Social Media, Teens and the Comparison Trap | William McInnes and Buddie Boufrancis

About the Guests:

Buddie Bou Francis: Buddie is actively involved with the Children's Liturgy at Christ the Redeemer. His background in fitness, coaching teenagers, and participation in community activities like the liturgical group portrays him as a mentor figure with insights into the challenges faced by today's youth.

William McInnes: Will is the Ministry Coordinator Redeemed Teens at Christ the Redeemer. With a history in surf lifesaving and a commitment to building community, Will adds value with his balanced approach to youth mentorship, focusing on responsibility and personal development.

Summary

This generation of teenagers isn't struggling more than those before them. They're struggling differently. In this episode, Natalie Moujalli sits down with Buddy Boufrancis and William McInnes, two people who work closely with young people, to talk about what today's teens are actually up against. Social media, validation loops, the fear of failure, and a generation that has access to everything but ownership of very little. You'll walk away with a clearer picture of how to tell healthy ambition from unhealthy comparison, and what formation actually looks like in the digital age.

Key Takeaways:

• Generational Struggles: Today's teens face unique emotional and informational challenges that differ from the physical struggles of previous generations.
• Information Overload: Access to vast amounts of information on social media can overwhelm teens, stressing the need for discernment in consumption.
• Responsibility and Ownership: Encouraging teens to find responsibility through manageable tasks can build character and resilience.
• Healthy Ambition vs. Unhealthy Comparison: Understanding the difference between self-improvement and the corrosive effects of comparison is crucial for mental health.
• Avoidance of Validation Traps: Teens are advised to derive self-worth from within rather than external validation through social media.

Notable Quotes:

• "Depending on what you define struggle, there's a level of struggle that makes it hard for the generation before us to relate." - Buddie Boufrancis
• "It's about making mistakes. It's about trying something. It's about putting yourself out there a little bit." - Will McInnes
• "Your ability to take ownership of what you want and figure out which direction you want to move in is ultimately how to oppose that." - Buddie Boufrancis
• "Comparison makes you feel sick. How do you tell the difference? One produces an output, and the other produces anxiety." - Buddie Boufrancis
• "Everything's gonna be okay. Enjoy the journey. Have your eyes set on where you want to go, but enjoy the journey." - Will McInnes

You and your mental health is important to us. If this episode brought up any heavy emotions, please know you do not need to carry them alone. Reach out to Lifeline, Beyond Blue, or the counselling service at Hills Sanctuary house at hshl.org.au 

Do subscribe to this podcast to get the latest episodes of Finding Sanctuary.

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Natalie Moujalli): Welcome back to Finding Sanctuary. Today we have Buddy joining us from the children's liturgy at Christ the Redeemer. And we have Will joining us from Redeemed, which is the teenage group at Christ the Redeemer as well. Welcome, guys.

0:00:16 - (Will McInnes): Thank you.

0:00:18 - (Natalie Moujalli): So I just wanted to give a brief for tonight's episode. I was speaking to this awesome GP friend of Hill Sanctuary House who follows us avidly. She. She was telling us how much she's enjoying the episodes, but also said that she would really like us to have an episode where we talk to teens, not at teens or about teens. So I had to rack my brain as to who I thought was the best suited to do that within our community.

0:00:45 - (Natalie Moujalli): And I came up with the both of you.

0:00:47 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Thank you. Is that a compliment? It is a compliment.

0:00:49 - (Natalie Moujalli): It is a compliment. So I want to get straight into it and ask you a few questions that I feel like from both of your differing perspectives might help the teenagers who are listening get a better understanding of what it's like on the other side of this when we grow up. Well, if we ever really do grow up. So I want to ask you, I'm going to start with you, Buddy. Do you think this generation of teens struggles more than past generations?

0:01:22 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Depending on what you define struggle? There's a level of struggle that makes it hard for the generation before us to relate, because the generation before, or maybe even two generations, three generations before, dealt with a lot of, I would say, physical, you could say trauma or physical struggles, whereas now a lot of them are emotional and mental, spiritual even. And with the influx of information that this generation has access to, it almost leads to a paralysis.

0:01:52 - (Buddy Bou Francis): So I would say that the struggle is, I want to say, equal, but just two different struggles, because I've seen what the generations before can't relate to, but I've also seen what our generation can't relate to with the generations before.

0:02:06 - (Natalie Moujalli): So you're saying it's not worse, it's different?

0:02:09 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Different, yeah.

0:02:09 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah. All right, Will, what do you think?

0:02:12 - (Will McInnes): I think I agree with that. I mean, you talk about the information overload. I think when I was a teenager and I was going through high school, I started at the start of high school with like a $20 Nokia phone. You know, that was me going to school and I couldn't. You couldn't really access the Internet on it. If you could, it would be only text. And by the time I got to year 12, people were starting to get smartphones and things like that.

