Latest / Do You F*cking Mind? / The psychology behind the slower, softer life, and why we are seeing more people return to this

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The psychology behind the slower, softer life, and why we are seeing more people return to this · Do You F*cking Mind?

0:10
Speaker 1: Hello, beautiful beans, and welcome to the podcast episode of Today.
0:14
Speaker 1: So this episode is all about the psychology of the
0:18
Speaker 1: slow life. Why is it that so many people are
0:21
Speaker 1: returning to the slow life? What are the benefits? And
0:23
Speaker 1: when I talk about slow life, I'm talking about moving
0:26
Speaker 1: away from this kind of addictive content, moving from short
0:30
Speaker 1: form content more into longer form intentional. You know, when
0:34
Speaker 1: you absorb content, you're being more intentional with what it
0:37
Speaker 1: is you're absorbing. Maybe you're reading more blogs, you're listening
0:40
Speaker 1: to more long form podcasts instead of the doom scrolling.
0:43
Speaker 1: What does that look like? What are the benefits of
0:47
Speaker 1: doing that? And is there a way that you can
0:49
Speaker 1: do it in a balanced sense, so where you don't
0:53
Speaker 1: have to necessarily quit everything, And if there is a
0:57
Speaker 1: way you can do it, how can you do it?
0:58
Speaker 1: So we're going to be discussing all of that. Also
1:00
Speaker 1: going to be discussing the benefits of if you just
1:01
Speaker 1: did want to quit absolutely all the social media whatever,
1:04
Speaker 1: and what that could look like. And as I was
1:08
Speaker 1: going into a deep dive of this and why it
1:11
Speaker 1: is that we're going into this slower, soft life, and
1:14
Speaker 1: how by doing that it actually doesn't take away from
1:16
Speaker 1: you still working hard towards something and achieving a lot.
1:19
Speaker 1: It actually ironically makes you achieve so much more. I'm
1:24
Speaker 1: going to talk about how it positively impacts your ability
1:27
Speaker 1: to regulate your emotions. I'm going to be talking about
1:29
Speaker 1: what emotional regulation is, but not too in depth because
1:32
Speaker 1: I actually want to do a neuroscience of emotional regulation
1:35
Speaker 1: coming up soon so that I can do a deep
1:37
Speaker 1: dive into that. But I also want to talk about
1:41
Speaker 1: the kind of how the needle in a way has
1:44
Speaker 1: gone a bit too far and we're seeing a bit
1:46
Speaker 1: of a correction for the better, among other things, because
1:51
Speaker 1: when you look at like the landscape of technology and
1:53
Speaker 1: media and social media and how it's affecting us as individuals,
1:57
Speaker 1: you're seeing a lot of people where it feels like
1:58
Speaker 1: it's gone too far and it's just getting out of hand,
2:00
Speaker 1: things like AI and all of that. And then you
2:02
Speaker 1: see this other group of people that are really taking
2:04
Speaker 1: back control in areas that they can in their life,
2:07
Speaker 1: and they're feeling so much better for it. So the
2:09
Speaker 1: first thing I wanted to quickly talk about is very quickly,
2:11
Speaker 1: in a nutshell, what is the idea? Is what am
2:13
Speaker 1: I talking about? When we say, regulated emotions, the ability
2:17
Speaker 1: to regulate your emotions and a regulated nervous system. What
2:20
Speaker 1: I'm talking about here, without getting into the crux of it,
2:22
Speaker 1: is that emotional regulation comes from the ability to switch
2:27
Speaker 1: between the two states of high alert and relaxed, essentially
2:31
Speaker 1: without having to think about it too much, without force
2:35
Speaker 1: in yourself or having to put too many things into
2:37
Speaker 1: practice for the you to switch between the two. That's
2:39
Speaker 1: what it means to be to be able to regulate
2:42
Speaker 1: your emotions. And we know what it feels like in
2:45
Speaker 1: the two extremes if we can't regulate out and between
2:47
Speaker 1: the two. In the two extremes, if you're too highly
2:50
Speaker 1: strung that fight or flight, then you feel agitated, anxious,
2:52
Speaker 1: on edge, you're reactive, you're always comparing yourself, and it
2:57
Speaker 1: doesn't feel nice. It feels extremely unsettling. But then on
3:00
Speaker 1: the other end of that scale, it's where it's really
3:03
Speaker 1: hard to summon the energy to do anything. You're lacking motivation,
3:06
Speaker 1: kind of like that burnout or that functional freeze that
3:08
Speaker 1: I've spoken about a couple of months ago. I think
3:09
Speaker 1: I did an entire episode on the functional freeze. It's
3:12
Speaker 1: really interesting. So that's what I talk about when we're
3:15
Speaker 1: referring to emotional regulation. So we're seeing there's massive I
3:20
Speaker 1: don't really want to call it a rebellion, but when
3:22
Speaker 1: I was looking it up, a lot of articles referred
3:24
Speaker 1: to it as a rebellion. But it's this pull away
3:27
Speaker 1: from this glorification of hustle culture. And I've got to
3:30
Speaker 1: be busy. I've always got to be looking like I'm
3:32
Speaker 1: doing something. It's just and leaning more into just the
3:35
Speaker 1: normal life. And why that is so important. You're seeing
3:38
Speaker 1: so many people kind of push against this constant overstimulation.
3:42
Speaker 1: You're seeing people get those dumb phones where you know,
3:45
Speaker 1: quote unquote dumb phones where it's just you know, the
3:47
Speaker 1: old school Nokia thirty three fifteen's where you just have
3:51
Speaker 1: text and call features and that's it. And why are
3:53
Speaker 1: people doing this is because they're trying to gain control
3:56
Speaker 1: of their own nervous systems. Again, it's because they're trying
3:59
Speaker 1: to feel like they are in the driver's seat of
4:01
Speaker 1: their life. People who become addicted to social media, who
4:05
Speaker 1: become addicted to the scroll or always being able to
4:09
Speaker 1: be contacted on so many different mediums, email, DMS, all
4:13
Speaker 1: the like in every possible plus text, plus WhatsApp plus
4:16
Speaker 1: the phone call, plus everything. These people are realizing, at
4:19
Speaker 1: no point do I have full control or autonomy of
4:22
Speaker 1: just my time. And you're kind of feeding into that,
4:26
Speaker 1: you're buying into that, and it's something that you do
4:28
Speaker 1: have the power to either pull back on or pull
4:31
Speaker 1: out of altogether. Right, And I feel like we're seeing
4:37
Speaker 1: this really nice overcorrection, not definitely, not across the board.
4:40
Speaker 1: It's the two extremes. You're seeing it get further and
4:43
Speaker 1: further and further and really more deeper. With people relying
4:46
Speaker 1: on technology for absolutely everything, and relying on external sources
4:49
Speaker 1: to outsource stuff that their brains could be doing, they're
4:51
Speaker 1: using other things to do that. But then you're seeing
4:54
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who are course correcting and starting
4:57
Speaker 1: to feel a lot calmer and a lot better because
4:59
Speaker 1: of it. I do want to mention an example of this.
