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Troubador Publishing Ltd - Damien Massias

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66 pages

English

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New notification: you may be wasting time and energy fighting a daily battle that is impossible to win. Growing evidence shows that most of us subconsciously search for fulfilment-self-confidence, validation, connection, purpose, and more-in a place where we'll ironically never find it: social media. What's even more ironic? More and more of us are addicted to the chase and our culture keeps us blind to how damaging this futile quest really is. When used in a healthy way, social media can enhance our lives in a myriad of positive ways. However, the majority of us unknowingly misuse social media in an unhealthy way, rendering it no more beneficial than a virus. And the most dangerous disease is the kind that convinces you you're not even sick so while many believe there is no issue here to discuss, Damien Massias is already concocting a cure. First ingredient: awareness. Massias is a life coach and professional observer who will tell it to you straight-with no sugar-coating but still plenty of genuine sweetness. This book is your guide to navigating (and dodging) the dangers of social media so you can still use it in a healthy way. It examines real life case studies to illustrate how something we think of as being so small and harmless can actually have a colossal, butterfly effect on our lives. But most importantly, this book is a wake-up call to observe, examine, and re-evaluate your own relationship with social media and re-calibrate your compass towards true fulfilment.

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 novembre 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781789012811
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Magpie Effect
Your complete and comprehensive guide to surviving and enjoying the twisted social media era.
#UnsocialMedia
Damien Massias
Copyright © 2018 Damien Massias

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781789012811

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
The Crow and The Fox
By Jean de La Fontaine

Master Crow sat on a tree,
Holding a cheese in his beak.
Master Fox was attracted by the odour,
And tried to attract him thus.
“Mister Crow, good day to you.
You are a handsome and good looking bird!
In truth, if your song is as beautiful as your plumage,
You are the Phoenix of this forest.”
Hearing these words the Crow felt great joy,
And to demonstrate his beautiful voice,
He opened his mouth wide and let drop his prey.
The Fox seized it and said: “My good Sir,
Know that every flatterer,
Lives at the expense of those who take him seriously:
This is a lesson that is worth a cheese no doubt.”
The Crow, embarrassed and confused,
Swore, though somewhat later, that he would never be
tricked thus again.
Contents
Introduction

Chapter 1
The Good News First

Chapter 2
And Now the Bad News

Chapter 3
No Kidding (Or Adulting)—The Danger Starts Young

Chapter 4
Social Media’s Price Tag: A Bill of Mental Health

Chapter 5
Most of It Isn’t Real Anyway

Chapter 6
Are You Still Real?

Chapter 7
The Illusion of Separateness

Chapter 8
Living Someone Else’s Life

Chapter 9
If A Society is Self-Centred, Is It Still A Society ?

Chapter 10
Oversexualised and Undermined

Chapter 11
The Elephant in Your Relationship

Chapter 12
FOMO—More Than A Hashtag

Chapter 13
A Waste of (Cyber) Space

Conclusion
Why “The Magpie Effect”?
I was once with my dad at his home in the French countryside in the middle of nowhere, and we saw a magpie, a bird indigenous to that area. He told me that magpies love everything that shines, and they’re considered to be one of the most intelligent birds since they’re one of the only non-mammal species with the ability to recognise itself in a mirror test.

When I decided to write my book, the image of that magpie immediately came to mind as I realised us social media users remind me somewhat of magpies. We’re attracted to our shiny devices, shiny apps on our screens, shiny accounts, shiny people and everything shiny beyond. To boot, we’re quicker than ever to recognise, obsess over, and share our own reflections on social media. A Google search would yield an entirely different meaning of “the magpie effect,” but for me, for this book, it is just about how dazzled we are by the shiny social media surrounding us.

I wish you a wonderful read.
Introduction
Some people are passionate about sports. They know every team, every stat, every rule well enough to predict winners and losers, and spot connections and trends throughout the seasons. My passion? People. And if you were to categorise the many elements of human behaviour into teams, stats, and rules, I’d be the one passionately rattling them off.

