Conquer Clickbait! How To Finally Win the War For Your Thought Life | S4 E2

Intro to Szn 4 Ep 2

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Family Business Podcast with the Alestes. I'm Steve Aleste sitting here today with my son Christopher Aleste, and we're talking about all things church. Because this would be one of those services on a Sunday in our business that we would look at the information of this book that you have written, Christopher. Yeah. So um, first off, glad to have you on the podcast. Good to be here. How you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Doing really good.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

You doing good in the business?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

I'm trying to. Better rough couple of weeks, but we're doing all right.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

We got it. We got it. That in itself, man, we had a family business uh family meeting a couple weeks ago. Oh, we did. That helped, didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

More like a family conference. Conference.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yeah. Lasted a while. But that was good. We needed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

We did. That was good. I told mom the air on the other side of that's a lot more refreshing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

I heard. Steph said the same thing to me. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah, I'm glad, glad we were able to do try to lead by example in this whole thing. Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

We lead our family this way.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah. So the whole point there was we were getting ready for something big. We were needing to bring everybody up to speed. And uh so we got into a room. So we did lock the doors and festive is for the rest of us to work. But it was good.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

It was really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

There were no tears.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Nope.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

That was good. That was a win. Yeah. But we were able to come out of some things on the other side. Now, uh, which today I I want to talk about your book. This is your newest book. It's called Clickbait. Yep. And um, this is the book itself. Uh, this is your second book. Yes, it is. First one was called up next. Um, this is your second, and mom and I and your team members here at the church, super proud of you for

Chris Alessi’s new book Clickbait

SPEAKER_00 2:00

putting this one together. On the top, it says uh right voices, right choices. Um, then at the bottom it says win the war for your mind in the age of distraction. All right, Chris. So I wanted to go over this book today, first off, because we're super proud of you. I think I've said that before. Um not a writer myself, but you're able to put your words down into print, which is huge, which I think is so important, especially as family. We work together in the ministry, do the things that we do, but you're taking it a step further uh where mom and I were never really book writers. You are. So this is a big deal. So the family business continues to grow, which is important. Yeah. I have my platform, you share that platform, but you're also creating another platform for yourself. And it's not necessarily your own platform, like I need to have this, but it shows how the health, healthy environment that we have as a family working together is producing offshoots of growth from this route. So yeah, we're proud of you for this particular book.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Thank you. Well, I will say, even being able to articulate it in a written form comes as a result of the family business. You know, you've always helped all four of your kids and even mom figure out what our lane is. Uh, and so that this came as a result of helping me find what my lane was.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah. And and you definitely found a good lane to run in here. Like to think so. Yeah. Yeah, you have. Okay, but here's my question, all right? Because as cool as the book is, and it shows a brain and a uh uh headphones over the brain, clickbait, help me out here because uh I'm of a different generation, and many people that I know are of that same generation. Your generation understands clickbait, yeah, what that means. So explain this concept to us that are older.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Well, I guess I should start by saying uh there is a social media clickbait, and then there's the clickbait that I wrote about, which I believe

How to Define and Recognize Clickbait

SPEAKER_01 4:18

is more spiritual in nature, but uh the average person would know clickbait when they find themselves in the middle of an article, or maybe they're watching a news segment, um, or something where basically the headline does not match the content. And the headline made it seem like this was gonna be the most amazing video I've ever watched. I'm gonna watch this dog dive into this lake and save humanity, and you end up seeing it was nothing. And it's actually defined um as something such as a headline that is made in order to get you to click, especially when the content has no value. So it it actually speaks to when they they need your clicks, but they don't have anything of value, so they lie. They have to make the headline get your attention. So you click on it and you're like, I waited for it and there was nothing worth waiting for.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Yeah. How many pictures do you have to go through to finally get to the picture you're looking for?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

And by the time you do, it's not even there.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

