In today’s episode I continue with the theme that so much of the modern technocratic system is designed to keep you in fear so that your attention and energy can be monetized.

I suggest how we can all learn to focus more on decisions that increase hope and optimism.

Grab a free copy of my book Bridging the Gap here:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf

Enquire about booking Jonathan to speak:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/jd-speak-opt-in

Youtube version here:

https://youtu.be/KZZu5tLdUQ8

Find out about coaching with Jonathan here:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/coaching

Transcript
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Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.

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Once again, welcome friends to the daily podcast.

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Hope you like the last episode it's uh, it's done really well.

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We were talking about, uh, the attention economy.

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And how we need to be diligent on where we place our attention today.

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I'm gonna go on fraction, deeper on that.

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And tomorrow we're gonna move.

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Onto one of the first of our recent listener.

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Questions user generated content.

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So, uh, you know, one of the best things I get to do on this show is just, uh,

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take your questions, challenges, problems, cuz we are all on this journey together.

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There is not a single person listening and me here behind the

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microphone have not figured out.

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How to do life perfectly.

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We're all still traveling together.

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So I get to.

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I guess the privilege of working through some of your questions.

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So we're gonna start that tomorrow, tomorrow, gonna be talking about how

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we deal with things like self judgment.

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Today, I just wanna take your fraction deeper on, um,

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this attention economy idea.

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I think it's really.

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Important that we be across this concept and its implications for our life.

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Would you please make sure you've subscribed, hit that subscribe button?

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And the greatest thing you can do is if you like what

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you're hearing today, grab it.

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Stick it on your social media feeds and send it out to a few friends

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cuz that, uh, it helps it to grow, helps it to reach more people.

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And the feedback and emails that I've been getting are just, uh,

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really beautiful from people that, uh, I've had the pleasure of meeting

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and a live event or somewhere else.

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So, uh, yeah.

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Look, if you're like what you're hearing, uh, let me know,

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jonathan@jonathandoyle.co dot COO let's jump in to today is the second part.

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Of the quote that I was sharing the other day, and it's going deeper

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on this idea of attention economy.

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So let me share it with you and then let's unpack a little bit and see

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how it could be relevant for your.

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Life.

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Here's the quote, the perpetual negative focus.

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On problems and melodies and outrages.

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Prevents the emergence of positive.

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Plans and projects.

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One more time.

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The perpetual negative focus on problems.

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And maladies and outrages.

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Prevents the emergence of positive.

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Plans and projects.

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Okay.

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So in the YouTube version, there'll be a link here.

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I go pretty deep on this.

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I talk about.

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In terms of evolutionary biology, how we developed as a species,

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we are hardwired towards fear.

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Because of the need for self-preservation fear played an incredibly important

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role in the development of the human species, the survival.

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And, uh, flourishing of the human species had a great deal to do.

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With the evolutionary adaptive capacity of fear, there were many

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things worth being afraid of you put your head outside that cave 300,000

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years ago, and anything was possible.

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Pestilence would be stalking the land.

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Sabba tooth tigers were not really because they were gone before then,

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but you know, some sort of nasty thing would be there to eat you.

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And if it wasn't that it was gonna be, you know, Neighboring

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tribes that decided that, uh, your hunting grounds were better.

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So they were gonna.

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Basically start a tribal conflict.

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So there was a real evolutionary benefit to fear.

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Of course you fast forward to today.

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And I've said this many times, The fears that inhabit our world are very different.

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Um, they're very abstract, you know, in terms of, if you, if you could

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choose a time to be born in human history, this is pretty much it.

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You know, many of you have heard me talk about the, the flushing

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toilet, you know, principle.

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Um, if you're living at a time with a flashing toilet for you're doing pretty.

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Well, compared to almost every human that ever lived, you know?

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And, um, so the fears that we face are not immediate fears of death.

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We understand that there's wars and conflicts in different parts of the world.

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But the, the fears that we face abstract, can I pay my bills?

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Will my kids be okay?

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Will I find someone.

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Uh, who loved me forever, all these abstract kind of fears and

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what I wanna talk about today.

