Block Out the Negative: Replace It, Don’t Fight It, and a 15-Year-Old Influencer on Why the Numbers Aren’t Friends

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Yeah. This is Mornings with Matt, the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. Woo! Alrighty, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Mornings with Matt on the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. So excited to be on today. Today's topic is block out the negative. Great, great topic. And we've got a guest on today, so that's going to be huge. And so in our first segment of the day today, we're going to have a guest coming in. It's Madison Taylor. Yeah. Yeah. Huge. She's a social media model.

Yeah. Influencer as well. Yeah. So she does that and competitive cheerleading, competitive dance. Yeah. Basically everything Brian dreamed of being in high school. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Especially the dance and cheerleading part. That was, that was a big dream. Yeah. So, so in this time that we're in, we, we reached out to our guest. We talked about some of the things are going on and we, we, we took a peek at some of the questions she's going to have for us and decided that this, this concept of block out the negative would be a really good place to talk about today. And especially for, uh, some youngsters out there. So if you're interested in youngsters, right? The teenagers, the youngsters. No, I'm serious. It just ages you. What'd you say?

The little youngsters. The youngsters. When I sit on the porch and look over at the youngsters. And I think part of it is because like, when you say that, I think of myself and I'm like, Oh wow. He's calling me a youngster. You know, I fit into the youngster crowd. No, you don't. Sorry. Not anymore. You don't. You're, you're an adult now. You grew up. Yikes. Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. Sorry, man. You don't, you don't get to fit in that category. You old man. Even though I look like it. Don't matter. Nope. Doesn't matter.

I mean, I guess actions. You're 21, bro. I mean, you're, you're an adult. That's facts. You're not a youngster. This is facts. All right. So, uh, so let's dive into our daily devotional. We're going to pop into the Bible here and see what, uh, see what God's got to say about this topic. All righty. We got two great verses here. We'll start off with our first one. This is Romans 12, 21. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Do you know what's funny? So I was looking at this and I'd like to break these down and this one's it's shorter. So it's like, all right, how do we break this down? And then I started breaking it down in my mind. I'm like, this is one of those verses that's like, duh. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, uh, yeah. Like it just makes sense. However, we're going to take the concept of this and we are going to go deep into it in our second, um, segment today.

And then application in third too, right? Yeah. Like it's pretty deep. Um, so even though it's short and sweet and it, and it's sort of obvious, like, cause, cause here's, what's hard about it is it's like evil. Don't do that thing. Yeah. But if you look at it, it's like, okay, it's, it's giving you an alternative. And that's, I think what's, what's interesting is, is like, it's saying, it's saying, it's not saying don't have evil in your life.

It's cause that would be like saying there isn't evil. Right. Yeah. So it's not saying that it's like, it's a, it's acknowledging that that evil is there and then it's giving us a tool with how to overcome combat that evil, which is with good or, or God, I would say. So, uh, good. All right. Let's go to our other verse here. All right. Our second verse is Philippians four, eight. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. So it's kind of like a build right off of what, like this last part was saying. Right. I mean, gives you practical application of how to move towards good, how to move towards positive. Right. And love. Yeah. So what, so what is it? Um, I mean, it breaks down a ton of things like, um, being honorable. Um, it says whatever is just, whatever is pure, lovely, commendable, like these, these are all traits that we should strive for essentially sort of what I got when I was reading this. Um, and then it goes right into if there's any excellence, uh, anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Right. So centering yourself in praise and worship and, um, and again, positive growth building off the first verse was kind of what I saw out of this. So do you got to take on this Joey before I jump in? Um, you know, I'm going to be very honest. I was doing some tech work over there. Yeah. So here's what I think, Bri, and it goes to what I think is think. Think is the, I, is huge. Hmm. Think about these things. So it's, it's, it's, it's saying these are, these are good attributes to have. Yes. But it's, it's actually not saying do this. It's saying, think about this. Hmm. Sure. Whatever is true. Think about truth. Hmm. So in other words, if there is false out there, which, which, as you know, I've been dealing with that dealing with me sort of discovering and feeling like, well, I don't know, am I being lied to? Well, don't focus on the lie, focus on the truth. That's, that's what it's saying.

