Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
The Durable Dad podcast gives men the skills and tools they need to be rock solid for their family, their work and their community.
Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
103: Headlines, Fear, and the Cost of Distraction
Misplaced attention fuels frustration, fear, and sadness. Most men underestimate how much power they give away when they let the news and social media dictate their attention.
Highlights:
- Why misplaced attention drains productivity and sleep
- How headlines turn conversations pessimistic and repetitive
- The hidden impact on parenting decisions and family life
- The simple practice that reveals what’s really underneath the anger
Takeaways:
- Your attention is your power—choose where it goes.
- Guard against the pull of headlines, comments, and opinions.
- Put focus back on what you can control: health, family, and work.
What would shift if you pulled your attention away from the noise and put it back where it matters?
Stop Losing Your Temper Road Map
This roadmap will teach you how to have more patience.
To give your kids more time and attention.
Anger isn't your fault, but it is your responsibility.
Learn how to manage it so it doesn't get the best of you.
https://www.tommygcoaching.com/roadmap
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is gonna give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up? Episode 103.
Speaker 1:It is Monday, september 22nd, and I just got back from Attica, indiana, where I was running a Spartan race, and this one was a little different. It was my ninth race, but it was the first time that Brenda was there, my two daughters were there and my mom and dad came down from Chicago. It was the first time they had been at a race, first time I had a cheering section. I've ran the races with buddies. I've ran it solo. As guilty as I was feeling before the race, because Brenda and my mom had to watch these girls while I was on the course for two and a half hours and we had to wake the girls up at 545 when it was dark out at the hotel and have our bags packed, all the logistics that led up to it I was feeling a little guilty that it was all for me. The finish was amazing, them cheering me on seeing their faces. I hopped over a six-foot wall and I saw my dad before I climbed the rope and then, after the rope climb, I had to do this other obstacle that was called the multi-rig, which has rings and different stuff on it, and they were cheering for me before I completed it. And then, right after I completed it, I ran over to them and high-fives, hey guys, then crawled under this bridge and finished the race and just having them there celebrating with me, it felt more full than other times that I've run races. So another Spartan race checked off.
Speaker 1:Now it's back at it, back at work, back at this podcast, which I'm excited to talk about today, and it started with a conversation I had with a client where he hopped on a call and the first thing he said was why does something that happened to somebody I don't even know affect me so much? This is a guy that shows up to his sessions with his reflection form filled out, having an idea of what he wants to get coached on. When he showed up last week he was scattered. I guess he knew what he wanted to get coached on because he had that question and we started coaching around that, but he was flustered and really what was stealing his attention and his energy was the news and recent events that have happened social media, the comments. He was just stuck with all of his attention there and the events don't even matter, because the stuff that's been going on in the United States the last few weeks some flavor of that has happened months ago, years ago is going to happen again. There are tragedies that happen, there are sad things that happen, and it's not about the tragedy or the sad thing. It's about the amount of attention we give it, and that's what I want to talk about today.
Speaker 1:There's this author, yuval Noah Harari. He's a researcher, he's a historian, he's a big thinker. He wrote a book called Sapiens, which totally changed the way I look at life, and he wrote another book called Homeoduce, which is talking about the future of humanity. And one of the things he says is in ancient times, having power meant having access to data. Today, having power means knowing what to ignore. In the past, having data, having knowledge, meant having power, but today it's knowing what data and what information to ignore. So now, today, our attention is our power. Another thing Yuval Noah Harari said was my attention is one of the most important resources I have, and the smartphone is constantly trying to grab my attention. There's always something coming in Any app on your phone social media news outlets. They make money by keeping our attention.
Speaker 1:What I want to run through today are some of the effects of letting your attention get stolen by social media and the news when these events happen, and a little bit of my story and how I approach the news and social media outlets. I coach guys on this a lot, and one of the things that it affects is our productivity. We get pulled away from our priorities, from the tasks we want to be working on, and we get sucked into reading comments on social media, reading headlines, maybe reading the articles. We don't always read all the articles. Sometimes we just read the headlines and then we read what other people are saying about the headlines. A few of the guys that I coach over the last couple years I've worked with them on not looking at their phone before the end of the night, and that affects our productivity. If we start scrolling and looking at news and social feeds right before we go to sleep, it gets our brain jacked up and we don't sleep well. There's definitely a correlation between our productivity and our sleep. Another thing that letting our attention get stolen by social media affects is the quality of our conversations with other people, the quality of our relationships.
Speaker 1:A few months back, I got stuck in this trap of spending way too much time on social media and what I found is that when I was talking to Brenda, we would have our small slices of speaking with no kids around. I was bringing up the headlines and what was happening? Brenda doesn't follow the news, she's not on social media. I'm updating her on these events. I have a few of the facts. She starts asking me questions, then the facts go quickly to opinions, other people's opinions, what other people are saying, my opinions and we usually end the conversation with what do you want to do about it? And I'm going to talk about that in a minute. But I didn't just have one conversation. While I was spinning in this social media cycle and letting my attention get stolen, I had the same conversation with Brenda three or four times.