0:02:32 - (Will McInnes): But I think now having a smartphone, 12 years on, what I can access on my phone things that pop up on my Twitter or my Instagram, which can be really overwhelming, can be really challenging, can be things that I'm not prepared to see even as an adult. And these are things that are being thrust into our kids hands and they're seeing and they're witness. The challenge to deal with a lot of these things is real, I think in that sense.

0:02:54 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah, it's like the information overload is too much to bear even for the adults as well as the teenagers.

0:03:01 - (Will McInnes): Absolutely. I mean, that's what, you know, I definitely look at a lot of these things and you know, you'd be scrolling on Twitter and Twitter can be a real, you get everything on Twitter sometimes and you'll just be scrolling through and it might be a video of someone being killed or something like that, you know, something very traumatic that's right there in front of you and something that we didn't, you know, I didn't really have to contend with when I was a teenager, thank God. Yes, he had the Internet, but normally it was in a computer which was in a room, you know, which you could, you couldn't really access things like that. They weren't as readily available.

0:03:31 - (Will McInnes): And so I think that that's such a huge challenge. That that information, that overwhelming information that's being given and the scale of that information as well, that can be really traumatic.

0:03:42 - (Natalie Moujalli): And I think that half of the problem is, is actually also not being able to disclose that they've seen the information. Like, you know, you gu comes up on your phone and you know that this is not healthy for me to be seeing or watching and I can't digest it. Sometimes it's hard to go to someone else because. Or an adult and tell them because then there's this really hard and fast rule like you shouldn't be on that or you know, you're too young for this or you know, that's enough phone time. So it's like they have to balance disclosing that they've seen inappropriate information with the consequences of that, which I think is a bit difficult.

0:04:17 - (Will McInnes): There can be a curiosity as well though. You know, I remember being a teenager and you see something like that and you're kind of like, I want to watch this because I'm curious about it, not quite realizing that this might actually be something that could be really detrimental to me or something that I shouldn't be watching. And it's really hard to switch that off in that sense.

0:04:31 - (Natalie Moujalli): Because curiosity is meant to be human. We're meant to Grow from it. What are your thoughts on that, buddy?

0:04:58 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah, I think it's difficult to navigate because this is what I was talking about previously with the disconnect between parents and you as a teenager, because remember, we're talking two teenagers. So you as the teenager need to essentially be ready to deal with the consequences with the understanding of what you're looking at. That can be for a range of things that could be starting from comparing your physique to lust, to greed, to the whole spectrum of life.

0:05:24 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And you as the teenager need to understand that there are long and short term consequences to what you see. And it has an impact on your brain. And you need to be able to, if you can't get through it, seek counsel in order to navigate it.

0:05:38 - (Natalie Moujalli): Go to a trusted place. Right.

0:05:40 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And if you don't have a trusted place, reflect and figure out where your trusted place is and then move on. I don't want to go too far off topic, but I think unintentionally we have debilitated you as the teenager and I want to empower you. You are so much more powerful than you think in terms of your ability to discern what's right and wrong. And I think we've, like I said, we've debilitated them.

0:06:05 - (Natalie Moujalli): How? How have we debilitated them?

0:06:06 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Because I was afraid you were going to do that. How have we debilitated them? By making everything feel okay.

0:06:14 - (Natalie Moujalli): Okay.

0:06:15 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And when everything feels okay, nothing feels like anything.

0:06:18 - (Natalie Moujalli): Can you elaborate on that?

0:06:20 - (Buddy Bou Francis): So the over validation.

0:06:22 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah.

0:06:22 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I think children are scared because they don't know what to feel anymore. Everything is numb. It's a scary place when you start talking about the consequences to actions on such a small scale, like what you're seeing on a phone, because to then open that conversation is okay. What are the consequences to everything else? What are the consequences to my dopamine? What are the consequences to my friendships? What are the consequences with the external?

0:06:45 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Then you have to ask, what's the consequence on the internal? That's what I mean by that.

0:06:49 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah. What do you think, Will?

0:06:51 - (Will McInnes): It's true, though. But being a teenager is about making mistakes as well. And that's why you're not an adult. You've got that support network around you. You've got all these safeguards. It's about mistakes. It's about trying something. It's about putting yourself out there a little bit. So I think those things are really good. And something really good for teenagers to think about is, what can I be doing in my life? What's maybe a little risk that I can take, Something that's fruitful, something that's good, where I might fail, I might have that bad feeling that I've fallen off or I didn't succeed in this element, but I'm gonna learn from that. And learning how to get back up, dust yourself off and do these things.

0:07:23 - (Will McInnes): Learning how to deal with these negative consequences.

0:07:26 - (Natalie Moujalli): It's funny, the episode before this, we had Muneeb Bashara on talking about men and silent depression. And something that came up in that episode was the fear of failure. And so what you're highlighting now is that this is generational. This is not just older people who have a fear of failure. It's our youth as well. And potentially for them, it's harder, it's worse, because failure seems so, so big and so devastating.

0:07:52 - (Natalie Moujalli): Whereas as you get older, you can see the fruit from the failure and you keep going.

0:07:58 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I want to touch on that.

0:07:59 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah.

