Why media bias is hurting you & how to stop it
Are you willing to spend 19 years in a room working on your goals and vision to reach maximum achievement?
That’s exactly what the billionaire and founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, did. However, most of us have never heard this side of the story.
The media portrays a young Bill Gates who quit Harvard School to pursue his vision and overnight became one of the world’s richest man. That story is quite more interesting and appealing to the public than the 19 years reality.
The media only shows the final result of successful people, so in a sense, you are biased to think it happened overnight when in reality it took years of dedication for the person to achieve their current success story.
Keep in mind that tv news are biased, they get paid according to their ratings, hence they are a corporation whose sole intention is to make money rather than to inform you with the truth.
Many people believe they aren’t susceptible to this bias but we all are. Considering we are sense creatures and use our sight, smell, touch to form ideas and principles, our perceptions are highly influenced by the bias put out by the media, whether we are aware of it or not.
Now, the way the media bias is hurting us the most is by injecting false perceptions into their programing and delivering it to us, the mass population. For example, think about diet and weight loss program advertisements and how they usually show an image of an overweight person before and right next to it a picture of that same person but now fit and in shape, only months after starting to take their product and/or using their program.
This in UNREALISTIC!
Anyone who has lost weight and has managed to keep it off will tell you that it is a process and an on going effort!
Even building muscles take time. Working out everyday without seeing immediate results is challenging, but your body requires time to build muscles, it’s an everyday process that takes months and sometimes years to achieve!
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Especially, if you are a person who didn’t have the habit of exercising daily, who is overweight and/or have unhealthy eating habits. It may take your body a couple of years before it can adjust to a new metabolism and for you to really see the results you so wish for.
Realistic time frame
In life everything takes time and you must have a realistic time frame to conquer your goals.
As you start working towards what you want, you must give it time and continue to persist although it seems as if nothing is really happening.
This time frame where you just work and no recognition nor results really come about are called the dark years. Every successful person has had their dark years.
Take Mozart, who worked on many symphonies for years without a single person hearing it, or Da Vinci who painted for years before he could sell a single painting, or Nelson Mendela who spent over 20 years in prison before he could bring change to his country and receive the Nobel Prize.
And just like them, there are many more entrepreneurs, artists and world leaders who will tell you that before they were successful there were a lot of years of hard work and much patience.
But how can you really stop the media from hurting you with their “lottery ticket” bias, this idea that you can suddenly hit the jackpot in one day and be a winner the next?
Well, the best way to stop the media bias from hurting you and affecting the outcomes in your life is to be aware of realistic time frames and to limit the amount of information you receive from tv, radio and other media sources.
Reading biographies can actually solve both of these issues; first you will hear it directly from the author how much time it actually took for them to accomplish their goals and it will also disconnect you from the general media bias.
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Low expectations are key
The adamant reader and investor, Warren Buffet, who was married to his first wife for 50 years before she passed away, was asked the secret to a successful marriage, his answer was simple: “It is not the looks, the money, the intelligence, or anything else. The secret to marriage is low expectations”.
Low expectations can also be the key to success in everything you want to achieve in life. Low expectations keep you in reality by not giving you false hopes that minimum work within a small time frame will give you the gains you so much desire.
That doesn’t mean you have to have low expectations out of your life and yourself, it means that if you have high expectations make sure that the time frame in which you want to accomplish also matches it.
It’s totally okay to have high expectations with the right time frame in mind.
Here’s a quick example of low expectation and high expectation being used realistically:
Low expectation — Overweight person desires to lose 10 pounds and set a time frame of 3 months to accomplish the goal. Person starts to remove sugary drinks, lowers their carb intake, eats more veggies and starts to exercise three times a week.
High expectation — Overweight person desires to obtain a six pack and increase muscular mass. Person sets a one year target to accomplish the goal, cuts all sugar, eats minimum amount of carbs, eat a very lean diet composed of meats, veggies and small amount of fruits and exercises five times a week including cardio work out and weight lifting.
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Now, let’s say the person was not realistic about their time frame, both scenarios would have not been successful because an unrealistic time frame can discourage any person from continuing their work. If the time frame for their goal to have a six pack was 6 months rather than year, chances are they would have quit once the 6 months was up and there was no concrete results to show
There’s an old Chinese proverb that says : “The temptation to give up is greatest right before you succeed”.
That usually happen because people have an unrealistic time frame of when their goals should be accomplished. When it doesn’t happen within that time frame they simply give up, leaving all of their hard work behind to perish in vain.
A new business is like raising a child
In this 34 step of the 67 steps, Tai Lopez points out to Allan Nation’s idea of the process of starting a new business and waiting for it to bring results which can also be a great example of how a realistic time frame of return for your activities should be analyzed.
Nation presented the theory that businesses are very much like raising a child. The first week with baby is hell, the baby eats every two hours including night time, you barely get any sleep and nothing goes smooth.
Then the first year with baby gets a bit easier, they are growing up and although you still have to teach them everything and constantly attend to them, you can finally sleep through the night.
Then slowly the child starts to learn more and more and next thing you know they have become a teenager, where they can almost take care of themselves. Until finally, they have fully grown up and the baby who once needed you for everything can now take care of you.
However, by then 20 plus years has already passed by and it feels like that baby grow up within a blink of eye. That can also be very true for business and life goals.
You have nurture your goals and visions even when it seems as if nothing is moving forward, you have to be willing to work the realistic time frame it takes, are you willing to do that to be successful?
Questions worth pondering
Here are a few questions provided in the 67 steps course to help you analyze your time frames in life. Answer them honestly.
1 — What is an example of something you have had an unrealistic time frame for health?
2 — What is an example of something you have had an unrealistic time frame for wealth?
3 — What is an example of something you have had an unrealistic time frame for love and relationship?
4 — What is an example of something you have had an unrealistic time frame for happiness?
5 — What is more realistic time frame for these goals?
Books and authors mentioned in this 67 step (step 34)
Michael Jordan : The Life by Roland Lazenby
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