Fun People I Follow - Carlos Whittaker
I can’t even articulate how much I love sharing with you all these people I follow. It brings me so much joy because how I found them is so magical. I am not sharing any of these people in any particular order and certainly not in the order they came to me. I chose Carlos today because I was just editing the post where I shared a reel he made about mixing with people who don’t think exactly like we do. That inspired me to talk more about him and his work. Because I don’t share these people in order, I am going to mention someone that I will, yet again, tell you I will talk more about later. I’m sorry. Neither my brain or my inspiration work in linear ways.
A couple years ago I was feeling awkward about myself I made a declaration to the Universe that I wanted to be smarter. I wanted to understand how our government works and learn more about history. I wanted to be able to have small talk conversations with people and understand current events. I had a whole list of things I wanted. Within a few days of making that declaration, someone shared a random post by Sharon McMahon, America’s Government Teacher, on Instagram. (If you want to check her out now she is @SharonSaysSo on Instagram. I am going to share more about her when her book club opens up again at the end of the year.) Whoever it was I was following at the time has never shared anything else that Sharon has posted. I can’t even remember who it was that shared her. In any event, one day Sharon shared her online friend, Carlos Whittaker, had just written a book called How to Human: Three Ways to Share Life Beyond What Distracts, Divides, and Disconnects Us.
This was my first introduction to Carlos’s work. His life path is so interesting and I cannot do it justice here, so all I will say is he started out as a singer in a Christian rock band and became quite popular. Then life took him in another direction and he became a speaker at his Church and now shares his wisdom and insight in corporate gigs and on the internet. He is a great follow on Instagram. He goes by @loswhit on IG. He has written several other books and his newest one was just published. It is called Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human.
As of the writing of this post, I have the book but have not yet read it. I know it is going to make me cry, so I am avoiding it a bit because of that. He also has a documentary of his time on the Amish farm, which will likely have been released by the time this writing is posted.
Here is what I love about this guy. He is working on bringing people back together, healing the division, by reminding us that we are not our beliefs and the beliefs of other people should not preclude us from having relationships with them - we can learn from other people.
He calls his followers on IG the “Instafamilia” and he truly does think of everyone as family. If you are there, you are family and he cares about you. If you look at that first picture, that is the face and the smile of someone who cares about every living person. You can’t argue that!
Right now he has been doing a lot of book publicity, but when things are quieter in his life, he routinely asks people to tell him how they are doing and he will share some of the stories. He is an avid fundraiser for communities. He does a lot of work with groups in Africa, building new schools and community centers. He speaks with and shares stories of people in Africa who have been divided by war and how they are healing through forgiveness. You can find these stories in his highlights, I’m sure.
I have read all of his other books as well and they are difficult to put down. His writing style is like he is talking to you over a cup of coffee. He is very religious so he references scripture in his work, but he also mentions in his books that when he speaks with people who are “spiritual” or metaphysical about their beliefs, he finds that we are not in disagreement on the important parts. Only the details or the sources are slightly different. And, I agree with him.
The mantra or motto of the Instafamilia is that “we walk with people rather than stand on the issues”. Meaning connection is not dependent on being in agreement on all things. He has friends who severely disagree with him on political issues and rather than dwell on those differences, they connect over their love of football games - they don’t cancel each other. They don’t let their differences define or ruin their relationship, they let their connection define the relationship. And in that way, he has learned a lot about what other people believe and why they feel the way they do. His message and his expression of that message in the way he lives his life, is truly amazing and so inspirational. He makes me cry on the regular.
His father is a black man from Panama and his mother is Mexican. His father was a preacher for many, many years and now has dementia. Carlos shares often his interactions with his parents and how his father is doing and how the family is coping with the dementia. He shares to educate and to help others who are similarly situated feel like they are seen and understood. His parents live across the street now and he will run over to visit them frequently.
Christmas season is almost upon on us and Christmas Carlos is very funny. Please check him out if you are on Instagram. And if you aren’t on IG, this might be a good reason to sign up. I only use IG for things that inspire me. I don’t follow anyone I know in real life or anyone I follow on Facebook. Each social media app has a very special and intentional reason for being with me. Facebook is for my business (because I cannot figure out how to get things going there on IG), IG is for inspiration and learning new things, and TikTok is for baby animals and dance videos. Very rarely am I brought down in vibration from my social media use.
Again, please do check him and his work out. You will not regret it. You will be filled on the daily with joy, just watching him respond to the world and share his thoughts and his family.
And, it was from Carlos, that I learned about another really great person, Mosheh Oinounou. I will share more about him soon too.
If you enjoyed learning about someone I follow online, then you may also like these posts: Somethings I like; Mandi Em; Lorraine Anderson; Barbara Balkin
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