Focus on what is true. What is honorable. So should you be honorable? Yeah. But also focus on what is honorable, who is being honorable, focus on those things, put your energy there, you know, um, Paul was telling me yesterday that again, going back to our thoughts and going back to, for all of us, what we decide to look at, what we decide to think about, we are giving energy to that thing. Hmm. So weirdly, if we don't like something or we think something's bad, but then we go investigate it and we look at it and we, and we think about it and think about it. He says, you're feeding the monster and the monster wants that energy. It wants to suck you into that place. And so this, I believe God's telling us here to like, it's sort of, it's sort of giving us the, the, you know, the outline from the first verse going, here's how you do it.

You think about these things. Yeah. It's not, it's not even saying combat the other things. It's saying, think about these things. Sure. Right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the, like yesterday you talked to the good, think about good things and the good things come. Yeah. So I definitely felt that on the, um, on the, like even last night when I wasn't feeling be talking about blocking out the negative. That's our show today. We do have a guest coming up. Um, but, but here's the idea. You can't fight bad with bad. And, and I don't think that you can, um, like necessarily create good when there's no space either. Yeah. Like you need the space. Yeah. So the, the idea here being like you, you need to see the bad, replace it with the good. So it's, it's sort of like, uh, if you've got a, if you have a bad habit, you can't just say, don't do the bad habit. I'm not going to do the bad habit. Cause what are you doing? You're thinking about the bad habit. Yeah. And then you, cause you're thinking about, I'm just saying, don't do this. Don't do this. Like, let's say I was telling myself, don't watch the news right now. Don't watch the news right now. Don't watch the news.

What am I going to want to do? Watch the news. Yeah. So instead of that, what needs to happen is, is that thing has to be replaced by something that's good and pure and true and honorable, right? So you, so you replace a bad habit with a good habit. That's how you really change in the longterm. Um, and, and so, and, and by focusing on good, it just so happens to be that good things happen from that. Yeah. Thanks. Before we introduce her, do you mind if today we do like a little prayer? No, I don't mind at all. I think that'd be great. Okay. I took, I took Brian off because I was setting up my next move. Ah, my bad. My bad. Okay. I'll put you right back in. It's okay. You really just need the voice. I mean, it doesn't really matter. You know, the face it's fine. I mean, the face is what everybody pays for. Yeah. It's a moneymaker. Well, either way, we could have been done with the prayer by now. So let's, let's jump in. God, I just thank you for this morning. I thank you for the show, um, and all that you're doing with it. I pray for today's episode that you would, um, be with us and, um, give us wisdom as we're talking to Madison and a lot of the teenagers and people out there who struggle with, uh, negativity and speak into it from our own lives. Uh, we thank you just that we have so many abundant blessings and I pray that for everybody watching, whatever they need to get out of this, God, that you would, uh, tug on their hearts, tug on their spirits and help us continue to grow and help people in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. Yeah. So we've got, we've got Madison Taylor on. Yeah. She's going to be up in our first segment after the commercial break. If you're, uh, if you're out there and you're, and you've got any questions, anything you'd like to throw, uh, Madison's way or our way as we, as we sort of battle through this idea of negativity, please put that in the comments section. And, uh, we're going to talk about what it's like to build an audience, what it's like to be an influencer or, or a model online and, and the truth of it, the good and the bad, cause it's not, you know, it's not all always good. So, Hey Madison, you there? Yeah, she's muted. She's got instructions. She's supposed to smile away. You know, people, people don't get a preview here. They have to stick with the commercials. Okay. All right. Good. So, uh, so we're going to be right back with Madison after this commercial break. Hello everybody. And welcome back. We have with us our first guest of season two, Madison Taylor. Woo. Tell us about Madison, Brian. So Madison is a competitive dancer. Uh, she's a competitive cheerleader. She's a social media model slash influencer with 13.9 thousand followers. That's a lot of friends. Wow. That's a lot of friends.

And, uh, she's got dreams of being a dermatologist and also somehow is a straight A student while doing all of this stuff. So we're going to get to hear from Madison. Super excited. Um, and, uh, yeah, let's go. Madison. Good morning. Good morning. So I want to start off right away diving in to the, the audience here who's, who might be interested in becoming an, an online model or influencer of sorts. So how did you begin building a following? Um, I started, um, with Instagram.

