404 | Replacing The Negative Influences In Your Life With The Right Ones

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, life, healthy, replace, negative influences, struggling, influence, occupying, remove, watching, crap, negative, toxic relationships, affecting, helping, talking, rants, focused, place, chris

SPEAKERS

Chris LoCurto

Chris LoCurto  00:00

The negative that you get rid of, but you don't replace, may come back to haunt you. That is coming up next.

Chris LoCurto  00:17

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show, where we discuss leadership and life, and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Hey, folks, welcome to the show. Hope you're having a fabulous day. We are, as we look out on a nice, cool brisk 28 degrees here. I don't know what you what you're experiencing where you are. But it's been, it's been rainy, and a little bit of snow. And I think we got some snow coming. I think I'm the only guy in Tennessee who is excited about that. Coming from snow country, I enjoy it. I think everybody else hates it. But there's probably three of us here. Today, we're talking about replacing negative influences. And I gotta tell you, this is one of the most important things for you to focus on when you're trying to get a healthier version of yourself. Well, a lot of times we can do all kinds of things and not recognize the need to replace the unhealthy things, the unhealthy influences, so sometimes if you're looking at doing a diet or something like that, you realize that sugar is not good. So you take out the sugar, but sometimes you don't realize that having three other people in your house that are still eating sugar actually is a negative influence. So you may not be eating sugar at the moment, but you're being influenced, as you're watching other people do it. And so that tends to wear on you. So that's just a tiny example of something we're going to be talking about today. If we look at Matthew 12:43-45; "When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says 'I will return to the house I left, when it arrives it finds the house on occupied, swept clean and put an order.' Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first." What's the point that is being made here? Well the Lord is pointing out that when we remove negative things or impure things, and we don't replace it with good stuff, then believe it or not, it makes it very easy for those impure or negative things to flood back in. And makes it a lot easier if we don't have good stuff inside of us, replaced it with good influences. So influences once removed, leave a vacuum. That's an important thing to understand. If you have a toxic friend in your life, and you remove that toxic person, but you do not replace your social life with healthy people, then guess what? It leaves that vacuum that void, that place for toxic people to creep right back into. If not replace, then, they tend to come back and it tends to be worse. Anybody who's ever struggled with any type of addiction, whether it be drugs, alcohol, submissiveness, control, anger, any of that kind of stuff that you've ever dealt with. Right? Then you know that if you're able to shake it for a while, but you don't do something about it, then when it comes back, it actually gets worse. So we have to be intentional about replacing the negativity. So "Chris, I don't do drugs." "Great. Fantastic. That's a wonderful thing. But what is your social feed look like? Alright, what is your social, your Facebook, your Instagram, your YouTube, whatever, all that kind of stuff? How much news do you watch? How many unhealthy people do you allow in your life?" These are the things that we are going to be talking about today. We're going to talk more about that when we come back right after this.

Chris LoCurto  04:11

Hey, leaders, what does this past year taught you? For many of you, the events of 2020 opens your eyes to core challenges and struggles that are deep within your business. I'm sure we can all agree that business as usual just won't cut it this year. But as a leader and a business owner, you may not know where to go from here. So I'm here to tell you that it's time to make a change. As a leader, it's time to pour into your business and your team by learning and implementing new core skills that will make an immediate impact. It's time to sign up for the Next Level Leadership Live Event this April. This event is tailor-made for small business owners and leaders just like you, helping you to move forward even in a climate of fear and uncertainty. This is not a positive thinking session, but a strategic thinking workshop, chock-full of insightful teaching and impactful learnings, that's going to equip you to return to your business and your team ready to implement, and immediately impact their growth and stability. Tickets to the Next Level Leadership Live Event are available right now at a special early-bird rate. Go to chrislocurto.com/liveevent, or text "liveevent", one word, to the number 44222 for more information, and to get your tickets. Again, that's chrislocurto.com/liveevent. It's time to change your business and your leadership for the better. Don't miss it.