5:03
Speaker 1: So the other week I spoke at the Women's Forbes
5:07
Speaker 1: Summit or the Forbes Women's Summit, I think it is called, specifically,
5:10
Speaker 1: and I was on a panel and we were talking
5:12
Speaker 1: about what is next in creativity and I was asked
5:16
Speaker 1: about my opinion on a bunch of things, and one
5:18
Speaker 1: of the things that I touched on was the use
5:21
Speaker 1: of AI, and in my answer about AI, I mentioned
5:25
Speaker 1: that I find AI useful. I use AI I like
5:30
Speaker 1: to think in a relatively ethical way. I for example,
5:35
Speaker 1: I will get the transcripts of my podcast and I
5:38
Speaker 1: will put it into AI, and I say, can you
5:39
Speaker 1: summarize this in key points? And then based on those
5:43
Speaker 1: key points, I'm able to see what else I could
5:45
Speaker 1: talk about, or I can like summarize it down for
5:47
Speaker 1: a social media little post or whatever. But I really
5:51
Speaker 1: use AI a lot to kind of summarize my own
5:53
Speaker 1: content that I've already done, and then it kind of
5:56
Speaker 1: helps me like break it up into key points and
5:58
Speaker 1: instead of me reading through and our worth of transcripts. Okay,
6:03
Speaker 1: but what I said at this event, I said that
6:06
Speaker 1: you should never use AI for creative purposes. You shouldn't
6:11
Speaker 1: be substituting your brain to creatively come up with something,
6:15
Speaker 1: because when we lean into other sources, it's something that's
6:20
Speaker 1: that you haven't come up with on your own, obviously,
6:23
Speaker 1: but it's also you're outsourcing a very important task that
6:28
Speaker 1: your brain should be doing. Creativity is something that makes
6:32
Speaker 1: us so human, and to come up with novel ideas
6:34
Speaker 1: and Also, creativity is very important for your brain because
6:37
Speaker 1: that's where you are able to trust yourself. You start
6:39
Speaker 1: to trust your ability to come up with novel ideas
6:43
Speaker 1: and solutions for things. So I was saying, it's really
6:46
Speaker 1: important that while AI is useful and I personally use it,
6:50
Speaker 1: it's important to not use it to take over the
6:54
Speaker 1: role of what your brain should be doing for creative purposes.
6:57
Speaker 1: And when you do that too much, you then don't
7:00
Speaker 1: trust in your ability to be creative or to come
7:02
Speaker 1: up with the solution or idea, and you spend the
7:05
Speaker 1: rest of your life just being kind of this individual
7:08
Speaker 1: who just pulls resources from everywhere but can't create resources
7:12
Speaker 1: of their own. So I said, from a neurological standpoint,
7:15
Speaker 1: and I'm backed by many, many, many neuroscientists on this.
7:19
Speaker 1: From a neurological standpoint, it's very dangerous from the point
7:22
Speaker 1: of your brain health to do that. Now, I said
7:26
Speaker 1: that a bit more summarized than that, but that's what
7:28
Speaker 1: I was talking about, and a clip of that was
7:29
Speaker 1: shared to social media on Forbes page, and there were people,
7:32
Speaker 1: oh my god, fucking like, respectfully, these people are fucking painful,
7:37
Speaker 1: but people being like, oh my god, poor Alexis is
7:41
Speaker 1: going to be left behind. She doesn't understand the value
7:43
Speaker 1: of AI or this or that or whatever. And someone said, I, actually, she,
7:47
Speaker 1: dear Alexis, sweetheart, I actually use AI to come up
7:52
Speaker 1: with a lot of my marketing ideas for my business.
7:54
Speaker 1: You're going to fall behind if this and that, like
7:55
Speaker 1: the amount of haters on what I said. Firstly, it
8:00
Speaker 1: was completely taken out of context in that regard because
8:02
Speaker 1: I didn't say you should never use AI or there's
8:05
Speaker 1: no use for AI. I understand that a lot of
8:08
Speaker 1: people use AI, and a lot of people find it helpful.
8:11
Speaker 1: Whether you think that it should be completely eradicated or
8:13
Speaker 1: not is independent of that. What I'm saying is that, yeah, cool,
8:18
Speaker 1: that it's helpful for some people. It's helpful for a
8:20
Speaker 1: lot of people. But that's fucking irrelevant. I'm saying from
8:23
Speaker 1: a brain health perspective, you shouldn't be doing it, and
8:25
Speaker 1: people saying, well, I get great creative ideas, rent, well,
8:28
Speaker 1: good on you, and congratulations on you in your degeneration,
8:30
Speaker 1: Like what do you want me to say? The truth
8:32
Speaker 1: is that if you're constantly spending your entire life not
8:35
Speaker 1: within your own mind and body, but living online, living
8:38
Speaker 1: in social media using AI for everything. Then who really
8:41
Speaker 1: are you as an individual? And how do you think
8:43
Speaker 1: your brain is going to progress through life if you're
8:46
Speaker 1: not using it the way it should be used. Okay,
8:48
Speaker 1: So I just think that, you know, not only did
8:52
Speaker 1: this demonstrate many things when people were going on this rant,
8:54
Speaker 1: but it also showed that people behave like total poktrare
9:00
Speaker 1: on social media on a regular basis, and they have
9:05
Speaker 1: this lack of ability to really regulate themselves and try
9:08
Speaker 1: and understand the context of something. You see it all
9:11
Speaker 1: the time when people are arguing on social media, and
9:13
Speaker 1: even if we don't engage in the arguments, we engage
9:16
Speaker 1: by reading these arguments between people. And it's so polarizing.
9:21
Speaker 1: Social media thrives by pulling people in two separate directions
9:24
Speaker 1: and pitting them against each other. So we are in this,
9:29
Speaker 1: we are addicted to spending time on these platforms where
9:32
Speaker 1: we are it's designed to pull us apart and then
9:35
Speaker 1: pit us against each other in like in polarizing content
9:38
Speaker 1: and in clickbait and in you know, dramatic things and
9:42
Speaker 1: this and that, and then it doubled in their like
9:44
Speaker 1: aesthetic things that we like to look at as well,
9:46
Speaker 1: and a few posts from our friends, and then more conflict,
9:48
Speaker 1: conflict conflict. So of course, from the standpoint of your
9:51
Speaker 1: nervous system is going up, down, up, down to all
9:54
Speaker 1: anxious up comparison, and it's just this rollercoaster ride of
9:59
Speaker 1: emotion that you go through when you engage with social media.
10:03
Speaker 1: And I feel like that was a prime example of that,
10:06
Speaker 1: and reading those comments kind of made me have this
10:10
Speaker 1: bit of an epiphany, and I was about to start
10:13
Speaker 1: replying to all these people. I replied to a bat too,
10:16
Speaker 1: and then after that I thought, this is the opposite
10:19
Speaker 1: of what I want to be doing. I don't need
10:22
Speaker 1: to explain myself to people that actually just want to
10:25
Speaker 1: want to come on and have a fight, because I
10:26
Speaker 1: don't mind if someone like genuinely, I'm all for a
10:30
Speaker 1: healthy debate. But when people go on to the attack
10:32
Speaker 1: and they start trying to be petty and saying, oh,
10:36
Speaker 1: you're going to fall behind and this and that, when
10:37
Speaker 1: they're not, you know, they're not taking the context of something,
10:39
Speaker 1: it makes me realize that they get something out of it.
10:42
Speaker 1: It's kind of addictive in a way, right, So I
10:45
Speaker 1: started to think long and hard, how do I want
10:47
Speaker 1: to use my social media because here I am feeling
10:49
Speaker 1: frustrated that it was taken out of context and there's
10:52
Speaker 1: people didn't understand. But is it really my job to
10:54
Speaker 1: try and get each individual in the comment section to understand?
