Did you ever have a best friend that your parent’s didn’t like?
In our schooldays many of us had a friend or even a small group of pals we hung about with.The more time we spent with them, the more we became like them. And more often than not, that got us into trouble.
Our parent’s would soon ban us from seeing them as they were a ‘bad influence’.
The effect of being around them all the time meant we acted less out of our character and more out of theirs. Perhaps because they were cooler, or usually more popular, but definitely because they were confident backed it up with big talk.
We fell under their spell. The spell of influence.
And influence will always be a powerful force in our lives. And in our minds!
The voices of authority.
The first influence we ever have on our minds are our parents.
They looked after us most of the time to begin with so their views, advice, do’s and don’t’s, standards and values, ethics, beliefs, guidelines, and opinions were the first to be imprinted on us. Imprinted in our minds and our conscience.
Soon after along comes the next voices of authority.
These people add to the rules of the game in life. They will be our teachers and those in similar positions of power who spend the next greater proportion of time with us to influence who we are. With them extra behaviours and rights and wrongs in relation to others and the world will be applied to our mental banks.
Finally, as we move into teenager time comes the final line which will be coaches or leaders of the activities we participate in most from tutors after school or sports coaches. They bring the final layer inputting elements of discipline, effort, dedication, teamwork and the like.
By the time we become adults we are effectively fully influenced by others and the world we have picked up a little ourselves.
No wonder as we hit our mid-teen phase we rebel and seek people who are almost anti the influences we have been given. They represent freedom, being yourself, and breaking free of being told rather than asking yourself what matters.
But, influence has evolved in the 21st Century.
The new influence breed.
The word influencer is on everyone’s lips now.
That’s perhaps because everyone believes themselves to be this and is online saying so. There is actually some psychology to back this up.
If you wish to read and understand more Robert Caldini has written an excellent multi million selling book on how it all works called, ‘Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion’.
As we spend more time in the orbit of peer type people, we begin to elevate the accuracy of what they say or do. In this modern world the time we spend ‘with’ someone who we look up to or admire is from watching social media. As we can commit ourselves to listening/watching many times a day, we can be in their company again and again.
Do that on repeat and soon these people get into our psyche. We begin to filter in subtle elements that tell us they are believable. Their number of followers and likes, the amount of video views etc. Add to that their announcements of how much they are earning or how their lifestyle is increasingly upgrading. We soak it all up.
These factors automatically add weight to what they present and prove to us they should be listened to. They are the truth and their influence has well and truly grabbed us.
With the advent of the internet this has given the dark side of humanity a voice.
A voice of anger, war, accusation, fundamentalism, and crime hooks plenty in through the process above. The tentacles of influence can reach far and wide and trap many in.
Now we don’t have to go anywhere to hang out with the bad influences our parents warned us of.
Who is influencing you?
Influencers (anyone anywhere not just social media) get in our heads.
That’s what they are good at. They make us believe.
From drug dealers to our old school mates going to beers every Saturday night. Their skill at persuasion means it’s difficult to say no. Watch them enough and you will be convinced you need to act and believe like them. And soon you want to be like them too.
That’s how influence has always played out.
Someone talks proudly and strongly enough and we see them as someone we aspire to become. Even marketers use this cleverly. They create characters in adverts that we imagine we could be. While we’re doing that we open our wallets to buy the product they were promoting because if they have it, we should too.
Influence goes further in this internet age. We can be persuaded to support a dubious cause, change our ethics, donate to any type of charity, and even send all our savings to a lover abroad who will pay us back soon.
From your bestie mate Barry at high school to joining the Flat Earth Society, influence lasts a lifetime.
And so you need to ask yourself what or whose influence you are under. Or have always been under?
That influence is running your show and perhaps ruining your life (tried the new Mango Vape the celebs use yet??).
Influence is everywhere, you need to work out what influence is IN you!
Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Community.
We live in global economy now. One big globally linked market. And as a global life we are forever travelling to meet others around the globe. Where we once lived a local existence, now that seems to hold most back. The advent of social media has shown them the world and they want to be part of it. There are plenty of winners in this but the one that seems to have lost is the community. Where it once thrived at a local level the global mindset means it is struggling today for its identity. And this means SMS has to take a look.