I was in sixth grade, I think. So a few years ago, um, I entered a dance competition contest to get in a magazine and win a free leotard. I entered the competition and I actually won. So it was super cool. I got to be in a little magazine and I got, um, some free clothes. And, um, from then on, I just kind of started taking pictures when I felt like it, you know, when I got a new outfit, I would just take a picture in it. And eventually my following just grew and I started reaching out to like boutiques or dancewear companies around me. And it just grew from there. And then I just continued to ask people to, you know, let me model some of their clothing. And a lot of people said no at first, but a lot of people said yes. So it's just kind of taken off from there. And now I'm just model and ambassador and all that for a bunch of different companies and stuff. Did you, uh, did you frame your leotard that you won in the competition? Is that on a special boy?

No, I actually wore it to dance and stuff. That's fun. So how involved was your mom in this process? Oh, my mom's pretty involved. Um, when I first started, I was a little too young to actually have any social media. So she kind of like helped me run it at first. And, um, I'm so busy nowadays that she does still help me a little bit. Like I'll, um, I make all the posts. I respond to people into my group chats and stuff, but she'll just sometimes get in there and like post a draft that I make. Cause I saved some drafts so I can be able to post pretty much every day or regularly.

So if I'm a little busy, I'll ask her to post something and she'll do it for me. Yeah, that's great. And I, and I always recommend, I mean, anybody successful that we've ever had on the show or in the studio who's under the age of 18, they've always got their parents involved with their social media. And I cannot stress enough, no matter how many followers you have, that your parents should have full access to your accounts because you, you want to protect yourself from the world. There is some evilness out there. It's just true. And so when, when, uh, when mama bear can jump on there and kind of wash that really quick, it's, it's amazing how they can protect you. It's like a, like putting a force field around your social media and great for scheduling and getting everything set up. Right. She told me her mom runs her schedule. So that was like pretty cool.

Most moms, most moms run the schedule. That's the thing. Um, we, we talked about this yesterday about this, like, when were we the safest and you realize like, man, our parents did a lot. Yeah. As, as imperfect as they were, that's one advice I'll give you is, is be grateful now, be grateful now for your parents. All right, good. So, um, so let's talk about this idea of, you know, cause today we're, we're going to be just discussing a little bit about blocking out the negativity. So for you, I mean, it's possible that other, other young girls or men who are girls or men, that's a great job. Girls or men. Yeah. You know what happened? I filtered myself from saying youngsters. Oh my God. All right. Some other youngsters out there, um, they might be looking at your account and just feeling envious or, you know, interesting. Brian said something in his intro. He's like, you got a lot of friends. Do you have 13,000 friends?

No. Definitely not. Yeah. So, so tell us about that. Tell us about the truth of the, the ups and downs and the positives and negatives of, of, you know, being an influencer and having a presence online. Um, talk to me about that. Okay. Um, so I, um, I'm guilty of this definitely like looking at people's Instagrams and seeing those big numbers or their tick tock and seeing those big numbers and how famous they are. And I'm like, wow, their life must be so perfect. Like they look perfect and they, I'm sure they act like the coolest person out there, you know, but the truth is that they're just like everyone else. And you really have to keep that in mind. Like for me, I, uh, my Instagram says 13.9 K, you know, do I even know 13.9 K people? Absolutely not.

I don't know. I know a lot of people, but not that many, you know? And like, um, I really only have like three super close friends, you know, I'm not friends with that many people. I don't even know, like, it's so crazy how social media can project me and so many other people to be way bigger than we actually are. And like, as, um, as kids like scroll through Instagram and stuff, I just, I wish they would keep in mind that like, you know, I'm not perfect and neither is all these other famous people. They're not perfect either. You know, they have the same feelings as you do the same problems as you do. You know, there's just maybe on a larger scale or, you know, dealing with more people, but we all have the same problems and we're all the same, you know, we all put our pants on the same way. That's a great perspective. And then, and then to look at that is, is this so true? We talked about this yesterday, but your, your experience in life is going to be a human experience. And so, so if, if I've got 500 followers, I may like be amazed at the person that's got 5,000, but then the person who's got a hundred is amazed at me with my 500, you know what I mean? And there's always going to be that, that judgment up and down. It's going to be there.

