Observe your influencers: What are they trying to get you to be more of?

So who are the influencers that you follow? Which are the thought leaders, which are the authors, bloggers, YouTubers, the people who are teaching you and shaping your thoughts about your industry? Who is it that you follow? Actually, I would love to know if you want to comment below. But my question for you here, besides who you follow is can you identify the values that they are influencing you toward? I noticed that in my industry of business marketing success, most of the experts and thought leaders and influencers are influencing us toward a set of values that I might call be more right, be more attractive than other people are and then you'll be more successful, be more brilliant than other people are trying to come across as more brilliant. And then you'll have people respect you more, be more persuasive, learn copywriting, learn persuasion tactics so that you can get people to do what you want them to do. You can get them to buy, get them to sign up, get them to love you basically, and get them to believe you, get them to follow you. So there's this set of values that is about an external metric of success. You are being, you know, persuaded and pressured to be, to be more like them. Right? To be more like the rich, the popular, the beautiful. Right. I mean, this is especially true on Instagram. I mean, if you go on Instagram, well, it's an image driven platform, so everybody looks amazing, you know, they're always living the lifestyle. Rich and famous, it looks like. Right. And I mean, that's in part why I don't like to be on Instagram. But so back to that question. Who, whom are you following and what are they influencing you toward? I want you to really think about that. Do they, do they want you to be more polished? Do they, you know, do they want you to be more successful looking? I think what happens when we go in that direction is there is there is this anxious grasping toward a future success that we aren't there yet. And therefore there is a, almost a contract with ourselves not to be happy until we get there. This is also the danger of setting goals that are, that are numerical goals. Oh, I've got to have this many followers before I'm successful. This much money. This is why the goals that I encourage you to set are always about process rather than numbers. Oh, you know, process goals are. I will write a blog post today. I'm not going to worry about how many readers I get, how many likes. I'm going to make this video today. That's what I showed up for. I showed up, I don't know they get two likes. Right now I have two likes. Thank you, Judith and Omar. You know, that's, that may be all. Don't, don't like my, don't like this video. Don't encourage me, right? But I make a process goal to show up. That's all I do if I show up. So here's what I'm trying to cultivate within myself and hopefully demonstrate and model for you a different metric of success than what most of the other people you follow are suggesting you towards. So my metric of success is can I be connected again today to what's real for me, what feels important to the world that needs to be said. Can I feel connected again today to my sense of well being? For me, that is. These days I'm practicing sensing into my witness consciousness, which is that observer somewhere here in the back that is always calm, is big enough, magnanimous enough to deal with every aspect of life, anything that happens in life that is, I believe, connected to the most loving and wise source there is. So that's what I'm trying to do is connect again to my source of well being. And I encourage you to connect to yours, however you define that to be. What is your source of well being? Connect again today to that. And from that source of well being springs up a wisdom and a caring. And how can we connect again to that sense of caring and compassion? And in our business, that caring and compassion is for our audience. How can we connect again to that caring and compassion for our audience? Right? And then finally, how can I connect again today to some virtue such as patience, such as diligence, such as joy in anything that I'm doing? How can I connect again to that? That is what I'm cultivating, trying, that is what I'm working on, on, on a daily basis, trying to connect again, connect again, connect again. Rather than trying to be more, be more, be more like somebody else, be more popular, be more persuasive, be more attractive, be more, you know, so that's, that's my message for you today, is to take a look at whom you're following on social media. Who do you follow on Instagram, who do you follow on Facebook, whose blog posts do you read, whose videos do you watch? And what are they suggesting to you about what success means? It's probably be prettier, be more brilliant, be more attractive, be more popular, be more confident. I believe confidence comes from practice. Confidence comes from showing up again and again and you finally seeing and believing yourself as reliable. And that's the first stage of confidence. And then as you become reliable with whatever you're practicing, other people keep telling you you're amazing at it, and the confidence arises naturally. Rather than be more confident, fake it till you make it. So I'm here as a counterpoint to many of the people that you may be following. And I. I hope that if you can connect again to your authenticity every single day. I believe it's just a mentally more healthy and emotionally and spiritually healthier way forward, instead of the hustle and the attractiveness and the popularity that we are being pulled towards. And if we're not there, we're not enough yet. So come back again today and connect with your deepest source of well being, with your authenticity and with your caring. Wish you well.