10:56
Speaker 1: Then they replied, Then I replied back, and then what
10:59
Speaker 1: I'm there annoyed frustrated for what? When I could be
11:01
Speaker 1: working on just my messaging for the audience that does
11:05
Speaker 1: listen to me, and you know, leaning more into the
11:08
Speaker 1: longer form content where you actually can put your point
11:11
Speaker 1: across in a cohesive manner, where it's not going to
11:14
Speaker 1: be taken out of context, and where people actually understand
11:16
Speaker 1: what you're trying to say. We're not every word or
11:18
Speaker 1: little mishab it's like, oh no, people jump down your throat.
11:21
Speaker 1: So it kind of got me thinking, and I thought,
11:23
Speaker 1: I just want to like take a few days off
11:25
Speaker 1: this social media thing because it's just a little bit frustrating.
11:28
Speaker 1: And I pride myself on being able to feel calm
11:31
Speaker 1: and regulated, and I just wasn't for a couple of days.
11:34
Speaker 1: So I thought, Okay, I want to like really look
11:37
Speaker 1: at how I am using social media and am I
11:39
Speaker 1: using it in a way that actually benefits me? Or
11:42
Speaker 1: is it taking away from my life experience? Is it
11:45
Speaker 1: taking away from my time with people that I love,
11:48
Speaker 1: from my time with my children, from my time doing
11:51
Speaker 1: my work, from my time reading a book or having
11:53
Speaker 1: like a creative outlet. Is it hindering or is it
11:57
Speaker 1: enhancing my life experience. At the end of the day,
12:01
Speaker 1: we are so wrapped up in social media that we
12:03
Speaker 1: think that we absolutely need it. And you might need
12:06
Speaker 1: it for your work, you might need it for certain
12:08
Speaker 1: friendships that you can only communicate via social media. Don't
12:11
Speaker 1: get me wrong, I do see many uses of social media.
12:12
Speaker 1: I'm not saying never use it. I'm trying. This episode
12:15
Speaker 1: is literally aimed at for how you can feel back
12:17
Speaker 1: in control of your life, whether that means using social
12:20
Speaker 1: media to your advantage, whether it means exiting altogether, whether
12:23
Speaker 1: it means just changing how you use social media, because
12:26
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm going to just alter how I use
12:28
Speaker 1: social media. I'm not saying leave social media, but yeah,
12:32
Speaker 1: that's pretty much what I want everyone to have. This
12:35
Speaker 1: awareness of we I think we sometimes think, oh my god,
12:38
Speaker 1: I could never leave social media because I'm going to
12:40
Speaker 1: left behind and whatever. But then every single person who
12:43
Speaker 1: has left social media has says I have less fomo,
12:48
Speaker 1: I have less of this feeling when you're in something.
12:51
Speaker 1: Have you ever felt like this is another example, just
12:53
Speaker 1: to go on a tangent, have you ever been in
12:56
Speaker 1: like workplace drama that feels so catastrophic it can take
12:59
Speaker 1: over your life? Or a friendship drama where you're like,
13:01
Speaker 1: oh my god, and the anxiety that you feel, and
13:03
Speaker 1: if you're heavily involved, and then something's happened where maybe
13:06
Speaker 1: you left your job, or maybe you had an opportunity
13:08
Speaker 1: to go overseas, or you moved somewhere whatever, but it
13:11
Speaker 1: was a situation that made you abruptly exit that kind
13:15
Speaker 1: of drama, and then you had the opportunity to look
13:17
Speaker 1: back at that drama with perspective, you know, because you've
13:21
Speaker 1: zoomed out massively. You're no longer in that bubble. You're
13:23
Speaker 1: outside of the bubble looking in and you think, wow,
13:27
Speaker 1: I can actually breathe, and that when you're in it,
13:30
Speaker 1: it feels like it's all encompassing and it completely takes
13:32
Speaker 1: over your life. But then when you step away, you think,
13:34
Speaker 1: I actually, all I needed was to step back to realize, how,
13:39
Speaker 1: you know, how like kind of isolated this drama is
13:44
Speaker 1: and if I just step away from it, and I'm
13:45
Speaker 1: not talking about all drama. I'm not talking about it. If
13:47
Speaker 1: you've got a personal thing like someone's just cheated on
13:49
Speaker 1: you or something, I'm talking about just unnecessary drama in
13:53
Speaker 1: your life that feels like it's taking over. But then
13:55
Speaker 1: when you step away and gain perspective, you think, you
13:57
Speaker 1: know what, my life is so much more than just
13:59
Speaker 1: this one thing. And it took me stepping away to
14:02
Speaker 1: realize this is not the be all end all. That's
14:05
Speaker 1: kind of the analogy for how you can start to
14:07
Speaker 1: use social media in your life. Now, let's talk about
14:13
Speaker 1: this idea of how to really take back control. I
14:16
Speaker 1: want to talk about why. Kind of the main reasons
14:19
Speaker 1: why a lot of people are needing this shift, they're
14:22
Speaker 1: needing to reduce or exit all together. So the first
14:25
Speaker 1: one is comparison overload. There's a lot of studies coming out,
14:29
Speaker 1: and interestingly, many of these studies are focused on they're
14:33
Speaker 1: kind of like ten years ago and they're focused on Facebook.
14:36
Speaker 1: So these studies that were done on Facebook ten or
14:40
Speaker 1: so years ago, there's, of course there's newer studies since then,
14:43
Speaker 1: and there's current studies being done but studies that came
14:46
Speaker 1: out ten years ago on Facebook, we're talking about the
14:48
Speaker 1: mental health impacts, especially in women comparing themselves to other
14:51
Speaker 1: women with like these high quote unquote high standards for
14:55
Speaker 1: like body image and things like that, and how it
14:57
Speaker 1: was negatively impacting their traits, steam and their overall confidence
15:02
Speaker 1: and happiness and things like that. So imagine if this
15:05
Speaker 1: data is coming out when social media was nowhere near
15:07
Speaker 1: as advanced. Ors like you're not nowhere near getting bombarded
15:10
Speaker 1: the way we are with stuff that we don't even
15:11
Speaker 1: follow that's just being thrown in our face because we
15:13
Speaker 1: engaged once with like this image and now we get
15:16
Speaker 1: you know, So if we've got that data from ten
15:19
Speaker 1: years ago, imagine how much that's evolved and how much
15:22
Speaker 1: the effects of it have evolved since then. But we
15:25
Speaker 1: have this all this data about how this comparison overload
15:28
Speaker 1: can really affect your self esteem. We know that on
15:31
Speaker 1: like in real life and also online. So people are
15:34
Speaker 1: getting just overloaded with that. They're starting to get over it.
