In this episode, Baylor questions whether the things we get worked up about really matter and how to focus on what truly matters in life. He talks about how society and social media benefit from charged debates and arguments, but we should ask ourselves if we can grow from the situation and if it truly matters. Baylor emphasizes that we should focus on what truly matters to us and fight for it with passion, to avoid getting bitten by snakes and going down the wrong path.
Does it matter? [00:00:08] The importance of arguments and debates, using sports as an example, and how they can be irrelevant and a waste of time.
Fighting the problem together [00:01:38] Changing our mindset from fighting each other to fighting the problem together, using the example of fighting with a partner.
Focusing on what matters [00:04:27] Advice on how to focus on what truly matters in life, by asking ourselves if we can grow from a situation and if it truly matters, and by making contingency plans.
Does it align with who I am? [00:06:23] Questioning whether we truly care about a cause or if we are just following societal trends.
Don’t accept every argument invitation [00:05:43] Baylor advises not to engage in every argument or negative situation we are invited to.
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TRANSCRIPTION
(00:00:00) – You are now listening to Shark Theory. I’m your host, Baylor Barbee.
(00:00:08) – Thanks everybody. Top of the morning to you, I got a question for you. Think about the last argument that you got in. Think about the stress that you currently have in your life. The situation that you’re gonna have to deal with today at work, or you’re gonna have to deal with, with, with a, uh, with a loved one. And I want you to ask yourself this question and give yourself an honest answer. Does it matter? Does it really matter? Right now as we got the playoffs going on in hockey, there’s the playoffs going on in basketball, and I have, uh, uh, I see a lot of people online just arguing, oh, LeBron’s better. Oh, Steph’s better, and getting these heated arguments. And I’m thinking to myself, does it really matter? Your team wins. Your team loses. It’s a game at the end of the day.
(00:00:49) – Now, I’m not saying don’t have a sports team and don’t enjoy life, but when people get so worked up, and you’ve probably seen this especially on social media, people get in these just heated debates and arguments about things that are so irrelevant. But here’s the thing, A lot of times these heated arguments are by design. They’re features, not bugs, society. And, and a lot of, you know, social medias benefit when you are, are charged one way or the other, right? Politically charged, religiously charged, racially charged, sexually charged. If your charge means they can attract you to their product, they can attract you to their platform, they can convert you to a sale, right? And so I say that to say, I’m not saying that things in life don’t matter. I’m not saying don’t have hobbies, don’t have a sports team, don’t, you know, get in debates with people, but I’m asking yourself at the core of it, ask yourself, like, does it matter?
(00:01:38) – You know, one of the, the read his relationship book one time, and you know, you probably cliche by now, but you know, I said, when you’re, when you’re in a fight with your partner, are you fighting your partner or are you and your partner fighting the problem? That’s the problem in life is so many of us are fighting each other instead of fighting a current problem together. We have to change that mindset if we want to, you know, collectively get better. And we can’t change maybe the entire world right now, but you can change the people around you by, by starting to look at a situation that you’re facing and ask yourself that question. Like, just by literally answering that question, like, does this matter? You will remove yourself from about 90% of your day. So if you’re a person right now that’s busy and think you have no free time, asking yourself that question is one surefire way to free up some time.
(00:02:24) – Because what you realize down the road is so many things do not matter. Who wins this award? Who wins this game? Who’s the latest gossip of so-and-so started this business or so-and-so it doesn’t matter who broke up with how much time in scrolling on social media spent just looking at the lives of other people and interacting about your perception of the lives of other people. Is that conducive to your growth? If you’re honest with yourself, right? So does it actually matter? And, and, and the question you have to, why you have to ask yourself that is because you’re gonna find a lot of the stress that you have, uh, uh, comes from the fact that you’re involved in things you shouldn’t be involved in. You shouldn’t care what the next door neighbor’s doing. You shouldn’t care what Chris from finance is doing or Becky from marketing is doing.