So you, that the idea is to protect yourself from it, realize that it's normal. You know, it's okay that that's a, that's a part of being human, but going down that path, is that thinking about truth and honorability? Like, is that thinking about good? No, it's not. That's you comparing, that's you, you know, putting yourself in a place where you know you're going to feel bad. It's like you're doing it on purpose to, to, to feel worse, you know, and that's the thing that you want to be careful of doing. Yeah. I love, I love that perspective too, is because, you know, your voice is louder in that way where you do have those followers and, and people do scroll and they see you in their feed and there's that comparison up and down.

But for you to talk about the things that like, Hey, we're all the same, you know, social media projects this one way or the other, but like, you know, we're just putting out good content and then, and then talking about the truth of that instead of hiding behind like, Oh yeah. Like so many followers, like hashtag famous. Yeah. Um, and putting up that veil of like almost a, a different personality when you're on camera. So it's like, because that's a dangerous place when you're, when you're not being your authentic self online too. And, uh, and I find that really cool because it seems like, uh, seems like you're very much in tune with that. Well, and eventually the truth will come out and then the bigger you get, if you haven't been truthful, the, the more painful it's going to be when the truth is exposed. So Madison, let me ask you this for, for anyone out there who is interested in doing this, what, what advice would you give them on how to, how to get started and what, what to do? Um, you know, I would tell them to definitely just go for it. Like, you know, I started out and I had no clue what I was doing. Like I said, I literally went to like a nearby hotel and just took some pictures in the parking lot. They had a cool fountain. I took a picture and like, I posted it. So, you know, I really definitely had no idea what I was doing, but just go for it and, you know, reach out to people and like, see if you can be an ambassador for them and stuff. And a lot of people will shoot you down and say no, but as your numbers grow, you will get, you'll get there. People will start to reach out to you. And it's definitely so cool. You know, you're going to pick up a lot of small companies too, if you like take the route I did, but you know, just know that you will get there. If you like keep working and keep asking, keep putting your name out there, you know? And, um, another thing is to like, always stay kind, you know, in your support groups and everything like that. Um, I'm in a lot of those and you definitely need to get in there and like, stay kind. Don't be rude to the people in the groups with you, you know, be nice because they're just trying to help build you up as you're going to help them build themselves up, you know? That's great. That's awesome advice. So, um, you got any questions for, for me before we move on to the next section here? I don't have any for you. Yeah. All right. So, oh, go ahead, Brian. I was gonna say, I had just a couple of things really stuck out to me that she said that I'd just like to hit on again. Um, one big thing being, and this is not just through this, but we'll talk about this later too, about the book, but like consistency, right?

Right. You mentioned earlier that like, you just do something every day. So like keeping consistent with, with making something is a piece of advice. I heard you say that I want everybody to really like sink in because that's where, that's how you build momentum, right? It's just by continuing. And when you fall off that, that's where it becomes challenging to build those numbers and what you want.

Yeah. I want to jump in on that. Actually, you know, what's, what's the hidden gem? I think also on top of that, that she didn't say this outright, but she actually did, which was a fail. Yeah. Right. She's like, reach out. And I, and they turned me down. I went to a hotel and I just took a picture in front of a fountain. It wasn't right. It wasn't good. It wasn't perfect. It was like, I had to get started. Yeah. And so, you know, for every 100 people that are going to deny you, there might be one that says yes. And then that you can build from that, you know?

Absolutely. The idea is to do, to do, to do, be willing to fail because from failure comes you, you building strength essentially. Yeah. And then the last little piece that I kind of really took from you was the, uh, the idea of non-comparison. So really figuring out what, what do you want yours to look like? Right. So just because hers has this much following and it's all this modeling stuff, like that might not necessarily be what I want mine to be. And so kind of figuring out, what do you really, what do you really want in that? Um, is like a clothing thing, even something you want at all, like kind of finding what, what would make yours unique and kind of what Joey said, make you, you. Yeah. Right. That's great, Bri. Yeah. All right, Madison. Well, I want you to leave us with this. Okay. I am going to put you on the spot to say something here. So, um, what would you say?