15:37
Speaker 1: Love that this desire for real connection. People are feeling
15:42
Speaker 1: very unfulfilled. Now. My disclaimer that I am going to
15:45
Speaker 1: put here is that people that have moved away from
15:48
Speaker 1: home and are quite isolated, actually do feel more connected
15:51
Speaker 1: with the ability to use social media. So this is
15:53
Speaker 1: not an every single individual example, but it's also how
15:57
Speaker 1: you use your social media. I bet that these people
15:59
Speaker 1: feel more connected because it's their one opportunity to actually
16:03
Speaker 1: engage with their friends and family because they've they have
16:06
Speaker 1: no real physical access to these people based on where
16:09
Speaker 1: they live with their life situation, and they're probably because
16:12
Speaker 1: of that, probably spending more time messaging them, going back
16:15
Speaker 1: and forth, you know, engaging with their content. But when
16:18
Speaker 1: we're talking about being on social media when it was
16:22
Speaker 1: intentionally created to be a social media and not an
16:27
Speaker 1: entertainment platform, but we go on there and there's less
16:30
Speaker 1: of this social interaction that we used to have where
16:32
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, just my friend's stuff and my friend's
16:34
Speaker 1: story isn't going to like this and comment on this whatever.
16:36
Speaker 1: But then we get stuck in a loop of these
16:39
Speaker 1: endless feeds. I remember back in the day with Instagram
16:42
Speaker 1: where it like it reached the end of the feed
16:43
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, there's no other posts. There was
16:45
Speaker 1: an end to the feed, which is wild to think
16:48
Speaker 1: that that doesn't happen now. So people are actually now
16:52
Speaker 1: feeling again. Disclaimer not everyone, don't fucking jump down my
16:55
Speaker 1: throat because people always fucking anyway. But it's it is
16:58
Speaker 1: like a lack of real connection, and we get stuck
17:00
Speaker 1: there saying, oh, but I do get connected with social media.
17:02
Speaker 1: But if you're doom scrolling, you're not connecting. You're not
17:04
Speaker 1: connecting with anything other than some random person who's doing
17:08
Speaker 1: some random funny skit or quote or an argument between
17:11
Speaker 1: it like for it, but you're not. That's not a
17:13
Speaker 1: real connection. Okay, then we've got this algorithm fatigue. The
17:17
Speaker 1: idea of what the algorithm is now is more so
17:20
Speaker 1: to serve the platform over the individual. So you're seeing,
17:25
Speaker 1: you know, it's more entertainment, it's more clickbait. It's a
17:28
Speaker 1: lot more like anger between individuals. People love to see
17:31
Speaker 1: arguments on I'm by the way, I am also in this.
17:36
Speaker 1: When I talk about this and what people are seeing that,
17:39
Speaker 1: don't think that I've stepped away. Oh no, I just haven't.
17:42
Speaker 1: Like I'm saying this because I've I've lived it and
17:45
Speaker 1: I am living it, and I'm changing how I use
17:47
Speaker 1: social media more and more and more, and I think
17:51
Speaker 1: that it's it's something that I want to share because
17:53
Speaker 1: I feel a lot of people would kind of feel
17:54
Speaker 1: the same way. But it's you know, if I start
17:56
Speaker 1: reading a disagreement between comments, I get enthralled, and then
17:59
Speaker 1: I'm reading a reading or reading. Before you know what,
18:01
Speaker 1: I've spent twenty minutes on one fucking argument on one reel,
18:05
Speaker 1: which is mind blowing divisive content. All of this kind
18:11
Speaker 1: of stuff leaves us feeling pretty exhausted and then kind
18:14
Speaker 1: of a little bit detached from our personal lives. And
18:18
Speaker 1: then of course people are wanting to create a change
18:21
Speaker 1: in this because they're feeling a lack of control over
18:24
Speaker 1: their time management. And it's really scary when you look
18:29
Speaker 1: back on your year or the week or the month
18:32
Speaker 1: and you think, oh, I don't even want to look
18:34
Speaker 1: at how much time I spent on social media or
18:35
Speaker 1: I don't even want to admit that the reason I
18:37
Speaker 1: wasn't able to do this was because I was stuck
18:40
Speaker 1: in this addictive loop and it's quite difficult to break
18:42
Speaker 1: that cycle, and it's kind of designed for that, and
18:45
Speaker 1: I find it really interesting. So I don't let my
18:46
Speaker 1: babies hold phones. They kind of in touch them, okay,
18:49
Speaker 1: And even where people are like, oh my god, look
18:52
Speaker 1: at them, stare at the phone, Look at them stair
18:53
Speaker 1: at the phone. I say, just can you please put that?
18:55
Speaker 1: Like put the phone away. And if I'm like replying
18:57
Speaker 1: to a text, the baby's like going straight to grab
18:59
Speaker 1: the obviously they find the screen entertaining. Already they're magnetized
19:04
Speaker 1: to the phone. But I find it funny because a
19:05
Speaker 1: lot of adults say, wow, look at how the babies
19:10
Speaker 1: are so or not not just my babies, in general,
19:13
Speaker 1: people say, oh my god, look at the babies. They're
19:15
Speaker 1: like glued to the phone. They're glued to the phone.
19:16
Speaker 1: Look at them, look at them. They can't And I'm like,
19:19
Speaker 1: what is the difference between them and you or me?
19:23
Speaker 1: We are just as bad. We're worse actually than babies
19:26
Speaker 1: because they haven't learnt emotional regulation how to withhold it
19:30
Speaker 1: from an activity we have supposedly, and we still can't
19:33
Speaker 1: control ourselves. So I don't find it fascinating that a
19:36
Speaker 1: baby's like, oh my god, wants to be I find
19:38
Speaker 1: it pretty scary because it's designed for that, that is
19:41
Speaker 1: the design. It's also designed to be able to be
19:43
Speaker 1: used by a toddler. Your child isn't intelligent or gifted.
19:46
Speaker 1: If you can navigate a smartphone. It's a dumb phone, okay,
19:49
Speaker 1: so anyone can navigate that shit. So I feel like, yeah,
19:54
Speaker 1: I personally TV. I can put like a like a
19:57
Speaker 1: slow cartoon on or like cessa mystery something in the
20:00
Speaker 1: background for the babies, but the phone absolutely fucking no way.
20:06
Speaker 1: And adults are just as bad. That's the thing. That's
20:08
Speaker 1: the thing. We are just as bad, if not worse
20:10
Speaker 1: than babies when it comes to like seeing that screen.
20:14
Speaker 1: The other thing is that there's this kind of fight
20:17
Speaker 1: against this attention economy. So that is, if something is free,
20:23
Speaker 1: you are the product. You might have already heard that
20:25
Speaker 1: being said before, but your attention or your data is
20:29
Speaker 1: the product. So just like free to AIRTV or just
20:32
Speaker 1: like my podcast that you're listening to right now, you
20:34
Speaker 1: are the product in the sense that your attention is
20:37
Speaker 1: the product. I'm able to monetize my podcast and do
20:40
Speaker 1: my podcast as a job and therefore put out two
20:42
Speaker 1: episodes a week because of advertisers, right, same as free
20:46
Speaker 1: to AIRTV. These TV shows can be produced thanks to
20:49
Speaker 1: the advertisers or the networks thanks to people's attention. Right.
