Momentum Podcast: 749

Influencers, We Are In Trouble

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

The events of the past few days show just how much trouble we are in as a country.

Alex Charfen, a business growth coach who helps entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses, gives practical, tangible, and actionable tips that you can implement into your business right now.


When one conversation can be silenced, any conversation can be silenced. When only one side of an argument is allowed, you don't have a democracy, you have a dictatorship.


Even if you disagree with those being targeted, the fact that they are being targeted should terrify you.


This is my personal experience – what it feels like and what happens when institutions target individuals.

Your business has the potential to change the world, and the only way to see that potential become a reality is to implement a strategic plan. If you're ready to learn more, go to predictableplanningsystem.com to get started.

Our entrepreneurial journey doesn't end here! Be sure to check out our Facebook Community filled with entrepreneurs just like you who are getting into momentum and building world-changing empires charfen.com/community

If you are an entrepreneur who is listening in and you can relate, then be sure and head over to momentumplanner.com/mps and gain access to one of the most requested business tools to grow and scale your business in any market condition, even in this one.

Full Audio Transcript

This is the Momentum podcast. I'll be really candid. I've had a rough night on. A really rough night considering what's happening in the world right now, so I'm going to try and be very careful with my language so that there's no type of editing or there's no type of issues with this video. But I've actually been sitting here for about 20 minutes trying to get calm and get in my body so that I can share this information without getting reactive or triggered and using the wrong language that might make it so nobody hears this. I feel like we are in trouble. You know, the title of this video that I put out was that I put on the description was influencers.

We are in trouble. But what it really should say is Americans, humans, people, we are in trouble. And I feel like all of us are exposed right now in a way that maybe we don't really understand. But I have personal experience. So this this video, this live is about me sharing my personal experience with institutional pressure being put on individuals.

And here's what I mean by that. Right now, we know that there is a conversation going on in the world around us. We all know this. So there's this big decision going on in the world right now. And I'm not going to name what it is, but we all know that we are being split into two camps, those that will and those that won't. And there's been a list published of those that want the top 12 influencers in the those that want space. Like, let's just let's just understand what I'm saying.

It's the top 12 influencers in the those that don't space have been published by The New York Times. It was created by some group called the Center for Hate Management or something like that. I can't I'll look it up later and talk about it. That's not what this is about. What this is about is when there's a hit list published of twelve influencers in The New York Times and individuals are pressured by institutions.

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the momentum podcast made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers and creators of all kinds, those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny. We define it.

We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop. And we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate. There could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world, because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution and we always will be.

I actually have some personal experience with this, you know, I when I saw this when I when I recognized what was happening, when I saw that these 12 people had been named. I had a massive reaction, in fact, just so you know, the number one person on the list, I've been on a panel with him at an event before. There's pictures of me hugging him at an event. There's pictures of me shaking his hand at an event. I don't agree with everything he says, but I agree with him. Jesus, do I agree with his right to say it? And this is up close and personal for me at this point. And let me share with you my history with institutional pressure on individuals.

Again, I shared some of this story earlier earlier in the week. I it was this week in a post I said called Do your own research. Let me share with you what happens when you are the heretic. Let me share with you what happens when you do not regurgitate the accepted narrative. Let me share with you what happens when you go against the grain.

Let's go back to twenty seven. Twenty seven Cadey and our living in Florida. The real estate market starts collapsing. It collapses in Florida. First we have tons of property. We have millions of dollars in the bank that we're running through trying to keep everything going. And our lives were taken apart. We ended up in bankruptcy court and I was uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as bankrupt. I was uncomfortable with what was going on. I was uncomfortable with some of the things I saw in the mortgage industry. I was uncomfortable with the communication coming out about what was going on in the world because it felt like it was a really severe issue.

And here's what was happening in 2007, early 2008 and the beginning of 2009, the National Association of Realtors, the major lenders, the banking institutions in the United States, I'm not going to name any names. I don't want this to get censored. That's how weird things are right now. Like the fact that I'm even thinking about that before I talk to you shows you just how much pressure there is on individuals right now. We are all being censored, whether we want to admit it or not. And so in twenty seventeen thousand twenty nine, I went out and the institutional pressure I got was from the National Association of Realtors, Association of Realtors, from major lending groups, from title organizations, from organizations and the real estate industry that were protecting the status quo.

Because here's what I said. In early 2008, I started going out and speaking to realtors and doing webinars and sharing data that I went and found that I put together and went out and said, hey, guys, we are not in this six month to one year crisis. That's what the National Association of Realtors were saying. The major lenders were saying. That's what the narrative was. That's what the accepted narrative was. And I was the heretic, the individual that said you guys are wrong. And so I went out and started sharing with realtors, I did webinars, I wrote articles, and here's what happened. The National Association of Realtors started doing presentations where they named me by name and they said that I was Chicken Little trying to destroy the real estate market. There was articles published and things written about me where people were saying I was trying to take away people's equity. I was trying to crash the real estate market. There was so much institutional pressure put on my wife and I as individuals.

