Old Habits Die Hard

In this episode, I open up about a recent experience I had on Reddit where, despite my own advice, I ended up feeding the trolls. I share how I got pulled into a frustrating back-and-forth with someone who just wasn’t open to any input, and how that made me reflect on my own “educator mindset”—the urge to resolve every conflict or misunderstanding online.

I talk about the importance of setting boundaries not just with online trolls, but also when inviting podcast guests onto your show. Remember: if someone really wants to be on your show, they’ll usually find time that works for you.

On the personal side, I give an update about being busier than ever at my church due to a colleague’s health issues. I discuss how this has affected my routine, my stress levels (thanks for the heads up, Oura Ring!), and the push I’m giving myself to prioritize health and movement—even if it means just getting out to walk at my local park. Plus, I share a little inspiration from watching the Ozzy Osbourne documentary "Coming Home," which has me thinking about aging, health, and making time for what really matters.

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Key Takeaways:

- Don’t let internet trolls drain your energy—learn to recognize when to disengage (even if you think that last message might “fix” things).
- When it comes to podcasting, don’t be afraid to set your own boundaries around scheduling guests.
- Some people just aren’t open to feedback, and that’s okay—sometimes it’s best to step back.
- Make sure your social profiles link to your website to help connect with people you actually can help.
- Growth comes from noticing your own patterns—and learning from your mistakes.
- Keep prioritizing your health and well-being, even when life gets busy.
- Inspiration can come from unexpected places—even a documentary about Ozzy Osbourne.

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Links Mentioned:

Coming Home -Ozzy Osbourne documentary 

Connect with Me:

betterdave.com

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed the episode, do consider buying me a coffee :)

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You know, teacher Dave thought, oh, if I just say these three
sentences live.

(00:32):
That would be me. Welcome to Building a Better Dave.
And have you ever done something and you turn around
and you go, oh, man, did you? Yeah.
And by that I mean you fell into old habits that
you're like, oh, you, you still haven't learned that

(00:53):
lesson yet. And what's really weird is
there are times when I coach my
clients that when it comes to trolls,
don't feed the trolls. And
I kind of fed this guy like a three course meal.
And it's on Reddit, which is kind of like YouTube,

(01:16):
and that, you know, that some of the worst parts of the Internet love
to hang out on Reddit and just
start stuff. And so
this guy had this post that was like, hey, my show
has gotten big enough that I can invite big guests
on my show, but I have a day job and

(01:39):
the PR person wants to know if I'm available during
the day. And so I replied and
said, this is why I do solo shows. There's no
scheduling, there's no this. Which to his point,
wasn't very helpful. Like, my whole thing was like,
basically pointing out, you know, you might want to consider, because I know people that

(02:01):
are like, no, no, I only do interview shows if
I'm not talking to somebody else. I don't want to be on a mic. And
I'm like, okay. And so he then
pointed out, hey, for a guy that always says he
helps podcasters, that wasn't very helpful. Yada, yada,
yada. You may not realize that other people have other

(02:21):
situations. And I said, you know what, you're right. I'm sorry.
So here's your options. You're either
going to record during the day at your job,
which is what I did back in the day, or
you could just say, the time during the day is not available.

(02:42):
Here's my schedule. And I pointed out, you have
the power. And this is where people are like, no, but it's this big star.
And I'm like, if they really want to be on your show, they'll
find the time. I've had two people that are like, yeah, I don't do,
you know, interviews at night. And I'm like, well, that's when I'm available. And they're
like, oh, okay. That's too bad. And then four days later, they're like,

(03:04):
hey, I found some time in my schedule. And so if they really
want to get in front of your audience, they will do that. And
so I pointed this out to that guy that try that. And he
came back and said, everything you say looks like
you copied and pasted it from chatgpt to where my
brain was like, how dare you? Because I actually

(03:27):
typed out this whole thing. And I pointed out that in the event
you can't get Big guess, some of my best episodes were
from people that nobody'd ever heard of. And then one
guy, his name's Glenn, has been back on my show five times because
he always brings amazing content. So in the event, little
buckaroo. Now, I didn't say that. That you,

(03:49):
you know, can't find a way to get these big guests,
you know, you can get by. To which he replied.
And then I said he had mentioned something like, it's not even the point
of the podcast, yada, yada, yada. So I asked him
two questions, to which he again replied,
basically, dude, blah,

(04:12):
blah, blah, wasn't receptive to my answer. And this is where I
look back and go, the curse
of being an educator is you think you
can always. If I just say this one thing, the light bulb
will come on. And this is where both my ex wives would
say, you love to argue. And I'm like, no, no, I'm not arguing.

(04:35):
I see a resolution on the other side of this
response. If you would just hear and
process what I'm saying, you would go, oh, oh,
I see it now. And that is not what happened.
And so finally I thought, you know, this guy doesn't
feel heard. He doesn't feel heard. And I replied.

(04:58):
I said, hey, you know, it's a bummer that you've
worked this hard to grow your show and you're now having the opportunity
to have these big guests, and it looks like you may not be
able to meet their schedules. And that really sucks because
that's what that guy said, right? And I said, that's
disheartening, you know, And

(05:20):
I forget what else I said, but it was like, you know, best of luck
to you, et
cetera, et cetera. So it wasn't even really suggesting anything. And he
then replied and said, please stop, I'm not even
reading these. And that offended
me because I was like, look, I didn't even suggest anything. I

(05:42):
was just saying, good luck to you. And
it took everything I had to not reply,
gladly. Just so he Wouldn't get the last
word. I even offered to get
on Zoom with him. I'm like, hey, we're missing some tone of voice here, buddy.
Let's get on Zoom. Let's talk about it. And that's when

(06:07):
you find out what you're dealing with. He
never even acknowledged that. He never acknowledged that. He didn't
answer my questions. And looking back, I'm like, dude, you're
missing this. This is a person that. And it's kind of weird
because I want to call. I want to say he's
uncoachable. And that's not true.