Chris LoCurto  05:44

Folks, we are creatures of habit. Now, habits can carry their own controlling influences on our own psyche, right? They need to be replaced, not just edited or deleted. Now sometimes we can, sometimes it's not that big of a deal. Sometimes it's something that can just use a little bit of a tweaking to it. But what we're talking about here is these habits that are negative, that are controlling how we make decisions, or how we respond to stuff, or what we allow in. So the key is, we have to replace a bad habit with a good one, instead of trying to stop doing something, we try to start doing something good. If you're going to replace a bad habit, put a good one in. If you're struggling on the couch, because you sit there for hours on end eating potato chips watching, you know, bad TV, and you want to get in shape, then you don't just remove the potato chips, right? What do we put in place? Getting up, getting out, exercising, doing something. You know replacing it, if we're going to snack on something we try and replace it with a healthy snack. So, the things that we're talking about is replacing those negative influences with something that's going to be healthy. And we're gonna go over seven different, the seven deadly influences in your life, that are affecting you right now, if you have any of these in place, we're going to be walking through each one of these. So let's take a look at Proverbs 4:23. "Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life." So folks, let's take a look at the seven deadly influences, that we're calling it, of things that are affecting you in an in a negative way. And maybe you don't have some of these, maybe you have all of these. But if you have even one of these, then I want you to really ask yourself the question, is it worth replacing? Is it worth putting something positive in its place? So let's take a look at number one, Internet Conflict. So rants and arguments. Now, I will tell you, once in a great while I will go on a rant against something. Because I'm hopefully looking at it from the aspect of, something that's evil and affecting people in a negative way, or something that's, you know, controlling or manipulative. But here's what we're really pointing at. What we're pointing at is, the internet conflicts of people that are just going on incredible rants, and then ranting on other people as well. And people just yelling at each other over, you know, their Facebook feed or over their-I don't know, I'm not the best at this-you know, in their Facebook comments, or their-I don't know if you do it on Instagram, but Twitter, all that kind of fun stuff, where people are just going back and forth ripping each other apart. Here's my question for you: Do you need that in your life? And what happens when you see it? There's this great feature. I don't do a whole lot of social media, but what I do, I've discovered the great feature of unfollowing. There are some people I love dearly, I care about. And you know, I think they're great people. But man when they get on social media, they lose their minds. I'm not saying that there aren't great posts from people that are trying to stand up for something that's important, right? I'm not saying that at all. I'm talking about the people that are going ballistic, calling people out, arguing fighting over stuff that is a colossal waste of time. It's not something you should be spending time on, much less allowing to influence you. How is it helping? What is it doing for you? The key is, if that's affecting you in a negative way, and it most likely is. And again, I don't want you to get confused with having your pulse on what's going on in the world. There's plenty of things that you can gain information from to see what's going on in the world to make smart decisions in life. That doesn't involve you getting into an argument with somebody who just doesn't know what the crap they're talking about. Or maybe you don't know what you're talking about.

Chris LoCurto  10:15

So you have to ask yourself, what are the boundaries that you need to put in place here? Now we shared 2 Timothy 2:23 on another episode before, but it's a great one to pull up again. "But refuse, shut your mind against, have nothing to do with, trifling, ill-informed, unedifying, stupid controversies over ignorant questionings, for you know that you foster strife and breed quarrels." I think that's probably the Amplified Version, but you get the point. Stay away from that crap. There are times if I'm finding myself trying to help in a situation, and it's just turning into ridiculous banter or just controversy for the point of controversy, or somebody just wants to argue for argument's sake, or somebody's feeling incredibly out of control in the moment, I stop.

