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hey this is Leo for actualised org and I'm coming at you from Zion National Park in Utah check it out whoa right nice huh this little river this little stream I'm standing in has carved out its enormous Canyon smaller than Grand Canyon but still pretty freakin large in the middle of the Colorado Plateau anyhow the topic I want to talk today about is information out versus information in and this is simply the idea that if you put garbage into your body you're gonna get garbage results out and this applies both to what you put in as in terms of food and drink but also then what you put in in terms of the information what are you feeding your brain that's the question that I have for you and are you feeding your brain the nourishing type of food that it needs to then generate amazing results in your life and if you're not doing this this is a simple fix that you can do you can set up some habits put some things in place to feed your brain better betterment source material for me this has been a really powerful shift that I made over the last four years is I've really made a conscious effort to feed my brain really rich source material so that then it can put out good results and I just trust that if I feed myself good stuff that's gonna lead to a lot of good things in the long run it's kind of like you know if you're feeding if you're feeding a little plant let's say you you plant an oak an acorn in the ground and you want it to grow into a big tree well there's a lot of potential that acorn but it's gonna be determined how actually how it actually grows is gonna be determined by the soil that's in where do you plant it how do you nourish it is there enough nutrients in the soil are you watering it enough right is there enough foundation there to ground the roots so that it can grow into a big tree well the same thing with your mind and another good analogy is really with your body if you're feeding your body foods they're not healthy for it here eating a lot of junk food a lot of trans fats and a lot of carbs a lot of sugars then what you're gonna get you're gonna get bad result for your body you're going you're gonna get a gut you're not gonna have a lot of energy you're gonna feel bad probably gonna lead to a lot of long-term problems down the road diseases cancers etc you don't want that so that's why you take care of your body and you should also do the same with your mind now what are some good and bad sources of food for your mind well television generally especially just cable TV bad source of food for your mind even stuff like the news bad source of food for your mind because a lot of that stuff is so negative and it also has really nothing to do with you you don't have control over a lot of that stuff and so that's a common a common drain I see with a lot of people it's common trait that I had I used to be very very much in tune with the news always watching the news every day watching all all the major talk show hosts watching CNN Fox News MSNBC because I wanted to keep my finger on the pulse of what was going on I was interested in politics watching all the elections all the pre election coverage doing all that stuff but then I got fed up with it and I just cut it out of my life and I've been really happy as a result because what's happened is that I freed up all that time all that mental energy to focus on creating the kind of life that I want to create for myself and I also replaced it with much richer sources so if you think of cable TV as like a bag of potato chips the equivalent of eating about a bag of potato chips this is not very healthy for you or like a Snickers bar that's what cable TV is that's what watching a sitcom is that's what watching a reality show is that's what watching even something like CNN is that stuff is not nourishing your brain what nourishes your brain stuff like reading books talking to to people that have interesting information to share with you having interesting discussions with friends contemplation meditation spending time studying material if you're watching stuff watch stuff that's actually educational so you can watch lectures there's a lot of great lecture programs out there a lot of documentaries nature shows that kind of stuff can be enriching although generally TV is still a good idea to moderate it right if you're if you're reading newspapers that can also be a negative train because the thing with news is that on the one hand you do keep your finger on the pulse and that feels kind of nice but the problem is you don't have control over most of those things you know you read about some horrible accident some forest fire some terrorist attack overseas something that's happening in the war in another country you know some some negotiation with some some dictator revolts overseas all that kind of stuff you have no say over that how that plays out mostly is irrelevant to you unless you're you're involved with those affairs if you're like a diplomat or whatever if you're involved with it that's I think that's a different case and there are case can be made for you having to keep your finger on the pulse but if you're just a normal person a layman so to speak that is off doing minding his own business doing his own life and creating something for yourself you should be focused on that rather than worrying about all these other crises that are happening in the world there have always been crises there will always be crises the news has a tendency of focusing on the worst of them the most dramatic of them the most negative of them and if you're always immersed in that you're feeding your brain something that is not nourishing to it you're basically consuming junk food for the brain there's a great book that was one of the first sort of motivational self-help books that I read out there it was called a hundred ways to motivate yourself by Steve Chandler and they're one of his points was that you need to wash your information intake and I thought this was a brilliant idea and at the time that's where I got this idea from is that I read that and I said you know this makes a lot of sense to me is that if I want to be successful in my life and I want to create the kind of awesome life that I want then I should I should take the time to change just a few habits it's not that difficult stuff