[Transcript starts at 1:15]
Hello. Hello. Hello. My podcast people. And thank you for joining me for yet a another episode of my favorite podcast. If you were listening, tuning, watching on the day that this drops, it is Monday, February 10th, welcome to. The second week of February. So y'all, shit just gets more chaotic each and every fucking day, every second of the day, every time I open Instagram, it's something more unhinged than the last.
And yes, I am clearly talking about politics in today's episode right now, rather, and also in today's episode, because honestly, what the fuck else am I going to talk about? Like how to build a sales page? Like, no, that is not. That's not, that's not, that's not it. Uh, this dichotomy, this duality, this perhaps cognitive dissonance of like, all this is going on in the world, but should I share this thing on Instagram?
How should I show up in my business? That's exactly what I want to talk about in today's episode, because it has come up a few times and it's very, very, very legit. All right. So first off, the mafia dinner, the open invitation mafia dinner was last week. Huge thank you to any of you that came, you know, came live.
If you watch the replay, just Thank you. It was fucking awesome. Um, and of course my mafiosos, thank you for being there. But one of the things that came up was the very real situation of business owners not knowing exactly, you know, how exactly to show up right now. Namely that they want to show up, but They're like, I want to say something.
And perhaps they saw, you know, one of their clients, maybe even like say something that they're like, what the fuck on social media. Well, they're also like, I want to say something, but also I got bills to pay. All right. Especially if you're early on in your, your coaching career, your business journey. It's fucking real.
I hear you. I see you. I get it. And it made me think of two things. Number one, defense through offense. So to me, this means. showing up from day one in such a way that people don't question your values or where you stand and they just wouldn't dare say these things. to you. Part of this very much includes explicitly stating your values and where you stand on things from the jump.
And I know that I got a bunch of people in my audience like that. I'm thinking of Jesse, Tracy, Rhonda, Bethany. You folks would just be showing up, saying the things, there is no question. Lord Jean, you know, where are they? Meredith, no question. There is no question. Uchenna, Dr. UC. Dr. J pop, there's no question where they stand on things.
The second thing that this made me think of this question, this dilemma was the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. Y'all already know how that quote goes. And as I'm saying it, you're probably like, fuck, I don't even want to hear this. So the question then. Should you share your political beliefs on social media?
Y'all, I stay saying that you don't have an obligation to post anything. You have an opportunity. And I still firmly believe that, but I also believe that it's time for my message and my messaging to evolve and to speak to what is needed right now. What will be useful and usable right now. Yes, I absolutely consider myself a leader.
I gladly take on that. That moniker and that role, and I believe that evolving one's message and speaking to current needs while staying rooted in one's values is good leadership. It's been my observation that when it comes to problem solving, most people Simply want action items, and they want to be told what to do.
This isn't a judgment, this isn't said with any kind of negativity. To me, it's a subjective. This is why folks don't start their own businesses. I work with people, and they're like, worried about their employees leaving. And I'm like, one, treat them well, and two, no one wants to fucking start their own business.
They just want to just do shit on their own. So, let me move this on the camera up here. There we go. But, for those of you not watching the, uh, YouTube, I just adjusted the camera, that's what that noise was. Uh, but, There's no need to worry about these folks because the 99 percent of people just want to be told what to do.
They want to show up, told what to do, right? You think about PTs, right? They want to come in, they want to work, or they want to go home, right? They don't want to be micromanaged necessarily, but they, they've been told what to do, which is treat. For those of you in the woo world, generators and manifesting generators make up 70 percent of the population.
Yes, those two are different, but they still going to get shit done. All this to say. Well, yes, there is absolutely something to be said about encouraging critical thinking and independent problem solving. Y'all, lowering the activation energy for people is Very helpful. Being clear, being specific, just saying the things to people so they don't have to decode stuff is very helpful.
Just giving people a concrete answer. It's nice. It's helpful. So I know that I speak quickly, uh, but it's my hope that you noticed that what just happened there was I left the question of, should you share your political views on social media? I left that question unanswered. And hopefully enough time has passed.
I probably could have made it a little longer if I spoke slower, but enough time has passed since I asked that question that you're getting a bit frustrated. And you're like, wait, but like, okay, so what did my show? What do you think? Tell me what you think. I do believe that people will still formulate their own answers, you know, irrespective of what I say, or in addition to what I say and believe.