(00:03:10) – It doesn’t matter, right? Because if you’re so worried about them, then, you know, I I I go to companies a lot of times and and, and I see the climate is is down and I’m asking what’s happening? Well, they’re about to do a round of layoffs and everybody’s just going around walking on pins and needles worrying about the perception because they heard or they thought, or somebody said that people might be getting layoff. And so they go through life with just this fear-based, uh, mentality. And then you see ’em the next day and they say, well, did you make, did you make it past, you know, black Fridays? Yeah, I don’t, it wasn’t even that. We didn’t even think, it wasn’t even about getting fired. And I was like, wow, you just robbed yourself of all that energy by focusing on something that that didn’t matter until it does.
(00:03:48) – And I’m saying, I’m not saying that like there’s not stress associated with, with economic conditions and things like that, but we have to stop being masters at facing things that have not happened to us. How many of these things that you stress about are actually really happening? And if it does, what is worrying about it right now gonna do to help aid that problem? Now, if you look at it and say, you know what, our, our company has announced there’s a round of layoffs. It does matter to me. It could affect me. I’m likely gonna be, uh, it is actually gonna bother me. Okay? See, now we can look at it from a different lens. Okay? I asked myself the question, does it matter? The answer is yes. So now instead of worrying about what’s gonna happen, now I can start making a contingency plan.
(00:04:27) – All right, well, I’m gonna continue to work hard, but in the event that this does transpire, I already know what I’m gonna do there. You see the difference? You’re not spending time worrying about the Kardashians or what Drake’s doing or this or that. You’re like, look, I I gotta worry about the things that matter to me. I gotta worry about the things that affect, uh, you know, my life and the people around me and the people that I care about. And by doing so, like I said, you, you, you, you allow yourself to have more free time and more mental energy to put toward the things that do matter so that you can now spend that time working on contingency plans or the plans that you’re on. Um, but how do we, how do we focus on what matters? Because again, it’s one of those things, these things to say, Hey, you know, focus on what matters.
(00:05:05) – If we don’t give any strategy of how we’re gonna do that, what good is it? Um, one of the questions that I’ve always asked myself and and asked a lot of my clients when they’re doing this exercise is, can I in any way grow from this? That’s one of the surefire ways to kind of figure out if you’re spending time on meaningless things. Like again, if I, I live in Dallas and a lot of people are huge Dallas Cowboy fans, and they will die hard defend the Dallas Cowboys. I mean, they will paint their face, they will fight like Jerry Jones is paying him himself. And when you ask him, can I, can you grow from an argument, uh, over who’s a better sports team? No, no, you can’t. None of us are on the NFL payroll unless you listen to podcast from the nfl, I don’t know.
(00:05:43) – But for the most part, a lot of situations that you’re getting heated about and your blood’s bulling over don’t have any impact on your growth. If it can in any way help you grow, then all it can do at best is not hurt you all it can do, what is probably gonna do is send you the wrong way. So why put yourself around snakes and think you’re not gonna get bit? That’s the problem. So many of us are going to these snake situations and then finding, getting appalled when somehow we got bit like, I didn’t know it was gonna happen to me. Why you put yourself in a position you didn’t even need to be in a snake pit. A lot of times what we gotta do is realize we don’t have to accept an invite to every argument we’re invited to. We don’t have to accept an invite to every pity party or woe is me situation that we’re invited to.
(00:06:23) – We can absolutely just stay in our lane and mind our own business, right? And uh, the other question that you can ask yourself, you said one being like, can I in any way grow from this is number two, does this align with who I am? You know, there are, I’m not saying it’s not important to have religious causes or racial causes or political causes, but you know, do you care about it because you truly care about it or do you care about it because it’s the cool thing that society says we have to care about? That’s a problem. A lot of the identity politics and different aspects of life is so many people are social media and everything makes us believe. You have to have a harsh stance on every single area in the world to the point we have enemies. And a lot of people are fighting for sides of in topics they know nothing about, wouldn’t even know anything about if it weren’t put in front of their face. So be sure whatever you’re fighting for, you’re fighting for because you truly are passionate about it and you’re not just in it because society says this is the cool trend to have a debate about. So we can milk a few dollars out of it, move on to the next. So have a great day.
