The Mindset Mentor - How the News Brainwashes Us

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dylan. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another episode of this podcast. And also, if you've been listening to us for a while, do me a favor and give us a rating and review, however you listen to us, because rating and reviews help the algorithm so that therefore this podcast gets out to more people organically. So I'd greatly, greatly appreciate if you'd take 10 seconds out of your day and give us a rating and review. Today, I'm going to be talking about how the news is brainwashing you. And listen, I'm not talking about the news that's happening right now. This has nothing to do with just the current events and what's been happening in the world.

Starting point is 00:00:47 This has to do with what the news has been for a very long time. We can all agree that the news has been an absolute dumpster fire for 20, 30, 40 years. It used to be back in our grandparents' days, it used to be a way to be informed, a way to learn about current events. But I'm going to tell you right now, the news does not keep you informed of anything at this point. If anything, it doesn't keep you informed. It keeps you conformed. Conformed to stay in your house, conformed to be afraid, conformed to think negatively, to worry about the current state of the world. And I'm going to talk to you about why the news is actually brainwashing you in what you think. And the main reason why I want

Starting point is 00:01:32 to dive into this is because people don't realize that everything that you see, hear, listen to, read, everything that comes into your awareness changes the way that you feel throughout every single day. It changes the way that you think. And so let's start off with that basis real quick. Every single thing that comes into your awareness through something that you read, something that you hear, something that you see, whatever it is, changes the way that you think, which changes the way that you feel because your feelings come from your thoughts. And so if we're talking about the news, if you watch the news, you would definitely 100% think that the world is getting worse, right? I mean, it seems like

Starting point is 00:02:18 everything is going crazy right now. It seems like everything's going nuts, but here's the crazy thing about it. If you watch the news, it's always seemed like something is going wrong. It's always seemed like something was, we're just on the edge of absolute human destruction, right? It's not like it just started being this way. It's not like the news was amazing a few years ago. And then just past couple of months, it's been like an absolute, just terrible. No, it's been like this for a really long time. It seems like the world is getting worse, but nothing can actually be further from the truth. And I'm going to tell you why. There was a Harvard professor. His name is Steven Pinkler. And Steven Pinker actually went through and did all of the statistics on war and cause of death and dying of starvation

Starting point is 00:03:06 and dying from war and dying from everything that you could possibly do and found that there has never been a time in human history where it has been more safe to be alive than right now. Now, if you think about that, if you watch the news, it literally seems like we're going to hell in a handbasket. But if you look at the statistics, you realize that this is the safest time to be alive. Now realize, I understand that there's crap happening in this world. There's a lot of stuff happening in this world. There's people's opinions and people are on one side, then people are on the other side. And then there's people that seem divisive where we're getting split up and it seems like there's protests and things

Starting point is 00:03:43 like there's always stuff that's happening. It seems like it's getting worse, but it has never been a better time to be alive as a human. Now, if you look at it as just like a small microcosm, you can look at one thing and be like, oh my God, it's so bad right now. But if you look across the entire board, across the entire world, there's never been a better time to be alive as a human. So then it really makes you ask yourself, if it's never been so safe, when I watch the news, it's so negative. Why is the news so negative? So let's go ahead and talk about right now why the news is so negative. Why does the news focus on negative news instead of focusing on positive news? Why does it focus so much on negative news when there is amazing things

Starting point is 00:04:24 that are always happening every single day? And here's what you have to realize. The news stations understand the way the human brain works. Now, if we take a step back from the news station and just look at them, a news station is a business and business has to have revenue come in. How does the news make its revenue? The news makes its revenue through, everybody with me now, advertising dollars. So the more people that are watching the news, the more revenue, aka the more advertising dollars that are coming in. So the news is not going to just put up positive stuff. The news is going to put up stuff that it knows that you're going to have a hard time looking away from. And then human brain naturally goes a little bit negative. Let me explain to you why the human brain goes a little bit negative.

