The Way You Consume Is Ruining Your Life

attention is the new currency and you're giving it away for free instead of being addicted to a meaningful goal that will benefit your life you're addicted to cheap dopamine instead of waking up ready to attack your days with purpose you grab your phone it's likely that you won't make it to the end of this video your mind is probably already wandered off into something else by now and you don't think that I'm talking about you but I am people can't read anymore because overstimulation has fried our brains and now we can't focus short form scrolling

content dominates the internet right now and it makes it harder for people to sit through videos like mine the one thing that will prevent you from living the life that you want is distraction and if you can't regain control of your digital habits you can't regain control of your life the goal of every social media company including YouTube is to keep your attention that is the only thing they want tech companies invest Millions maybe even billions into keeping your attention as long as possible the longer you look at a screen the more advertisements that are

strategically placed around the content that you love and even though all of these platforms terms of free it's not really free you're paying with your attention they shove ads in your face and the only way to escape the ads is to pay them more money so none of this is free when you mindlessly give away your attention you suffer more consequences it takes away your time leaving you no opportunity to do the things that are important to you or you're constantly pulling away from those things in order to give attention to your phone the scariest

part about it is that it deliberately bombards you with negative content in views because it knows that it will attract more attention the human brain is wired to feed off negativity and they use that to their advantage under pretty much any comment section under any social media you'll see someone arguing faceless profiles will go back and forth for days over things that don't even matter can you imagine being so stuck in The Matrix that you leave a hate comment on a post and then some other angry person comments on your comment disagreeing with you and

then you take time out of your life on Earth to argue with some random stranger on the internet about how nobody can beat Goku and then the people who are a little more Saye maybe it's us take time out of our Lives to actually read that argument popcorn in hand but it's not just the platforms that are trying to get your attention it's the creators too me included YouTubers invest tons of time into flashy aesthetic editing and encapsulating thumbnails that will get and keep your attention and it's it's really hard to grow a YouTube channel

without strengthening your internet addiction I try not to use super flashy thumbnails and edits because I don't really like that and my channel actually suffers because of it most of my viewers drop off after about 30 seconds and even more drop off after about 3 to 4 minutes if I really wanted to maximize the income I make off of YouTube I could just make make all those flashy edits and things right I can make super stimulating thumbnails and videos to keep your attention just farming views because your little lizard brains love that stuff the subtitles

the background images the sound effects those are the things that keep you guys' attention if you have those things you might actually not be paying attention to what I'm saying and actually paying attention to those things so let's talk about cheap dopamine and yes we are going there again cheap dopamine is any easily attainable source of instant gratification a lot of the time it comes from internet addiction but it's not just from internet addiction cheap dopamine is anything that is not aligned with your ideal future so dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is associated with pleasure

reward and motivation activities that lead to the release of dopamine give us a sense of pleasure but these feelings are only temporary and don't contribute to your well-being in the long term if it's not the right things that are giving you pleasure that means that it can include overspending gaming binge watching TV junk food mindless consumption of social media and porn and many many many other things when I spell those things out for you you you already know that there's a negative effect associated with them I don't have to like tell you that you you

you automatically thought about it and some of these things are okay sometimes they do have their place but if you do indulge in these things you need to be aware of the outcomes associated with it and if that outcome is preventing you from achieving your goals and you're ruining things for your future self you need to make a conscious decision the way that I navigate this reality is that I know what I want for myself my my family and for my future I know that those things that I just listed off are not congruent with

the life that I want and I want to reach my goal more than I want those things therefore I don't want to do those things I want a high income therefore I want all of the things that are required to get there and that includes hours upon hours of hard work determination and missing out on a lot of the things that other people call fun and I don't play video games anymore I've played a few games at my friend's house and I've been there a handful of times this year but I don't I don't play

video games at home on my own time I stopped using my PS4 in December of 2022 at the same time I started the social media detox I also don't watch TV I used to watch a lot of anime but it's just too timec consuming for me so I stopped doing that at the same time as well like at the start of the year I was watching anime like I remember I was watching Dragon Ball I started Dragon Ball Z watch like 20 episodes and I remember I was watching like one episode a day while I