0:08:00 - (Buddy Bou Francis): The thing that I find nowadays with you, once again, as a teenager, is that you indirectly and unintentionally lock yourself in a personality that you're too afraid to change later on. And what I mean by that is, I said, I wrote this example down. You build a personality right now on TikTok at the age of 14, and then what the algorithm then programs you to see is everything that you developed at the age of 14.

0:08:29 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It could be fears, it could be whatever's going to keep you on the phone. You post about it. You post what you're doing. Instead of reading the book, you post that you've read the book, and then life becomes a performance. And what happens when you're performing? You never want to fail. So psychologically, what? Well, how do I direct this to teenagers?

0:08:53 - (Natalie Moujalli): That's right.

0:08:54 - (Buddy Bou Francis): So from a psychological standpoint, you as a teenager need to understand that by posting, bragging and showcasing your life for everybody else, you're putting yourself on a platform to fail. You are. It's not real because you're holding yourself to an account to a standard that doesn't exist. You would know this, Will. When you were in school, you didn't have your friends filming you.

0:09:19 - (Will McInnes): Yeah.

0:09:19 - (Buddy Bou Francis): You didn't have people posting your achievements. You didn't have a track record of everything you've ever done. And I train 15, 16, 17, year olds in the gym about this and they'll open up their phone and it'll just be like hundreds of videos of their friends. And I said to my client, I said, it was actually my friend now. I said, that's terrifying. I couldn't imagine every part of my teenage life being on the Internet or in someone's phone.

0:09:50 - (Buddy Bou Francis): So you've indirectly, unintentionally platformed yourself to be terrified of failure. Whereas, like, if you failed at the swimming carnival, if I failed in school,

0:09:57 - (Natalie Moujalli): like, who's gonna know?

0:09:59 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Forget about it. Like, you make an embarrassing mistake at school, your pants rip. How many times did the boys pants rip at school?

0:10:05 - (Will McInnes): Like many times.

0:10:05 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah, yeah. And there's, it's like. But it's gone like Funny time videos now. Where's that gonna be in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years? So the fear of failure is very prevalent in the fact that everything is recorded and uploaded and there forever.

0:10:24 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah, you make a really good point. I want to explain to our teenage listeners what Funniest Home Videos is.

0:10:30 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Oh, yeah, mostly you gotta actually give like 20 seconds of context.

0:10:33 - (Natalie Moujalli): That's life now. You're right. Like, that's life now. The cute little one hour episode we used to watch once a week of the most embarrassing failures that people would come across is now 24,7 on your phone.

0:10:46 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I think I still remember the address. Locked bag, Crows nest or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:10:50 - (Will McInnes): And it was like, it was like handheld cam. Like, it wasn't high definition. It was like shaky camcorder.

0:10:55 - (Natalie Moujalli): What's up, guys?

0:10:56 - (Will McInnes): Vhs. Kim Kilby was one of the hosts. I remember that.

0:10:59 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I have the teenagers. I hope if you're listening, you do go look at Funniest Home Videos, but you can see that now in 60 seconds on Instagram.

0:11:05 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah, that's so true.

0:11:05 - (Will McInnes): But even like how different social media is. Like, I think about Facebook when I was in high school. It wasn't like a feed with all these videos. It was like just what your friends post it and you just post on each other's walls. Because it wasn't really that public Instagram, there was no like for you page. There was no scrolling with reels. It was literally just the pictures in chronological order in chronological order that your friends had taken.

0:11:26 - (Natalie Moujalli): So it's getting more and more invasive.

0:11:28 - (Will McInnes): It's getting more invasive and you're how much more exposed you are as well. If you put something out there, it can go.

0:11:34 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yep, that's your reputation.

0:11:36 - (Will McInnes): Exactly. Yeah.

0:11:38 - (Natalie Moujalli): All right, so I want to move on and talk about. We just Talked about information overload. Right. That we're just getting so much information. So how is it that we can say that teens are under formed when they have so much access to information and they desire that access to information? How can you be under formed? How does that. Who says they're under formed?

0:12:03 - (Will McInnes): Yeah. This might not answer the question directly, but I think that with all the information that we're being given, we're not giving a lot back to our teenagers. And as teenagers, we're not taking on responsibility. We're not doing things that give us purpose. We're just taking everything in and almost sort of panicking with it and wondering what to do with it. We're not focusing on, okay, how can I actually be giving something positive to the world?

0:12:28 - (Will McInnes): What are the gifts that I have that I can put out there? You know, we talked about the word vocation, and vocation means your calling. You know, where am I being called? What are my gifts? There's a lot of overwhelming. How can I give back? How can I do something?

0:12:42 - (Natalie Moujalli): I didn't find my vocation up until recently? Like, isn't that a big ask for a teenager to start thinking in that way?

0:12:50 - (Will McInnes): Like, absolutely. And I think that we. But we automatically do it anyway. I think of me being 16, 17, you know, in year 10, I was being asked to choose the subjects that I wanted to do for year 11 and 12 to get the prerequisites for the university course I wanted to do for the course that I wanted to do to get my job. You know, we're putting that pressure already on there. And so. So we're already asking them to make these sort of decisions that might seem small at first, but actually have these big consequences.

