Ep. 135: Courage Casts - What You Consume Shapes You

In this episode, Josh talks about how constant content consumption, especially through social media, can create echo chambers that impact your mindset and behavior. He shares a practical approach to breaking that cycle by being intentional about what you take in, including a simple framework for reading that balances growth, perspective, and enjoyment. The message is straightforward: what you consume influences who you become, so choose it carefully. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to the Courage Lib Podcast. My name is Josh Bitzko, and I'm a retired police captain with 24 years of experience out of Las Vegas. Currently, I travel the country and I teach people about courage, leadership, and resilience. In today's podcast, I want to talk about what we consume. And what I mean by that is in today's day and age, we are constantly consuming content. And what I'm doing right now is creating content and putting it online and putting it on social media. And these social media platforms, much like the media, well, the social media has algorithms and it almost creates this echo chamber. Because if you stop for too long on, you know, one post or reel or a TikTok or whatever, it's going to start showing you more and more like that to keep you on the apps longer. And that can create this echo chamber where, you know, however you're feeling in that moment or you're having a bad day, and let's say something pops up that equates to what you are feeling, then it's going to just keep repeating that and repeating that and causing you almost, it can almost cause a spiral. So what I'm going to talk about is how to break that like cycle. And for me, it's reading. And I love to read. I have um a process on how I read books and how I consume books. And I have a Kindle, so I'm not like I it's it makes it easy because I travel so much. But what I try and do is I have three different types of books that I read. I do one that is the first, like a classic of some sort. I I love literature. I'll even just Google like 100 books to read before you die and pull a book off of there. And you know, it's I think it gives you a little bit more insight, history, culture. And I just I enjoy it and I feel better when I'm reading it. And but it can be more difficult too. So there's a sense of pride that comes along with it. And then I will switch to a nonfiction or leadership or self-help or something like that, a book along those lines. Um, so I'll do a classic and then nonfiction and feel like there's some improvement, self-improvement that happens there and reading stuff like that and pulling things, making myself a better leader, business owner, um, human. And then the third type I call potato chips for your brain. Like it's just something fun to read. And like I I love old horror books like Dean Coontz and Stephen King or whatever. That okay, some of them they're good writers, but some of them is not often seen as classic literature. But it's fun, it's kind of mindless, like a potato chip. We just I read it and enjoy it. Then I go back to a classic and I keep that cycle going because at the end of the day, what you consume impacts you, it impacts who you are as a person, who you are as a human. And I'm just as guilty as the next person to get on social media and doom scroll or whatever at times. But what I will say is break that cycle, you know, read and listen to audiobooks. It's no different. Like it's not if you if you can't read, you have a commute, or you know, not that you can't read, but you don't want to read. Um, you have a commute, you're exercising, you're just sitting there listening, do audiobooks. I enjoy that quite a bit too. So appreciate you listening today. Um, if you like the podcast, share it with a friend, leave a review, subscribe, and I appreciate you spending time with me today.