was eating dinner I just felt like it wasn't really worth the time um I don't know that's just I don't know it just felt like a distraction so I stopped watching TV too and you guys probably think I'm boring now and you may be right I'm probably a little extreme with this stuff but I still have fun in my other ways I still go out with my friends sometimes and sometimes at the end of the night I will just sit down and just watch a couple YouTube videos that are like unrelated to work and I'll

read Comics before bed to kind of shut my mind off right now I'm reading bone let me know if you you guys have read this I love this I read this when I was like a little kid and now I'm like rereading it and it's like it's even better but 90% of my day I'm trying to do something that isn't instantly gratifying because whenever I do then I always feel like I'm wasting my time and I can't believe I'm explaining to you guys that I'm not a boring person if I had to give you guys

a raw unfiltered belief that I have my dear brothers and sisters if you aren't making meaningful progress towards your goals you you shouldn't be indulging in cheap Pleasures so now let's talk about social media so the reason I'm singling social media out is because this is one that people suffer from the most and it's also the most controversial some people think that any social media is bad social media some people think that social media is what you make it and I'm kind of in both camps depending on what social media I think that achieving a

balance between consumption and action every day is the key to Improvement and by consumption I mean watching videos listening to podcasts and reading books short form content is good for like a quick you know quick tip or an Insight on something that you didn't know but it should be quickly abandoned for long form content when you actually go to learn something so I think that keeping Instagram Snapchat and Tik Tok on your phone is cope I can maybe understand Instagram a little more than the other two um you know especially if you're running a business

you know I don't keep so social media besides YouTube on my phone but I I can understand why someone would keep Instagram on their phone right but I think that you probably don't have much benefit from keeping Tik Tok on your phone and you probably don't have much benefit for keeping Snapchat in fact I think Snapchat's the biggest cope and I'll explain that in a minute and thing is like you can't escape social media it's here to stay so if you let it consume your mind and attention it will be a detriment if you use

it mindfully as a Creator and a researcher then you will gain and you will see things that nobody else is seeing the fact that I'm using it the way that I'm using it now by creating and researching with it I'm able to have a better understanding of the effects that it has on people and able to make videos like this if I didn't take that detox that I took I never would have made videos like this and be I know I guess hopefully I'm helping you helping you in the way that I'm helping you because

I just wouldn't have opened my eyes to it you know um and then it wouldn't have opened my eyes to all the other things that I talk about on my channel either you know I I made this realization after my detox that and I and I got a better idea of the capabilities of social media and I also made a realization that if I wanted to grow a business which was my plan for a very long time social media was a non-negotiable let me say that again if you want to make a profitable business social

media is a non-negotiable having a personal brand is one of the best business models you can get into right now I think it's probably the best and and it's the most desired among young people 57% of gen Z to be exact but anyways dopamine detox is not a challenge and the reason why I keep on using quotations is because I don't really like that term detox but I use it because that's what everybody Associates this subject with instead I like to think of it as a long-term lifestyle change anyone who tells you that you can

fix your life with a onewe dopamine detox is lying to you and I'm not going to go too much into how to actually do a detox because I already made a video about her previously you can watch it here but just know that the actions and habits you adopt now will shape your future so where are your habits leading You observe the masses and think about it if everyone else is addicted to overc consumption where does that bring them do you want that for yourself are you in control of your digital habits does this benefit

your life beyond minor convenience is this the best way to support your values a lot of you like to cope and say that you need to keep Snapchat to talk to your friends and stay in touch but do you really need Snapchat to keep in touch with them is that the only way to communicate what would happen if you sto talking to them on Snapchat would their relationship die if if so is it worth worrying about like I said before you don't need to remove social media from your life forever just be conscious of what

you're spending your life on Earth doing understand that the thing that gives you pleasure today will give you pain tomorrow and if it doesn't give you pain tomorrow at the very least you won't have it anymore and that will give you pain that's all so now I will actually walk you through the steps require to become a conscious consumer since a lot of you guys asked me for help with that after the identity video so again you have to create your blueprint your ideal future and I know I keep mentioning this concept but it really