You wasted all that time.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

All that time. Yeah. So that's that's clickbait in the social media internet sense.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

All right. So then what's this concept that you have? You're not using it from an internet sense, but how does this play out in our lives?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Well, the thing that really blew my mind again was that it's clickbait, especially when the content has no value. That's when it's clickbait. If you have something that's pretty good, if or it's truth, and it's got a great headline, that's still telling the truth. But it's clickbait specifically when the content has no value. And when it comes to our thought life, when it comes to the enemy and what he tried to do with Eve, when you look at that interaction, you realize he had no value to what he said. I mean, he what they ended up receiving out of that interaction, they didn't win, they lost substantially. There was no value.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

So the enemy had to entice, had to bait her into this conversation. And I think probably every generation, but my generation, especially right now, they're diving into things that have no value. They're buying into thoughts and belief systems that have no value. And the PR company of the world and the enemy make things sound so good, but there's no value to it. So it's really just clickbait. You know, whether it's it's the world's way of equality, it sounds so good. But the people that actually experience it find out there's no value to it. What they bought into, it's like there was nothing worth waiting for. So I believe there's a lot of people today that have bought into things that they believe are normal, and they're just dealing with the fact that there's no value into what they bought into, but they feel like that's just the reality of their life now. And I think, no, we can go back, we can learn things from Eve, we can learn things from the Word, we can get our minds back, we can get our thoughts on the right track, we can beat some of these stupid mentalities going around, and we can live the life God has made available to us. Yeah. And I use that word specifically, by the way. Uh, I a lot of people say the life God has called us to. I don't know if that exists, but I do know is God has made an available life available to us, and many people are choosing not to operate in what He's made available. So that's what this book is about getting us back to the life God's made available to us.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

You know what comes to mind is a black hole. Yeah. How easy it is when just in the internet version or on your phone, how quickly an email can come to you and the title grabs your attention. And then you start opening up that stuff. And the more you open it up, it just takes you from one black hole to the next, to the next, to the next, never really getting to where you need to be. Is that that that's the context of the clickbait?

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah, so that's clickbait. And so what I think the way the enemy does it um is the enemy will look at uh a a kid that a young boy who maybe doesn't uh like some of the things the other boys in his school like. He doesn't like sports the way that others do. Um and even that is is so dangerous because the comparison game is never fair. But he's he thinks he's not like everybody else. And then all of a sudden there's this thought that just says, you know, you're not like the others. And you're not athletic, you're not like them. Yep. So um, and a kid doesn't know really what that means yet, but then somebody comes and says something about, you know, being gay or something like that. And there's really no value to that. When you look at who God says his children are, there's no value to that. It's not true, it's not real. But they've been buying into these thoughts, these baits, and all of a sudden, here comes this thought that says, You've never been like them. So you're not like them in this area either. And they buy into that, and it's this headline, and it's it like runs across your thought, and you don't know where it comes from. Scholars are still perplexed by where that voice in your head comes from, and yet we but we buy into it, we believe it. We've all done that, from the big things that are like politically heated to the small things, like I'm not as smart as other people, and you know, there's just too much far gone for me. We don't even realize the Bible literally speaks to the opposite of the things that we throw around all the time. And that's why I say it's a life God has made available to us. It's not something He's called us to, because there's millions of Christians not living in the life God has made available to them. So, like I look at my sister Stephanie. Stephanie grew up thinking she wasn't that smart. She really did. Then all of a sudden in college, she finds this astrology class, astronomy, finds out it's so interesting to her. And before you know it, she realizes, oh, wait, I'm very smart. I just need things like this that intrigue me. So she bought into this thought process that said she wasn't that smart. There was no value to that, but she bought into it. That's clickbait. Yeah. And sadly, other people don't have the parents, the pastors, the spiritual leaders that we have that can get in there and redirect those thoughts and say, no, there's no value to this. They've led by example and showed us that we find value in the word. And because of that, there's a lot of Christians and non-Christians alike.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah. You know, I saw this uh advertisement because of our hunting situation in Georgia. I saw this situation. I saw this advertisement for a portable air conditioning unit that um you could take and it will cool up, cool off any room within 10, 15, 20 minutes. And we have our deer condo called a condo because there's like three or four five of us can get up in there and it's super hot during the summer. So I bought the thing and I got it. Uh cost me about a hundred bucks. I get it out there in the heat, fill it up with water, do all the things. You're supposed to put it in the a little uh freezer the night before. So I did all the things and I take it out there and I put it in the middle of the condo. Didn't do anything, definitely didn't live. Didn't live up to what it was advertised. How sad to go through life buying into all these temptations that the enemy throws your way, get through a thought life, through a thought, you know, reasoning, false, faulty reasoning, only to end up down the road and say, hey man, that's not what I bought into. No. Uh that that's the that's why this book is so important. Now, you know, you you talk about the clickbait of offense, clickbait of reminiscing, self-diagnosis, the clickbait of maybe you're my favorite one. Yeah, the maybe, clickbait of self-pity. You know, you you're doing your own side um podcast that we're putting out as an addition to the family business, just about this book. So I don't want to go too detailed into it, but trying to get our listeners to grab a copy or download a copy of this, uh, even the audio version that's coming out. Tell me real quick about the clickbait of offense. Quick.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Well, uh, when you get, you know, the whole world's trying to not get offended. We all say if you can't be offended, you will be offended. And yet we all walk around offended. Somehow, even when we're looking at it right in the face, it can still bite us. And I think there's a lot of room in the