1. Community = common unity.
This definition isn’t official. But it’s mine. To define a community it is a localised area with shops, buildings, streets, services, and people who share this space. However, it’s far deeper than that. There is often a history that still exists and pulls the citizens together in a proud experience of living there plus all the related feelings and beliefs that come with it. But the whole social media era has formed a mindset of go everywhere away from home to see and be seen and show the world where you are. Our common unity is less visable now.
How do we get a common unity back in the areas we live in?
2. Has the community headed online?
In developing and designing this blog I came across a host of various graphic artists and brand creators. Previously I had to travel around locally (and perhaps even further) to find even one or two people like this. But the arrival of the internet has seen the like minded and even the like skilled banding together in hubs. sites, and groups to help promote and market their portfolios. From historical groups to online marketers anyone anywhere can find what they want in this effect online community.
Has the real community given way to online versions for good?
3. Changing world, changing community.
Traditionally the community had local roots and remained that way. Most citizens were born, brought up, and lived in that area or nearby. Therefore community closeness was high as people wanted to follow on from their families and friends in caring about their home and heritage. That has fast been eroded. As economic times have enforced mass migration and the need for new work forces, the community is less local knit and more imported. It’s taken some adjustment at the local level and is still adjusting.
Should the community just be needing time to refind itself for the modern age?
4. High street is the heart.
Where would the heart of the community be? Where do the citizens gather as one more? This was the high street. Our central shopping area where we would head for to buy our household needs. While there we would meet and talk to shop keepers, neighbours, friends, family, fellow shoppers and even work colleagues. We would learn each others stories or updates on local news, find out about events going on, and generally connect with all members of society. Not so now. The high street is dying. Shops are closing en masse so the community has lost its heart.
How do we get the community heart back or where can we go to find it these days?
5. Community is a spirit.
Community is not just a place. It’s an inner sense of belonging. A spirit and feeling that we hold that we are among a neighbourhood of those like us in so many ways. People who have chosen to live, work, socialise, and raise families in the same locality as we have. While the high street maybe the heart, it is within us that a community has a soul. Put together, we hold dear, protect, and seek to ensure the very survival of our own community. And so to finish today a timely reminder that always….
A community exists if it continues to live in the hearts and minds of those that live there.
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these. We need more minds thinking about this issue and the others issue on SuperMind Saturdays. Why? Because it’s needed. Because the world requires new thoughts and ideas. Perhaps YOURS!!
See you next time for more super thinking.
Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content License by TungArt7 and TyliJura.
You know, let your mind drift on to another life you could live? Or some better story than the one you are currently living?
I’m sure that most of the world has done that at some time or other. And plenty of us have been doing it today.
When we do such things they feel good to us. They lift our mood and take our head somewhere better than where it currently is.
But others see this behaviour as a mistake. They see it as us believing in some fairy tale or miracle that just won’t happen. We will get advised to come back to reality, be realistic, and stop living in a fantasy world.
And so we go back to our normal humdrum existence accepting that perhaps it wasn’t good for us in the first place.
But, that would be a mistake as our well meaning advisors are wrong and we are very right to enjoy escapism.
Because, in fact, it is a very healthy thing to do!
These sugar sweet Christmas tales revolve around someone who has been badly hurt suddenly finding love at Christmas. Usually they have travelled to some small town and discover happiness where they least expected to find it.
And we watch these Yuletide love movies in our droves. In 2021 for example over 80 million people viewed one of their Christmas editions in the US alone. They may seem far fetched and a fantasy, but we love the made up illusion.
Maybe it’s love we seek or belief that amazingly great things can happen out of the blue.
In truth, we know it’s escapist entertainment, but our minds love it and need it. Because they need to escape too.
The pressure of life on our mentality today is intense. From increased stresses at work or getting work, the cost of living, energy crisis, affording a home and bills, and wars and conflicts regularly springing up, mentally we feel besieged. Our heads are exhausted watching and worrying at the next potential threat or concern.
