Bring The Noise! Actually, Please Don't

Shortest Version

Control your mind—or be controlled


Short-ish Version

• Filter the Input –  Is it true? Is it positive? Is it useful? If not, it’s noise. 

• Be Ruthless With Your Time – Busy-ness blocks business. 

• Own What You Can Control – Guard the space between your ears like your success depends on it—because it does!

Long Version

The only economy that truly matters?
The one between your ears.

Your mindset.
Your focus.
Your mental bandwidth.

These dictate your perception of the world around you.

We live in an era of maximum noise, 24/7. It's no longer just background hum, it's full-blown digital shouting. Fear-laced headlines. Algorithm-driven outrage. A never-ending scroll of anxiety bait.

All of it aimed at the most valuable real estate you own: your mind.

500,000 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube—daily.

That’s ~21,000 hours of stuff to watch every single hour.

For perspective; Warner Bros. has been creating content for 102 years.
In that time, they’ve generated 145,000 hours worth.

YouTube hits that volume every 8 hours, around the clock.

Let that sink in: 102 years of work, replicated every 8-hour shift.

And the pace? Accelerating.
Expect one million hours uploaded daily by next year—easily.

The result?
A steady diet of mental junk food.

It’s no wonder the average person wrestles with up to 50,000 words of negative self-talk a day.
We’re overdosing on information.
And under-dosing on intention.

So, how do you cut through it?

Start with the Three Golden Filters. Apply them to every thought you think, article you read, or post you share:

• Is it true?

• Is it positive?

• Is it useful?

If it doesn’t check all three boxes, it’s noise.
Scroll past. (Just stop scrolling.)
Mute it.
Exit the tab.
Exit the lab—stop being the lab rat.
Move on.

Staying informed doesn’t require full emotional investment.
You don’t need to live inside the firehose to understand what’s burning.

*Note; next time you see a post that you wonder about, maybe one that seems to be 'news' or maybe someone citing some real estate data, immigration numbers, or crime stats, instead of just mindlessly clicking 'like' becuase of your emotional bias - screenshot it and upload it to ChatGPT - or whatever A.I. you're using and ask 'is this real?'

The answer may surprise you.
For things you support, and for things you don't.

Doing this over the past year (less and less) has helped me check out of social media more and more. Which leads to my next point.

Guard your time like it’s under siege—because it is.
Now more than ever.

Mission creep is real.
One innocent scroll turns into 45 minutes in the comments section, arguing with strangers.
That’s not deep work—that’s self-sabotage.

Busy-ness blocks business.

Get ruthless about limits.
Here’s what that looks like in my world:

Notifications permanently off - for everything.

Earbuds in during deep work.
I like Mozart, Chopin, LCD Soundsystem, The Chromatics—task-dependent soundtracks.

A dedicated office outside the home works best.
Not the kitchen island. Not the basement. Not a home-office down the hall.Why?
Because if I can choose work in my home over everything else in my home—I tend to.
(That’s not a win.)

Audiobooks at ~1.5x speed during commutes.
Zero talk radio. Zero 'news'.
These are both just another serving of junk food for the brain.
Whereas books are more like slow cooking.

Airplane Mode at 8PM.
Because no email I’ve read at 11PM has ever made my sleep better.
Worse? Yes.
Better? Never.

This isn’t about being perfect.
It’s about being intentional.

You don’t control the market.
You don’t control the headlines.
You don’t control the latest round of rate speculation.

What you do control: your actions, your attitude, and the inputs you allow into your head.

Control those—and everything else starts to quiet down.

Be kind.
Work hard.
Maintain control.

Guard the space between your ears like your business depends on it—because it does.
More than just your business. (But let’s not get too heavy.)

You’ve got calls to make.
Go!

DW