Monday Motivation 10/16/23

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As I’ve been all over the place selling my book, I’ve tried to thank as many of you as I can on social media for letting me know you ordered it.

Some people tell me I’m crazy, or it’s wild that I thank so many people. I think it would be insane not to. What kind of person doesn’t thank someone for supporting a project they spent a lot of time on?

It has also made me realize something else. I’d estimate about 90 percent of the replies are friendly and fantastic. And then the other 10 percent are really angry and mean. I’ve told you before that my social media strategy is ignoring the haters. But I’ve taken note because I’m out there promoting a book to make people better because that will make the world better.

What I have found is this: social media makes a lot of people anti-social. When I read some of these messages, I know these people would never say this in real-life social situations, at the gym or a restaurant. If you start yelling at someone in the real world that they’re a commie liberal loser (very funny, by the way), you’re going to be ostracized.

On social media, you’re rewarded. I learned that there is research that shows people become meaner on social media because it’s the negative posts that get likes (Daniel sent me a few pages from Scarcity Brain).

I started to wonder, why don’t I ever hear this? I am a public guy. People come up to me after my workout every day to shake my hand or take a selfie. I have never once heard the crap I see on social media.

There are only two possibilities. One is those people who will say nasty things on social media but are different in the real world. The other is the people who say those things on social media don’t go out in the real world. I don’t like either of those options.

But I also know that I can’t control those people. What I can do is lead by example.

You’ll only see positivity on my social media, even if it means getting less likes or attention. I’ve got plenty of trophies; I don’t need fake internet awards.

I’ll keep building this positive corner of the internet because I see in your emails how it’s made each of you more positive. We’re almost 600,000 people — more a city than a village now, but we will keep that village feel, and one by one, we will convert people to realize that you feel a lot better about life when you choose positivity.

And I’ll keep promoting my book. I believe that Be Useful is the antidote to a lot of this bitterness out there in the world. People are angry because they feel powerless. They see governments doing absolutely nothing, companies lobbying governments, news that is never positive, and they think they are just a pawn with only one move: anger. I want to show them they have more power than they know, first to change themselves and then to change the world. The more people I can reach with that message and the more useful each of us feels, the less bitter the world will be.

If we are going to keep doing this social media thing, it’s time we use it for good. Are you with me?