is the Catalyst for change is having this this Vision this this this idea of what you want for your future is the most important thing that you could possibly do you create this by understanding what you don't want and using that to find out what you do want not just one goal your blueprint encapsulates every aspect of your life what kind of car do you want your living situation Rel relationship status do you want kids how much Financial abundance do you want what time do you want to wake up get specific a Mindless consumer doesn't

think from this lens they don't have any idea of what their ideal future is and if they have any idea they're not being conscious of it this is why they consume shallow useless information every day that doesn't benefit them they aren't aware of what they want are you aware of what you want when you align your search for knowledge with your vision goals and present purpose the potential for distraction decreases dramatically you will spot future opportunities and self-correct your learning Endeavors consuming information through the lens of your ideal future allows you to deeply understand and

apply the knowledge over time this will raise your level of Consciousness each time you reread or rewatch something from that higher level of Consciousness you will interpret it in a completely different way each time you get new insights this is why when I'm reading something I take my time when I'm reading it so I can actually genuinely understand it and then I will go back and read it over again same thing for YouTube videos and and podcasts I've listened to the exact same things over and over and over again by the same people the same

videos because I you can't understand something one time around even this video you won't understand everything that I'm saying one time around you need you need repetition in order to in order to build an idea and identity inside your head to change that Paradigm and you also need to look at things from that blueprint to mindly to to mindfully consume because you need to filter out information that is conducive to your your goals you will see things other people aren't seeing so now that you have an idea of what you want you can then start

to research how to get it so if your goal right now is to move into your own apartment figure out the problem associated with that goal probably financial and then base all of your learning on the things that will lead to you solving that problem how to increase your income so essentially that problem is your present purpose that you need to work on and that's what you should be devoting like all of your time and attention to because that is the most present problem in your life and that is what you want there's an Arab

proverb that goes the nature of rain is the same but it makes Thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens the same applies to content you can be intentionally consuming the wrong things you have to be able to filter out the useless information there's infinite content out there trying to get your attention and if you don't navigate it wisely you will find yourself wasting hours of your time again only consume from people who have what you want people who have your problems and have achieved your goals you should limited to only a few

people who have the identity that you want to integrate so right now as you're watching this you're choosing to let me inside of your head the more you watch my content the more that I will shape your worldview and identity eventually you will become more and more like me so if I'm adding to your life then keep me around but if I'm not then remove me it's that simple find someone that you relate to and you have lots of content and products that you can use maybe even mentorship use that to your advantage put yourself

in an Echo chain chamber so you can think like they do and if you can't trust your brain to do the right thing trust theirs oh would you look at that perfect time to promote my one toone coaching where I can help you with self improvement and also if you want to go a YouTube channel check that out in the description anyways drown yourself in the content that will lead to your desired outcome understand that you need sustained long-term Focus if you intend on achieving anything meaningful in life be intentional about your consumption even when

it's the right people pick when you want to consume and pick what you want to watch so if you go on to YouTube ask yourself am I going on here to learn something specific or am I going on here to scroll because I'm bored because there are two types of content education and entertainment and everything kind of falls on the spectrum between those two you may find yourself watching educational videos for entertainment when you actively make this choice of when you want to watch and what you want to watch you open up the opportunity to

take action on what you're learning and you might be thinking like hey well what if I don't know what I should be watching how am I going to discover it well yeah that's fine but it's like maybe have like a set time during the day when you're like you know you can start doing some research if you don't know what to research that'll be the time where you sit down and you do some research about what you should be researching right so you know maybe just don't do it like mind mindlessly throughout the day maybe

you maybe you stumbled across my video right maybe that's maybe it was better than you stumbling across something that didn't help you but it's like you don't want to get into the habit of Mind of mindlessly consuming educational content whenever inspiration strikes when you feel like you should be taking notes on it or it's giving you a sense of clarity that's how you know that you're learning the right things another thing I want to touch on is how do you actually fix your short attention span and stop mind wandering a lot of people tell me

that they struggle for making this switch from short form content to long form content Tik Tok to YouTube videos books Etc and to them I'll say this why do you expect yourself to be good at it right away let me PA a picture for you you know those Tik Tok and short videos where it's like the top half is is is the Subway Surfer gameplay and the bottom half is like is like a Reddit post or it's like even another game and then in the middle they have the subtitles the flashy subtitles you've probably seen