Starting point is 00:05:16 Let's say, you know, your brain really hasn't changed that much over the past 20, 30, 40, 50, 100,000 years. It's definitely changed, but it hasn't changed near enough as much as technology has changed in the past 100,000 years. So let's say 100,000 years ago, you and your friend, you know, John, let's say your friend's name is John 100,000 years ago. You know, you're walking down a path and, you know, you're wearing a little loincloth and, you know, you're walking down, you're going to go to the lake because you guys need to go get some water for your tribe. And you're walking and John goes and he sees some berries. He's a little bit hungry. Maybe you're not hungry at this time. So John goes and he picks some blackberries. You know,

Starting point is 00:05:52 maybe they're not specifically blackberries, but they're a blackberry. He picks it, throws it in his mouth, picks another one, throws it in his mouth, keeps on walking down the path. Then you get to the lake and John keels over and dies. You want to remember those blackberries that he had. Reason why is because you want to stay away from them. You want to stay away from anything that's going to make you die, right? Obviously, we all want to. And so naturally, your brain is going to think more about the things to stay away from than it will thinking

Starting point is 00:06:25 about all of the beautiful, amazing things in life. Why? Because it kept our species alive. Let's give another example. Let's say you're hanging out with your friend. Let's say you're hanging out with your friend Harriet 100,000 years ago, right? You and Harriet, you're going to take a walk down to that river that you and John went down to. And you're going to walk down there because, you know, you got some apples. You got to wash some apples. So Harriet's over there. She's down at the river. She's washing her apples off. And then boom, she gets struck by an alligator. Alligator pulls her. She's gone. She gone forever. You'll never see Harriet again. Do you want to remember that?

Starting point is 00:07:00 Or do you want to remember the apples that you were washing? You're going to want to remember not to go back to this place because Harriet was killed, you know, a hundred thousand year old Harriet, uh, Harriet, a hundred thousand years ago was killed by an alligator at this river. So your brain is designed to focus on what we would call quote unquote negative things, because if you can stay away from those, if you can focus on those negative things, you can stay away from them. If you can stay away from them, what do you do? You live because all your brain really cares about is your survival. So that is why the human brain works the way that it does. So if I own a news station and I have a whole bunch of positive news that comes in and a whole bunch of negative news. And I need the humans who watch the news, my news station to be addicted to it because the

Starting point is 00:07:50 more people that watch, the more revenue that comes in to the more advertising dollars. Am I going to put up about how this beautiful story happened where, you know, this little boy saved this woman that was crossing the road that was in her eighties and she fell over? No. What do I want to talk about? I want to talk about the homicides. I want to talk about the murders, the drive-bys, the unsolved mysteries, the things that are terrible in this world. Because naturally, the same way that your brain wants to focus on Harriet getting eaten by the alligators or John dying from the blackberries, it's going to turn that part of your brain on that's in survival mode that goes, I need to watch this. You want to stay alive. And so how

Starting point is 00:08:27 does the news do this? Well, number one, they put up a bunch of negative stories. Another thing that they do is they do things called open loops. An open loop is actually a marketing strategy based off of psychology. And if you ever watch the news, they use open loops like crazy. An open loop would be something like this. Let's say I'm about to give a talk and I want to keep everybody who is watching the talk engaged in my talk. I'm going to say, guys, what I'm going to do is I'm going to teach you my five tips on how to, you know, master your mindset. But before I do that, what I want to talk to you about is da-da-da-da-da-da-da. mindset. But before I do that, what I want to talk to you about is da, da, da, da, da, da, da. What happens is I opened a loop. Now the human brain wants that loop closed. Now you go, I want to know these five freaking strategies to master my mind, right? That's what the human brain

Starting point is 00:09:17 does. It wants to close everything that it can close. It wants to close that loop. And so what does the news do? What do they do? They say, there's been a recall on food locally in Austin, Texas, because 200 people have died. More on that in 15 minutes. Ever heard anything along those lines when watching the news? Of course you have, because they know if they open a loop, what are you more likely to do? You're more likely to stay for another 15 minutes because you want to see that loop closed because you don't want to go ahead and get the food that's been recalled, accidentally eat it and die. Is this making sense to you? And so the news is designed to be as