Then in 2007 and 2008, as we were launching launching the certified distressed property expert designation, there were weeks, there was time where we were getting sometimes every day, sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes a few times a week, calls where people would make death threats against us. Death threats, not one, not two, but people would call and they would read this narrative, they said we were screwing up the real estate market and they would be in foreclosure. They would have some type of a challenge and they would have an issue and they would take that anger and directed at us. They would take that frustration and directed at us. And so we would get death threats and we got phone calls to our office and we had people telling us that we were going to get sued and, you know, I was going to go to jail and all kinds of other stuff because I was sharing data data. They did not agree with the accepted narrative. And the more that I shared, the more that that noise came up.

And here's how dramatic things got see, when institutions target individuals, the public doesn't know how to react to that. The public doesn't know whether they should, whether it's right or wrong. And the most dramatic example of what happened to us during this time scratching at my bedroom door, and it's driving me crazy while I'm trying to share with you. So give me a second here. Everything happens for a reason. So obviously, I was supposed to get interrupted right here. So here's the most dramatic thing that happened to us.

And if anybody doubts that this happened, there's an entire team of employees and team members that we had that didn't know that this happened. There is there are people who were there with us. So here's here's how dramatic things got. The fever pitch of criticism around what we were saying and what we were doing got so loud and so great. That is an influence. We were I was targeted. My wife and I were targeted. And we had an event in Arizona where. A guy tried to come into our event three or four times, we had to block him, we had to call security, we had to get him out of our event. And finally the police came and the police told us that this individual was heavily armed and had guns in the trunk of his car. And they wanted to warn us because he was coming for me and the person from Wells Fargo that was at my event. And. From that point forward, four years, my wife and my family didn't travel with me anymore. I went to events by myself. I had security at events because of how crazy things got. So when I saw this list of 12 influencers this week, when I saw this list of 12 people who are wellness influencers, many of whom are doctors who share alternative opinions, they share unconventional opinions, they share opinions that are not the accepted narrative. I've felt personally attacked because I know exactly how it feels to be under that type of pressure. And here's what I want you to know.

When individuals can be put under this amount of pressure in our society, when the government sanctions it, when when there are companies that censor individuals working in concert with or being coerced by the government, we are in massive trouble as a society. We are in massive trouble as Americans. I've never seen anything like this in my entire life in the United States. I've never seen a time where individuals opinions are censored. I've never seen a time where we can't have a conversation about a topic because even bringing up any type of a question or any type of an alternative, you're immediately turned into the other. You're them, you're the person who won't comply. You're the person who doesn't care. You're the person who isn't empathetic. You're the person who is causing the problem. You're the person who's making it worse. You're the person who's hurting us all. That is how everyone on that list has been classified.

And and you know what? Here's what we don't know. We don't have certainty about what's going on right now. We don't have certainty about what long term effects are. We don't have certainty even right now in the moment as to what is actually going on, because there is so much silencing and censorship and the bias is towards not hearing this conversation. The bias is towards just do as you're told. And so as Americans.

Here's our responsibility to our country when we see this type of censorship, even if you're on the side that is against these people, even if you're on the side of yes, even if you're on the side of choosing to and. You see this type of censorship, we have to stand up and talk about the fact that this just isn't what America is all about. When we started silencing opposition, we don't have a democracy. We have a dictatorship. When we don't let people have conversations about what's going on, we drive these conversations underground and it makes people even more paranoid and frustrated and anxious and fearful, fearful of what's going on. For somebody like me, when you start censoring one side of the conversation, I have a hard time even being involved in the entire subject matter. Frightens me, because if we can't have an open and honest conversation, if the only way to win this conversation, if the only way to win this argument is to silence the other side. Well, then I wholeheartedly say there's something wrong with the argument. And if you're an influencer or a doctor or you're in the alternative medical space or you use alternative medical treatments or you go to a functional medicine doctor instead of a normal doctor or you use any of these modalities, I want you to know something. We are under attack. Me personally.

I've always been on the outside looking in. My wife and I, we homebred our kids. We they did not do wellness checkups with doctors. We do not lean into the medical establishment. We are on the outside looking in. I just that's that's who I am. That's where we've always been. And you know what? That should be OK. It should be OK to oppose massive corporations that combined billions of dollars for lying. It should be OK to oppose public private partnerships where corporations and the government start working together to silence people.