Yeah. Cause, cause we're about to, we're about to do two more segments and we really like to reach out to some people and it sounds like you're in some support groups, which is great. What, what is like through this whole pandemic and all the stuff that's been going on with the world, what would you say right now is something that you're seeing your age group, teenagers specifically, um, like, like the big issue right now that's going on inside everybody? Like, what do you think, what do you think you've seen the most of where people need help? Um, I would say, I don't know if people really need help with this. I think that they just need to realize what they want in life and where they want to go. But, um, a lot of kids, my age, I've been seeing that they, um, they're just kind of hateful. Some of them, you know, it's not like they just try to fit in.

Everyone wants this, like ability to just fit in and be so popular or whatever. And then want everyone to like them. And yes, you know, I obviously want everyone to like me, but like some people just will not like you. And I don't think that you should go be mean on social media or be rude to people to fit in. And that's like a big problem that I've noticed over the pandemic and just anything in general. And I know it's been going on forever, you know, but I really just think people need to, you know, be nice, just constantly be kind because these kids, they think that it's so cool to be mean to people and they think that's going to make them fit in. And it doesn't, it just makes them look dumb, you know, makes them look rude and immature. And I just don't think that that's a good way to be. So I think kids definitely need some help, you know, seeing that they're worth, seeing that they're worth more than just being mean.

I love that. That is, that is awesome. And thank you for mentioning that. I think that's something that we, we can definitely talk about moving forward and how to, how to help everybody frame their mind into that thing. And, and, and half the battle is going to be acknowledging it because I, I, I would, I would say that in, at everyone's core, we, we believe everyone's core is love.

So, so a lot of times I'll, I'll look at someone and just be like, they know not what they do right now. And so if they're being hateful, they actually, you know, like you said, they're just trying to fit in. They think it's the thing to do. Uh, but they don't even realize sometimes that they're stuck in this, in this cycle and, and they can easily free themselves from that. So we're going to talk about that coming up. Madison, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. Where's your accent from? Um, Louisiana. I love, I love that accent. It's a very cute accent. It's awesome. All right. You have yourself a wonderful morning. Thank you for being on our show. We're going to, we're going to be right back, ladies and gentlemen, right after this message. All right. Welcome back, everybody. We're talking about blocking out the negative today. We just had an amazing guest on Madison Taylor, talking about, uh, talking about what's going on with teenagers right now. And, and she brought up a really good, uh, point that I want to jump into right away.

She said in her opinion, the thing that's plaguing her generation the most right now is hate. And I would so agree with that. Yeah, no, a hundred percent, you know, and it's, and, and I think that what's happened is that there's been a brainwashing that's been going on through social media and through this perpetuation of getting our self-esteem from the dings and the likes and the shares and the, and all that. And then, and then if you're not getting that, doing whatever it takes to get it, you know, and, and a lot of times you'll hear like the, the, the kid who's being bad in class, the kid who's, you know, kind of whatever, what do they really want? They want attention.

They're attention seeking. Yeah. And so a lot of times we'll see this stuff online and we'll see a hate remark or we'll see something that's really controversial. And what happens, it draws attention. And that's what, that's what, you know, that generation is seeking attention so badly that you just say, I do anything for it. I'll sell out for it. I'll, I'll say something mean for it, you know? And then it becomes really hard for all of us. I mean, I don't care. I remember it's same thing. Like, um, I, I probably stood up for kids a couple of times in grade school, but I remember it's hard to do if there's a group and everyone's picking on the one person to not join the group. It's really hard. Yeah. You know, it's hateful, you know, it's wrong and you feel bad for the kid. And yet, are you willing to stand up? You know, and, and what's crazy is when you do, there's nothing feels better. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. And when you don't and you join the crowd and then you got to go and be with yourself and you know what you did, nothing feels worse. Yeah, totally. It goes back to, um, why was social media created initially? Like, what was the point? Why, why did they come out one day? And they're like, Oh, cool. The internet's been developed. Perpetuation of evil. You have phones. No, no. I'm kidding.