0:13:16 - (Will McInnes): But aside from that one big grand vocation, it's just those little things of like, is there something that I can do in my life that will give me a bit of purpose? You know, a vocation doesn't have to be one thing. It doesn't have to be the one big thing that I'm gonna do. It can be the little things that I do in my life. You know, I do surf lifesaving now at 30, but that was something I started doing when I was 14 years of age.

0:13:35 - (Will McInnes): And it was just something I did on the weekends as something that was a bit of fun. Didn't take it too seriously, but it was something that gave me purp. It was something that I had ownership over as well. My parents said, we're not gonna drive you there. You've got a push bike. It's down the hill. You can drive there yourself. You know, that was something that gave me a lot of ownership. It gave me a lot of purpose.

0:13:53 - (Will McInnes): And so I think that's something that teenagers should be really clamoring for in a way.

0:13:58 - (Natalie Moujalli): So that's the formation side that you're talking about?

0:14:00 - (Will McInnes): I think so.

0:14:01 - (Natalie Moujalli): Rather than informing.

0:14:03 - (Will McInnes): Exactly, exactly, yeah.

0:14:05 - (Buddy Bou Francis): The point that you made that I really want to hone in on, and you said it with so much emphasis, is ownership. I've got a metaphor for this. We actually don't own anything anymore. Everything is a subscription. We don't own DVDs. The boys that play PlayStation will know that you have to pay your monthly subscription to play games. Nothing is physical. Everything is digital. And I think something that you as a listener need to remember is to take ownership of not just your learning, but all the things that are going on in your life.

0:14:38 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And we as teens need to take responsibility for that. We're under formed only because we lack the ability to discern.

0:14:48 - (Natalie Moujalli): What's discern.

0:14:51 - (Buddy Bou Francis): The Catholic Church, we love that one.

0:14:52 - (Will McInnes): It's like absolute hospital pass. Do you know why?

0:14:55 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Because I did the discernment.

0:14:57 - (Natalie Moujalli): Now just for the listener, like the teenage listener. What does discern mean? It means to figure out.

0:15:02 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Right. I want to. The way that I'll explain it is the ability to sift through things.

0:15:05 - (Natalie Moujalli): Sift through? Yep.

0:15:07 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Let's. Let's look at it like that. Your ability to sift through things, your ability to sift through information, your ability to sift through possible consequences, your ability to sift through relationships, the ability to discern is essentially what stops you from being under formed or ill informed.

0:15:21 - (Natalie Moujalli): So the ability to sift through. Because what I'm getting, the visual I'm getting is, you know, the excursion we all went to for the gold mining where you put the tray in the dirt and you sift the dirt, the dirt through the holes and the gold stays. Do you remember that?

0:15:35 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah.

0:15:35 - (Natalie Moujalli): That's the sifting.

0:15:36 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Right.

0:15:37 - (Natalie Moujalli): So the ability to hold on to

0:15:39 - (Buddy Bou Francis): what's valuable, to find your gold and

0:15:40 - (Natalie Moujalli): let go of what's.

0:15:41 - (Buddy Bou Francis): To take responsibility for it, to take ownership. Like Will said, he started something at 14 and he's doing it at 30. It doesn't mean that you can't start it at 30 and do it at 50. But he took ownership, the listener. You need to take ownership of your education, of your standards, of whatever it is. And I do want to make a quick side note to the parents a little bit. And I think that you as a teenager need to be weary about with your parents. Is. Are you being coddled?

0:16:06 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Scary word, scary subject. Coddled. Are they catching your every fall? Are you being allowed to fall? Are you being able to scrape your knee? Essentially use that for as you will.

0:16:17 - (Natalie Moujalli): Is there a way to fall safely?

0:16:20 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I think you should just fall whichever way you fall. But that's me, that's my personal opinion. I do think you can fall safely.

0:16:25 - (Natalie Moujalli): I'm just talking as a mum of a child.

0:16:26 - (Buddy Bou Francis): As a mum. No, I understand and I'm not a parent yet. And I think there is definitely a way to fall safely. But it's up to the teenager. You should feel empowered as a teenager. You should feel empowered as, as a young person in this age with the ability to know anything whenever you want to know it. Like you can actually just google it and you can know. And so all the way back to the under formed slash, ill informed, slash whatever you want to put after that. Over informed, over informed. Your ability to take ownership of what you want and figure out which direction you wanna move in is ultimately how to oppose that.

0:17:07 - (Will McInnes): I think the parents have to learn to take some falls as well with their kids and with other things like that, you know. So I think about, you know, if you wanna take responsibility. Is there a chore in the house that's gonna be yours? Am I gonna mow the lawns? Is that gonna be my job? If you get someone mowing the lawns for the first time, it's not gonna be as good as your dad who's been doing it for the last 20 or 30 years.