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Is just to help you continually understand the role.

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Of legacy and mainstream media and the kind of in penetration.

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Of how we are governed with media and large corporations.

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Because they're all kind of singing off the same song sheet, if you will.

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And one of the things that.

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They use is fear.

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Government uses fear because the, the more fear that government can

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inject into the system, the more.

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The great mass of people will need to believe that we must be protected from

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X fear, fill in the blank, whatever the fear happens to be economic.

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Medical, you know, uh, military, whatever it is, fill in the blank.

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I do not discount that there are genuine things going on in the world,

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but I would like you to hopefully agree with me that the preponderance of

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fear probably doesn't match up to the lived bear experience of most of us.

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So what mainstream media understands of course, is that fear sells fear,

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gains our attention because of that evolutionary biological basis.

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We are.

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If something is presented to us in a fearful sense,

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something could happen to us.

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They were more likely to pay attention.

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The longer we pay attention, the more we are a set of eyeballs into

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which advertising can be sold.

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So you can see this kind of confluence of factors that increase

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the level of fear in our culture.

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And so what this does, according to today's quote.

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Is it, I guess it's sort of soaks us in a mill year, a, a stew, if you will.

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It's like a, we are baed in fear.

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And when that happens, I think our energy and attention.

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Well, attention's fragmented, but our energy levels can be slowly restricted.

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You know, what's the point?

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Why do we bother why we should we even try to think, you know, tomorrow's

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gonna look worse than today and on and on it goes, we have this.

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Deep sense that things are getting worse.

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And no matter what happens, there's nothing we can do.

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And then it restricts that optimism.

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That leads to kind of growth and flourishing in our private lives,

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but also in our culture in general.

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Um, I read Ross do that's book.

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Uh, the decadent society, which I, think's a really important book.

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Uh, it's one of those books that, uh, you know, it's, it's a, it's a really

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good read and you come away with a, with a, with an idea that stays with you.

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And one of the points he makes in that book is that, that.

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Exploration is central to human experience.

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That a lot of the great unleashing of growth.

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And potential in human societies happened.

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As a result of exploration, you look at people like Ferd

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and Magellan, you know, leaving Portugal, sailing across the ocean.

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Naming the Pacific ocean.

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He did, you know, Pacific Pacifica means peaceful the peaceful ocean.

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And, um, you know, it was this exploratory journeys there, sort of the merchant.

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Exploring class that left Venice in the, in the modern era, you know,

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and began to open up different parts of the world in this ex, this

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desire for exploration and growth.

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You look at the migration west in the United States, the frontier spirit

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that opened up this kind of growth.

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So the was a, as much as there were risks and threats and dangers, there was also.

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An optimism.

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There was a hope, there was a sense that things could get better, that things.

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Would be more interesting to be more potential and possibility as

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we uncovered the world around us.

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I've been talking about an article I read recently from the sociologist

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Frank Ferrate who talked about it, the difference from our culture at the

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moment, as opposed to previous cultures.

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Is that previously when cultures were presented with threats and

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fear, fearful things, They, they definitely experienced fear, but

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they also experienced a sense of.

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Opportunity.

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What is the possible opportunity in what's happening here?

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And his research suggests that we've lost.

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The sense of opportunity.

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We still have the sense of fear when things happen, but we've lost the sense

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of, well, what might this bring about what potential things here could happen?

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That could be positive.

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So, what I'm getting at in this episode, my friend is to remind us all that.

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This stuff is not neutral.

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There are highly intelligent people, packaging, fear, and

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selling it to you on a daily basis.

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Now, what I've done is opt out.

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So I just opt out.

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I, I don't, I know I haven't watched mainstream television

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in probably 15, 20 years.

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Uh,

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I deleted all my social media accounts.

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I used sub stack because you can.

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Really access some extraordinarily brilliant independent journalism there.

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Um, I use a few other sources.

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I think there is a lot of great stuff on podcasts and there's people that you can.

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Follow who are really interesting.

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So I've opted outta the system.

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I just switch off.

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Even when I go to the gym, they've got about 15 television screens.

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I just pull my hat down, get my workout done.