20:54
Speaker 1: And then when you look at social media, it's the
20:55
Speaker 1: same fucking thing. So you are the product. So we
21:00
Speaker 1: have to, like this attention economy, we have to be
21:04
Speaker 1: very careful with where we give our attention to. I
21:06
Speaker 1: have no issue listening to the ads from my favorite podcasters,
21:10
Speaker 1: and I hope that you guys feel the same way
21:12
Speaker 1: with some of my ads. You might not agree with
21:14
Speaker 1: all the ads or like all the ads, but it's
21:16
Speaker 1: this idea of I will happily listen to my favorite
21:19
Speaker 1: podcasters ads because I'm like, I'm happy to give my
21:21
Speaker 1: attention there. But then there's also other things where I'm like,
21:25
Speaker 1: maybe I shouldn't be giving my attention here, And it's
21:27
Speaker 1: you make that call, and you're the one that decides
21:29
Speaker 1: where your attention goes. So it's just about being aware
21:31
Speaker 1: of that and deciding am I going to be a
21:33
Speaker 1: part of this or not? And it's completely up to you. Then,
21:38
Speaker 1: like I said, people are kind of returning to these
21:41
Speaker 1: phones that only like they're thirty three fifteen's their nokias
21:43
Speaker 1: as a way of kind of reclaiming that space, that
21:47
Speaker 1: mental wellbeing space, this ability to be contacted in so
21:52
Speaker 1: many different ways on so many different mediums. I have
21:55
Speaker 1: all my notifications switched off except phone and text, not
21:59
Speaker 1: even WhatsApp, because not even emails, because I'm like, it
22:02
Speaker 1: would just be this constant pinging thing like, and then
22:06
Speaker 1: I'd never be able to get into a deep flow state.
22:08
Speaker 1: I'd never be able to get into a deep focus
22:10
Speaker 1: or get anything done without even just my attention being pulled, pulled, pulled.
22:14
Speaker 1: And my phone is always on silent as well. But
22:15
Speaker 1: I think that's just a millennial thing, to be honest. Yeah,
22:19
Speaker 1: so it's basically a stepping away from always needing to
22:22
Speaker 1: be on sense. So now let's talk about all the
22:28
Speaker 1: benefits of when we kind of change how we use
22:31
Speaker 1: social media or when we step away. So the benefits
22:34
Speaker 1: obviously improved focus and attention. Okay, when we're stepping away
22:37
Speaker 1: from addictive behaviors, from that dopamine addictive dopamine loop of
22:42
Speaker 1: like hit reward hit, like a slot machine, it's like
22:44
Speaker 1: this intermittent positive reinforcement. Then our focus improves, of course,
22:50
Speaker 1: because we're not waiting for that next teat waiting. And
22:53
Speaker 1: then when we're not, when we're not get that hit,
22:54
Speaker 1: we're thinking about getting that hit. You know, I need
22:57
Speaker 1: to check my phone and I've got to unlock it
22:59
Speaker 1: before we start to come down, and that's how attention
23:03
Speaker 1: and focus is improved. We notice that we can stay
23:05
Speaker 1: on task for a whole lot longer because people say, oh,
23:08
Speaker 1: is everyone's attention shot to pieces. In a way, it is,
23:11
Speaker 1: but at the same time, that could be rewired relatively
23:14
Speaker 1: quickly by changing your behavior. That's the beauty of the brain.
23:17
Speaker 1: It's quite plastic, so as long as you don't let
23:19
Speaker 1: it atrophy altogether, then there's a lot of things that
23:22
Speaker 1: you can do to kind of return back and really
23:24
Speaker 1: improve your attention, really improve your focus, your ability to
23:28
Speaker 1: kind of knuckle down onto a task, whether it's studying
23:31
Speaker 1: or learning something new, whether it's working on a project,
23:34
Speaker 1: whether it's a creative endeavor, whether it's writing a book
23:37
Speaker 1: or coming up with a novel, business idea, whatever that
23:41
Speaker 1: may be. You will find that when you break out
23:44
Speaker 1: of these addictive loops. And we're talking about behavioral addictions,
23:46
Speaker 1: but this also work. Speak to anyone that's overcome like
23:49
Speaker 1: an alcohol addiction or whatever and their mind blown at
23:52
Speaker 1: how much their focus and attention has improved. Any kind
23:56
Speaker 1: of addictive behavior, chemical or behavioral is got to kind
24:00
Speaker 1: of hijack your ability to stay on task, stay focused
24:03
Speaker 1: and be able to do that thing that you want
24:04
Speaker 1: to get done. You don't see things through anymore. You're
24:07
Speaker 1: less of a person of your word because you're constantly
24:09
Speaker 1: getting pulled in all these different directions based on where
24:12
Speaker 1: your addictions are. Lower anxiety and lower stress for a
24:17
Speaker 1: lot of people when they step away from that social
24:19
Speaker 1: media again for similar reasons. Okay, you're also going to
24:23
Speaker 1: be anxious, not only because you're not getting much done
24:25
Speaker 1: and you feel quite scattered with your attention, you're more forgetful,
24:27
Speaker 1: but also it comes into play the actual content that
24:30
Speaker 1: you're engaging with. And is it comparison? Is it feeling
24:33
Speaker 1: like you're not hustling enough or you're not working enough.
24:35
Speaker 1: Is it because you're engaging in you know, arguments, Is
24:38
Speaker 1: it because you're reading what trolls say and then the
24:41
Speaker 1: response to trolls and then you argue. But that's going
24:43
Speaker 1: to elevate your levels of you know, stress or anxiety,
24:47
Speaker 1: even if you don't feel like you're generally an anxious person.
24:50
Speaker 1: Another benefit is your sleep is going to improve because
24:53
Speaker 1: you're spending less time on the screen. You're probably then
24:55
Speaker 1: replacing that screen with the behavior that's a lot more
24:58
Speaker 1: calming for your nervous system, probably doing things that are
25:01
Speaker 1: kinder to yourself in that time. So not only is
25:03
Speaker 1: it the reduction of the actual use, but then it's
25:06
Speaker 1: the replacement of what are you replacing it with? And
25:08
Speaker 1: it's often going to be a behavior that's kind of
25:10
Speaker 1: quite nice to yourself. So you wind down is a
25:12
Speaker 1: lot better, and then your sleep is a lot better.
25:15
Speaker 1: And also when you have improved focused attention to lower
25:17
Speaker 1: anxiety and lower stress, your sleep in general will improve.
25:22
Speaker 1: Being less reachable is obviously another great thing that happens.
25:25
Speaker 1: You get to have a bit more autonomy over your
25:28
Speaker 1: you know, when people can access you, You can be
25:30
Speaker 1: more specific on who can access you whenever. Obviously, especially
25:34
Speaker 1: when you have kids, you probably want your partner to
25:36
Speaker 1: be able to access you and vice versa at all times.
25:39
Speaker 1: But then outside of that, does everyone need this kind
25:42
Speaker 1: of constant access to you whenever they fucking want? No,
25:47
Speaker 1: they don't, Okay, Like, I've started watching Sex in the
25:52
Speaker 1: City again. I do this every so often, and I
25:54
Speaker 1: put it on when I'm cooking, and I fucking love it.
25:56
Speaker 1: And the nineties were a time to be alive. Can
26:00
Speaker 1: I just say, don't get me wrong people again. I'm
26:03
Speaker 1: not here for people jump down my throat. I know
26:04
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of shitty things that we're in
26:06
Speaker 1: the nineties that are much better now. But when it
26:08
Speaker 1: comes to this kind of stuff and just being more
26:10
Speaker 1: present and they didn't even have a fucking mobile phone anyway,
26:15
Speaker 1: love that now. The next thing is it makes you
26:18
Speaker 1: more present. Now. What is present so other than you know,
26:21
Speaker 1: being you know, switched on and focusing on the task
26:24
Speaker 1: at hand, but being present is also reconnecting with the
26:27
Speaker 1: things that matter up to you or finding the things
26:30
Speaker 1: that make you happy or both and being in that moment.