The figures are stark. Some 1.2 BILLION people worldwide are now living with a mental issue. This is DOUBLE the number recorded in 1990. Our mentality is struggling to cope with modern life. I have written about Stress on this blog and new ways of approaching it.
For now though our minds need a break from the negative it has to deal with it. And that’s where escapism comes in.
We don’t disappear into Cedar Hollow for a Christmas film. We escape our pressure cooker existence to see if Beth will find love with Matt as she bakes grandma’s old cookies for the Christmas Cookiethon competition.
Which saves out head health and makes us feel better all over!
Imagining a happier world.
What do you imagine?
If you are like the vast majority of humans, you imagine all the things that could go wrong. From losing your home due to the spiralling costs of living to having no job plus other personal pitfalls you are worried over.
We are brilliant at imagining…..the worst.
Far from escaping into an amazing life, we take our minds into some hell hole type existence. Again and again. Come on, be honest, when did you last think and see an awful event coming your way in your mind? Last week? Last night? Ten minutes ago?
By now we all have learnt what this leads to. Anxiety, high stress levels, blood pressure issues, poor sleep and concentration, irritability, and emotions all over the place.
All from seeing a bad self played movie in the mind.
So what do you think indulging in mental escapism will do for you? You know it! Enhanced health at every level and a far more enthusiastic outlook on life. So long as you escape into existences that can occur (nice house by a river, your own marketing company, getting a book published) you will be alright. Go off into la la land envisaging yourself the best friend of Richard Branson and his new business advisor or Kylie Minogue falling in love with you (ok that was mine), and you’ll end up hating your current life.
Be a personal escapist and you will drift off into nice places and into improving health too.
Imagining a happier world puts a smile on your mouth and in your body.
Nothing lost, everything to gain.
Imagine being on a white sandy beach in Barbados.
Or swimming with dolphins or opening your own coffee shop with its own pet zone.
Whatever your escapism moments are, don’t stop having them. They protect your health and project your aspirations. Two perfect outcomes. In fact, mental escapist souls become the happiest and healthiest among us.
Their active minds almost activate a complete life change. It’s like a magic spell that lifts them out of their long rut and transports them to better places, a better total experience with life with the best self coming out to lead it all.
Follow suit. All the clouds that hung over you, will melt them away as the new sun that rises in your mind burns them away with great scenes you love.
Which speaks of one undeniable truth of the whole process – there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.
It could end up helping you turn the corner, turn the page somewhere in your life, or finally take your turn at being happier than you ever, well, thought. Imagine that.
It’s not mental escapism, it’s mental freedom!!
References – Fortune.com – Hallmark’s catalog of 300+ Christmas movies.
Healthdata.org – Global mental disorders have nearly doubled since 1990 (published 21.5.26).
Virtually everything we need to do now has an online option or we are directed there to access services. To do this we have an array of devices we use that marry together from phones to laptops to car navigation aids.
With this the physical side of life is being slayed by companies. Try buying a road atlas or keep receiving paper bank statements in the post. Or purchase a vinyl record on the average high street to take home to play on your turntable .
The technological rush has destroyed much of the way we used to live and you can see that everywhere. It rules us now.
It’s taken over the world and it’s fast taking over our human activities too in rapid fashion. And we are letting it.
But worst of all with this is it’s destroying our minds and pretty much everyone hasn’t even noticed.
So let me show you the 4 top ways technology is killing your mind.
1. You’ve stopped thinking.
That may seem a stupid thing to say because we all think.
But go back just a few decades. Not that long ago.
It was a very different mental world. If you needed to do something, develop something, remember something, or complete something, you had to use your mind to do it.
The tasks that you had to think about and work out a schedule for – writing the food shopping list and fitting in time to go buy it, working out your finances and what bills you have to pay, sorting out dates for nights out by calling people and arranging your diary etc – have died off.
Now they have online or mobile phone options that will send you notice they need to be done and when. A job your mind used to have to do for you, now it’s been made redundant and out of work in this respect.
As a result, your thinking reduces a huge amount.HUGE!
Thinking you did, you now don’t do. It may seem a saving but it’s meant your mind isn’t doing what it was built for like before.