Chris LoCurto  11:11

I just stop, I take a look, am I able to help this person in this moment? And the truth is, if I know them well enough that I can have a discussion about what they're experiencing, then I'll have that discussion. But folks, once I get to a place of recognizing I cannot help here, then I remove myself from the conversation. Or at least I try to, because it's a waste of time. Right? If somebody wants to fight and argue about something, guess what? They are going to fight and argue with whoever they can. So, what boundaries do you need? Do you need to put something in place, because guess what? You might need to cut out-unfollow some of those people. If those are things that are ending up in your social media feed, cut it out, do something. Number two, and let me tell you, this is one that I struggled with 21 years ago, the Bush v. Gore election. I used to have the news on, I'd get up in the morning, and I would flip the news on to see what was going on, and man after just 10 minutes, I was upset. And leaving, going to work, upset. And I finally just stopped watching the news, period. I didn't even turn the news back on. And people have always told me, "Chris, you got to watch the news." No, actually, I don't have to watch the news. I didn't turn it on until this last election just to get some pieces of information to see what was going on so I could actually understand what was happening. But even when I did, 21 years later, op-that's not absolutely true. When COVID hit, I actually turned it on to see what was going on for the shutdowns. So there you have it. Alright, 21 years later, I turn the news on and guess what happens? Five minutes in I'm already frustrated. Guess what I'm not watching right now? The news. Why? Because I know listening to ridiculous people talk about stuff and call evil things good and call good things evil is a waste of my time. It just frustrates me because it's existing. It's not helping. So you may have to remove your news feed, right? You definitely may have to find a better version of a newsfeed that's for sure. Number three, social media up to the second notifications. Now listen, it drives me nuts, to watch people that are constantly getting notifications on their social media, getting notifications on things that seem absolutely urgent, but are absolutely not important. And this is a pet peeve of mine; these like Apple watches, and stuff where people are looking down at any text that comes in, or anything that comes through, they're sitting in a conversation, and then they raise their watch up and laugh and then go back to a conversation. That is so rude to me, it drives me nuts. I can't handle that. I think it's just ridiculous. Because apparently whatever showing up on your wrist is way more important than me in that moment if I'm having a conversation with you. So here's the deal: what are the things that are coming up from your social media feed that are the up to the second notifications that are telling you that what's going on? Why is that so important? What is that doing? It's pulling your focus away from whatever you should be focused on in the moment. I'm not saying you can't have some notifications on something that you really think you need to gain information on, you know what I'm talking about. These consistent ones, where your phone is always going off, your watch is always going off, your computer's always going off, showing you that there's a notification that you've got to go check out. Think about it. What if it's your team members doing it? Then they are losing time and losing their focus, to go find out something that's probably stupid and ridiculous. And then trying to get back to work. So if that's you, if you've got those up to the second notifications, turn them off. Get rid of them. You will find so much more peace when you do. You'll find so much more peace when you don't have those things coming at you every five minutes, or every five seconds. Number four, of the seven deadly influences; toxic relationships. Folks, this can be friends, this can be family. Now, here's what I'm going to tell you, I only allow certain people into my inner circle.