It should be OK to oppose the censorship of individual Americans who are sharing their opinions on something. It should be OK to oppose publishing a list of people that we're going to take out this morning. I pulled up. I just did a Google search. I invite you to do the same and you start reading through it. And here's what it says. It says, Most of the information comes from these people. It says most of the problems come from these people. It says mostly issues come from these people. It says they're hurting other people. And then it says de platformer. Take them away. Make them disappear. When I saw that list, I told my wife, this is a test, this is a test to see what happens when you disappear the first 12 and then you do it again, because there's already been people disappeared, taken off the platforms, taken out of out of the public. I mean, let's be real. This video that I'm recording right now could have that consequence for me. And. As Americans. We have to understand that when governments learn this type of bureaucratic censorship, when governments learn this type of institutional, it's censoring and silencing, they do not unlearn it.

The problem with government is the political party change, but the entire bureaucracy is still there. You know, we look at government and we think it changes when there's one one person to the next to the next. You know, the reality is not a lot changes, not a lot is different. And when something like this starts in one administration, you can expect it to go to the next one. So we have a responsibility to speak up, we have a responsibility to defend each other, we have a responsibility to back each other up and make sure that this silencing, the censoring, this canceling of people with opinions does not continue because to the world, this is the top 12 people or not to the world, to the institutions right now, to the to the to the people in charge.

This is the list of the 12 people that are causing them the most headaches. But if they're the most influential, to me, that's a list of 12 people that the most people trust, that's a list of 12 people that the most people listen to. That's the list of 12 people that the most people put their time into, put their energy into want to hear from. So I want you to ask yourself. Is it OK, then it's something that maybe you're OK with, is it OK that it's influencers that aren't on your side? Is it OK that it's individuals that are that are not speaking the company line and it's OK to silence them? Because if it starts with them, they can come for us. So just think, how many unconventional opinions do you hold? How many things do you think that are not the majority opinion? How many ways do you look at the world that, like the rest of the world does, and how many alternative sources of information and medicine and care and wellness you use? Because don't think they're just coming for these influencers, they'll start with them.

There has been a battle between the big pharmacy companies and an alternative medicine forever. It will start with these wellness influencers. They'll go from the wellness influencers to do whatever is next. They'll run through the entire medical industry. Believe me, there is an entire world out there that wants nothing but institutionalized top down medicine with no alternatives, with no choices, with no changes that they can control remote control. Every doctor in the country from the top. And there are brave doctors out there, there are passionate, compassionate, empathetic doctors out there who don't agree with what's being said, who are brave enough to share their voice, who are who are strong enough to stand up and say this. I believe this is what's going on. And instead of debating, instead of talking, instead of bringing this out into the open, they are being silenced. I want you to know.

This is all of our responsibility. This is all of our issue, and it doesn't matter what side you're on when one side of an argument is silenced, we should all be terrified. Like I said at the beginning, I've never in my life as an influencer been nervous to go live. I've never in my life is an influencer, been nervous to watch my language and be careful what I'm saying. I've never in my life as an influence, sort of felt like if I did a video, I might disappear. But that's absolutely how I feel right now. And ask yourself, should anyone feel that way? Because they're sharing their opinion about an event in the community that we have a global event where there is no certainty, there's nothing absolute about this.

Remember way back when if somebody said that this thing came out of a lab, they got silenced and censored and it was crazy. And we need to stop all this misinformation and psychotic stuff and just take them out, like get rid of them. Well, now it's on the front page of Newsweek. And so what's happening more and more is the people who are talking, the people who are speaking until it's part of the accepted narrative, until it's part of the story, everyone wants you to believe they're being silenced.

But we've already seen over and over and over again in the past year and a half how many times we have been told this isn't it, we're going to silence this. We can't have this conversation. We can't do this. This is not the right thing to do. And then we turn around and it's reality. It shocks me that in this situation, this triggered you. Or frustrated your anger to you in any way, I'm sorry, and if you've been through things in the past year and a half that have you looking at me in a way that makes you think, what is he even talking about?

I want you to know I understand I have family members that have experienced so much trauma from the past year, they would give up just about anything to make it go away. In fact, they'd give up their medical freedom. They give up their freedom of speech. They give up their freedom of choice, and they'd also give it up for other people and. I know that this is a terrifying situation that has affected all of us. But I think we need to take a step back and ask ourselves, how far are we going to let this go? What is going to happen next? Who's going to be the target next? Who's going to be on the list next if you're an influencer and you have any unconventional opinions?

My final statement is it could be. Do me a favor, if this meant something to you, tag someone who needs to hear this, share this for me. Let's get this information out there. There's there's only going to be safety in numbers. There's only going to be safety if we all stick together. There's only going to be safety if we support each other. And so thank you for being here and for supporting me. I'll do the same for you.

Thank You For Listening!

I am truly grateful that you have chosen to spend your time listening to me and my podcast.

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With gratitude,

Alex

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