[Transcript starts at 1:12]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people and thank you for joining me for your another episode of my favorite podcast. Today we are answering the question, how much of your personal life should you share on social media. If you're listening to this on the that it drops. It's Thursday, July 19th, happy middle of July.
Just so you know, it is summer in July. I said this on the past episode. I dunno what episode it was, but either way I'm still celebrating it because when it was all rainy, I was talking about the weather a lot. Right. I was like a straight up meteorologist, so I'm gonna, on the flip side here, celebrate the sun.
It's still great. Best place to live.
Today's episode is somewhat inspired by the Best Life Podcast. They did a recently, they recently did an episode. Fun fact. Courtney also edits their podcast. Um, I found Courtney, my amazing editor, um, through Jill. And she edits Jill's podcast, uh, Jill's podcast with Danny J, uh the Best Life.
And they recently did an episode about this, and it was something about like, Do [00:01:00] you have to share a breakup or should you share a breakup on social media, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do my own episode on this cuz I have some thoughts. Um, I didn't listen to theirs, but I'm sure that I agree with what they said.
Um, but I have some thoughts and I do get this question a lot, especially in the Intensive of just like, how much of my personal life should I share on this? How much personal do I put in a professional account? And the answer of course you folks already know is that it's up to you. I wanna kind of tease this out and maybe give some, I dunno, examples because they, they come up and people have asked. Um, but at the end of the day, what you share on social media is up to you. And I will within this episode talk about kind of the value of getting more personal, if you will. Not that you have to show up crying, please. I honestly don't do that.
You don't have to show up crying on Instagram. But there is value, value to really humanizing the account, um, and looking to build that personal brand, really putting the person in, in personal brand. But, as it relates to, to what you should share or how much you should share, how much of your personal life should you share?
And one, you know that I [00:02:00] hate that word, should, but I think it all comes down to integrity. Because if you go to the other side of this, something that I see in the space is that people are preaching a message and then living another. I see folks being life coaches, kind of motivational speakers, inspirational people, and then they're overdosing and dying.
And I'm like, there's a disconnect there. Right? We see people being relationship coaches, but then having massive affairs and going through horrendous divorces, and I'm like, well, I guess maybe that's part of the relationship. I don't know. I don't think so. There seems like there's a disconnect there.
So to me, if we say how much should you share? I think it just needs to be within your integrity and there needs to be that congruency there. I think that choosing to not share certain things and not share certain parts of your own life for your own personal reasons, does not at all mean that you're acting out of integrity.
It's actually making those choices to not share and how you, how you make those choices of what you are sharing, that's, that puts you in, [00:03:00] places you within your integrity. So all that to say, if you are making money off of what you're sharing in your life, if your life is your area of expertise, then yeah, I think that the default should be to share. And again, I'm thinking about like relationship people and then like, or these motivational people and then like this, it doesn't, that there isn't, I have an issue with that and I'm like, you're hiding something from people.
You're like, I'm this motivational person in my life is great, but then I just overdosed. Not because my life was great cause I had all these troubles. Like that, there's a problem there for me.
So, In terms of why even share your life and anything personal as it relates to building a personal brand, it's because it creates relatability and likability, right?
In the world of online business and for many things, and many of the things that you know, especially within online business, the level of expertise is oftentimes very similar, especially amongst industry leaders, ideally amongst industry leaders, um, or when you're serving the general population. [00:04:00] When you get more specialized, that's different but when we're going, cause the general population, the level of expertise of the provider may be very, very similar. So for example, most people that are looking for a physical therapist or like a personal trainer, they don't actually need like the world's best physical therapist or the world's best personal trainer, whatever that looks like.
They just probably need to do something and they'll get better. To that end, when we look to differentiate ourselves, if you're going to that demographic, sharing you, the person can be a significant differentiator. How much should you share? What exactly should you share? Again, this is up to you, 100% up to you. And I will say, and I I heard this from, from Emma, Emma Jack, shout out to you, Emma Jack, “Document don't create.”
I think she got it from somebody. She said it as a quote. I don't know. I can't remember. But either way, I'm gonna credit Emma Jack with that. But when it comes to social media, document, don't create. So to me, Instagram is so amazing cuz there's all these different parts of the platform and you can go in your Stories and you can just document in your day. Who [00:05:00] are you with, what are you doing, what does it look like when you wake up, what are you eating right?
That's part of your personal life. And that those are things that they create what we call knowable, but they tie into relatability. They contribute to likability.
An important note here about quote unquote vulnerability. I hate this discussion. You know, people talking about being more vulnerable. The definition of vulnerable is: susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm.
What most people consider to be vulnerable is actually just them being emotional and for those who eat it up, relatable, right? Going online and just crying, to me, it's honestly quite oftentimes embarrassing. And I heard a quote once, teach from the scar, not the wound. Right. So yeah, experience life. For sure.
Have your emotions and then process them. Work through them. Take the [00:06:00] lessons from them, and then go and share that.