You have stopped thinking and thinking is what you must never stop because…
2. You are killing yourself.
Yes, I mean this.
Your mind is your supercomputer. It doesn’t just remember tasks like above. It manages and regulates your whole body. From breathing to moving, keeping you safe to firing you up, your mind is the fulcrum to everything YOU.
That’s why you have a central nervous system for example. The mind is front and centre at ensuring you have regulated health and remain alive. It’s the operating system for your human body and without it, that body doesn’t work well. Or at all.
The sheer growth in dementia should be a warning to us all.
In 2021 over 57 million people were living with dementia worldwide, with 10 million new cases now diagnosed year on year. But more scarily, the number of cases has DOUBLED in the last 25 years. Our minds are going wrong.
We are at the start of the mental degeneration era. The effects that take time to show tally exactly with the onset of technological use in society and this has grown exponentially since the mid 1980’s.
We are sitting on a mental timebomb.
The widespread reliance on technology to take over tasks, roles, and activities we used to engage our mind to, is seeing those cells dying of far quicker. The phrase, ‘use it or lose it’ is medically true. If you stayed in bed for a year, your muscles would waste away due to no oxygen supply as they are not active.
The same goes for your mind. But, remember, it controls everything in your body; every function, every movement, every decision and every facet of staying alive. Which means if you continue to use technology for what it once was regularly doing….
You will be degenerating yourself!
3. You are becoming addicted.
Our addictions used to be social scourges.
Alcoholism, drug use, gambling, promiscuity. All of these were viewed as people out of control showing abnormal behaviours. They were things normal everyday people would not do.
Until technology came along.
It has steadily infused itself into our daily lives so that we can’t get by without it. Take social media. We need a device to log onto the various platforms and over 5.8 billion of us do that in some form every single day. EVERY day including Christmas Day. There is no let up.
We are not just connected to the internet now, we are connected to our phones/laptops as if they are part of our body.
The cyber world offers a Narnia type experience in every moment. You never know what world and what people you can open up when you log in and enter. The physical realm you live in is boring by comparison to this place. And so you need to be in that other world……often, which becomes any minute you can.
Not necessarily to look at anything, just to be there. For the vibe, for the excitement, for the energy, for as many hours you can get it.
Just like an alcoholic with their drink or a drug taker with their class A stuff.
Like them your addiction has taken over your mind. It drives all you think about and craves it. Which is not healthy.
It’s harmful and it’s your mind that will carry the harm the most.
4. You are losing focus.
Time to take a short break.
Some fun for half an hour on the Playstation for a couple of online games. You want to get to that next level. You have a few jobs to do but you’ll crack this first.
Next level achieved or not you are not focusing on what you should do or have to do. You are merely entertaining yourself. When that happens any true focus goes out the window.
The focus you need isn’t on Reels, Facebook or game where you shoot the invaders.
That’s artificial focus that does zero for your life and zero for any responsibilities and tasks that are of prime importance. Ones that you then miss or rush and get wrong which need re-doing.
The truth is technology is stopping us all from living a life.
If we enjoyed an hour or two a week like someone who plays golf, that’s a good use of downtime. But we’re not. Globally and shockingly we spend 46 hours weekly on the internet. Virtually 2 whole days. Take off an average 7 hours nightly for sleep, and we’re techno busy for 40% of our weekly lives. The vast majority of this is simply for pleasure not progress. For fun and not future life building.
So if your life never seems to bring you anything check what has your focus. Where it is and what you are using. Because instead of building a real life offline that you give your whole focus to you’re focusing on the latest football gossip or aiming to smash King Snurge in his castle to win the golden crown.
Remember this golden rule – focus is future!
But also remember all of these four. Technology is taking over our world and turning us into robots. Automatons who log on. Don’t let that be you.
Stop your technological suicide through killing your own mind.
As a tribe of humans we all tend to fall in line with our fellow members overall thoughts and beliefs. It’s our ancestral survival mechanism housed in the mind developed over many thousands of years. If our thinking matches the mass thinking, it’s a safety in numbers thing.
After all, if everyone is doing it, they can’t be wrong….can they?
Well…..maybe not.