My name is Damien Massias. I am a life coach, specialising in two areas: mindset and confidence, and dating and relationships. For the last 15 years, I’ve lived my professional life as some sort of modern philosopher—constantly questioning, analysing, and dissecting society and people’s patterns, habits, achievements, downfalls, and beyond. My father himself was a coach for unemployed people, helping them to gain the necessary confidence for job interviews and other opportunities to turn their lives around. With just under 10,000 books in his library as I grew up, I’d call him a “philosopher” too. My stepmom was a child behavioural expert. So I was born into a family of people who were constantly wondering about… well, other people. My father instilled in me a curiosity to expose the whys and hows of what’s happening around us. As a child, I overheard many a discussion about my parents’ clients, the common denominators among them, and their shared recurring patterns despite these people seeming totally different on paper.

Trust me, as a kid, it wasn’t all that fun! Or maybe I should rather say: it didn’t strike me as important or interesting. When you’re younger, you don’t see the bigger picture. The things your parents say go in one ear and out the other! However, I guess without realising it, growing up in that environment did indeed have a lasting impact on me. As I grew up, I too became very interested in trying to find out, help, compare, solve “life puzzles.” So when it came to the beginning of my professional life, I set out on a life long quest, full of curiosity, awareness, a genuine love and care for people, an ever-growing collection of tools, and a thirst to really understand .

This introduction isn’t meant to be a CV. I have no intention of listing out my qualifications for you wise readers to deem me “qualified” enough to read this book. However, I think it would be interesting for you to know about a few different parts of my life that contributed invaluable insight to the conclusions drawn in this book. And these experiences are ones you wouldn’t find on a CV, yet they’re the ones I consider to have been most influential of all.
1. I was a lifeguard.
My first job ever was as a summer lifeguard in the south of France. I was the youngest one by about 25 years and though the pay wasn’t great, I quickly became rich in emotional intelligence by listening to the stories of my much older colleagues. I learned about their relationships, regrets, doubts, fears, and victories. We discussed the things kids my age certainly wouldn’t be discussing for another few years. That summer, a seed took root: a deep respect for those older than me, and a reverence for everything I could possibly learn from their experiences.

I then worked as a lifeguard for Disneyland Paris for about a year and a half—which took me, now a big fish, out of the small pond I was used to. Now I had a vastly wider net of stories to listen to—and they were from tourists and colleagues from different countries, cultures, ages, genders, and walks of life. From lifeguarding to life-coaching, I’ve seen it all. Ironically, I’m “saving” more lives now than I did poolside.
2. I moved to the UK.
I then moved from France to the UK. Have you ever been totally immersed in a new country and new culture where you barely spoke the language? It’s not too different from the experience of a baby learning to… be human. By nature, I was the most observant I’d ever been in my entire life. In learning how to adapt to this new culture as an adult, I learned more about human nature and behaviour than I ever had before in my life.
3. I spent eight years as part of the cabin crew for British Airways.
This was the big one that really fed and restructured my identity as a coach, philosopher, and observer. Working for British Airways, I travelled the world. Thanks to this job, I have literally flown with thousands of people (crew and passengers)—and there’s no more diverse melting pot. Even though they were strangers, people seemed to open up to me so quickly. I have a theory that this happened because most people don’t get the chance to talk about themselves much to someone who genuinely just wants to listen. Sensing my genuine interest and curiosity in their lives, the flood gates opened. I heard it all; their fears, doubts, problems, sex life, money stuff, the struggles, the successes, happiness, victories, hobbies, relationship good and bads, the list never ends. For me, it was a blessing. In the air, I had the patience and the time, plus the tools and awareness from my upbringing to analyse their problems and truly help these people.
4. I taught skiing and snowboarding.
Funny—you teach for the sake of helping others learn, but you learn so much yourself as a teacher. I have taught skiing and snowboarding on and off during days off, holidays, and sometimes full-time for the past 14 years. I live in a place called Milton Keynes in the UK, where there is an indoor ski dome called Snozone with “real” snow so people can ski and board all year round. I have taught thousands of people through the years. On a busy day, I’d sometimes teach nearly one hundred people in total. Once again, this job gave me the unique opportunity to connect with a wide variety of strangers on a personal level. And against the backdrop of extreme sports, these people came to me with doubt in their own ability, fear of getting injured, and their fear of looking silly in open view—which meant I was teaching a lot more than just technical instruction of the sports. I was micro-coaching every person I worked with so that their doubts and fear