It was created in the beginning to help people connect worldwide, to help you connect to family members in different states. It was, it was created so that you could have your own profile, like friend your friends and family, and they could see what's going on. And you can have conversations with your grandparents who are two states away. And it's, it's so far away from that now. It's, it's like you said, it's, it's a profile. It's a, I'm a sellout for likes. It's a, you know, whatever, whatever I can comment that gets me more likes is, is the better thing, you know, hateful or not. And it's like, if you just go back to why it was created, we have these platforms that are good, you know, they're well developed. The software is really great. And, and what you gotta do is remember the why. Cause that's the difference. I think, I think everybody has been, like you said, brainwashed into a different why now where they find their self-esteem online. They find their identity online and your identity is not online. Your identity is you. So if you're presenting you online, you should feel good about what you put out there, whether you get one like zero likes or a billion likes, which is, which is why the, the key then would be to, to not check back in.

Yeah. Yeah. Release it once it's been done. Put good, put good out there and then release. Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, I mean on that too, cause there is like, there's always going to be, and the bigger you get, the bigger your numbers get, I think the more this happens, right? There's always going to be hate. There's always going to be somebody hating on your stuff, like who didn't enjoy whatever. And I think something she said is, is you have control over kind of how you manage that and what you do with it. And one of the things that we talked about the other day, uh, specifically you use the words like, um, when somebody does something or whatever, it's, it's usually not about you. And you mentioned this even in just a few moments ago, like this idea of like, if someone is throwing that out there, they're trying to get attention.

They're struggling somewhere. And if you can start to look at that way, then instead of bouncing hate back and like building this hate machine, we then can start to like find a way to love that person, even through this moment, like pray for them. Like literally somebody says something rude to you. That's what, what God calls us to do. And it's super hard. It's super hard to take a moment and not take it personal, but instead go, man, they probably have something going on. Uh, let me just, let me pray for them. Let me think about how I can send a positive thing their way or whatever.

Um, yeah. And I think that's a huge key to like getting past it. I, I, I saw somebody do this online and, and their response was really pretty interesting and I'm not going to use names because I don't want to get political with this because it dealt with politics a little bit, but there was somebody, there was a comedian that just, just torched, um, uh, this like sort of semi famous influencer female just torched her. And I mean, and, and said some kind of kind of nasty things and, and some, you know, uh, inappropriate things to get the laugh. So it was, it was sort of like, I'm going to hate you for the sake of making these people laugh, which, which, what, what is that's bullying? Yeah. Right. What's crazy though, is I had never heard of this girl before. Never heard of her. Her response though, her response was, uh, no, I'm not offended at all. As a matter of fact, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm honored that this famous comedian took the time to put me into his material.

Apparently I must be making a difference. Apparently I must be doing a lot of good. If this person took the time to write my name into their thing. Yeah. And here's what's interesting. I had never heard of her before. And I thought to myself, who is that? And I went and looked her up. Yeah. And then I wanted to know what she had to say from now on. Cause I'm like, that's someone I care to follow. That's someone that I would like. I would like to hear what they have to say because clearly they're going to respond too bad with good. Yeah. And what's interesting is we just taught about standup, right? And that, that is the formula a little bit, but the way we taught it is you're, you're finding something interesting, unique about yourself, and then you're poking fun at that. And you're, and you're making this illusion and then you're shattering it. Well, when you get to the highest level, like you said, and, and her response is so beautiful because that's somebody who can put aside what was said and go inward and go, what is actually under what's said? What's actually under what's said is he researched me. He looked at my stuff. Yes. He found these funny things he can poke fun at, but he used me. And I would say they like, you know, honestly they were just nasty. Like it was a, it was a nasty poke to make the people who were in the audience laugh, knowing that they agreed with his opinion. Got you. Okay. Nasty. What I'm saying is, so yes, but what she did was she just chose to only look at the good or find good from something even nasty. Right. And what happened was everybody wanted to go, Ooh, how's she going to respond? How are you going to respond? I wonder how she can respond. Oh, did she hear what he said? And, and she didn't feed like we talked about earlier.

