Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 630 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I’m so happy you’re here. Thanks for showing up for yourself and also for spreading light into the world. I personally believe there’s more good in the world than bad, it’s really about what you focus on that sways your opinion of that.
I was on X this last week and I noticed that I hesitated over a story about the Olympics and suddenly almost every post I saw was about the Olympics. Same thing happened for classical music the week prior. I liked a classical music post and suddenly my x algorithm is giving me all kinds of really beautiful classical music posts. Now. Both of these are fairly tame topics so I’m ok with having those posts come up on my timeline. But every once in a while I will hesitate over something like an article about the Jeffrey Epstein files and the awful content that follows that is NOT something I want to see so I clicked on “I’m not interested in this type of post” and so that fixed that. I genuinely worry about what I consume and for good reason.
Have you seen the videos of people recording themselves wishing really bad things to happen to someone on the other side of the political aisle. One woman who ironically was a nurse, filmed herself saying she hoped this person’s birth would be super painful, with no help in sight, and she just kept going. And I thought to myself—you know, if I ran into that woman on the street and dropped my groceries, she would probably be right there helping me pick them up. She’s likely a loving mom, a great daughter, the kind of person who’d bring soup to a sick neighbor. But she’s let something grow inside her so big that it’s skewed her whole view of humanity. Because someone thinks differently, she wishes them pain—or worse. I’ve seen normal, everyday people wishing death on politicians. It’s wild.
By the time those videos go viral, it’s too late to take it back. Their life as they knew it? Over. Most of them lose their Job, they have to delete their social media, and now they’re probably getting their own wave of threats. And why? Why would someone who’s probably a good person in real life let themselves go down that path—wishing pain and death, and actually hitting record?
When I saw the nurse video, I didn’t hate that woman. I didn’t think “oh she must be evil”. I thought wow, I bet she wishes she hadn’t done tha. I thought to myself that she let something online grab her attention and dove in so hard it made her say things she would never say face-to-face. But it also scared me a little bit. It scared me because that could be me if I were to allow myself to go down unfiltered rabbit holes. When I say unfiltered I don’t mean I believe someone else should be filtering or censoring. I mean I should be and so should you. We all have a dark side and a light side. Those videos scare me more than anything because we’ve all got that darkness too—we just maybe haven’t fed it like she did. But could we? That’s the part that gives me chills. Could something we harmlessly scroll through start feeding the algorithm the same toxic stuff until it finally tips the scale? I believe it can. Before we know it, our dark side’s getting stronger, and we’re doing things that aren’t really us.
It reminds me of a story I’ve told before, but it’s so worth repeating because it’s an ancient lesson that’s timely to this day. It’s The one about the two wolves. There’s an old Cherokee grandfather tells his grandson, “There’s a fight going on inside me. It’s a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil—he’s anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good—he’s joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person too.”
The grandson thinks about it and asks, “Which wolf will win?” The grandfather smiles and says, “The one you feed.”
Whichever one we feed grows stronger. The one we nurture is the one that survives. And I include myself in this when I say: be careful what you consume. It will eventually consume you.
Maybe you’re just getting a little taste of it right now. Maybe you’re halfway there. Maybe you’re further along—but I doubt it, because you’re still here listening to me, and my whole thing is awareness. If you’re aware you might be heading down that path, now’s the time to turn it around.
I filter my algorithm all the time. If I hesitate on something I don’t want in my feed, I just click the three little dots in the upper right hand corner and say “I’m not interested in this content”. If it’s a person that seems to keep popping up, I will either mute or block them. My peace is more important than a stranger’s feelings getting hurt because I unfollow them over negative content. You can do the same.
My challenge to you is simple: Cleanse your mind. Feed the good wolf. Scroll with a little more intention, surround yourself with the light stuff, and watch how much better everything feels.
Share this episode with someone who may need a timeline cleanse. I love you guys. I’ll talk to you in a few days!