Chris LoCurto  16:12

So here's what I want you to understand, my inner circle. And when I say inner circle, I'm talking about people who influence me, the people who influence me, are pretty darn healthy. I'm not putting people in my inner circle, to influence me that are unhealthy, that are struggling, that are controlling, that are manipulative, that that won't stand up and take responsibility for themselves. Those are the things when you look around you, you may have some folks that are super controlling, that are super attacky, that want to set your reality on a consistent basis, that maybe want to drive you right towards other negative influences. You know, if you've got that shopping buddy, you're trying to save money, and they're like, "Hey, let's go buy 17 of these things." Right? "Let's go spend some money." That's not somebody you want in your inner circle. If you've got somebody who's constantly setting your reality, and trying to convince you that you're a horrible person, and everything is based on what they are doing, that's not a healthy person. Once again, I in no way am saying, you should allow yourself to be a victim, "Oh, the world's just against me, all these people.." If you're doing something stupid, fix it, solve it. If you're doing something that you shouldn't be doing, take responsibility. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about those toxic relationships that are all take and no give. Those toxic relationships that are looking to convince you that you're something horrible or bad, so it makes them feel better about themselves. That is not the same as having somebody in your life who's pointing out that you're doing stupid, when you need to hear that you're doing stupid. So you may have to remove some toxic relationships, at least from your inner circle. Now, let me tell you, I am somebody who believes the words of Jesus, when He said in Matthew 5:17-19, that he is not changing not even one single bit of the Torah and the prophets. I follow the 10 commandments. I believe him when he says he's not changing that. What's one of those 10 commandments? Honor your father and your mother. So here's what I want to say when we're talking about toxic relationships. There are two people on this planet, you better take caution with, and that your parents. Why? Because God says so. It doesn't mean you don't get away from toxic behavior, it doesn't mean that you don't put healthy boundaries in, it means you don't dishonor them in the process. Many of you if you have a toxic parent, you can put in healthy boundaries and keep your mouth shut at the same time. Right? You can put in healthy boundaries, and you know, put some distance in there. I'm not saying completely remove if you don't have to. I'm just saying, keep yourself from being affected by a toxic parent without dishonouring that parent at the same time. That's an important stipulation. Everybody else, you need to put in a healthy boundary you put that healthy boundary in place. It doesn't mean that you go attack them, it doesn't mean that you go treat them like crap, it doesn't mean that you become controlling and abusive to them. It means you put the healthy boundary in place. Even if that means removing yourself from any of the situations. Toxic relationships, especially if they're in your inner circle and they're influencing you, will influence you in a negative way, consistently. It will influence your decision making, it will influence how you treat people, it will influence how you feel on a daily basis. I am so excited whenever I'm struggling with something, that I can turn to people who love me greatly, and will give me a gut punch, if I need it. Will tell me, "Hey, Chris, you're the one who's struggling here, you're the one who needs to work on something." Right? But having people in your inner circle that are healthy, is powerful. Number five. This is one of the big ones that we talk about all the time, in Next Level Life, and that is negative self-talk.

Chris LoCurto  20:36

All of the negative things, you're telling yourself, all of the lies, you tell yourself now, it's funny. We've done over 400 two-day events with people coming through Next Level Life. That's a crazy powerful one-on-one event, if you've not heard about it. And one of the things that every single person has in common, which there's a lot of things, you would be blown away all those that have been through Next Level Life. As they look at other people, they're able to see, "Oh, wait, I'm not the only one who's dealing with this. Everybody deals with this stuff." One of the things that everybody deals with, you tell yourself lies, and you believe them. Now, you may hear that and go, "Well, that's ridiculous. How could I possibly do that?" It happens a lot. For some folks, it happens all the time. Here's the thing I want you to think about; if you are telling yourself, nobody's ever gonna love you well enough, you're never going to be good enough for the job, you're too fat for people to like you, you are not smart enough. You're not good enough. Nobody likes you, you're not worthy, you'll never have a great spouse, you'll never never make enough money. You have to convince people how great you are through work so that people see how amazing you are. Any of this stuff, and we have tons of examples that we use in this process for people to see that. You know, "It's my responsibility to make people happy. Other people's happiness is my responsibility. I must pull people out of their negative stuff. And it's my job to do so." Any of these things that are focused on your worth, these are lies. Because it's not truth. It's not truth that you can't ever find a good spouse. It's not truth that you can't ever make enough money. It's not truth that you're too overweight for people to like you. It's not truth that you're not good enough. You may not be good enough to human beings. And depending upon who's in your circle, that's maybe a truth. But guess what? Human beings do not set your worth. God does. God set your worth. God says what your worth is. God says that we're made in His image. God says that he loves us so much that He consistently pursues our hearts, and tries to draw us to him. God's the one who took on the sins of the world. And didn't say, "Don't worry about it. You don't have to ever think about this again." He said, "I'm taking this on, be obedient to me. Do the things I asked as a loving father, not about your salvation. It's about your love for me. Because your salvation only comes through faith. But I still am a loving father and expect you to follow me and do the things I say. Why? Because I am your loving father." So parents think about that for a second. The same way that you want your kids to be obedient to you, when you ask them to clean their room, that they should just go clean their room out of love for you. God's looking for you to do the same thing to Him. But what's the problem? We don't live our lives, gaining our worth from God. We live lives getting worth from human beings. And so since we do that, we're constantly trying to convince people that we're smart enough, that we're attractive enough, that we're funny enough, that we're good enough, that we are talented enough, you pick it, whatever the thing is that you're struggling with. And the problem with it is, is that we only get man's approval for about 30 seconds, which makes us feel good for about five minutes. And so then we have to go do it again and again and again and again. Trust me, this is affecting you way more than you know. Way more than you understand. And it's painful. So here's the thing I want you to do. You need to start recognizing all of the things that you tell yourself, write them down, spend 15, 20, 30 minutes, thinking through lies that you tell yourself, and then you've got to figure out what the truth is. And the truth isn't rarely the opposite, every now and then it is, but it's rarely the opposite of the lie. "I'm too overweight for people to like me." The truth is not, "No, I'm not."

