Episode 156: You are an influencer

Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero, and I want to get straight to the point. Are you a consumer or a creator? I did a keynote speech last week in a wonderful city, in a wonderful country I've never been to before. And as people sat there and watched me, I understood. I saw their faces, and they looked as if they had the same position of face that you see people when you see them on the subway or in the bus or on the train or standing against the street corner, consuming stuff online, just taking all this stuff in, watching the performance of others, right? TikTok is a whole bunch of series of short videos. YouTube is usually longer videos, but then they have YouTube Reels, which are short videos. But we're always consuming, watching other people do things, watching other people put in tremendous amounts of work to make it look easy. And we go, ah, that was really good, got my dopamine hit, right? With the reflection I have, the question I have for you is, do you understand the druggie that you are? Do you understand that you've been tricked into being a consumer? When people talked about before, before the digital age, because what I'm going to really is that there are consumers and then there are digital consumers. And we all now are digital consumers and we don't know how we've been tricked into it. And I'm wondering how much you are digitally consuming. Everyone consumes massive amounts of digital content, but what I want you to do is be the creator of that content, not just a consumer. It is so easy. Don't you remember the years before the internet, if you're that old, right? How easy it is to sit in front of a TV set right now, how easy it is to sit down or just watch Netflix and then what, binge watch, right? An entire season in one weekend. God forbid you do it in one night. That's a long night, right? You're just consuming all of it. Thinking about Game of Thrones, the amount of work that the people did just to build one scene, just the room with the big throne, to have everybody dressed properly in that scene, to get the lighting right, to get the sound right so there's no echo. And just to film that one scene must have took days, maybe weeks, to get that thing right. But what we do is we sit there and we expect people to entertain us and to create all this content, and we just consume it. But the exciting part of life, the part of life that you want to be on, the part of life that you want to excel on, the part of life that you say, I'm going to achieve my dreams and do all these amazing things and make all this amazing money, I'm in love with so many different people, is on the creative side. It's not on the content side. It's on the side of the people who are actually doing things, the people who are actually setting up the Game of Thrones, who are actually building the chair and repairing, because I'm sure it's not made of metal, they have to repair it, probably made of Styrofoam, right? The sound people make sure everything sounds right when they're walking, you hear the chains clinging. These people are creating stuff, they're actually sitting there saying, "How can I make something made of Styrofoam look like metal? How can I make this make to do that?" These people are being creative and they're actually creating our society, they're creating your world. And you're consuming it and you're thinking, yeah, wow, that was fun. That was a wonderful hour. Ooh, I really enjoyed it. But you, you sort of got shortchanged. Yes, you got your dopamine hit. Yes, you got your Game of Thrones hit or whatever you want hit. But what you missed out on was the people who created all that, that 1-hour excitement they actually spent weeks, days, months to do. They're so far down the road in their life and their creativity and their ability to do things. They actually are the creators creator of your world. They're guiding your biases, your belief systems. They're controlling your mind. Do you understand that? Do you understand that by you just being a consumer, by you just sitting there and always consuming content, always taking stuff in, you're not creating this world? It's all those people over there on the other side creating it. I have so much respect for these lot of, lot of young people, right, in their teens and their 20s who are spending so much time creating these videos. It takes a lot of time to edit a video, trust me. You got to know the software, then you have to almost master the software, and then you have to cut it up, cut up the video track, cut up the audio track, overlay the audio track. Then you maybe want to zip in, put in some other video, some B-roll. I mean, it is a lot of work to create this small, short little TikTok video, this short little YouTube video. It is work, but that person is becoming a master. That person who's a teen or 20-year-old is becoming beyond an expert. What they're doing is they're creating our society because they're able to put together this wonderful storytelling, this wonderful video. And what are you doing? You're sitting there and watching it and letting a teen and 20-year-old control your view and your opinions in life. God, I'm talking a lot, but this is a big point. As I stood there on stage, hundreds of people watching me, laughing, smiling, most of them leaning forward because I was making some big points and I hit my points really well. And then when I was all done, they clapped and all that stuff, and they remained in their chairs and they're like, okay, who's next on stage? They consumed me. They consumed my content. But they didn't understand the person on the stage is in control. The person on the stage is the person who's controlling your mind, controlling your emotions, controlling your feelings. The person on the stage, the person who's creating the content, controls you. Who are you? Who do you want to be? Do you want to be the person who's creating society, who's creating reality, Or do you want to be that person who just sits there and consumes every day, just consuming, consuming? But then you're not happy, you're not satisfied. You know something's missing. Digital consumption. Digital consumption is a sleeping giant that no one's talking about. And it hit me, it hit me that everyone's been put to sleep except those few who are actually on the other side and are the creators of that content. And that's what the networks figured out when CBS, NBC, all these channels— and if your own country, you know, Norway got NRK, and Sweden, I think you have TV2, you name your country, you have your channel, your local channel— they understood that when they create TV content, they control the minds of people. Today in the digital world, the people who create the digital content control the minds of the people. Don't you want to be that person? Don't you want to be the influencer, right? That word influencer has a huge thing. They influence you. Yet we're all in shock. Look at these young people making millions of dollars. They're influencers. That's the place to be, not just the consumer. You want to have an amazing life. You really want to be loved. You want to be seen. You want to be recognized. Want to be respected. You want to wake up every day bouncing around. Be those people who are waking up, spending hours and hours of creating content, editing that content, publishing that content, and then getting beat up by people like you, me, everybody else who are on the consumer side, who write nasty comments about, oh, that video sucked, or that was stupid, or you're an idiot. But yet they stand. The next day they create more content. Next day they create more content. And they keep on going, 'cause that's how you succeed. You go through the adversity, you put yourself out there. Go forth and spread beauty and light and put yourself out there. That's the whole point of this podcast, this episode right now. I want you to put yourself out there. Reflect, when's the last time, the last time you put yourself out there? You personally, where you could be embarrassed, You can be called out, you can be disrespected with no place to hide, nobody to point a finger to. That's when you grow, when you put yourself out there. And I respect, I salute, I give a huge hug to all the creators out there, to all the influencers, because they're actually creating a lot of life. We could probably stop the wars, we could probably stop all the famines if we all got off our lazy butts and we started creating stuff and delivering messages like the good old days in the '60s and '70s when people protested. God, there's so few protests today, but there's everyone sitting there consuming content online when they should put down their damn mobile phones and go out there and protest. They should go out there and plant some more seeds. They should go out there and take care of their neighbor. Don't be so damn caught up on materialism. God, all you have to do is be human and take care of people, and then we change the world. We literally will change the world in that minute. I'm not exaggerating. But if you're sitting on your butt consuming digital content, you're not changing anything. You're sitting on your butt in a conference and you're watching people doing these fantastic presentations one after another. You didn't change anything. It's the creator. It's the person who's willing to put their neck out there, putting their face out there, speaking their words. That's creating this world. And that's you. Put down your mobile phone, put down your inhibitions, and create. Love and fulfill your destiny. This is Thomas Anglero. Until next time. Thank you for listening to that episode. If you want to contact me, you can contact me on my website at anglero.com, and you can also subscribe to the newsletter, or you can find me anywhere on social media with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Thank you so much, and I hope to hear from you very soon.