26:34
Speaker 1: So being present is realizing that a lot of the
26:39
Speaker 1: reward is in the effort. If you're always thinking of
26:41
Speaker 1: that I've got to get that hit or that reward
26:43
Speaker 1: on the outside, you might not realize that the actual
26:45
Speaker 1: process of cooking was enjoyable, or you might realize that
26:48
Speaker 1: the actual run was somewhat enjoyable. This is if you
26:52
Speaker 1: like running, you might not like running or the actual
26:54
Speaker 1: doing of the thing. The reward is in the process,
26:56
Speaker 1: and you do that when you become more present, and
26:58
Speaker 1: that's what really gives you a feeling life where the
27:00
Speaker 1: reward is in the living of your life. It's not
27:04
Speaker 1: at the other end of this, of that of that
27:08
Speaker 1: we have this desire to return back to that basic life,
27:13
Speaker 1: because whether you like it or not, it's always you
27:17
Speaker 1: always hear everyone come back to it. It's so cliche,
27:19
Speaker 1: but it is the small things in life that make
27:21
Speaker 1: for a really happy, content life, that make for just
27:24
Speaker 1: a regulated, happy individual. And then on that you can
27:28
Speaker 1: layer the big fun experiences and the big adventures and
27:30
Speaker 1: the big life lessons and all of that. But you
27:32
Speaker 1: need that nice foundation of all the little things that
27:35
Speaker 1: make for a very fulfilled, happy life, and that's what's
27:37
Speaker 1: actually going to make you feel fulfilled. So it's you know,
27:41
Speaker 1: it's these it's stepping off that hamster wheel, getting caught
27:44
Speaker 1: up in this reality that isn't even a reality, and
27:47
Speaker 1: returning back to your own life and your own reality
27:50
Speaker 1: and connecting with the people that are there, and you know,
27:53
Speaker 1: having pockets of doing intentional nothing time where normally we
27:58
Speaker 1: would spend it on our phone. It's funny because people think, oh,
28:01
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't just sit there and do nothing,
28:03
Speaker 1: but we sit there and scroll indefinitely, which is actually
28:06
Speaker 1: more detrimental for a lot of us depending on the
28:08
Speaker 1: content that we're engaging with. I mean, some people engage
28:11
Speaker 1: with really helpful content, so I don't want to say
28:13
Speaker 1: all the content, but then you know, instead you could
28:16
Speaker 1: be doing something that's menial. It doesn't always have to
28:19
Speaker 1: be important things. That's the other thing. It's not like
28:21
Speaker 1: now you have to be productive every second of the day.
28:23
Speaker 1: If you get of social media, not at all. You
28:25
Speaker 1: can actually just sit there and do a puzzle. I
28:27
Speaker 1: fucking love to do a puzzle. And what's so like
28:29
Speaker 1: fascinating that doing a puzzle It's like kind of meditation, right,
28:32
Speaker 1: you're just switching off, you're doing not much and you're
28:34
Speaker 1: just chipping away. But it's like you start to feel
28:37
Speaker 1: karma and karma and more regular unless you're Tyrone, who
28:39
Speaker 1: fucking hates puzzles and he's like, that's just stressing me out.
28:41
Speaker 1: But you find your equivalent, okay. It Also, when you
28:45
Speaker 1: do this, it helps you get back to your values,
28:48
Speaker 1: or it helps you discover new values. You might realize
28:50
Speaker 1: when you step away from that, like Hamster, will you think, Oh,
28:53
Speaker 1: I'm actually valuing this so much more than I used to.
28:55
Speaker 1: I actually really see the benefit in doing more of
28:58
Speaker 1: this or less of this or whatever. You're more in
29:01
Speaker 1: tune to what you want. You're not just riding this
29:04
Speaker 1: social wave of timelines and comparisons. But this person's doing that,
29:08
Speaker 1: and then I must be doing this, and then I
29:10
Speaker 1: have to do this to stay relevant, and then this algorithm,
29:12
Speaker 1: so I need to do this, I need to pop
29:13
Speaker 1: off and I need to get this. And then you
29:15
Speaker 1: step away and you're like, wait a minute, what do
29:18
Speaker 1: I want? Is it that? Because it might be, but
29:22
Speaker 1: is it something else that's completely different to that? And
29:27
Speaker 1: then stepping away also helps you focus more on meaningful
29:30
Speaker 1: parts of your life. And yeah, just pivoting to discovering
29:35
Speaker 1: what it is that you want to work on in
29:37
Speaker 1: your life. Because nothing about the slow life or returning
29:40
Speaker 1: to long form content is about doing less. I think
29:43
Speaker 1: when people talk about doing less, it's more so doing
29:47
Speaker 1: less unnecessary shit, and then you can focus your time
29:52
Speaker 1: and energy into stuff that actually will push your life
29:54
Speaker 1: in the direction that you want it to go. So
29:56
Speaker 1: it's not when I talk about the glorification of busy.
29:59
Speaker 1: We talk about it always, but you can be busy
30:02
Speaker 1: on the things that matter to you. You can be
30:04
Speaker 1: busy on things like your household, your family, your career,
30:08
Speaker 1: that you're working towards this business that you're trying to
30:10
Speaker 1: get off the ground. There's nothing wrong with that kind
30:12
Speaker 1: of busy because it's fulfilling to you, and it's good
30:15
Speaker 1: for you, and it's you know, connection, growth, purpose all
30:18
Speaker 1: these things. What we don't want is like where we
30:20
Speaker 1: have to feel like we have to present as busy
30:23
Speaker 1: just for the sake of presenting as busy. Also, if
30:26
Speaker 1: you don't want to be busy, even better, like you
30:30
Speaker 1: can still you know, like if you have the ability
30:33
Speaker 1: to not be so busy, that's even better. Like I
30:36
Speaker 1: have fucking twin babies, and I feel based on what
30:41
Speaker 1: I've been doing in the last few weeks when it
30:43
Speaker 1: comes to social media and all of that, I feel
30:45
Speaker 1: like I'm less busy but doing more with my life
30:48
Speaker 1: and it's just been epic. Okay, So yeah, I really
30:53
Speaker 1: do understand busy and I'm able to kind of work
30:57
Speaker 1: it in my favor and also actually starts to disappear.
31:01
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people think if I get
31:03
Speaker 1: off social media, or if I reduce my time on
31:05
Speaker 1: social media significantly, I'm going to miss out on what's
31:07
Speaker 1: going on. I'm going to miss out on these things.
31:09
Speaker 1: But you don't because you're more likely to just text
31:12
Speaker 1: your friends or pick up the phone and call them,
31:13
Speaker 1: mat what have you been doing? What have you been
31:15
Speaker 1: up to? For me? Sometimes my friends would be like,
31:16
Speaker 1: oh my god, did you say my stories on the
31:18
Speaker 1: week and whatever. I'm like, No, I didn't go on
31:19
Speaker 1: Instagram over the weekend. Tell me, talk to me, like,
31:21
Speaker 1: tell me what happened. And then they can tell me
31:23
Speaker 1: in full detail what happened, and then I'm thrilled because
31:27
Speaker 1: I get a good conversation, a good story out of it.