Chris LoCurto  25:37

What you have to do is ask yourself the question, why am I saying that to myself? Why am I telling myself that? And then dig down in there? Well, why would I say that to myself? Well, because I feel like people are judging me because of my weight. Well, does it mean that I'm not overweight? No, it doesn't mean that at all. I very well may be overweight, that may be an actual legit truth. But what's my struggle? My struggle is that people are looking at me physically and saying, I can't possibly like you because of your weight. That's my concern. So what's the true issue here? The true issue is I'm basing my worth, on the judgment of people that I don't even know exists. The judgment part, I know that people exist, I see them. Or maybe they're just in my mind, I don't know. I'm talking about that. I'm creating that thing inside of my brain, that negative self-talk that says, surely people are judging me and they don't like me. That's got to go. So what is the truth? So how do you battle that lie? The lie of, people can't like me because I'm overweight. The truth is, I'm saying that because I'm losing worth. And I am creating something in my brain that I don't even know exists, which by the way, is fear. What is fear? Fear is the thing that you say, if you're not being chased by a lion, which is legit, in the moment fear, this is happening. All of the fear that's assumptive, is something that you're saying might possibly take place, and yet it hasn't yet. It'd be interesting to be able to calculate how many things we've been afraid of in life that never actually took place. So what do you say? What is the truth? How do you battle that lie? People can't like me because of my weight. The truth is, my worth is not in my weight. The truth also may be, hey, I need to get physically healthy. I need to take care of my body in a better way, so that I'm healthy for me. But here's the rest of the truth. My worth is in the King of the universe, I am a child, I am a son, of the King of the universe. That's truth. He loves me, he's crazy about me, he doesn't want me to be unhealthy. He wants me to be healthy in all aspects. Not just my physical being more than anything, my relationship with Him. These are things you can tell yourself. And you may have to say it 400 times to get that lie to go away but you keep battling. Okay. That's the first five of the seven deadly influences. We're gonna hit two more, which are probably going to surprise you when we come back right after this.

Chris LoCurto  28:35

Next Level Life is our two day personal discovery experience. It's a one-on-one personalized event where we guide you through a process to help you discover your root system, to get unstuck in life, and to discover what's holding you back from freedom and peace. Imagine this, what if you could wake up every morning with a clear purpose? What would it look like to have healthier relationships with less conflict? Where would you be in a few months, a year, five years if you had clarity, purpose, and peace? Probably a big difference from where you stand today. Now, I know it's possible because I've been where you are, asking myself, is there more? There is, and there's a better way and it starts with Next Level Life. You can go to chrislocurto.com/discover to take the next step. Now if you're struggling with discontentment, regret, or not feeling good enough, which most of you are, if you're filled with anxiety, or your relationships are lacking, don't keep going through the same motions every single day, learn how to move past the things robbing you of peace. Go to chrislocurto.com/discover and take the next step.

Chris LoCurto  29:49

Alright, we're back, and we're talking about the last two, which there's not only seven. There's a heck of a lot more than this. But seven things we really want you to focus on as far as influences that are considerably negative in your life right now. If you have any of these, then what do you do to fix those? So the last two, number six, your entertainment streams. Whoo, I'm gonna step on a lot of toes right now, those of you who claim to be Christian, I'm gonna ask you a question, why are you still giving money to entertainment streams that exploit sexuality of children? Think about that for a second.