(06:29):
But for whatever reason, I have rubbed this man the wrong
way, and he will never take any advice from me. And then I looked up,
and there were like, two or three other people that had said, oh,
try this. And he was like, nope, can't go. Dope, dope. So, nope. And then
somebody else suggested something and might have just, you know, they should have
just yelled pull. Because he was like, everybody. And what was really interesting,

(06:51):
this is when I was like, ah, dude, look. What you fell into is I
clicked on his name, which takes you over to kind of their profile.
And if you're smart, you filled out your profile and put your website
there. And a couple other things I get probably, I don't know, 10 to
20 people a month that. That click over
from my profile to my website.

(07:14):
Probably closer to 10 than 20. Not much. But if you
the same thing on Facebook, you should always have a link to your website in
your profile. So if you're being helpful on these social sites, that
somebody goes, who is this Dave Jackson guy? He answers like seven
questions a day over here. And this person
had a name like, whatever, shmoopy, double O,

(07:36):
10 something, whatever. And there was completely
anonymous, no links to anything. And then you can go over and see
all of his replies, and all of his replies were basically just pull,
you know, pull. He's just shooting down everything. And I was like,
oh, look what you got. And so,
you know, that's one of those things where it's like, oh. And you kind of

(07:59):
go. And you look at yourself. Did you see what you did there?
Did you see, like, you and your whole education
can change the world kind of thing? You know,
I was just like, yeah,
I should have noticed after really the second

(08:20):
reply, if not the first, that this guy, when he
came at me basically saying, you know, instead of saying,
thanks for, you know, that doesn't really fit me. And then to say, you're
not very helpful, you know, and then you're not reading. And
just. I was like, ah, look what you did. But when he started

(08:41):
putting down my reputation, that's when I was like, hey, hold on. And I was
very tempted to take screenshots of everybody saying, this has been so
helpful. And I was like, no, no, just. Just let it go.
Let it go. And if he needs help, he'll eventually reach
out, which he won't. But I was just kind of
frustrated. As I look back at it, I'm like, oh,

(09:03):
why didn't you spot this? You even coach others to
leave it alone. And yet
Teacher Dave thought, oh, if I just say this, these three
sentences will change their mind. And they'll
be like, oh, I see it now. Thank. No, no,
they're not. And I was just kind of like,

(09:25):
okay, so that's how you get better,
is by
recognizing those things that get you sucked in.
And then maybe next time, you know,
don't feed the trolls. So my life
has been fun. I got home from speaking in Charlotte,

(09:48):
and right now I am basically doing a sermon every other week in
my church, which to me, is not a big deal.
I mean, I like public speaking. It's like doing an extra
podcast. It's just my topic is always the Bible
and the other person that fills
in when I'm not there. So the every other week, other. Other person

(10:12):
was in the hospital. She's 72. She has
one lung and had pneumonia, which is really bad when
you only have one lung. And. And just for fun, she threw in heart
palpitations. They got both those under control, and then her
blood pressure went through the roof. And after pretty
much a little over a week, she's just now come home.

(10:34):
But where I went from every other week, I'm now every week.
And that's something that my aura ring.
You know, the little fitness thing. I said, hey, you seem
kind of stressed, and you're not resting as much as you used to.
And I was like, yeah. And your point is?

(10:56):
So the good news is I've got probably another two weeks
of this, and that should calm down so I can. Because I literally
sat down. I was like, okay, I can finally work on all those things that
I want to get done. Not client stuff, but my stuff.
And then it was like, yeah, man makes plans and God
laughs, and so we shall see. But

(11:19):
hope all is well with you. Don't.
At least here in the States, if you have a fall season,
get out there and explore it. That's what I did tonight, and I'm
gonna do the best I Can I have a really beautiful park about 10 minutes
from my house? And so every night, there's a.

(11:39):
Just a really big circle that's about 2 miles. Takes about 30
minutes to walk through it, depending on how fast you're walking. And
my goal is to hit that on a regular basis because I
got to lose some weight. I watched a documentary
with Ozzy Osbourne, and it's called Coming Home. It's on
Google. I'll put a link in the show notes. And it is sweet

(12:02):
and sad because it covers the last days of
Ozzy's life. And he talks about turning 70
and how everything just fell apart. Then I just turned 60 and
kind of was like, hey, things are falling. And it's just one of those where
I know it's only going to get worse. And yet
I'm living pretty much exactly the same way. I'm eating

(12:23):
many less carbs, and I'm trying to be more
active, but I'm not really exercising, which is dumb,
because when I do, shockingly, I lose weight.
And it's just one of those things where we.
Anything that's important, we find time for. And for whatever reason,

(12:44):
I argue with myself because I know it's important, and yet my
actions don't show that. So I need to
fix that. I'm definitely more active than I was, but
I really need to start, you know, breaking a sweat.
It's great that I walked around the block three times today, but every
time I went to my Apple watch and said, okay, I'm done. It's like, hey,

(13:06):
your workout was on a scale from one to five, where one is easy
and whatever, hard is whatever, five, 10,
something. It's like a two. And I'm like, yeah, that's not really a
workout. So I got to work on that as
well as I work on not getting trolled
by the trolls. So hope all

(13:28):
is well on your side of the glass. And until
the next episode, it's going to get better.