Toxic by Choice
What you consume becomes what you carry—and spread to others
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
– Jim Rohn
Toxic by Choice
Deep in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea lives an incredible bird—the Pitohui. With striking black and orange feathers, it’s an amazing creature. But touch it, and your fingers go numb. If you really get bold and try to eat it, you might not live.
The Pitohui is one of the world’s only poisonous birds. Not by nature, but by diet. The Pitohui feeds on a particular beetle loaded with batrachotoxin—the same lethal substance found in poisonous dart frogs.
This is a phenomenon that occurs in other parts of nature. In coral reefs, small fish ingest algae that carry natural toxins. Larger fish, like snapper and barracuda, eat the smaller fish, and these toxins become more concentrated as they move up the food chain. By the time a human enjoys their “fresh catch,” they risk Ciguatera poisoning—an illness that causes diarrhea, vomiting, numbness, itchiness, temperature sensitivity, dizziness, and general weakness.
Even the beloved monarch butterfly is off-limits to predators after feeding on toxic milkweed as a caterpillar. That poison stays with it, long after its transformation, and keeps would-be predators at bay.
These examples from Mother Nature aren’t dangerous because of what they are, but rather from what they digest. This extends to us as humans. We don’t just take garbage in—we recycle it. What we consume becomes what we pass along to others. Every conversation, video, relationship, and thought enters our system. Some fuel us. Others cripple us. And whatever we let in us will eventually leak out.
If we spend time with complainers long enough, their negativity becomes ours. Slowly, invisibly, you begin to carry their angst, and you become the person others try to avoid.
Let anger, jealousy, resentment, or bitterness take hold, and it will bleed into your tone, leadership, and body language. It will show up when the game gets tight, someone else gets praise, and when the pressure is on.
We are a significant part of this chain; fortunately, we get to choose what we consume and whether we break the chain or keep it going. If we are unhealthy, we change what we eat. The same is true with our diet of outside influences. We can always change our diet of influences.
You’ve heard the expression, “in with the good, out with the bad.” It’s good advice. In our lives, the real goal should be to take in what lifts us up and let it flow outward while stopping what’s toxic from going any further and not letting it harm us or others.
So what will we take in to pass along? More optimism, encouragement, and gratitude? They're all contagious … we're not just responsible for what we become; we’re also responsible for what we pass on to others.
“Negativity is like drinking poison and hoping someone else gets sick.”
Connecting this quote to the story. When we consume toxic influences, whether through people, media, or mindset, we harm ourselves while mistakenly believing it will affect others and not ourselves.
This week’s Chasing Influence tip: What you tolerate around you, you absorb over time.
If you enjoyed this story, a series of three Chasing Influence workbooks is available. Stories are accompanied by discussion questions and answers. Each workbook contains 33 lessons to use with any team.
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©Troy Urdahl, 2025