those can you imagine going from watching that stuff to picking up a book imagine how hard that is that was me the first book that I read outside of school was Atomic habits and I reread the same chapters multiple times because I would read it but my mind was wandering off into random things you just can't expect yourself to go from watching 4 hours of to a day to 4 hours of reading or even 1 hour of reading you have to start small and just be patient and not get frustrated with yourself focus is a

skill you have to train it just like any other so just keep trying and eventually you'll be able to read and sit through long lectures and podcasts another thing is like when you when you watch a video you click on a video or podcast or something right maybe you know if it really is just such a bad video then just click off right but it's like if it's if it's F has any sort of Education just stick it out and just watch the full thing and I'm not like I don't know maybe you know probably

sounds like I'm just saying this so you like finish my video right but it's like it goes for anybody's videos because like this is what I do when I click on a video I'm intent on hearing the full story cuz you might not cuz like let's say you watch something and then you don't actually fully understand the concept in the first half I see people do this all the time in my comments they'll comment something that makes zero sense if you actually watch the full video because I I explain I'll talk about something here and

then I'll further explain it here but they only watch this part they didn't watch this part and then they go and leave a comment and then they click off so it's like that person just completely closed their mind off to what I was saying and they they don't understand the big picture and they basically just wasted their time right but it's like you can derive value from anything even if it is from something negative you can get a better understanding of something so getting you know both sides and getting the full story of something before

you decide if it's going to help you or not is beneficial icial and it also kind of helps you train your mind to just not want to click off something when it's boring and it doesn't PE your interest like last week I read for 3 hours straight in the library and even 6 months ago I couldn't even dream of doing that and by the way I wasn't even enjoying this book at the start but then once I got into the flow state of reading it I loved it another way to train your mind to not

wander is to practice some sort of mindfulness meditation because the cure for mind wandering is mindfulness when you're mind wandering you're not in the present moment your focus is essenti non-existent mindfulness is when you are in the present moment Focus the weird thing is the way you become mindful is to become mindful of the fact that you aren't mindful so in other words you become mindful by watching your own mind and waiting until you're not Mindful and then becoming mindful of the fact that you're not mindful or not present and then actually become present again

so it's a cycle so like recently I've gotten into meditation and I've also been listening to the Audi book of The Power of Now and I'm not finished with it yet but I'm really enjoying it and I've learned so much about being present and how it improves your focus so here's a trick that I learned from it that will help you understand what I mean so I want you to close your eyes and say to yourself I wonder what my next thought will be then become alert and wait for that next thought to come almost

like it's not you being mindful but you're watching your own mind to see what it will think about so let's try it now yeah okay so when you do this you become present and alert of what's going on you aren't thinking about anything but you are fully aware of what's of what's going on around you I could hear noises in the room that I didn't hear otherwise and I could feel every part of my body including my breath and I also feel like I lose track of time so it's like I don't know if I'm

going to keep that in there I me whatever but maybe you know if if you if you hear me saying this then yeah I did so probably just weird I'm just sitting there just like just like you know like the other day I did a time lapse actually of me doing meditation and it's just me breathing rapidly and I actually I only opened my eyes when like a thought came in and I started thinking of actually like a video I saw of like Hamza from like 3 years ago meditating and he was kind of explaining

that like meditation cycle and I didn't understand it until like I read the power of now so like you don't have to sit cross-legged and meditate to do this practice and become mindful you can do this anywhere I do it with meditation but I also do it when I'm praying also when I'm doing my work or when I'm talking to someone you can practice the skill of being present anywhere I think if you practice the skill of becoming conscious of how mindful you are at any given moment you will inevitably feel more comfortable in your

own head and enjoy yourself at all times and of course it will improve your focus too that's all for now make sure you check out 14 days to purpose um it's Journal prompts that get sent straight to your email with also actual steps that'll help you kind of live a life of purpose pretty much it'll help you craft your blueprint and your goals and find out what you need to consume anyways have a great rest of your week and see you