0:17:26 - (Will McInnes): Is the lawn gonna look as good as what it did? No, probably not. But maybe that's the fall that you have to take as the. To your child.

0:17:33 - (Natalie Moujalli): I think that's a great step for.

0:17:34 - (Buddy Bou Francis): That's a great analogy.

0:17:36 - (Will McInnes): Do they want to do the like? And that's my encouragement to teens is find something that you can make yours in your own household. Cause that's a great place to start. Might be your own bedroom. You know, your bedroom is something normally as teenagers you have a lot of ownership over. If you've got your own bedroom, make that your kingdom. You know, have pride in it, keep it tidy. Say that this is the small part of the world that I'm going to look after.

0:17:56 - (Will McInnes): There's lots of big things happening. There's lots of overwhelming things happening that you can't control. You can control your bedroom, so show some character there. Control your bedroom. Ask mum and dad, what can I be doing at home? Is there a job that I can take ownership over, can I do this job? And mum might have to be a bit scared and go, you know, if Johnny does the vacuuming this week, it's not, he's gonna miss spots, he's gonna do all these things.

0:18:18 - (Will McInnes): Maybe when he's gone, when he's left the house, go to school, you fix up all the little spots but you also coach him through it and guide him as well.

0:18:25 - (Natalie Moujalli): It's hard because like, you know, my son cooked dinner this week in the kitchen and that was hard. Yeah, you know, like I tried to stand back and just kind of oversee and, but like the pouring of the pastor and the like, I didn't want to over control the situation I was trying to guide but really a little bit of my crazy came out because I wanted to jump in and fix it and do it and get dinner ready. And he did phenomenally, he did so well.

0:18:53 - (Natalie Moujalli): But I really had to control my own emotions and need to get in there and fix it. So I agree with the parental lesson as a teenager.

0:19:02 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Did he tell you, mum, leave me alone.

0:19:04 - (Natalie Moujalli): He was giving me looks.

0:19:06 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Okay, I like that. I support this young man in his adventure.

0:19:10 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah, I support this mum. I've, you know, I want to take ownership of it. So good.

0:19:14 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I'm proud of him.

0:19:14 - (Will McInnes): But at surf lifesaving, you know, you can be a lifesaver from 13 years of age. That's a tremendous amount of responsibility to have on a 13 year old. They have a team around them, they're never going to be left by themselves. But if something happens, if there's a rescue, if there's a resuscitation, if there's a first aid, they are going to have a role to play in the team. And I've seen people come through. You know, I've got people on my patrol now who are 20 years old, who they first came when they were 13 and 14 and to see how they've grown during that time, to see how, when things have gone down, how they've stood up, they've leaned on their training, they've done all these things again. They're probably not doing as good a job as someone who is 18 or 19, but they're coming there, they're feeling valued, they're being part of community and they're doing something, they're trying.

0:19:56 - (Will McInnes): And I see these girls now being 18, 19, going out into the world, they're being confident, they know what they're doing, they're determined and they're doing wonderful things with their lives.

0:20:05 - (Natalie Moujalli): I think it's a good point, because often what stops a teenager from throwing their hat in the ring is comparing themselves to an adult and the way other people do things. So it's about not letting that fear of failure stop you from doing things a little bit differently than what someone else has been doing for five or six years. So that leads me onto my next question. How do you tell the difference between healthy ambition and from unhealthy comparison?

0:20:35 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I've got a great one liner for that. Healthy ambition makes you sharper and comparison makes you feel sick. How do you tell the difference? One produces an output and the other produces anxiety.

0:20:49 - (Natalie Moujalli): So the unhealthy comparison produces anxiety.

0:20:52 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Absolutely.

0:20:53 - (Natalie Moujalli): And healthy ambition produces results.

0:20:55 - (Buddy Bou Francis): You produce a result.

0:20:56 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah.

0:20:57 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Tangible or intangible, the result is there. Whereas the comparison is, funnily enough. I just like, I want to do a quick tangent here. You'll see on social media everything except for envy, because envy is the only thing that they sell you. You're always on the other side, jealous. That's why I feel like the comparison is corrosive. It is unhealthy, really unhealthy, because you see all the sins and you view them, but you never view envy.

0:21:28 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Why? You're the product.

0:21:30 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yes.

0:21:30 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I really believe that as the individual, you, the listener, should be conscious of how you feel while you're on your phone. My question to you right now is think about the last reel that you saw or the last post. Can anyone, even in this room, think of the last post they liked or saw?

0:21:47 - (Natalie Moujalli): I just post a reposted, not your post.

0:21:49 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Nah, that doesn't count.

0:21:50 - (Will McInnes): What?

0:21:51 - (Natalie Moujalli): And I reposted a post about how strawberries combat depression.

0:21:56 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Okay, I'll have to fact check that one. For the, for the, for the most part, as a teenager, I know what it's like to sit on your phone for an hour and a half or two hours and have no idea where the time went. Wonder why. Why? I feel like I essentially don't want to use my brain anymore. I'm depleted, I'm down. I'm. I don't know how to feel.

0:22:17 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah.