31:29
Speaker 1: You actually don't really miss out. I was as I
31:31
Speaker 1: was doing my research, I stumbled across this YouTube video
31:34
Speaker 1: this woman called the Practical Mum. That's her channel. She
31:37
Speaker 1: got like heaps of subscribers, and she seems to put
31:39
Speaker 1: out really good content. And I mean, I can't speak
31:41
Speaker 1: for it, but this video that she put out was
31:42
Speaker 1: great and it was called six Months without Social Media
31:46
Speaker 1: Changed my brain. That was her like the video that
31:48
Speaker 1: she put up. It was the end of last year.
31:49
Speaker 1: It came out, I believe, and I was going through
31:52
Speaker 1: what people were saying in response to this, meet Loneley,
31:56
Speaker 1: diving into the comment section, and I just wanted to
32:00
Speaker 1: copy some of the comments that people wrote because I
32:02
Speaker 1: think it's so and mind you, every single comment that
32:06
Speaker 1: I at least stumbled across and I scrolled pretty far down,
32:09
Speaker 1: was in agreeance with her. I didn't see anyone try
32:12
Speaker 1: and argue what she was saying, or you know, rebt
32:14
Speaker 1: what she was saying. But it was a very good
32:16
Speaker 1: video because she was sharing studies as well as to
32:18
Speaker 1: why it can affect your self esteem and your happiness
32:20
Speaker 1: when you spend too much of your life on social media.
32:22
Speaker 1: But then these are some of the comments someone wrote.
32:24
Speaker 1: Anyone reading this that slot machine line about phones made
32:27
Speaker 1: me actually toss my phone on the couch and watch
32:29
Speaker 1: my hand to itch because it's true. I realized I
32:32
Speaker 1: was pulling a lever one hundred times a day and
32:34
Speaker 1: missing my missing whole scenes of my life, and reading
32:39
Speaker 1: Mapping the Secret Economy lately framed that itch as a
32:42
Speaker 1: tiny market making me trade attention for micro rewards. So
32:46
Speaker 1: I followed one of the exercises from the book, deleted
32:48
Speaker 1: the apps for two weeks, and suddenly grocery pickup felt cinematic.
32:51
Speaker 1: I caught myself noticing noticing a train I never knew
32:54
Speaker 1: ratt By and I worked for two solid hours without
32:57
Speaker 1: a crash. Attention compounds. That's a great one. Another no
33:00
Speaker 1: one said bravo to the video. I'm sixty two years
33:03
Speaker 1: old and I've been truly baffled by the addiction to
33:05
Speaker 1: social media. I deleted Facebook and Instagram in November twenty
33:08
Speaker 1: twenty four, and I've never looked back. I was never
33:10
Speaker 1: on Twitter or TikTok, and i'd only been on Instagram
33:12
Speaker 1: for a short time. But since then, I've nearly read
33:15
Speaker 1: fifty books, created a ton of beautiful crafts in my
33:17
Speaker 1: gorgeous craft studio, had more time for my family and friends,
33:20
Speaker 1: and truly feel like I'm back to the old me.
33:22
Speaker 1: I only use YouTube and Pinterest and limit my time
33:24
Speaker 1: on them. Life is good. Thank you for sharing your experience.
33:27
Speaker 1: I share your video with my adult children and hoping
33:29
Speaker 1: they think about what you said. Someone else wrote, I
33:32
Speaker 1: can't emphasize enough how damaging a lack of presence by
33:35
Speaker 1: their parents is for children. Put the phone down, friends,
33:37
Speaker 1: I promise you won't miss anything on social media if
33:40
Speaker 1: you wait until your kids are in bed, but you
33:42
Speaker 1: will miss a lot of your own life and your kids' lives.
33:45
Speaker 1: By having your attention on your phone. I empathize with
33:47
Speaker 1: parents of little kids today. My son was born in
33:49
Speaker 1: the early two thousands. He's in his twenties now, and
33:51
Speaker 1: social media wasn't really a thing when he was a
33:53
Speaker 1: baby or toddler, or if it was, I wasn't engaging
33:55
Speaker 1: with it. I understand how seductive on purpose social media is.
33:58
Speaker 1: One really really has to decide to stop to be
34:01
Speaker 1: able to get rid of its huge influence in one's life.
34:04
Speaker 1: And I think the best line on ful of that
34:05
Speaker 1: was you won't miss anything on social media, and it's
34:08
Speaker 1: so true. We've got this fear of missing out and
34:10
Speaker 1: thinking that we're going to fall behind. But fall behind
34:12
Speaker 1: what fall behind something that's been determined or created by
34:15
Speaker 1: this external thing. And you see all these people that
34:17
Speaker 1: are stepping away, and they're all saying the same thing.
34:20
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I've fallen behind. I actually feel
34:22
Speaker 1: like I'm getting ahead in life. So I thought I
34:26
Speaker 1: would go into what I'm going to do for the
34:29
Speaker 1: next thirty days based on what I've done the last
34:31
Speaker 1: couple of days and the last couple of weeks, and
34:33
Speaker 1: it's felt really good. But I'm going to do a
34:34
Speaker 1: thirty day kind of. I'm not even going to call
34:37
Speaker 1: it a challenge. It's a thirty day little exercise. And
34:41
Speaker 1: the reason I'm calling it an exercise is because if
34:43
Speaker 1: I slip up, it's really not the end of the world.
34:44
Speaker 1: I'm not challenging myself. This is supposed to feel good.
34:47
Speaker 1: So if you guys want to join me on these
34:49
Speaker 1: thirty days, please do so and write in the comments
34:51
Speaker 1: as well of the podcast on this episode. If you're
34:56
Speaker 1: on Spotify, you can comment or you can write in.
35:00
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to think how I could do like
35:01
Speaker 1: a little community. Yeah, I guess the comments of the
35:02
Speaker 1: podcast if you listen on Spotify, and yeah, if you're
35:06
Speaker 1: doing it with me and let me know what the
35:07
Speaker 1: changes are, because that would be really cool. But what
35:10
Speaker 1: I'm doing is so the first thing, and you guys
35:13
Speaker 1: don't have to do this, but I deleted the TikTok
35:16
Speaker 1: app off my phone and I just deactivated in my
35:18
Speaker 1: TikTok account. I'm like, I'm just going to focus on one.
35:20
Speaker 1: And I did that, like I want to say, ten
35:21
Speaker 1: days ago, maybe longer, and I thought I'll just do
35:24
Speaker 1: it for a couple of days because I'm just I
35:26
Speaker 1: just need to chill, and I'm telling you I've not
35:31
Speaker 1: once reached for the TikTok app blinked about the TikTok app,
35:35
Speaker 1: and I mean, I'm going to be very transparent. Also, Shanaia,
35:39
Speaker 1: who works for me, runs my podcast social media. So
35:42
Speaker 1: the podcast socials stay the same, nothing changes. That's sharing
35:45
Speaker 1: content from the podcast to social media and that's it.
35:48
Speaker 1: So she runs my professional TikTok page for do you
35:52
Speaker 1: fucking mind? But I'm talking about my personal page here
35:54
Speaker 1: where it's like personal engaging. And then when you're like
35:57
Speaker 1: going in the doom scroll, I'm like, I don't need
35:58
Speaker 1: to do the scroll on two apps is plenty. Then
36:02
Speaker 1: for Instagram, I'm going to change how I approach Instagram.
