guidance system when things feel off, and not only online, but
14:45
also their people are grifting in, you know? And here's the
14:48
other thing, too, when you look at a lot of the big names, some
14:53
of these women too, who have podcasts, who have best selling
14:56
books, where they basically stole ideas from other people.
14:59
And now. Trying to trademark, I'm gonna make a shit ton of
15:02
money. The thing is about knowing a lot of people. You
15:05
know, I tend to know a lot of people. And I used to live in
15:09
LA, I lived around that whole scene. This is what I often say,
15:14
right is I've seen too much. I've seen like the Wizard of Oz.
15:18
I've seen too much behind the curtain, and I know a little too
15:22
much sometimes. So I don't follow a lot of like, trends. I
15:27
don't follow a lot of people be like, Oh, I love this one's
15:30
books. I'm like, yeah, not for me. Like, I just can't get on
15:34
board with that person, right? And even in my personal life,
15:37
there have been periods of times when, you know, it's just human
15:40
nature. We want to believe that people are being honest and
15:44
transparent and they are who they say they are, you know. We
15:47
want to believe that people aren't, I don't know, totally
15:53
full of shit and running a racket, but there's so many
15:57
people running a racket out there, and a lot of people have
15:59
blind spots, myself included, you know. But I ask my friends,
16:04
I ask my sweetie and my friends, like, Hey, you gotta, you gotta
16:08
make sure that you check me, you know. Like, if I start to get a
16:11
little weird, or if I start to get whatever, like, you gotta
16:14
let me know if I have a blind spot. It's a blind spot for a
16:17
reason, because I can't see it, and whether that's because I
16:20
don't want to see it, or my conditioning, my trauma, my
16:23
upbringing, my whatever, my filter. But you need people
16:27
around you who are going to say like, Hey, you might want to
16:30
check that out, that belief, that behavior, that whatever.
16:34
And there have been times in my life where I really, like, you
16:37
know, you know, bought coaching programs or did whatever
16:41
thinking that I needed this person's wisdom, and then I got
16:44
into these programs, and I was like, Oh my God, get me out of
16:48
this burning building fast, because it doesn't take me too
16:52
long to recognize something is not right here. Something is off
16:58
here. This person is really good at selling an image or selling
17:03
an idea of them, of how they want you to perceive them, but
17:07
there is so much cognitive dissonance, you know what I
17:09
mean? And look, I'm not saying I am perfect. I'm sure that there
17:13
have been, you know, times in my life and and I look back
17:17
personally, but this isn't about this isn't about you know me,
17:21
but I'm not saying that I'm off the hook and that I've never
17:24
been clumsy or I've never done those things. I've had humbling
17:28
moments in my own life where I had to have like, you know, that
17:31
come to Jesus moment with myself and be like, Oh, was that really
17:35
the best thing to do or say or to behave or whatever? But I try
17:40
to check myself right. And it's not like, like I said, I try to
17:44
be the alternative, right? So much, so much of you know, so
17:54
much of what I try to pour into the world is to be helpful.
17:58
Doesn't mean I don't screw up sometimes, but I really am
18:01
trying to be and to live from the most loving place that I
18:06
can. I don't always get it right. I am clumsy. I do
18:10
trespass, but for me, it's like I especially at 57 I am learning
18:16
to just trust my own wisdom and my own counsel, and that of a
18:20
few select people who I really trust, to give it to me
18:24
straight, to be honest with me, to tell me things from you know,
18:27
the great thing about my sweetie is his brain works slightly
18:30
different than mine. His experience is slightly different
18:33
than mine. So I can always just say to him, like, am I looking
18:35
at this wrong? Like, what are you seeing? What are you hearing
18:38
when you read this? What do you think? And my sweetie has a
18:41
excellent and excellent bullshit detector, and he will often red
18:47
flag things way before I do. Because I just am like, a little
18:51
bit like, oh, like, I want to see the goodness in other
18:54
people. I want to believe. And even when I see people fuck up,
18:57
you know, I'm like, I understand the potential, that divine spark
19:03
in them. I understand and can see who they can be, how they
19:08
can be, but at some point we have to stop making excuses for
19:12
people's potential, right? You can't just keep hanging on
19:15
because of somebody's potential. I'm not saying you cast them out
19:19
of your hat. Sometimes you got to cast them out of your life.
19:22
Though there are relationships and people, and, you know,
19:25
online people too, we have to say, oh, yeah, this is not good.
19:28
I don't want to be associated with this. I don't want to do
19:30
business with this person. I'm not promoting it. I'm not
19:33
sharing it. And you go when you unfollow, and if you had done
19:36
any harm in your association with that person, you got to
19:39
make amends and apologize.
