May 12, 2022 by Brian Weiner No CommentsChanging The World One Thought At A Time., Lessons From The Mountain

Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything… Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t you so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.

Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything…

Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t you so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.

Having spent my career in advertising and entertainment, I have watched our industry defend itself time and time again for the projected influence that any kind of claimant is making on a piece of media with an inference as to how it negatively impacted a person to do something improper in life.

In some cases, there are pretty applicable correlations to what somebody saw in a film or television show and what they chose to actually do in the real world. In other cases, it feels very much like an attempt to use all media as a catch basin for guilt.

My perspective is that the media is unquestionably a dominant influence in society. How could it not be? Between all of the entertainment, commercials, news, and social media, we are perpetually bombarded by all forms of influence, both positive and negative.

For any of us to pretend that we live in a bubble that is immune to personal susceptibility is, I believe, an ignorant posture.

We might find all sorts of positive role models in our entertainment that give us a reinforcement of any kind of moral code. We only need to look at the Kardashians to point out how celebrity influence is more rampant than ever before.

The commercials that we watch create stimuli using Pavlovian technique and other methods in order that they might push a consumer into a decision that that consumer might not otherwise consider.

So with all of that stimuli, are we all having our natural life path significantly altered? I would leave that to each individual to determine for themselves, but as this aphorism points out, perhaps there is a necessary filtration process in order that we might weed out some of the negative stimuli and allow ourselves to continue to wake up into whom we are most destined to be.

Life is such a precious journey, taking some time to disengage from all of the messaging that is part of our perpetual bombardment is a very healthy option that should be considered on a very regular basis.

Happy Thursday!

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Written by Brian Weiner

When I was 5 years old, I discovered that the lemon tree in the backyard + dixie cups + water and sugar and I was in business. I have been hooked on that ever since. In 1979, I borrowed $14,000 to create a brand new product... photographic greeting cards with no text on the inside, called Paradise Photography. That was the start of The Illusion Factory. Since then, The Illusion Factory has been entrusted by all of the major studios and broadcasters with the advertising and marketing of over $7 billion in filmed, live, broadcast, gaming, AR, VR and regulated gaming forms of entertainment, generating more than $100 Billion in revenue and 265 awards for creativity and technology for our clients. When I took a break from film school at UCLA to move to Hawaii, my mother did not lecture me. Instead, she took 150 of her favorite aphorisms and in her beautiful calligraphy, wrote them artistically throughout a blank journal. That is the origin of the Lessons from the Mountain series. Since then, on my journeys to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise, I have spent countless hours contemplating words of wisdom from the sages of all races, genders and political persuasions, constantly accumulating the thoughts to guide me on my life path. I hope you enjoy my books. Please let me know your thoughts, as I highly value your feedback!