Speaker 1:I know people feel like they need to be informed, so they need to follow the headlines and follow the news. But what I've found is that if you stay in the news cycle, you start to have a negative outlook on the world and the conversations aren't fun. They're pessimistic. They're not optimistic. It starts to affect the rest of your life. So another thing that it affects is life experiences. So the client that I was working with that said why do I let something that happened to somebody else affect me so much? Do I let something that happened to somebody else affect me so much?
Speaker 1:He was getting ready to drive his grandparents' truck to Vegas and he was going to meet his grandparents there help them out. His plan was to do some camping along the way. Drive through the Rockies, drive through the Utah desert. It's the fall, perfect weather to do some camping. These events happen. His attention goes to the headlines. Having conversations with friends about what has happened, he starts to think I can't camp while I'm heading out there. It's not safe. I need to stay in hotels or I need to start carrying a weapon. That's where his brain's going, and, as we're coaching on this, he knows that his brain's being a little unrealistic, but that's truly where he's at. He's deciding to change his trip to Vegas because of events that are happening far away from him, have nothing to do with him, and so think about that for yourself.
Speaker 1:When your attention is given to negative things that are happening in the world, how does it affect your life experiences and the last one I'm going to say is the effect on our kids. Our parenting decisions change when our attention is given to all these negative things that are happening in the media, are happening in the media. You know, I've coached guys on being overly cautious with their parenting and letting their kids take on a little more risk, whether it's at the playground or it's when they're in high school and they're out and about. How close of an eye do you keep on your kids? And I'm not saying to be irresponsible here, but ask yourself, am I being too cautious? And we want to ask that question from clarity, not when we're all mixed up and our attention is all on the negative stuff. So I'm going to tell you how I handle it, but first let's just look at what it affects. When we let our attention get stolen, we're usually less productive. The quality of our conversations and our relationships are usually more negative, not as fulfilling. We change how we're living life and the amount of risk that we're willing to take on, and our parenting decisions change or they get cloudy.
Speaker 1:So a few months ago I was stuck in this cycle, told you about my conversations with Brenda After I brought up all the negative things that were happening in the world and all the things that we should be concerned about to her three or four times, maybe five times. She was like all right, what do you want to do about it? Is this how you want to be spending your time? You're telling me that you're on social media too much. You're a coach. Go do some thought dumping, get some clarity here and figure out what you want to do. That was a good guardrail for me, and I took her advice and I went and I dumped my thoughts out.
Speaker 1:Why am I so angry? Why am I so frustrated, writing about the people that are pissing me off, writing about the worries that I have about my kids and the future and all the concerns that I have? What came out of that journaling session was a fear. I journaled about moving out of the country. There was a sadness there that this is the world my kids are going to grow up in. So underneath frustration, underneath anger, rage is always a different emotion, and usually it is fear or sadness, and that's what was there for me.
Speaker 1:When I was able to pause and get clarity after I felt those emotions, I realized there were two things I could do moving forward. One was learn more. Dig into these issues that are happening, these events that are happening, figure out the history, try to find the truth. But that would take hours, hours and hours of research. I don't want to be a political analyst or a political activist. Would it help me have conversations in my social circles? Maybe, but I don't even want to be conversating about this stuff.
Speaker 1:So the other option is to stop putting my attention in the news and recent events and put it to the things that matter to me my health, my family, my business. Pull my attention away from social media, put my intention into what's happening in my brain. Dumping out all my thoughts made it really clear that I want to be spending time on things that I can control, which are taking care of myself. So I'm in a good mental state to take care of my family. Be an awesome dad, be a steady husband and work on my business. Coach the shit out of my clients so they can be better men with healthier lives. Steadier husbands, good fathers make their ripple effect positive on the world. Put this podcast out. Tips some tools that might help guys have more clarity in their life If more men can get out of the frustration and rage and start living a healthier life and opening up that heart, we start to have more of a positive effect and bring people together.
Speaker 1:What I've found is that when I cut out social media so I have no social media on my phone I've logged out of everything on my computer. When you see me post online, I'm active on LinkedIn, because I don't get political stuff and new stuff in my LinkedIn feed and I message with guys a lot and I comment in LinkedIn, but it's not on my phone, it's only on my desktop. When you see me on Facebook, when you see me on Instagram, I'm using a third party software that posts to those platforms for me. So when I do that and I am steady with that I find that, yes, I'm happier, I have more energy, I'm able to focus on my business and things that matter and I feel more connected with other people. I have more curiosity, I have more compassion. That fear and sadness that I feel because of what's happening in the world the other side does too People with different opinions than me. Underneath their different opinions is a fear, is a sadness. We're all humans with human emotions, and when I can remember that, I feel more connected with other people, so remember that our attention is our power.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go back to that quote from Yuval Noah Harari. In ancient times, having power meant having access to data, data, knowledge. It's everywhere now. Everyone has data and knowledge, so that's not where power lies Today. Having power means knowing what to ignore, knowing what to take our attention away from, so don't let your attention get stolen. Be aware when you get sucked in. Download your thoughts, go on a walk, get some clarity and, from that clear mind, decide where you want to put your attention. All right, that's what I got for you guys today. I hope you have an awesome day and I'll catch you next time.