The 5 Kinds of Clickbait and Why They Are Dangerous

SPEAKER_01 13:00

area of offense where just the enemy's clickbait gets involved. And the thing about getting offended is you label the other person as unworthy of your forgiveness. And I just don't know how many people can honor God while they walk around believing there's others that are not worthy of their forgiveness. That's just a scary thought.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah. And the problem with offense is you put up offense. Yeah. And and the the blessing of your life is always going to be your relationships. How much of this clickbait gets gets in the way of your relationships?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Well, you said to go through it uh on the top, but not to give too much away. But uh that chapter goes all into how isolation leads to the complete desecration of a Christian. You just, you know, we all think that isolation is something that, you know, introverts like, but that is not a real thing. I in fact, I call one of the subsections isoverts. Like a lot of people think there's introverts, extroverts, and isoverts. I just I like being isolated, but that's not real. Yeah. That's not a thing. And that that chapter is all about the pack and how offense, the clickbait of offense, is trying to get you separated from the pack. There's even a whole list of what the Bible says about the pack, and it makes sense as to why the enemy would want to separate you from it. Notice, I mean, I don't know what happened between Adam and Eve, but Eve was alone when the serpent came to her. So not giving away too much, but there's a lot in there on that.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Yeah, actually, the Bible seems to describe Adam off to the side while this was taking place. So was she really alone? You know, you talk about just being alone. We're not made to be alone. No. So if we're isolating, what are we having to convince ourselves of in order to go totally against our nature? Yeah. Because our nature is to connect. But to be alone, we are flooding our mind with certain thoughts that is helping us go against nature. And if it goes against our nature, it's never going to produce joy, fulfillment. What about the clickbait of reminiscing?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

I think a lot of people, uh a lot of these, by the way, the whole point of them being clickbait is they seem somewhat normal. Yeah, but they're not. They're actually very harmful. Uh, a lot of people would look at reminiscing and think it's sweet and it's fun, and it is. We're doing it right now for our 25th conference. But sometimes reminiscing will lead you to think that yesterday was better. And they will still think, even in some of the cases where they might be right, they think they can win by looking backwards. And one of the things that you've taught me, one of the things the scripture teaches is you cannot win unless you're looking towards tomorrow. You just can't.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