36:05
Speaker 1: I'm going to start using Instagram like I used to
36:09
Speaker 1: when it used to be a fun little tool. Okay,
36:13
Speaker 1: So instead of deleting it all together and feeling like
36:15
Speaker 1: I need to pull away, this is what I'm going
36:16
Speaker 1: to do. I'm going to give myself two pockets of
36:19
Speaker 1: twenty minutes a day. So that's forty minutes in total,
36:22
Speaker 1: which is actually a lot. Okay, that adds up over
36:24
Speaker 1: the year, but forty minutes it's a lot. But then
36:27
Speaker 1: it's nothing compared to what a lot of us spend
36:29
Speaker 1: on social media normally during the day. It just adds
36:31
Speaker 1: up for hours over the day. So two pockets of
36:34
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, and what I'm going to be doing is
36:36
Speaker 1: making sure that I read my friend's dms. I see
36:39
Speaker 1: my friends' stories, and I don't go off into the
36:42
Speaker 1: discover page or you know when you click onto a
36:44
Speaker 1: reel and then it scrolls and definitely into something else.
36:46
Speaker 1: I've got to stay on my own feed, so I
36:48
Speaker 1: see as much of my friend's content and I do
36:51
Speaker 1: a bit of that, and then I post whatever I
36:53
Speaker 1: want to post. One thing that happened when that's changed
36:56
Speaker 1: with how I use Instagram is that I used to
36:58
Speaker 1: just post what I wanted to post. I was like, oh,
37:00
Speaker 1: it's like I would use it like a bit of
37:02
Speaker 1: a diary. I'd be like, these are the nice things
37:03
Speaker 1: in my day on my week, and this is a
37:04
Speaker 1: nice quote that and I just really enjoyed it. And
37:07
Speaker 1: what I loved about it is that if I would
37:09
Speaker 1: want it to be like what was I doing a
37:10
Speaker 1: few months back, I could go into the archives and
37:12
Speaker 1: you'd find that date and they'd be like a bit
37:14
Speaker 1: of a journal of what you did. And that's how
37:16
Speaker 1: I used to use it, and I really enjoyed it,
37:19
Speaker 1: But then I started using it in this sense of,
37:20
Speaker 1: for like professionally, well, what's going to be what's a
37:23
Speaker 1: good way to get more engagement and what's the algorithm
37:27
Speaker 1: saying now? And what's this and what's that? And the
37:28
Speaker 1: problem is a lot of us are so especially because
37:31
Speaker 1: we run our businesses or we're trying to grow a
37:32
Speaker 1: personal brand or whatever, but we're so in tune or
37:34
Speaker 1: we're trying to be in tune with what content is
37:37
Speaker 1: going to be favored, that we pull away from what
37:40
Speaker 1: content matters to us and we try and lean into
37:43
Speaker 1: what's going to be favored. So then everyone's always leaning
37:45
Speaker 1: into the same shit, then pivot, then leaning into the
37:46
Speaker 1: same shit, Then we pivot, then we lean and then
37:49
Speaker 1: gone other days where you're just posting a bit of
37:51
Speaker 1: a mind to dump of the things that you were
37:53
Speaker 1: thinking about and things that make you happy. The original
37:55
Speaker 1: like old school style of what posting was about, and
37:58
Speaker 1: how that's fully evolved into somethingletely different. So I'm going
38:01
Speaker 1: to go back to posting just what I fucking want
38:02
Speaker 1: to post and if it makes my engagement plummet. I'm
38:05
Speaker 1: actually so fine with it. I've thought about it, and
38:07
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, that's fine because professionally, my
38:11
Speaker 1: work lives in my podcast and in my books. I'm
38:14
Speaker 1: going to spend way more time diving into long form content.
38:18
Speaker 1: My audience and how I engage with my audience. A
38:20
Speaker 1: lot of it is podcast and writing. I'm going to
38:24
Speaker 1: lean heavily and launch my blog very soon over the
38:27
Speaker 1: next thirty days. Will be way less than thirty days.
38:29
Speaker 1: I've already started working on the blog and I'm very
38:32
Speaker 1: excited because I'm really loving writing articles, and so that's
38:37
Speaker 1: pretty much what I'm going to do. So you're going
38:38
Speaker 1: to see my Instagram look more like just a journal
38:40
Speaker 1: of things that I want to post, quotes that I like,
38:43
Speaker 1: books that I'm reading, just photos of my week, and
38:45
Speaker 1: that's literally it. And then I'm going to lean way
38:50
Speaker 1: more into long form content. I'm going to spend like
38:52
Speaker 1: two blocks of twenty minutes on there, and for the
38:55
Speaker 1: thirty days, I just definitely will not be returning to TikTok.
38:57
Speaker 1: Maybe after that, but at the moment I have zero
38:59
Speaker 1: desire to do, so we watch this space. If I
39:01
Speaker 1: return I do, but at the moment, I don't have
39:04
Speaker 1: any pools to return for now what else I mean,
39:08
Speaker 1: I don't use Twitter or x or whatever it's called.
39:12
Speaker 1: And then YouTube, of course I'll be posting videos of
39:14
Speaker 1: the podcast episodes on YouTube, and that's kind of yeah.
39:18
Speaker 1: I just feel like it's going to make me feel
39:22
Speaker 1: a lot calmer, a lot more focused on what I
39:25
Speaker 1: am doing, and just yeah, just really happy in general.
39:27
Speaker 1: I'm feeling so much more connected to the work and
39:31
Speaker 1: my writing and my podcast at the moment, and I'm
39:33
Speaker 1: just want to keep writing that wave. So that's what
39:34
Speaker 1: I'm doing for the next thirty days, and I'm just
39:36
Speaker 1: going to see how my relationship with social media evolves
39:39
Speaker 1: over that time. So guys, want to do this thirty
39:42
Speaker 1: day exercise with me or your own version of the
39:44
Speaker 1: thirty days, write in the comments of what those thirty
39:47
Speaker 1: days look like for you. Are you doing full cold
39:49
Speaker 1: turkey getting away from social media? Are you doing something
39:51
Speaker 1: a bit more like me? Are you going to change
39:53
Speaker 1: the things you post back to things that matter to you?
39:55
Speaker 1: And it doesn't really matter if people engage with it
39:57
Speaker 1: or not, but it's more for you because it's an
39:59
Speaker 1: expression of yourself, what are you gonna do? And how
40:02
Speaker 1: is that going to look? So let's see good times.
40:06
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have time for a listener question. I did.
40:08
Speaker 1: I did intend to put a listener question at the end,
40:10
Speaker 1: but I can hear my kids getting louder and louder escalating,
40:14
Speaker 1: So I think this is a really good time to
40:16
Speaker 1: end it, because this room is not soundproof. That is all. Guys,
40:20
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Please
40:23
Speaker 1: do comment and start the conversation going because I'd love
40:25
Speaker 1: to read these comments in following in follow up episodes
40:29
Speaker 1: about this fun thirty day exercise that at least I'll
40:32
Speaker 1: be doing and hopefully some of you will join me
40:34
Speaker 1: on the journey. Cool beans. That's all anyway. As always,
40:39
Speaker 1: remember be kind to yourself, be kind to your brain.
40:41
Speaker 1: Don't text it from anyone, and especially don't text it
40:43
Speaker 1: from yourself. Don't care