She didn't feed the monster. Yeah. Had she started a battle, had she put up a Twitter post or something that was like something anti that person, she'd then be feeding into the monster, feeding into this sort of back and forth. And she goes, no, I'm not going to play your game. Yeah. And then that's how the, that's how it wins. That's how the negativity wins. That's right. Right. So here's how we, here's how we begin this idea of combating the negative and, and, and it, you know, these things are very similar, of course, but, but we got to acknowledge it. We got to acknowledge it in ourself. We got to acknowledge it in others. We have to acknowledge it for what it is. And we got to understand that, that negativity is going to attack us in a lot of ways. You know, it comes at us from the world. This, this hit me recently, like just acknowledging some of the things that are happening in the world, just the acknowledgement of it can be, it can be negative. It can feel bad. You know, uh, there's that there's, there's, there's things can happen in our family, you know, things out of our control. Like, it's just like, boom, like, how could this happen? How could mom and dad be getting divorced? How could, you know, so-and-so pass away? Like it can, that can be negative. Right. Then there's obviously social media. There's, there's our own hidden secrets that we have. All of us have these little hidden secrets and it can be as simple as I know I should have done it and I didn't do it. Yeah. Or I know I shouldn't have done it and I did it.

You know, I know I should have stood up for somebody, but instead I just sat there and watched them get beat on or picked on or whatever. And it's, and it's, it's not okay. Yeah. And that's, that's the conscience. That's the Holy Spirit talking through you. Yeah. You know, we all have it. You know, the more bad decisions you make, the quieter the voice gets, the more good decisions you make, the louder it gets, right? Because you're allowing yourself to tap into that thing. But it's there for all of us. 100%. It's there for all of us. 100%. So, um, so, so when we come back after this message, we're going to, we're going to talk about how do we combat the negative? So now we've established that negative exists. We've established honestly that there's a lot of hate in the world. And the only way to combat it is going to be love, but we're going to give you some tools, some exact tools on how to combat the negative and spin it in your life. Much like the example I gave just a minute ago.

Boom. Block the negative. Oh, what a sick intro. I like that. Come on. I did not expect that. So how are we going to do it? Right? How are we going to block it out? It's everywhere. Negativity will attack you from everywhere. So, and unfortunately, unlike social media, you can't just hit the black button. You can't, but you're about to share ways that we can. Well, okay. So, so, um, we talked about Brian last night, talk about, you know, all of us when, when, when something happens and I think there's, there's like, um, so you're here's, and honestly, here's how social media works. And this is why some people have really kind of raged against it a little bit where they're worried for, for our health, for our psychological health, because they've programmed these social media accounts to be like casinos, to be like this, this endorphin, like kind of snap thing. So it became very addicting.

Yeah. It became addicting to see the like, addicting to see the ding, addicting to see the update. And so you're just like, Oh, I want more, more, more, more, more, more, more. So then what happens is when you get sad or something comes up, or even if the social media is making you sad, it causes you to go back in to try to get that little endorphin bump. Yeah. Yeah. And then you're like, Oh, more. And then I'm sad. And then more. And you know, and you get down this like kind of rabbit hole. So the idea is to go, all right, what, what's making me sad? This, this cause and effect thing. There's, there's a cause and there's an effect. And it goes back to getting to the root of it. Totally. You know, totally. And, and, and, and it's okay. It's okay. As long as you know, and you understand and you, and you can look at it third party and you can go, all right, here's what it is right now. This is, this is me. I understand. I'm observing me. I know what I'm doing. I can, I can take myself out of it. That's different than you pretending like it's not happening and pretending like you don't know when really you do know, or if you don't know, then you need to go in and find out what's going on. You know what I'm saying? Start asking those questions. And this Like stay curious. So being curious about trying to really get down to the root and figure out things and, uh, and test things and what, what is making you feel certain ways and, and tracking sort of like being very just aware and then asking questions. Let's, let's say that you go through a breakup, a boyfriend or girlfriend, a breakup. Oftentimes what happens is you go back and you look at photos, posts, you listen to songs that remind you of the person. If you were the one that that's sad from the breakup that reminds you of the person and it makes you feel sadder. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's a common response. Yep. So what's interesting is if you, if you go through a breakup, that is, that, that is going to feel something like you're going to feel. So it's, I'm not saying you can't feel, I'm not even saying you can't listen to the song. I'm just saying you need to observe yourself and realize, okay, I'm, I know what I'm doing. I'm purposefully helping myself grieve. Let me give myself the time to do this and, and then cut it off and understand that I know if I go back to that thing, it's get that, this cause is going to have this effect. Yep. So if I, if I do it again, I know what I'm doing to myself. Therefore I need to replace it with something else. And that's where you reach out to somebody.