like watching TV or reading the news or following following that and replace some of those negative sources of information or some sort of like vacuous sources of information like a lot of reality TV replace that with something educational and something nourishing and so that's exactly what I did I cut out TV I haven't really watched TV for about four years there were stints where I went back onto TV but mostly I cut cable I don't even own cable I do watch I do like to watch movies and stuff but I think that's very different than watching cable because cable you kind of sit there and you become addicted to it and you kind of almost get zombified by it and hypnotized where you can sit there and literally go through five hours of watching cable after work where you totally you're totally brain-dead and you start feeling lousy about yourself that's the kind of stuff you really really want to avoid so cutting that out I think is a good idea I still will watch a lot of video lectures I still watch a lot you know movies TV shows like high quality TV shows I still can watch those and get a lot out of them like a lot of HBO shows even though they're fictional they're dramas there's still something there there's human psychology there that's a play there's historical facts there that are interesting that stuff can be used to boost your own motivation so that stuff can be valuable but I still try to limit it because ultimately the most nutritious sources of information are things like books or going into school sitting in on a lecture doing videos or maybe talking with with somebody who's very knowledgeable about something that's a much better way to nourish yourself or what I've been doing lately a lot is doing more meditation and contemplation and journaling where I sit there and I really have kind of a conversation with myself about something that I'm that I'm struggling with and get a lot of clarity just by analyzing asking myself various questions it's a much better way to get good quality data into your mind because your mind on some level works very simply it takes in everything that it sees around it right it takes in the environment that's being fed to it and then it operates on that what it does is there's mechanisms in your brain that basically rearrange all the data that's coming in and play around with it but if you're feeding it bad data there's there's not that much that you can do with it to turn it into something good so if you want to have an awesome life feed yourself valuable information feed yourself good data and what will happen is that that kind of long-term investment it's a subtle investment right you're not gonna you're not gonna immediately see a huge payoff from from not watching cable anymore you're not gonna immediately see the effects of that but over the course of a couple of years you're gonna start to notice that wow all of a sudden there you have time to read 20 more new books and those 10 20 new books maybe one or two of those books really resonate with you and give you some insights some concepts some strategies that you can then go apply and really change your life for the better plus you're not feeling as bad about yourself now what I can tell you about this is that doing it really you can start if you're a cable watcher start by doing a 30-day mental diet where you don't watch any cable for 30 days straight it's tough you know those those first few weeks are gonna be really really difficult and you're gonna you're gonna rationalize to yourself all the reasons why cable is is good for you like the fact that it helps you on wine helps you relax after a long day of work and so it does have value in that regard and at first your body's gonna resist it's gonna say well how am I supposed to relax how am I supposed to unwind if if I can't watch cable if I can't plop down on the couch and just have a nice time you know reading a book is not the same thing reading a book is strenuous you put some labor into it you know watching a lecture that's not interesting that's not fun I've gone through this so it took me a couple of attempts to really kick cable where I went kicked cable for 30 days then I went back on it then I kicked it then I went back on it but eventually I'm at this point now I think it's about four years since I've since I've really cut it out and done this back and forth thing that now it's it's it's effortless for me I really don't care about cable I don't want to watch it I don't want to look at it even when I'm at the gym I don't want to even look at the monitors there because I realized that none of that stuff is making me productive none of that stuff is making me creative it's not really helping my life that stuff is a distraction and I don't want to be distracted by that and I've built up a tolerance now for reading watching high-quality material that I can find on the internet watching lectures that that I purchase from various self-help authors out there that kind of stuff right so that is what you want to do is you want to start replacing all the sources of of low-grade information with sources of high-quality information stuff that will inspire you stuff that will empower you and you'll notice that in the long run that's going to be an awesome awesome awesome investment for you so I encourage you to start by just analyzing what are the one two or three sources right now in your life of low quality information first of all identify those sources whether it's TD or maybe it's hanging out with with friends that that are not that are not very intelligent or don't like to engage an intelligent conversation so that you're just kind of going through idle small talk that kind of stuff or the news that you're reading maybe the newspaper that you're reading any of that identify stuff that's distracting you stuff that's negative since it's causing you to worry and stuff that's causing you to focus your attention on things that are not about you and then once you've identified a couple of those find alternatives you know find an alternative for cable find an alternative for your friends that that are not contributing to to you in a meaningful way find an alternative to to the newspaper do stuff that is fulfilling for you and just like you would do that with your body just like you would cut out junk food for your body cut out junk food for your mind you