19:40
So that's it. That's all I got to say, is more and more and
19:45
more is being revealed, and this is the time to stay shop. This
19:49
is the time to like, like I said, read some shit, do some
19:52
homework. And the thing is, is that everything online is
19:57
designed to sell you, whether it's an idea. Idea or a brand or
20:01
a product or a supplement or whatever it is when people are
20:05
Hawking their services, whatever it is, right, they're designed
20:09
to look a particular way so that you will buy. And whether that
20:14
means physically, with cash, with your hard earned money,
20:18
whether it means you are buying what they're quote, unquote
20:21
selling, meaning their image, this idea of who and how. Oh,
20:26
they're so spiritual. They're so whatever, right? People are
20:30
almost always talking their way as and we have to really be
20:34
paying close attention, not only to what they're saying and doing
20:39
and seeing if they match. If there's, you know, the I always
20:41
say the assignment is alignment, and if there's a misalignment
20:44
between what's coming out of their mouth and what they're
20:46
doing, notice that. Check that. Don't push it away. Don't put it
20:50
under the rug, because, like, we see it silence in families,
20:54
like, if you grew up in a family where you weren't allowed to be
20:57
honest about feelings or tell the truth or or point out
21:01
hypocrisy. You know, a lot of children like that end up
21:04
becoming adults who don't want to stir the pot or cause waves
21:09
or cause trouble, or, you know, everybody wants to just keep the
21:12
peace. Well, sometimes we can't keep the peace. Sometimes we
21:15
have to say, Hey, that's not right. Hey, I'm going to stand
21:18
up and say something about that. You know what I mean. So right
21:21
now, it's like, remember, good teachers protect their pupils
21:26
from their own influence. A teacher is never a giver a
21:30
truth. We're simply a guide. We are pointing to the truths that
21:33
each student must find for himself, and that's it. You
21:37
gotta find out for yourself. Sometimes you might get burned.
21:41
Sometimes it might be staring you in the face, and you just
21:43
refuse to see it. You know, I talk about this in my memoir.
21:47
There were times in my life when I didn't want the truth, the
21:49
truth, because it would be too painful to accept the truth of
21:53
those people, those situations, and I had to learn the hard way,
21:57
and I'm still learning at 57 but this is, again, just a little
22:01
PSA, a little public service announcement from my heart to
22:04
yours. Just like, again, pay attention not only to what's
22:07
going on out there, pay close attention to what happens inside
22:11
of you when you come across another person's content,
22:15
another person's programs, another person's, you know,
22:19
business, whatever they're selling, whatever they're
22:22
offering, look religious. They're like, pay attention
22:26
right to what the culty, the culty preachy, like everything,
22:33
even, even like, you know, authors who supposedly are
22:36
selling, like, a little, you know, a little book, and then
22:38
all of a sudden they get a lot of influence, they get a lot of
22:41
attention, and shit gets weird. People get weird when they are
22:46
given power. People get weird when they get a lot of money,
22:49
sometimes, not saying, all people, a lot of people, they
22:53
get weird when they get a little bit of fame, a little bit of
22:56
fortune, a little bit of attention, a little bit of
22:58
whatever they think they have power and influence, and we see
23:02
it all over the place, but you, my dear listener. You are a
23:07
smarty pants. You are a little more mindful. You are a little
23:11
more aware and awake, so make sure you do your due diligence.
23:15
Be discerning, right? Be be just be aware. Pay attention, be
23:21
mindful and trust yourself. And when you know that somebody is
23:27
like doing some harm, may you have, may you have the courage
23:33
to speak up, may you have the courage to speak up. At the very
23:38
least, I'm not saying you have to go online and call people out
23:41
and do a whole thing. But like, if you were promoting that
23:44
person, you got to maybe acknowledge it with some other
23:46
people and let people know, like, Oh, I just learned some
23:49
stuff. And that's the other thing you guys, is we have to be
23:52
willing to say I was wrong about that. You might have voted for
23:56
somebody who is not who is not right, or in this case, like
24:01
with Trump, I would say he's always been telling us who he
24:04
is. He's always been telling us who he is and what he's gonna
24:07
do. So that shouldn't be that big of a surprise, but for some
24:10
people, it's still gonna be a surprise, like, Oh, I didn't
24:13
know that. That's what that person was really gonna do. You
24:17
know, we have to be willing to admit when we've made a mistake.
24:21
All of us, me too, right? All of us, we have to be willing to
24:25
say, Oh, I got that one wrong. We got to pay attention and
24:28
just, you know, don't drink the Kool Aid, everybody. All right,
24:33
I love you guys, wherever you go out into the world today, may
24:36
you and your presence and your energy and your love be a
24:39
blessing wherever you go. Leave the people, the place, the
24:42
animals, the the planet man, if we can, better than how we found
24:46
it. Bye, bye.