Chris LoCurto  30:33

 I am not saying that I am perfect in any way, shape, or form. Oh my gosh, I have a lot of stuff that I'm working through as far as getting negative influences out of my life. But there are some vendors, what do we want to call them? Entertainment companies that are showing you, they are pushing this disgusting filth. And what most people are doing who claim to be Christian to convince themselves is to say, "Well, I'm not watching that." And you keep giving them your money. Choose. Make a decision. I don't think there's anything cute about exploiting the sexuality of little girls. I think it's disgusting. And horrible. Terrible. I don't think it's funny to put on things of our Lord and Savior, that go absolutely against His own words and sayings and teachings. I just don't think that's fun. And you don't get my money. So, things to think about. Is the entertainment streams that you're focusing on are they draining you or fueling you? What's occupying your attention? Are you sitting down and watching crap? I watched a movie, well, I started a movie I think this past weekend, where I had heard about this movie from like, 1995, or something like that, I tell you, it's funny, we have found ourselves if we're gonna watch a movie, we try and go backwards to something that's actually a little bit more light, and not a lot of the crap that's being put out now. And I heard this was a great suspense movie for decades. I've heard people say, "Oh, it's great. It's great. It's great." So we started this movie. And man, I'll tell you what I got so far into it. And I just was done. The evil that was in this movie, this was 1995. Which I don't know why I'm saying that with surprise. But you know, it was crap. I had turned it off once to something else I want to something happy. I went to something that was-actually I don't even remember what I want to but I know I changed my attitude very quickly with that. Because it was crap. It was evil junk. And I'm sitting there going, well, this isn't godly. This isn't something that's okay to be putting in my brain. I'm not saying that I don't watch some action movies or some stuff. That's, you know, crazy. I'm talking about, when you get to the point where your insides are like, this is just evil. This is just crap. Turn it off. Get away from it. If you are watching stuff that has sex, if you're watching stuff that has nudity, if you're watching stuff that has control and abuse, if you're watching this kind of stuff, make a decision. How is this occupying your attention? What's he doing? Let me point back in history to a few situations. When the Romans overtook the Greeks, they said the reason why they were able to knock out the Greeks was their love for entertainment. They were so focused on entertainment, they were able to conquer them militarily. Think about that. During that same time period, the Jews who were occupied by both the Greeks and the Romans would have a saying, "Never darken the door of a theater." Why? Because the entertainment was rotting people's minds, the things that they were using. Well guess what, folks? It's not hard to take a look at the entertainment streams that are out there that are rotting people's minds. It's ridiculous. There is so much crap. That is not helpful. What happens if you just remove it? What if that's affecting you in a negative way? "Well, Chris, it's not affecting me in a negative way." Hmm. Okay. I'm gonna push back on that. Right? And by the way, if there's something you just want to watch, there's a great service called VidAngel that has tons of filters. So if there's something that I feel like I want to watch, I go there look, and see if they've got it. I've already got all my filters set to remove sex, to remove nudity, to remove cuss words, to remove, certain situations. And that way, when that thing comes up in that movie, it just bypasses it. Yeah, it's worth it. To not have that influence in my brain, right? We are not perfect. We're human beings that are struggling. We struggle with all kinds of influences, and you have to, you know, put things in place. Alright, number seven. This is probably going to shock you. Fun distractions.