So even if, you know, I I was a thinner version of myself a couple years back. I don't win by by looking back. In fact, I'll start to get kind of depressed. What I have to do is look forward and think, what can I become? Not what I used to be, even if it was better. Um, so this is one of the big things that there's no value in looking back. You don't win when you look back, but the enemy definitely knows. And this is the thing about clickbait. You know, you get to that black hole, you get to that, and you think you haven't lost anything. Maybe that's true, but they won something by baiting you into it. They got your email, they got your click. They're making money based off of what they got from you. And the whole point about clickbait is, you know, these things don't seem like they're world beaters. They're not going to kill you. But the enemy's not trying to kill you. He's not a knockout punch kind of enemy. He's a death by a thousand cuts type of enemy. And all it takes is all of these little thoughts little by little building up before you know it, where you're like, I can't keep going. So that's why these they don't seem that harmless, but there's there's a lot won on the enemy side of the battle line when we start looking backwards.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

So good. How about the clickbait of self-diagnosis?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Well, everyone's been doing it since COVID, right? We look at our characteristics and we try to define. Um, but a lot of people do that. We think that identity is a random collection of our characteristics, but that's not true. In fact, this goes back to the example I used earlier. A lot of people would say, you know, I'm not like other people, or I'm just the type of person that that's not how identity works.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Um, and once you buy into that, that there's like a a whole smorgasbord of types of people, and I'm one of these types of people, the enemy can really get you. Because before you know it, a type of people will pop up and you will feel like, well, I'm not like those. I must be like that one. And before you know it, you're buying into something crazy. And it's all out of this desire to self-diagnose. I mean, I my family makes fun of me. They they they say that, you know, I'm the paranoid one because I'll get a headache and think, I think something is deeply wrong with me. But the truth is, even the greatest doctors are very careful to diagnose. They will spend hours, days, months, years finding out what something isn't before they tell you what it is, because you have to be an expert in everything to be able to correctly self-diagnose. And that's what we aren't. When a young person, when somebody who thinks they're attracted to the same sex, they do not know what the opposite sex feels when they look at the opposite sex. So somebody who feels like, you know, they have the same sex attractions as a male, they don't know what I feel when I look at my wife. But in their mind, they self-defined because they look at the characteristics and think, I must be this because of my characteristics. But it's like, you could never compare your thoughts to mine. Yeah. So you, you're not an expert in this. So you can't diagnose. So the only one who can is the word, and the word has told us who we are, and people don't even look at that. So this is not just a thing about identity when it comes to sexual orientation, but I mean, it's huge right now, and there's a lot of people from the greatest to the least, to the biggest thing that's terrifies us to the smallest thing. We're always just thinking something's wrong with us. And it comes from this desire to self-diagnose.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Yeah. It's crazy. Chris, this is all deep. Well. No, and and what I like about it is it's we're in it every day. This is all around us. We're just not able to identify that this clickbait is taking place, especially is the way you're describing all of these, their temptations, their thoughts that are slowing us down, distracting us, causing us to waste time, energy on these thoughts that don't produce what we want or we thought they would. So here's another one the clickbait of maybe.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

It's my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Really?

SPEAKER_01 19:35

This is my favorite. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

That last that self-diagnosis is pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

It's really good. But this is the one where the publisher thought, the editor believed that I should change it to the clickbait of uncertainty. Like, because I'm I present a lot about faith and what faith is and what faith isn't. And I said, no, that's not what I'm trying to say. Although a lot of people believe in any area of life, if I'm uncertain, that must mean it's faith. That's not true. And so the clickbait of maybe is actually, I don't want to give too much away, but it's taken from a specific person in the Bible who looks at a gap between the life that they have and the life that God promised them. And instead of waiting on him to fill the gap, they fill it themselves. And we do this all the time. We we misidentify with Bible characters all the time. We all think we're Abraham when we're leaving our church, right? God has called me to leave and go to a place I don't know. When in reality, we are Jonah and we are running from Nineveh. And so I hate, I really do. I use the word hate on purpose. I hate how many times the God card is played. Yeah. You know, hey, I was praying about this and God told me. Well, it's like, I don't know, man. Now I can't say anything about it. I can't speak to, and you're big on this. I can't talk about the thing anymore because you threw the God card. So if I talk about this, I'm somehow saying you don't hear from God. But we get caught up in that because people will think and and they'll say something like, Maybe God wants me to step out of the boat and come to him. Well, no one talks about like we we are like, wow, look at Peter. There were 11 guys who did what Jesus told them to do originally, which is get in the boat and go to the other side.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