0:22:17 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Why? Because we are the envy. And this is why I say. What was the question? How do you tell healthy ambition from unhealthy comparison? It's the way you feel. The way you feel. Even when you look at an overly ambitious person or a dangerously ambitious person, if they have the ability to self reflect, even they will know that their ambition is unhealthy. So it all comes down to the individual and your ability to once again Discern and sift through and find your gold and take ownership.

0:22:47 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I'm just going to keep replaying that part so the listener can. Whoever's listening, you need to fully understand the weight of that sentence. No matter what you feel or how you feel it, if you're not in touch with that, you're never going to get anywhere.

0:23:01 - (Natalie Moujalli): I'm going to get a bit more personal because we're talking to the teens, but I think it's easier to relate if they hear from you guys. As speakers, have you fallen into a pattern or a trend of unhealthy comparison? And how did that make you feel?

0:23:18 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Absolutely, without a doubt. To give you a little bit of context, I started year seven with a Nokia and ended year 12 with Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Kick. All these social media platforms that I know, like my pea brain should not be able to comprehend, firing like an assault rifle all day and all night. Where I fell short was my ability to disown. We get confused with likes as validation, with group chats as being connected and phone calls as communication.

0:24:00 - (Buddy Bou Francis): My biggest one was using social media as a platform to leverage vanity. So you never really fully understand what your intentions are until you see yourself. And my fitness journey started as trying to get healthy, as most people do. But what is on the other side of health? What do you walk into a gym and see?

0:24:25 - (Natalie Moujalli): Fit people.

0:24:28 - (Buddy Bou Francis): One more. There's one more. Mirrors.

0:24:31 - (Will McInnes): Mirrors and cameras.

0:24:33 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Not. Not so much back then, but mirrors. Yeah, yeah. Like, so when I was in year 12, Anytime Fitness north rocks. Mirrors. It's all about you. It's all about how you look. Why don't you look like this? And the mirrors are like the. The funny mirrors at the museums. You. You don't look anything like what you look like in real life. It's just distortion. And all of a sudden you're like 36 kilos overweight or you're really, really skinny. Or to make my point, what started as a health journey to lose weight, being a chubbier kid, then turned into the validation conquest.

0:25:05 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And so what I see with a lot of the teenagers that I speak to is the influx of validation that they have. If I had, say, five social media apps, these kids have 20. I could not imagine what they're going through. And I hear it day in, day out. I want a six pack. I fell short here. This is why I'm using this example. I want a six pack. Okay, but you're already at the gym. You don't have any unhealthy blood Markers.

0:25:33 - (Buddy Bou Francis): What's on the other side of the six pack that you don't have right now? Because you're currently on the other side of what you thought you wanted. You're at the gym. You wanted to join the gym. You wanted to be healthy. You're there, but there's something missing. That gratitude, that discernment, that reflection that leads you to think, I want a six pack. Well, what's after the six pack? Okay, I'll post about it.

0:25:53 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Posting's good. We're gonna go on a journey with the viewer. Why are you posting? It's all introspective questioning. Are you posting because you're proud of yourself? Okay, okay. Open to discussion. Or are you posting to get those five likes? Okay, what happens when you get no likes? Are you now worth that? Is your journey not worth anymore? Because you didn't receive the external validation, you were never internally grateful.

0:26:21 - (Buddy Bou Francis): So you will keep pursuing the next thing after the next thing until ultimately you end up in. I'm going to be harsh with the teens. You end up just lusting. And this is not by any means a particular sex. This is both men and women. I see guys with their shirts off all the time. Like, what do you mean you're taking your shirt off in the gym? I was that person until I understood that I did the introspective searching. Until I understood that I was ungrateful.

0:26:50 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I didn't have the ability to discern. Why do I want everybody to see my journey when I in reality? Your body as a gift is a temple is sacred. You should be staying as healthy as possible, mentally and physically. So that's my personal journey.

0:27:09 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah. No, I like it. Can you explain to us what validation is?

0:27:13 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Validation is the greatest drug that technology ever produced. Validation is ultimately approval, worse worthy.

0:27:25 - (Natalie Moujalli): Identity, identity.

0:27:27 - (Will McInnes): I think it's literally you're comparing yourself in relation to other people.

0:27:30 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Validation is your identity nowadays. And I think that's what terrifies me. Not just. Not just you look good. It's what's your score streak on Snapchat? It's how many followers do you have?

0:27:42 - (Will McInnes): It's how much can you bench?

0:27:45 - (Buddy Bou Francis): How much can you bench? And then. And then you want to take it one step further. It's how much do you make? No one ever discussed salaries. I know that from when I was in high school. No no one talks about, like, I was making, like, $7.80. Yeah. Like, peak. I was like, I thought I was the man mopping floors, but now it's like, everything is comparison. Everything is validation. Everything is, what are you doing? What am I not?

0:28:05 - (Will McInnes): Money.

0:28:05 - (Buddy Bou Francis): What are you doing? What am I not? What is Will doing on the weekend? What am I not? Essentially, it's just looking. Validation is to feel good. And then when you tie yourself to the validation, if you don't get that, you feel bad.