Chris LoCurto  35:17

Folks, let me say, fun distractions can many times deplete you or detour you by occupying your time that should be focused on something else. You are not hearing me say, so if you're sitting here listening to these things going, "Oh, my gosh, Chris doesn't want me to have a life." That is absolutely not what is being communicated here. What is being communicated? What are the negative things that are keeping you from having a great life, a healthy life? And believe it or not, something that can do that is fun distractions. What if you have responsibilities in life, and instead of going after those responsibilities, you're spending time wasting money on toys and things and, you know, hobbies that are draining your bank account, and so you don't have the money to do things. You're robbing yourself of options, because you're spending your money on hobbies. For me, I used to travel a lot. For about 13 years, I traveled all over the country, usually would get back Sunday morning midday or something and be back at work on Monday. So my butt would plop on the couch. And believe it or not, yes, I love cooking, I would turn on like the Food Network. Not an evil show, not an evil network, right? But what I would find myself is is that I would spend the rest of my afternoon just logged into this, you know, this TV show, not even doing anything productive. Now I needed to rest, I needed to sit my butt and kind of recoup some. Praise God, I've replaced times like that with family time and focusing on things that are important for the family and moving the family forward, right? But here's the deal. If you have fun things, and go have fun, go do fun. But if your fun things are occupying all your time and distracting you from doing important things, well do something about it. If you are one of those parents, that feels like your kids have to be in 17 different sports every single week. And your kids are running ragged, and you're running ragged. And the food that you're eating is crap, because it's all fast food and your family's falling apart. But you keep convincing yourself that you're doing the right thing because other parents say you need to do that stuff. Well. You don't. Look at what's happening. Look at how it's affecting you make decisions. So there are seven different things, Internet Conflicts, News Feed, Social Media up to the second notifications, Toxic Relationships, Negative Self-Talk, Entertainment Streams, and Fun Distractions. These are all things you need to make healthy decisions on. You're not hearing me say wipe everything out and just live a boring life. I'm saying, you will have a much better life, a much more fun fulfilling life. When you can look at each one of these things in a very healthy way. This is not the time to allow yourself to be preoccupied and polluted by the things that allow doubt, that allow fear, that allow insecurity self-worth issues, or just plain anger or frustration to fester. Instead, get that crap out of your life. But here's the biggest key, you have to replace it with healthy life giving things. If you do not replace it with healthy life giving things, then you can't be surprised when it comes back even stronger. Even heavier. So, what are some of the things you need to do? Put in boundaries. Put in healthy boundaries. Sometimes one of the most powerful things you can say is "No". I've got a buddy of mine that I've just met and we've become fast friends and like Dude, I'm gonna ask you to come and hang out from time to time it is perfectly acceptable to say, "No Chris, I'm not I'm not doing it." Right? "Come on over and have some coffee." "No, I'm busy. I'm doing something." No is perfectly acceptable. You can say no, right? You have to create healthy limits for your life. Understand sometimes you need to tell yourself no. Sometimes telling you no. No, I should not be watching this movie. No, I should not be looking at this sexy stuff. No, I shouldn't be watching these rants and partaking in these rants on the internet. No, I shouldn't be allowing this heavy negative news to affect me. Sometimes saying no to you, helps you to get on unpolluted. Helps you to get healthy. Putting healthy habits in place is saying yes to what's right for you.

Chris LoCurto  40:12

If you say no to the junk and say yes to the healthy stuff, you'll be amazed at how much happier you will find yourself, how much joy you will find when you do that. So give yourself that gift today, the gift of saying yes, to positive, healthy influences. Find healthy people in your life. Surround yourself with those healthy people. Maybe push some of the other negative influences out a step or two, right? Out a circle or two. And stay focused on what makes you healthy. It doesn't mean that you don't love people well, it doesn't mean that you don't care for people, it doesn't mean that you don't hang out with people. What it means is you make the healthiest choices for your life. Well, folks, I hope this has helped you today. We want you to share this with someone you know who needs it. Think right now of who needs to hear this episode, and then share it with them. Help them to get some of this help as well. And by the way, it means the world to us, if we are helping you, we would like for you to help us to help more people. If you would go on iTunes, like, share us. Subscribe to us, hit the little, whatever button stars, leave a comment. You can tell I'm so tech-savvy, it's crazy. But every time you do that, that helps us to get in other people's lives as well and help them to get what we think is healthy information in their lives, and hopefully get them away from something else that's crappy. On top of that, if you have any thoughts or feedback, feel free to send that to us at [email protected]. Well as always, we hope this has helped you. We want you to take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.

Podcasts referenced:

https://chrislocurto.com/2-critical-steps-to-ditch-your-bad-habits-encore/

https://chrislocurto.com/shutting-down-the-negative-voices-in-our-head/

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