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Don't even look at it.

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You can see the headline.

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Sometimes I glimpse and it's like,

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Uh, doctors fear new death thing happening next Tuesday at four.

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Be afraid.

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And I love how, you know, often with, you know, you, you see <laugh>, they go

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to the ad breaks and they're like, and when we come back, More fear when we

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come back something else to worry about.

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So I'm not being flippant.

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I know some of you're listening here going Jonathan.

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Seriously.

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He telling us to be uninformed.

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He's telling us to be unplugged.

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What I'm saying is this, there is a huge global governance, media marketing nexus

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that is trying to make you afraid, because if you are afraid, you are controllable

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and you will do what you are told.

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And I also think that it is stopping the creativity and optimism and

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hope that needs to spring up in our hearts on a regular basis.

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I know the other critique something you'll have was

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Jonathan, you need to be informed.

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Yeah.

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I kind of get that.

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I agree with that to a point.

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But I actually think you, we all need to go and reread Steven Covey's

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circle of influence and circle of interest and circle of control.

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Right.

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Because there's in many ways there's bug rule that we can control, like, unless

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you're running the United nations world health organization, or you're leading

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a nation there's, there's not a lot that many of us get to do to change the

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issues that are being presented to us.

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What I believe is that we get to, we get to change what's right in front

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of us, the quality of our marriages, the quality of our parenting,

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the quality of our friendships.

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How we apply ourselves to worthwhile valuable things each day of our lives.

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I think that what the fear does is it sucks us up into this great big narrative

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arc that sort of roams around the planet.

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And we forget the incredible.

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Influence that we can have in what's right in front of us.

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We can choose optimism in our daily.

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Lives now I wanna say, choose.

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I really want to get this point across.

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Optimism hope are decisions.

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They're not magical feelings that some of us have more than others.

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I have had to work very hard.

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I still have to work very hard on a daily basis to, you know, to not

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give into some of the despair, to not give into some of the hopelessness.

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You know, we, we were massively impacted.

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By some of the decisions over the last few years in terms of travel

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and speaking, and business, and, uh, I've had to work very hard not

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to descend into a bitter cynicism.

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It's a work, it's a project.

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So this isn't just a nice idea.

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Like, oh yeah, let's be more hopeful.

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Now this is a decision.

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This is a choice.

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Something we do every day.

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All some.

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Summary.

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I believe that not only is our attention being fragmented, I believe that fear is

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being used is fear is being weaponized.

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If you use that word in a way that it probably hasn't been before, simply

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because of technology is a different, it can be mainstreamed and it's

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more pervasive and endemic to the.

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System than it ever has been in human history.

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So friends, let us choose to fight back.

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Let us choose.

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To disengage from the system as much as it's practical for you.

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What can you say no to what can you watch?

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Less of?

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What can you listen to less?

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You know, how can you become more astute?

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How can you choose more hope and optimism on a daily basis?

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Okay, so just do the audit.

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That's what I say in so many episodes.

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Do the audit as you go through today, look around.

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What are you listening to?

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What are you?

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I mean, you here, right?

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You're listening to this.

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This is hopefully an optic Optim, uh, optimistic message today.

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I want you to be encouraged.

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I want you to be.

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Encouraged.

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I want you to believe that you are not a victim.

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I want you to believe that you can.

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Find the goodness in life.

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I wanna believe that you can improve your circumstance and the circumstance

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of the people that you love.

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So press on my friends, press on.

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Disconnect get more mindful about what the inputs are and choose to

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be a light in wherever you are today in your marriage, in your parenting,

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in your workplace, in your school.

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Go there today and just do the best you can to bring light and hop optimism

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and joy and hope into that space.

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All right.

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God, bless you.

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Go and check out the YouTube version.

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Links you here, would you please subscribe?

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Um check out the links you can book me to speak conferences events staff training

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all that sort of stuff so go check it out god bless you guys love your heaps

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i'm praying for you all i hope that we uh we can all make the most of this

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moment in history my name's jonathan doyle this has been the daily podcast in

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you and i gonna talk again tim tomorrow.

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