Protect The Door To Your Mind

Everyone Is Reacting

We are living in, and through, some incredibly challenging times. Today there's fear and uncertainty unlike any other time in history. Think about this: when 9-11 happened, social media wasn’t around. This is the first time in our world’s history where social media has fueled the spread of a second pandemic, the one full of headlines designed to scare us.

We’re being bombarded with information online and on the news, some of it accurate, some not. Uncertainty is at an all-time high, and it’s sparked anxiety and fear.

Are You Part Of The Feeding Frenzy?

So what are you doing to protect the door to your mind? Jim Roan once said “we need to stand guard at the door of our own minds.” The information you feed your mind and focus on becomes your reality.

So, what are you doing to feed your mind the right stuff and protect it from the wrong stuff?

When Steve Jobs set out to create something spectacular with Apple, he was laughed at, ridiculed. People told him that no one would want or use a personal computer. But his belief, his vision, and his mission were so clear in his mind, that NO outside influence could distract him from his purpose. Today personal computers are in the house, our cars, the palm of our hands. His vision was clear and his determination was unrelenting. Doing something amazing requires one simple thing. You need to give yourself permission to ignore conventional wisdom, to block out the noise, to follow your gut.

Today, if you watch the news, read articles online, or spend time on social media, you could easily be distracted and swayed by the negative information and stories. You’d think that the world is ending and all hope is lost. But why would people start to believe this? How could they shift from innovative drive to fear-driven dread? Because our personal experience of today’s reality can be summed up in a brilliant formula I heard from Tony Robbins. He once wrote the following.

I times F equals PR. I x F = PR. Information times your Focus equals your Personal Reality.

That simply means the information you're feeding your brain daily, you start to focus on. Soon you experience it as being what life is about, it becomes your personal reality.

I X F = PR. So while I do believe it’s important to stay informed, I also know that most of the media we are exposed to on a daily basis isn’t designed to serve us. It’s designed to draw and hold attention to create revenue. It’s so easy to get lost in this kind of media, to spend more time than you planned (or even remember) consuming this type of content.

Think of it this way, if you wanted to get into better physical shape you’d improve your diet. But, if you still ate three bacon cheeseburgers a day, you wouldn’t make any progress. That bad input would create a bad result. When it comes to media consumption, we continuously allow our brains to be fed garbage…willingly! It’s as simple as garbage in, garbage out.

We’re all consuming garbage right now. News isn’t designed to inform these days, it’s designed to grab eyeballs, attention, and advertising dollars. News is negative or over-dramatized because that’s what holds attention. It’s a vicious cycle because people get hooked, stop verifying what they hear and then tune in for more. The media they consume confirms everything they now believe to be true. It’s why the news has become the single most divisive element in politics today…no matter what side you’re on: left, right, center, or other.

Remember I X F = PR. Information times your Focus equals your Personal Reality.

News isn’t bad or wrong, it just feeds the people what they respond to. Our challenge is to think for ourselves and not be led blindly off our own chosen course by media that’s designed to generate money rather than improving our society.

We need to build a plan to consciously feed our minds with information that can help us grow, and make intelligent decisions and choices, to better the quality of our lives and, by extension, the lives of our team members and our family.

The world is only as dark as you feed your mind to believe it. It’s time to start lightening up, by enlightening your brain. That means protecting the door to your mind, only letting in high-value data, stuff that increases your knowledge, your vision, and improves the quality of your life, your business, your relationships. I know from firsthand experience it can be hard to stay positive.

Even before all of this chaos, people tried to convince me that I couldn’t live my dreams. They didn’t mean to hurt me or stop me from succeeding, they just didn’t want to see me fail. But they didn’t have the vision or motivation that I had. The story in their head shouldn’t dictate the story in mine.

I choose not to blindly swallow the misleading or clickbait-ey information that's fed to me on social media. Instead, I pursue high-quality information that will feed me. I trust my gut and listen to it more than the people around me. You should too.

How I Protect Myself

I protect the door to my mind by feeding it information that expands my thinking, opens pathways to new ideas, that increases the depth of my vision. One of the biggest challenges, and what drives uncertainty right now is the information people are consuming and the volume at which it’s being consumed daily. That information makes them focus on uncertainty, which over time, becomes their personal reality. What’s worse is that with social media today, the amount of Social Proof confirms your darkest fears. Social proof means that when we aren’t sure about what to do or what something means, we look around us to see how we should feel and how to react. The belief behind social proof is that if enough people buy into something or if enough people do something, it’s got to be right. It’s 100% false.

Do you see the vicious pattern forming here? The crowd wants to push you into their way of thinking. And if you don’t think their way, you’re wrong, vilified.

Now is the time to think differently and not follow the crowd. Now is the time to do you, and use this time to grow, to expand your thinking, to create new opportunities. Don’t do what the crowd does, don’t be a lemming, be a leader. Your vision is yours, you are the only one who can take it from idea to concept to reality. Focus on how to solve problems, not the problem itself.

Feed your mind high-quality information and protect what gets through that door.

Intelligent decisions can shape your life for the positive, but we've got to get the best information. Having THAT information can change our focus, improves how we think, how we feel, and what we do with that information.

I choose to protect the door to my mind by feeding it TED Talks, content from MindValley, and focusing on CANI (constant and never-ending innovation) in my business. I challenge you to find great information and feed your mind. It’ll make your tomorrow better than today.