Had to take my truck for a quick service job this morning at the Toyota dealership.
I drop it off and head into their nicely appointed waiting area. The TV is showing the morning news.
I’m checking messages on my phone, half paying attention to the screen.
And then they cut to commercial break. Of non-stop political ads.
Ads for politicians on both sides, talking about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket if their opponent is elected.
“THAT lady is going to take your guns away, eliminate the cops and invite Antifa to your neighborhood…”
“THAT guy is going to take your healthcare away, and leave you and your elderly parents broke, destitute and dying…”
Such pleasant messages to start the week, right?
I could actually feel a little twinge of anger / anxiety / frustration building up as each new commercial started.
After the 3rd one in a row, I did what any normal person would do to protect their sanity:
I evacuated.
I got up, walked outside and waiting for my repair to finish.
This was a good reminder for me (and you) to protect our inputs.
We don’t watch a lot of TV at our house, other than sports from time to time. So I haven’t been smacked across the face with that many political ads. It’s sobering.
The “news” itself is the same way. Biased to one side or the other. Sensationalized. Designed to create fear and anxiety so we’ll stay glued to it.
I used to follow the news, follow a lot of different “news outlets” on social media, try to keep up with everything.
But it’s exhausting. And it’s useless. Because we have almost zero control of anything that’s being reported / shared.
And I’m not saying we should avoid all news and live in a bubble of ignorance.
But you know as well as I do, 98% of the “news” on TV, the web or in social media is garbage. It’s selectively assembled clickbait.
It’s not news. It’s not journalism.
And maybe one side of the political spectrum does this more than the other, but they both do it.
“Fake news” (in the form of broadcasts, political ads or polarizing social media shares) isn’t making us informed or confident. It’s robbing our joy and stealing our attention from the things that really matter…
Our families, our businesses, our teams, the communities where we serve, the patients and people we care for.
Protect your inputs.
Turn off the “news”…
Unfollow useless accounts in social media that aren’t serving you…
Deactivate Twitter/Facebook/Insta/News notifications on your phone…
We incur a high opportunity cost when we give away our attention and our energy. Cut that cost as much as you can.
I doubt you eat Twinkies and donuts for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We know it’s detrimental to trash our bodies like that.
We have to protect our minds with the same vigilance.
Protect your inputs.
This is how we create bandwidth to focus on the things that matter, the things we can control.
We create headspace so we can focus on the inputs that encourage us, develop us and our teams, build us up, make us better people.
Easier said than done sometimes, especially as much as we’re bombarded with trash from the media.
So I hope this was a useful reminder to you as it was to me.
Protect your inputs and make it a great week.
– Troy
PS – This message started as a personal journal entry (I wrote it immediately after evacuating the dealership to sit outside). But I know I’m not the only one who feels this way about news/political ads, so I decided to share it with you in hopes it would be encouraging.