0:28:14 - (Will McInnes): I think that goes so well. Back to the question that you asked before about what's healthy and unhealthy. If you do something that you're happy to be proud of in the silence without anyone knowing, that's probably a really healthy thing.

0:28:24 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Absolutely.

0:28:24 - (Will McInnes): If you're only doing it, or your primary motivation is for someone else to acknowledge that you've done it, not just doing it for the glory of yourself, for the glory of God, or the glory of just doing a good thing.

0:28:35 - (Natalie Moujalli): It's unhealthy.

0:28:36 - (Will McInnes): That's unhealthy. That's unhealthy.

0:28:38 - (Natalie Moujalli): So I'm going to ask you the same question. Have you ever fallen into unhealthy comparison?

0:28:44 - (Will McInnes): Yeah, I was thinking about it and it's sort of been. At every stage of my life, it's been something different, and I'm even in it now. You know, it's something that's genuinely hard to get away from sometimes. Cause, you know, I'm the same as every other teenager. I've got a smartphone, I've got social media. I see these things. I compare myself, you know, in high school, without social media being too much of a thing, it was someone getting a better mark than me, someone getting into the soccer team when I didn't.

0:29:07 - (Will McInnes): You know, these things that you fall into of feeling there's a temptation to sometimes want to be the best at everything, and you're just not going to be, you know, you're never going to be the smartest kid and the best soccer player and the best singer and the best musician and all these things. And a lot of the times you have to kind of deal with just being mediocre because you're never going to

0:29:24 - (Natalie Moujalli): be the best mediocre. That's. I don't feel like that really is something that exists in our teens at the moment. Like we were talking about earlier, the fact that they've turned their hobbies into side hustles to start making money for the future that they've started to see. There's something that you brought up. So can you tell me a bit more about that? Because that kind of feeds off the avoidance of mediocre cause. Mediocre means you're just coasting along, right?

0:29:54 - (Will McInnes): Sometimes there's nothing wrong with mediocrity. You know, it's fine to just live a calm and peaceful and all these lives, but so much of social media is glorifying big and grand and all these other things, you know, strive, strive,

0:30:08 - (Natalie Moujalli): strive, which is, again, nothing wrong with that either. It's just.

0:30:12 - (Will McInnes): Yeah, and it's about finding things, you know, like there's between church things and surf life serving and things like that, there's a lot of things that I do in my life. I could be doing something that would be making me money and I could be earning more money. I'd probably be living in a nicer place. I'd probably be driving a nicer car. I wouldn't be a happy person, though. Because what it's about is, it's about finding things that don't give you fulfillment in a sense of. Like we were just talking about fulfillment in the sense of someone else will see what I've done and then I'll feel good about it. But what do I just genuinely enjoy doing?

0:30:43 - (Will McInnes): What gives me a good feeling at the end of the day, even if no one sees it, even if no one acknowledges it, do I feel good? People always go on about acknowledgement as well. Acknowledgement is so wonderful. We want acknowledgement when we've done a good thing, but there should be a good feeling coming from it just purely because we've done it acknowledged or unacknowledged.

0:31:01 - (Natalie Moujalli): Do you want to tell us a bit more about the side hustle? The making money off side hustle culture,

0:31:07 - (Buddy Bou Francis): the teen bro curly hair, coarse selling culture? Not every part of your life needs to be monetized. And I think there's this tiny little switch that I want to bring up to the listener. If you've got it in your heart to actually enjoy something, don't monetize it. Don't.

0:31:30 - (Natalie Moujalli): That's hard because that's. That's the way it's going.

0:31:33 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Because the reason I say that is we have nothing sacred anymore. The book, you post about it. The car, you post about it. You can't even have a hobby anymore without posting about it. And then as soon as you post about it, the algorithm curates. The algorithm is only showing you the 99th percentile of every life, of everybody, of every relationship, of every kitchen, of every salary, of every wedding, of every friendship, and your Normal life is being measured every day against a feed stitched together from the 1% of every category.

0:32:05 - (Buddy Bou Francis): That's why you feel behind. That's why you feel the need to monetize your hobbies. That's. That is wholeheartedly my answer to that.

0:32:12 - (Natalie Moujalli): That's good.

0:32:13 - (Will McInnes): I love that the person with the best car doesn't necessarily have the best house, doesn't necessarily have the best everything else. But you're seeing the best of all of them and you're thinking, I need to have all of these.

0:32:23 - (Buddy Bou Francis): And it's like. It's like you don't.

0:32:25 - (Will McInnes): Yeah.

0:32:25 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Do you want to know something? The viewer, again, personally, what I started doing, I've hit full old man senile status and I have gone to the physical media shops. I have bought myself a record player. I now listen to music on record. Everyone from, like, you can listen to Kanye West, Lynard, Skynyrd, everyone. Like, I bought movies on Blu Ray. I purchased a PS3 and an Xbox 360. And this is actually the first time I'm talking about it because I just want to explain that it's so nice to not have to worry about posting things. It's so nice to take back physical things. It's so nice to not feel like that I can't have a hobby without monetizing it, that I can't have a hobby without posting it. I love games, but I don't want to not own it. I love music, but we have to pay for Spotify. Can you see where I'm going with this?