That's where you reach out to mom or dad or a friend or somebody else who's going to play you a different song. And they're going to put something else in your mind at that time. So let's just say, uh, let's just say I can't get out of the, um, of, uh, uh, triggering news. All right. Cause there's saying, Oh yeah. So, so starting to realize that was because, because the thoughts, because of like, I watched so much of it happened to be the show was Smallville, right? Good over evil kind of thing. Like cool. But like, there's always villains and like crazy things happening or whatever. There's a lot of that. That's like very negative, you know, um, scary, even there's scary images and different, like whatever, like, uh, and I started to realize that those images, you know, they, they're in your brain, you watch them and they go into your brain. Like I would close my eyes and like try and rest and all I was hearing the theme song and like things from the episodes in my brain and I couldn't quiet it until it got quieted. And there was just this realization that even at home, same deal, you know, before And probably one turned into three or five or whatever, depending on the night. Uh, and you're not getting any sleep because you're watching all these shows or whatever. And so that was sort of a realization I had to come to. And then there's, when we were at the cabin, we were watching a movie and it was different. That was different. That was an experience. And I enjoyed the princess bride more than I ever have. Like, it was so funny to me because I was involved in it with the kids and like, I just kept laughing and like enjoying it because it had all of my attention for the reason of watching it. Yeah. You know, versus like most of the time, even when I was watching, it was like, you get half my attention because I'm doing this or whatever else. It's like, if you're going to do something, you give it your all, you know, a hundred percent. Yep. And that's, that's the idea of being present too. And, and that's another way to block out the negativity is to be fully present in what you're doing and who you're with. And, and again, to acknowledge, Hey, right now I'm going to go like, I know you, I told you guys this the other day. I was like, I'm going to take five minutes. I'm putting myself on a timer and at the end of the timer, it's done. Yep. Right. And, and so there's, there's different ways, different, you know, strategies that you can, you can come across.

But the, the main thing is to see the cause, see the effect, see the cause, see the effect. And right now is a time where it, when you're feeling negative is to go inward and upward, inward and upward. And, and, and God will help you and protect you. And, um, and, and you will find peace in you, but you got to separate yourself. Cause when you, when you see hate, you're going to feel hate and you might accidentally perpetuate the hate.

Yeah. And, and, and that's the thing that, that, you know, Madison talked about, and I think she's right that, that there's a, there's a plague of that right now of this, um, that, that hate is cool. And I want to go back to Adam Sandler being willing to pretend like he peed his pants so the kid doesn't get made fun of being the one to sort of sacrifice and make being kind cool because being kind, being loving, um, forgiving those things to me, that that's what makes you cool. That's what makes you stand out. Totally. You getting to, to put your foot on someone or put your thumb on somebody and make them feel bad, kick them when they're already down. Um, it doesn't take much strength. Yeah. Well, I mean, we've done a lot based on that. And that goes into like being aware of who you're surrounding yourself with. Right.

Making sure that you're around other people who are, who are not encouraging that negative behavior, right. Stand up when you need to, but ideally you're, you're hanging around a group of crowd who's willing to be the opposite of that. And I mean, some of the cool things we've done came from that place. Like, like the casting company, like we were actors who've been in an audition room where it's extremely uncomfortable and you're not really getting the love and buildup that you could have that would make you better, make them look better.

So we started Phoenix casting. A hundred percent. That's that idea. A hundred percent. All right. So we're going to end the show here, uh, with a little saying I like to tell my kids. So I'll, I'll, I'll share this with everybody. Focus on the good and good things happen. What you focus on is what you will feel. So if you're feeling negative, you're being attacked by negativity, find goodness, focus on what is good. What is good for you? Focus on that and let good things happen in your life. Thank you so much for watching. God bless.

Thanks for listening to mornings with Matt. Please like subscribe and follow us at Dearing acting studio to keep up with the latest content. For more information on classes, private lessons, or professional development coaching, visit www.dearingstudio.com. Have a Dearing day, everyone. Have a chippy day, everyone. Rough.