So the clickbait of maybe causes people to step out of boats they should have stayed in, causes people to run away from things they should have stayed in. And I don't want to give too much away, but this is actually the first clickbait that I started working with. Because I see a lot of our young adults feel tempted. They they believe that that movement equals progress. And that's because they they, instead of letting God just fill all the gaps of their life, they look at the life he's promised and the life they have, and they're like, maybe I have to do this so God will do this. Maybe I have to take a year off dating, so God will bring my spouse on the first day of that year being done. And we think those are things God called us to, and they're not. They're things that we called ourselves to. So that's what that's really big on. It is my favorite, and I could explain it better, but I don't want to give it away.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

No, don't, don't. This is a good one. Uh On chapter seven, it's the clickbait of self pity.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Yeah, I almost called it the clickbait of Chris Alessy. Um I think my family would enjoy that. So that's just there's I'll just say it this way: you know, there's no victory in feeling sorry for yourself. I remember coach Bill Johnson back in high school. He always makes about do you feel sorry for yourself? Or run in sprints and you feel sorry? And I'm like, no, we're tired. We don't feel sorry for ourselves. But then we started, I started to re-evaluate and look back on what he used to say and think, wow, I do not win when I feel sorry for myself. In fact, a lot of people would question how did Elijah go from top of the mountain to in a suicidal fit? And I believe it's self-pity. I explain it in the book. Just they it's defined as an extreme obsession with one's own problems. And I don't understand how I have tried and how many people try to honor God and everything that he has said while obsessing over their problems.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Okay, Chris. So here's something I'm gonna ask you to open up for a minute, go uh transparent. Most books come out of an experience or a person's life. Yeah. So where have you clicked on to the bait? Oh. And what did it cause you?

SPEAKER_01 23:22

I I remember buying into all of them. Every one of them. And there's more. There's two clickbaits that aren't in the book. The clickbait of of should and something else I forget right now. But um I've given into all of them. And I think one of the one of the really cool things about me, one of the gifts I have is I pay attention to what I think. I pay attention to my thoughts a lot, but I think one of the downsides is I pay attention to what I think too much. And um I think I'll speak specifically of the self-pity one because that's the most recent one. I remember sitting on the porch of our family farm, and mom looked at me as I have I had made an enemy out of every member of my family. And I don't know how I did it. I had somehow, and believe it or not, it was all because you had asked me to do all of this around the farm with you that day, and I had said yes to everything. And while I was saying yes, I was giving myself points for everything I said yes to. And around this time, this sounds so immature, but at the time it was real, it was real for me. I had just bought this new game, and it was like six o'clock, and I had settled down, showered after a full day outside, and I put that game on, and you walked in and said, I have a new land I want to go look at. Would you come with me? And I said no. And you got so mad at me, and I was like, How dare he get mad at me? I've said yes to everything. One no. And I remember mom came in and started talking to me, and