Starting point is 00:09:58 negative as possible. And so if you're watching the news, guess what you're going to think? You're going to think really freaking negative. You're going to think that we're on the end of we're we're really close to dying as a human We're about to destroy this entire human race, right? That's what you'd be thinking to yourself. You'd be thinking we are So close to dying We're so close like what's what's going to happen? I don't know what's going to happen I want to make sure that I watch the news to make sure that I don't die. I want to make sure that I know exactly what's going on because if I don't know what's going on, maybe I'll have this food that's going to kill me. It's designed to keep you ready, addicted. Hey everybody, real quick. Are you a creative

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Starting point is 00:11:44 Once again, that's skillshare.com slash mindset. All right, let's get back to the show right now. Because negativity is extremely addictive. Think about this for a second. We all know somebody in our lives who watches way too much news. Think about that one person. I'm going to give you a second. Who is that one person that watches the news way more than everyone else you know? Okay, now you've got that person. I want you to think of this question. I want you to answer it. Would you say that they're a positive person or would you say that they're more of a negative person? If they lean towards one side, is it more positive or more negative? It's more negative. One thing that's really interesting is that I find that a lot of older people who sit at home during the day and they watch a lot of news, they tend to be very

Starting point is 00:12:28 scared. They tend to be very negative. And what do they do? They pass that on to their children. They then text their children, hey, this is going on. You should be aware of this. Hey, this is going on. You should be aware of this. Hey, this is going on. You should be aware of this all day long. And here's what most parents tend to do. And I know a lot of parents to do this. Are you ready? Most parents will text their children and say, Hey, beware of X, Y, Z, make sure that you're paying attention to this. And here's what it is. They say, and we all, I mean, I know so many people whose parents are like this, just so you guys know, they are in so much fear that they pass their fear onto their children and they disguise their fear as love. Let me say this again. So many parents, not this isn't everybody, but I'm just going to

Starting point is 00:13:14 give you an example because you might be out there and this might be one of your parents. So many of your parents, so many parents that are out there, excuse me, I'm not going to say your parents. So many parents that are out there, they have a very negative mindset or they worry too much. And they, you know, they think about all of the bad things and they watch the news or whatever it is that it might be. And what actually happens is then they pass that on to their children through sending them text messages or having to call them every single day or making sure everything's right or sending them all the negative things that happen, you know, so they make sure that they stay away from it. And what happens is the parent is fearful. They pass that

Starting point is 00:13:48 fear onto their child and they disguise their fear as love. I'm only doing this because I love you. I want you to stay alive. I'm only doing this because I want you to be aware of what's going on. I'm only doing this because of X, Y, Z. This is going to be an eye-opener for a lot of people. Maybe your parents do it to you. Maybe you do it to your children, but it's not doing any good for anybody because the human brain is addicted to negativity. And of course, you can look, there's a lot of stuff that's crazy that's happened in the world. There's a lot of, what is it? 15,000 people a day, I think, die of starvation. There's, there's a lot of things that are bad that are happening in the world. There's protests that are going on. There's

Starting point is 00:14:27 people that are being killed. There's people that are, you know, in slavery still. If you look at certain countries, it's crazy. They think that there's approximately 10 million children right now that are in slavery and a good majority of them are in sex slavery. Like that's ridiculous if you think about it. That's crazy. So there's always bad them are in sex slavery. Like that's ridiculous if you think about it. That's crazy. So there's always bad things happening in the world. And they're terrible. And we wish that we could do more about it.

Starting point is 00:14:53 And we still can. But at the same time, we have to realize that there is still way, way, way, way, way more good than bad. But just because the news doesn't show the good doesn't mean that the good isn't happening. I want you to be very, very understanding of that. So what do we do? What do we do in this situation with ourselves? We pay attention to everything that's coming into our awareness. We become in charge of what we allow into our brains. Stop watching the news. Instead, listen to podcasts, turn on YouTube,