Even though, yes, the accepted normal thinking base has kept us alive and able to lead a reasonable life. What it has also done has put up untrue red flags and fear opinions that have stunted potential progress.
True that we have crossed the seas, climbed the mountains, and flew to the moon. But current thinking has also poured bad waters on common opinion and almost wrecked our potential before it has even started.
We get there with some things in the end, but at the start we kill plenty else off through the thinking of the day.
Let’s catch a train and I’ll show you.
The Mind of Fear.
Have you heard of the Bullet Train?
It is perfectly named. These Shinkansen super fast Japanese trains travel at up to 320 km/h and have been in operation since the 1960’s. More impressive is that Japan now wants to go one step further. The Maglev Train is in development that has the potential to cross the country at a phenomenal 600 km/h.
A far cry from the early days of train travel in the 1800’s.
Where the concept of mega quick trains appears exciting, back in the pioneering days thinking on the street was far from thrilled. In fact, it was in sheer panic.
The earliest trains were open to the air and even though barely going above 20mph, the belief was that passengers would suffocate at that ‘high’ speed. Roll on slightly to the 1860’s and the Victorian era and the advent of covered carriages. Problem solved?
Quite the opposite. A new fear filled belief took hold called, ‘Railway Madness’.
This condition was a mental anxiety caused by the movement of the train over the tracks with the motion causing a quick onset of hysteria. Having read everyday newspapers that revealed growing instances of this lunatic reaction, the public of the day soon contended that train travel would turn you mad.
The only thing crazy about this is how crazy it seems to us today with our 100+ mph trains.
But, that’s how current thinking spreads into wider minds and creates narratives that aren’t real.
But, it wasn’t just the Victorians, we have always practised this.
Bad for the eyes and the mind.
The humble television, as normal in our homes as any device there has ever been.
So much so that in 2016 there were an estimated 2 billion TV sets across the world. And that was 10 years ago!! We’ve loved our TV’s from the very start, Er, well, not quite so.
In the 1960’s General Electric released a small batch of faulty sets. They emitted the wrong type of radiation and needed a simple fix to solve which occurred not long after the problem was identified. Too late for some. Before checking the situation and remedy, officials warned people not to sit too close to the TV screen as it was likely to cause eye sight damage.
Of course, it was a current thinking fear projection and wasn’t true.
But have you heard of this advice or even been told it by a parent or teacher at school? There you go, a myth that still persists to this day though was never medically diagnosed. TV set sales fell for a while due to this and even today we sit our TV away from us (though that’s also partly due to them being so huge and have to go on a wall).
Current fear mentality can hang around. It can even prevent progress pretty damn quick.
Nearing the end of 1999 it was everywhere and on everyone’s lips!
Computer meltdown.
As the last Century closed, the use of computers was surging.
In 1999 in just the space of a few years global home computer sales had hit 213 million. It was an epic rise by over 50% on the previous year. The market was surging and computers were the future. Until the future threatened to kill them off. At least in some people’s minds.
The media picked up on a little known issue whereby to save memory space computers only recognised the last two digits of a year. As 2000 fast approached and millions of people were using their computers daily, fears grew what might happen.
These worries became growing alarm became a global cyber bug that had planes falling from skies and banks systems failing with our money stuck in them.
Current thinking had met current use. And current crazed minds.
A basic extra update was added to safeguard, but guess what? Nothing at all went wrong.
You see, that’s us. Current beliefs and minds can scaremonger. From witches burned at the stake to the Luddites who destroyed new textile machines. From microwave meals frying us inside to MTV killing off radio, we press the worry button and pass it on.
So let this be a proper warning to you. Current thinking today will be the same as it was hundreds of years ago, It will find fault, find flaws. find death and destruction, find how it will fail, and find it’s way into the mass psyche to plant negative seeds of thought.
Don’t let it find you!
Whatever you want to do, use, create, or enjoy….don’t let modern mentality kill your fun or dream.
Photo attribution – free to use under Pixabay Content License by TyliJura and geralt.
References – ashley.collie.medium.com – sixty years on television sets.
Whatculture.com – everyday inventions that caused widespread panic.