Chris Alessi's personal battle with Clickbait

SPEAKER_01 25:01

before I knew it, for the first time I was faced with, man, I keep score. I said yes to you so I could say no. What type of son is that? What type of man is that? What type of husband would that be? And it was so weird as we're talking about it. It was about you and me. It was an hour ride, and I had turned it into this whole my you don't understand, my sisters don't respect me. Dad takes advantage, you don't even God owes me more because I'm still single. It was like all of this, and it was just because I was obsessing over my own problem, and they weren't even problems. I look back now and think, what was I doing? Wow. And I want to say that that conversation cleared it up for me, but it didn't. It just started the process, and I really do believe that started this. Wow, I bought into thoughts that that were not real. And there's other examples where I bought into thoughts somehow that weren't real. And so I actually put it in this book. The main takeaway, if you're watching, if you're watching, the main takeaway is label your thought, not you. When you have a weird thought, you say that was a weird thought. And that's where it ends.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

So that's well, that's taking capture every thought. Of every thought. Well, super proud of you. Glad that you could go ahead and share the details of our um that's only half the book, by the way. Yeah. It's a whole other I didn't I didn't want to keep pushing you here to give it all the way. I mean, it uh chapter eight, fighting clickbait, nine, how to turn the tables, ten, train for the gap.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

You'd like that one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

You'd like that one. Okay. Uh then 11

How To Get Your Copy of Clickbait

SPEAKER_00 26:52

is the village needs walls. And 12, I think you were pretty happy about the one muddy walk. And you can go on that one for a while. Um, there'll be more of this that you'll lay out. I'm glad you put it in a hard or soft covered book as well as an audio version. Um, they're able to pick this up on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

On Amazon, on Kindle, on Audible.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

It's everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

You know, it's pretty cool to see that this is uh coming out of you. And so much of it is what you've what's been revealed to you that is so different than some of the things that's been revealed to me and mom over the years. It's fresh, which is nice. Uh, not that ours is stale, but our it's fresh to hear from your perspective of a message, Chris, for early on, um, learning how to renew our mind. And Romans talks about renewing our mind so that we can prove what is the acceptable, the good, and the perfect will of God. We learned what that was like. It's a rewriting of our thought life. It's making sure that every thought that comes our way that is contrary to what is the truth for us, those thoughts are taken care of, uh taken captive. We seize them, like you said. We grab hold of them, say, no, I won't let you go any further, because that's not going to lead me to truth. Um, spiritually, biblically, the Bible talks about putting on the helmet of salvation, talks about the breastplate of righteousness, talks about all of these tools or weapons that we put on, whereby we may quench the fiery darts of the enemy. Those fiery darts are thoughts. Yeah. And that's how the enemy attacks us. He just comes in. The enemy of our soul goes to work on our soul, our thoughts, and tries to attack us to sabotage what is the plans that the Lord has for our lives, planned to prosper us, uh, plans to give us a beautiful future. Uh, a beautiful future, a beautiful end. Well, if the enemy can get in there and sabotage that with our thoughts, then we never get to walk into that. And how many people sidetrack their life based on thoughts? And so this is a great book. Congratulations, clickbait. Looking forward to reading it myself. I'm actually excited about reading this one just because it's so where we're at today. Not that I wasn't the first one, but this one I'm really, really excited to read. And um, our church will be going through it together. So, clickbait, win the war for your mind and the age of distraction. Christopher John Alesi. Good job.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Right choices.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Glad you were able to write it. And hopefully, today you have been inspired to go out and grab the book, Clickbait, either in a hard copy or you can get it on Amazon. And soon enough you'll be able to listen to it on Audible. Thanks for joining us today with the Family Business with the Alexis.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Thanks for listening to the Family Business Podcast with the Alexis. We appreciate you listening and learning with us as we just shared more about the family business. You know, I bet there's someone you know who can use this kind of advice, encouragement, so make sure to share this episode with them and their family because let's face it, family is everyone's business. If you want to be a part of our family, subscribe to the show right now on your favorite app and make sure to download the episodes so you can hear them at any time. Oh, and one more thing one of the best ways to help us spread the word about the family business with the Alestes is by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. So help us out, write a review, and join us next time at the Family Business Podcast with the Alestis.