Unsubscribe from the Irrelevant

Welcome everybody to another episode of Halftime Talks. My name is Rahim Rasul, and you’re listening to the podcast. We recognize that in the middle of our game of life, whether you’re up by 10 or down by 20, we all need halftime talks to uplift us, inspire us and challenge us to bring that level of performance. You know it’s gonna take to win the game. You got around another episode of halftime talks. You know, if you’ve been here before, the first thing that we do is we get our mind right. We align on something that we can appreciate, and in this week’s appreciation, that one thing that I want to give some attention to right now are the unfavorables.

God bless the unfavorables, those who make sure that we go back into our workshop and build something beautiful. Obviously, that’s a smaller, less mature perspective. But guess what? Those chips on our shoulder have given us the most steam, the most momentum, the most drive, the most passion, the most fire, so unfavorables, just be who you are. Just be who you are, because you bring so much life and light to the world. You show us the other side of possibility and challenge us and challenge us to be better. And then when we evolve and grow, we get over you. But until that point, thank you. The unfavorables.

In the immortal words of hip hop laureate Joe button, I’d like to thank the listenership for being out there supporting us each week as we try to provide a spin on the less obvious, a perspective that can wedge itself into our our thought process, that we can rise. We don’t have to be the Hindenburg where we get up there and explode, but we can rise out of, you know, conventional thought to be able to see perspective that otherwise would not be available in this week’s episode, what we’re going to be talking about is the notion of unsubscribing. I know you have an idea of what that means, but in this episode, we’re going to go a little bit into detail and and break down and tease out some practical ways in which we can further our process, help our cause, clear the runway, so when it’s time for us to zip up, launch up and take off, you know, we have a clear path.

So as we get ready to get started. Go grab a pad and pin. Prepare to take some mental notes. And guess what, even if they’re just mental notes, they’re good enough. Without further ado, let’s launch.

So as I begin to talk about this episode, this episode of unsubscribe, it would probably be best if i i told you where it began. It began in the fall of 2016 I was a little overwhelmed. The stimulus was really racking my brain, so much so that I knew I needed a hard reset. You know, when you do that hard factory reset, it lets you kind of feel the delta between how bad it got and how clear you are afterwards. It’s like that detox, literally, that detox to where you allow your organs to work in their proper order. And that’s what this was. This was a tech fast the detox, per se, of two weeks of no phone, no computer, no internet, no email, none of the above, just strictly utilizing all old school stuff, paper and pen, notepad and all these things, what I would soon come to discover is that I was addicted.

I was addicted to so many little things in the process, I found myself craving this digital lifestyle that I had grown so accustomed to, and day after day, I had to solve the challenges that were once so easily one click away, directions. Things, phone numbers, even being available to certain people that I deemed important. But what most came about was a level of clarity that I could see my behavioral relationship with technology taking a precedence over intentionality. And so afterwards, afterwards, it was a beautiful place. It was like I could see so clearly. I think the best way I could describe it was I was able to clear the muddy waters of my mind, and in doing so, it was like draining the pool, draining the tub, or being able to sort out the ingredients that were really contributing to the stew and the ones that were just taking up space.

So what does it mean to subscribe? What does it mean to unsubscribe? Well, ultimately, anything commanding our attention, be it the people, be it the food, be it the apps, be it how we prioritize our time, the things consistently garnering our attempt our attention, The conversations, the emails, the phone calls, the mail, those are the things that we’re subscribed to. Often we would like to think that we’re not subscribed to them, but guess what? If they’re in a pot, then they’re in the mix. So to unsubscribe became an act of being deliberate about what I wanted in my mix. So the first thing I did is I went through all my apps and guess what?

Never came back. A lot of social media, Twitter fell off my phone. Phone numbers that I never called anymore came off my phone. I went through my email and I unsubscribed from a lot of those. Needless. What do you call the newsletters? Because they were just they weren’t adding anything to my mix. Now, one of the big terms that became really pronounced during the tech fast and I carried on to today, and I want to share with you, is this idea of relevance, like what is relevant, what is contributing to an upstream current toward everything that I desire, what has momentum in the positive ways that are adding to my happiness, my well being, my state of mind, and all other contributing factors that ultimately add towards the beneficial outcome of who I am.

Obviously, there are conversations with people that you just question, why am I spending so much attention and time here? Why am I watching the news when I just ultimately feel powerless as a result of it? Why am I going to these websites when I really don’t care about the content? A lot of times, we are oblivious to a lot of the things that we are subscribed to. Now you might be asking yourself, why go through this effort? Why take the time? Why care so much about something that may or may not make a hell of difference, a because you deserve it, and when I say you deserve it, you deserve to have a clear runway to get some of the ideas and the projects and the passions off the ground.

A lot of times, that lift that we require is being burdened by the weight that we are carrying along with us. Not everything is relevant to where we are now, a lot of things we’ve done because we’ve blindly subscribed to them without understanding the emotional cost, the time cost, the mental cost, the cognitive low cost. And as we free ourselves, we begin begin to see a vantage point that would never have allowed them to enter otherwise. So time is one of these things that you’ll get back. How do you plan to reinvest it? Are you just going to substitute one thing that you subscribe for for something that you’ll eventually un.

Subscribe to again. How do you know what to bring in? Is it essential? Is it relevant? Does it add to your well being? And then now we’ve understand that we have a system, a a what? How do you say, a quantifiable criteria for how we select things that will enter into our mix. Unsubscribe is a powerful thing. Unsubscribing from the negative conversations. You know, those, those people you get on the phone with, and they bring your spirit down. You know, those websites you go to, and it just feels like what they call now the echo chamber of ideas, and it just brings you down. It doesn’t contribute to the solutions and the causes and the passions that you really want to bring about in this world.

You have the ability to figure out how to no longer dilute what you call concentration. And your concentration is how you the purity of your mind in the moment. And just like trying to sprint uphill, it fatigues the processing system. It fatigues the system a lot quicker as we as we level out and let go of that which isn’t relevant to our moment or now, we’re lighter. We’re light hearted. So I contend to you look within your life right now for the things that are adding to it, double down in those places to the things that aren’t unsubscribed. And this is a literal behavior. Go in your email, figure out, why are you even subscribed.

Why are these apps on your phone? Why do you feel the need to go to social media? Why do you feel the need to entertain foolishness in conversations these things? You’re going to feel the gap at first, but then you’ll feel the refreshing sustenance of a clarity of thought, No longer will the mud, the waters be muddied, they will be clear. And then in that clarity, you’ll be able to distinguish, even better, the relevant from the non relevant. That’s unsubscribe. Thank you guys for listening to another episode of Halftime Talks. My name is Raheem Russell once again, like I said, Thank you for listening my subscribership, as Joe butter would say.

And I look forward to continuing to share these ideas with you guys. I look forward to continuing to explore and express how we can all reach toward that feasible possibility. So until next time, make sure you go to the website halftimetalks.net. Subscribe, rate and review, share with a friend. The more who know, the more we grow. And guess what, we definitely want to grow. So take care, go forth and seek joy and ultimately, be kind to yourself. Peace you