Starting point is 00:15:26 read a book, hang out with people who inspire you, go out into nature. Be in charge and very intentional as to what information comes into your body, what you consume, not just food. Hear, see, touch, taste, everything in your awareness. Be very, very aware of what's coming into your body. Like I said, not just the food, but everything that's coming into your body that's affecting your mind. You need to be very aware of it and be very in control of it. The way I always explain it is this, is if let's say that you go, you have a garage in your house, right? And you go drive your Ford F-150 into the garage. You turn it off. You go inside, you go through, you have some dinner with the family. You go to bed, you wake up and you go into the garage. What are you expecting to be in the garage? A Ford F-150. Why is that? Because

Starting point is 00:16:23 that's what you parked in the garage. Would you ever expect, I'm going to go out into that garage and there might be a Ferrari, or I might be in that garage and there might be a Toyota Corolla. No. Why? Because you parked the freaking truck in the garage. So of course there's going to be a Ford F-150 in the garage. So if you take all of this negative news and put it in your brain, why would you just expect that you're going to be positive? all of this negative news and put it in your brain, why would you just expect that you're going to be positive? No, what you park in your garage, aka your mind, will be in your garage, aka your mind, the next morning. So you've got to be very diligent of what you allow into your awareness. The people that you hang out with, the stuff that you watch, the conversations that you

Starting point is 00:17:00 hear, all of that you need to be very, very aware of. And I want to leave you with something which puts a whole lot of perspective into your life, my life, everything. And people are thinking that the world is getting worse. I'm going to go ahead and let you listen to this and realize how the world has changed. And so there was an article that I read and it said, you know, we probably think that it's a mess out there. It's harder to discern between what's a real threat and what's a simple panic and hysteria. For a small amount of perspective in this moment, imagine that you were born in 1900. Many would think that it's pretty simple time of life.

Starting point is 00:17:41 But by your 14th birthday, World War I starts and ends on your 18th birthday. 22 million people will die in that war, including many of your friends who volunteered to defend freedom in Europe. Later that same year, the Spanish flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until your 20th birthday. 50 million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million. On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%. The world GDP drops 27%. That runs until you're 38 years old. The country nearly collapses along with world economy. If you were lucky, you had a job that paid $300 a year, a dollar a day. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren't even over the hill yet, but don't try to catch your breath. If you lived in London,

Starting point is 00:18:50 England, or most of the continental Europe, bombing of your neighborhood or invasion of your country by foreign soldiers along with their tank and artillery was a daily event. A daily event. Thousands of people joined the army and try to defend liberty with their lives. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people will die in that war. At age 50, the Korean War starts. 5 million more people will die. At age 55, the Vietnam War begins and doesn't end for 20 years. 4 million people will die in that conflict. On your 62nd birthday, there's the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on your planet could have ended. Sensible leaders

Starting point is 00:19:41 prevented that from happening. So you have to realize that's what your life would be like if you were born in 1900. So thinking about your life right now, your current circumstances and what you have to deal with. Is the world a little crazy? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:57 Why? Because humans are a little crazy and they always will be. But it doesn't mean that it's bad or it's worse than it's ever been before. It just means that it's something that we need to learn to work with. But I will promise you this, as crazy as it seems, it's never been safer to be a human, number one. And number two, there is always, always, always, always, always more good happening in the world than bad.

Starting point is 00:20:26 always, always, always more good happening in the world than bad. But you get to choose what you want to focus on. If you continue to eat what the media and news feeds you and all that negativity, you're going to have to deal with the sickness that comes from it. So you can be in charge of what comes into your body. And if you're in charge of what comes into your body, what you consume, of what comes into your body. And if you're in charge of what comes into your body, what you consume, you will realize that you change the way that you feel every single day. Because what you think about

Starting point is 00:20:50 depends on what you're consuming. And when you think about something, it changes the way that you feel. So if you want to feel better, all you got to do is think better. And to think better, you just got to consume better. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, if you know somebody

Starting point is 00:21:09 who's struggling out there, if you know somebody who's negative, if you know someone who watches too much news, have them listen to this podcast episode. And I'm going to leave it the same way, leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. Go out there and be the change that you want to see in the world. Don't try to change other people. Just try to change yourself and be the best example that you possibly can be. And I'm going to go ahead and leave you. Actually, I guess I already left you the same way I already left. I'll say it again, damn it. Might as well. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

The Mindset Mentor - How the News Brainwashes Us

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