0:33:11 - (Natalie Moujalli): I do.

0:33:12 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Like, back to what Will said in the beginning, everything is about ownership and it starts with, like, even Will said, making your bed. What I do. I bought a vinyl player. What you're saying about sifting gold, these points that are in this podcast are actual gold. I'm not even gassing it up. I'm telling you, I wish. I wish there was an avenue like this that I had when I was a teenager. Even just to listen to some of Will's points about, like, so that's so cool. Like, surf, life, saving.

0:33:37 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Most people in the area can't even swim.

0:33:39 - (Will McInnes): I know, it's terrifying. That's why I have to be there every weekend.

0:33:44 - (Buddy Bou Francis): It's so cool. It's so unorthodox. It's so. And you as a mum, letting your son is terrifying. It is. But you're doing so good and you're empowering your son. You're actually giving him the safe fall. I don't know if I'll be Able to do that with my kid. But that's a bit like burn the house down.

0:34:02 - (Natalie Moujalli): Oh, you will.

0:34:02 - (Buddy Bou Francis): We got insurance. Burn the house down.

0:34:04 - (Natalie Moujalli): I'm sitting and looking at you, buddy, and I've lost my train of thought. Because the guy that's sitting here and the guy who came in maybe a year and a half ago to do a podcast before this are two very different guys on me.

0:34:18 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah, yeah, I was bold.

0:34:20 - (Natalie Moujalli): Not just bold.

0:34:21 - (Will McInnes): Nothing wrong with that.

0:34:24 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I came in last year.

0:34:26 - (Natalie Moujalli): You came in with your own social media team last time. Like, the journey you appear to have gone through is nothing and a T shirt.

0:34:34 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:34:34 - (Natalie Moujalli): Nothing short of inspiring buttons now.

0:34:36 - (Buddy Bou Francis): Oh, my brain chemistry changed. Yeah, honestly, it did.

0:34:39 - (Natalie Moujalli): Honestly, I can see such a massive change.

0:34:42 - (Buddy Bou Francis): So that podcast was really enlightening for me. Even for me, the feedback that I got from the previous podcast was super high. And when I had the opportunity to do this, I was like, let's hit a home run.

0:34:54 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah. I'm going to get you guys to talk to our teens one more time and ask you what's one thing you wish your 17 year old self had known? Will.

0:35:05 - (Will McInnes): Yeah, it's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be fine. I was thinking back today about what I was like at 17 and the goals that I had for myself, what I'm gonna be like at 30. I haven't hit all of them. There's some things that I thought, you know, by 30, I'm gonna be married, I'm gonna have kids, I'm gonna have a house somewhere in the suburbs. It's gonna be all neat and nicely planned out. I haven't done that. Okay.

0:35:27 - (Will McInnes): But I also look back on other things, things that I did plan on doing, which I've done, but then also those surprises along the way, the things that I never could have imagined doing, but have given me such joy and purpose and happiness. You know, as a religious person, I look at where God's called me in these last 13 years and taken me on an adventure that I couldn't have planned. And the happiness that I've experienced from that has been way better than what I mapped out for myself.

0:35:53 - (Will McInnes): And it's because I've kind of taken each thing moment by moment. Goals are important, objectives are really important. But if you let them define you, then you're only going to be unhappy if you don't hit them. Enjoy the journey. Have your eyes set on where you want to go. Absolutely. But enjoy the journey. And like we said, make mistakes. You know, have the falls. It's Fine. To not succeed in everything. And so that's my really big advice for 17 year old will is just everything's going to be okay.

0:36:19 - (Natalie Moujalli): Okay? 17 year old Will, Are you okay, buddy? What's your. What's one thing you tell yourself?

0:36:25 - (Buddy Bou Francis): I did cheat and I got an answer for this one.

0:36:28 - (Natalie Moujalli): Okay?

0:36:28 - (Buddy Bou Francis): If you take one thing out of this, take this. You are not broken, you are not behind and you are not late and you are not lost. You have not been forgotten by God. And you are not too far gone for grace. What you are, what most of us are, is unformed. And the answer to unformed is not despair. The answer is formation through education. Slow, ordinary, daily. No one is asking you to be perfect. You are made by love, for love.

0:37:02 - (Buddy Bou Francis): That is your identity. That is your manhood and your womanhood. That is the answer to every comparison. And that is the only foundation strong enough to build a life on. Go and build it. Wow.

0:37:16 - (Natalie Moujalli): I'm speechless now.

0:37:17 - (Will McInnes): I love that ordinary line. There was a just be ordinary. There's a great quote from St. Teresa of Calcutta. She talks about we can't all do great things, but we can do small things in love. And another way to look at that is we can do small things well. And if we do those small things well, we will do great things with those small things.