So, as it relates to personal life, like what, what exactly constitutes personal life? To me, it's anything, right? It's anything outside of your pure business life. So it can simply be the things that you do for fun.
It could be hobbies, tv, food, books, trips, traveling, exercise, vacations, all of that. Your life outside of business. This is what humanizes the account. This is again, where we start to get that relatability and we get that likability. Family and romantic relationships absolutely fall into this category, but they do involve other people, and so I think that, you know, they're maybe other rules that get set that also involves these other people. We need consent from them. So you'll see people blurring people's faces out, um, blurring their kids' faces out and things like that. Makes sense. I will say as it relates to relationships, I personally have never been one to make relationships front and center.
I [00:07:00] did recently, so I recently, a few months ago, post a breakup post because folks knew that I was dating this person and I felt that it would be very weird to just not post anything, about, what this person just stopped showing up in, in your stories and your posts? Um, Ashley and I had a discussion about it and what we felt would be best.
And if, if we had decided no, we don't wanna do a post, that would also have been fine as well, right? And fully within my integrity because it's like, yes, I share all these things, but if this person decided no, I don't wanna do this, I don't wanna have that post, that's also within my integrity. It's not that I owe, you know, the audience, this thing. Your loyalties lie to that, that individual first.
So, I thought it would be weird to just not say anything. Um, and also I will say, yes, people are invested. If this is you and you've been showing up and you have a relationship, yeah, people are invested in that relationship. Meaning that people do care to a certain extent. Yes, [00:08:00] they simply want to know what's going on, but if you've been showing up on social media, the way that I encourage people to show up and you know, really building relationships and fostering relationships, then there's a good chance that these people also actually care about you and they care about your happiness and your wellbeing. So they wanna know from that perspective as well.
I do not think that you have an obligation or a responsibility to share these things. I think that the better word is that you have an opportunity to share these things. You have an opportunity to be transparent and perhaps share a lesson. You have an opportunity to lead by example. You have an opportunity to show others what's possible. You have an opportunity to simply show up and show people how you do things in as it relates to this specific situation and what the outcome looks like, right?
So again, you don't have an obligation. I really don't like that. You're not obligated to share anything. You don't have a responsibility to share anything. You don't owe it to people. The only time I will say [00:09:00] that maybe you have that kind of you owe it, that obligation, responsibility is, again, if this is your business. If you've been taking money from people as it relates to, you know, maybe you're a relationship coach or you're fucking, I don't know, a lifestyle coach.
There is an obligation, in my opinion, to be transparent about these things. If you're doing something else and you just happen to be sharing your life as part of your personal brand, no, that that obligation isn't there and you have that opportunity and you have the choice about how you wanna show up and what is going to be within your integrity and leading with your values.
So again, circling back to the the original question, which is how much of your personal life should you share on Instagram? It's up to you. It's still up to you. It will always be up to you. And that is the point of this episode. You get to choose. You are in charge. So perhaps a better question to ask ourselves is, how much of my personal life do I want to share and why? And then proceed accordingly. [00:10:00]
Super short episode. Makin' up cuz Monday's was a little bit long. Uh, I do have a review to read. Folks, would love some more reviews. We're running, we're running low. The well is running dry. I also think Instagram does, does weird stuff with like how long, not Instagram, excuse me.
Apple does weird stuff with how long it takes for for things to show up, but would love a review or just do a little tappy tap, gimme some stars. Rate it, preferably five stars. I really don't want it if it's one star. Why are you still listening? If it's one star, I don't, I don't understand that. But will love five stars.
Does it help people find the podcast? I don't know. I really don't know. But do I like reading it and seeing it? Yes, I do. So I'm gonna ask for more.
Also, I did a, a question in the past episode, episode two weeks ago, last week, something like that, asking about ads and uh, shout out to those of you, the handful of you that wrote that responded and were like, I hate ads, but also if you need to put one in, it's your business. Okay.
[00:11:00] But I would love to hear from you. Am I thinking about running ads? Kind of, but not really. I just wanted to hear back on kind of what your thoughts are on ads and podcasts. Um, but yeah, either way, the review this time comes from Frida Cohen and the review says, “Great information in a fun way.” I like that.
“Love listening to these. They always give me some food for thought and motivate me to take action. She always has a subject that is current and interesting to me.” Frieda, you are the real MVP. I really do folks, I really, I read them, I read 'em out loud and I'm super, super grateful. I will also say thank you to those of you that DM me, right?
I know that you're listening cuz you're like, Hey, you know, I listened. This was great. And, and sending me, you know, your, your praises and, and such. So thank you for that as well. I say it all the time, this is a very unidirectional form of content creation. I'm just talking at the camera. So it's really great and really nice to hear back and know that it's landing and that it's helpful.
I am here to help you. [00:12:00] Yes, I enjoy making these, but I enjoy even moar, M O A R, when I know that it's landing. So if you got questions, comments, concerns, requests, reviews, anything, shoot me a DM at the Movement Maestro. Shoot me a text, 3 1 0 7 3 7 2 3 4 5. Would love to hear from you. All right, and officially wrapping it up.
Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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