But I do think that people want to know what do I think? And just like people want to know what you think specifically and where you stand specifically, they don't have to guess on things. They will still formulate their own ideas and response and thoughts. But they want to know we can apply things. We can hint at things.
We can hope people extrapolate things, but nothing beats coming out and saying it. I think this is what we see on social media. And I think we can do better, right? Like, yes, people are still ultimately going to believe what they want to believe as evidenced by the fact that Trump said how terrible he is and all the terrible things he planned on doing.
People were like, he doesn't mean it. He's not that bad. He's not going to do X, Y, Z. And now. And now, and now, yes, we see it. But, if we, at least if we do come out and say the stuff as clear as possible, then we know that we did the best we could to be as clear as possible. I, and I never want to assume what someone's beliefs are, especially just by the way they look.
Cause I can't, I got served an account the other day and I was like, what the fuck is this? What in the actual fucking fuck is this? A very masculine lesbian, who was incredibly Incredibly transphobic. Incredibly, incredibly problematic. Hugely homophobic. Just fucking terrible. And if you just looked at this person, you might be like, oh, well, this person's gay.
And so of course they didn't vote for Trump. Of course they, you don't believe X, Y, and Z. You would be fucking wrong. But the nice thing is that person comes right out and says how terrible she is. So you just be like, okay, well, at least I know. So circling back to the original question of should you share, it's a little hard for me to say, should you share your political views on social media?
My answer, yes, point blank, fucking straight up. I think you should now you already know, I don't like that word should I don't like it, but I'm a fucking use it because that's part of the question. I'm just going to use the language that I hear. I'm just going to use it. Yes. And like I said earlier, my position on this has, has evolved.
I've always said that you are under, cause you're still under no obligation. You have an opportunity and I think you should fucking take it. I think every single person who has the opportunity to say something on social media about their political views should say something and the reason. that I say this and believe this stems from me spending the past fucking four or five hours investigating the reason why we don't share political views and political beliefs in the first place.
So I'm going to link my chat GPT chat in the show notes. Thank you, Kourtney. And yes, I know the chat GPT lies about stuff. You have to like fact check and go. And I did that. But it's a good summary. So I'm going to link that actual chat that I had. You can see the things that I asked it and how it responded.
But the long and the short is that we don't talk about politics because it benefited politicians and those in power here. For us to not talk about politics. That's the only fucking reason. I have been sitting with this and thinking about this since, largely since the election, like, since basically Harris decided that, you know, Harris got put on the ballot.
And I was like, why don't more people talk about this shit? Why are we keeping this secret? Why are wives not talking to their husbands and that, like that, I honestly, asking that question, I was like, and now I see why now I fucking know why it's to quote unquote, keep the peace, AKA so that those with power can stay in power.
It's very simple, right? The same way that it benefits employers for their employees to not talk about their salaries and their compensation. This way they can pay people less and unequally. The employer wins. So of course they're going to look to foster and facilitate this environment where they're like, it's not appropriate.
It's not professional to talk about your salary with other. Why? Why the fuck not? Why the fuck not? So a little bit of history, right? In the late 19th century, secret ballots came about and when, as it relates to voting, and that was as an effort to, uh, Or tactic to combat coercion and retaliation that came with public voting.
Right. So before like, if you don't have to watch the squid games, but like they vote publicly and you start to see, you're like, Oh, like there becomes coercion. There becomes retaliation. Like, Oh, you voted for that. I'm going to kill you. It's, it's big, it's bad. That began to ingrain this notion that political choices were personal and private.
Now there's a bunch more that happened throughout the years. And I'm going to encourage you to check out the thing that I linked, the chat that I, that I had with ChatGBT. More stuff happened over the years that contributed to folks not talking about politics. But I can summarize all of that, all of it, by saying it was rooted in a desire to avoid.
Conflict and minimize dissent. This was largely emphasized and enforced by those who would benefit from it. The most AKA corrupt politicians, wealthy elites, corporations. Does this sound familiar? Employers. And I'm going to add in here, just men in general, most notably husbands. What I want to highlight about this quote unquote solution, right.
Of secret ballots is that it's a fucking bandaid. Right. It was a procedural fix as opposed to a structural solution. Meaning, why was there so much coercion and retaliation in the first place? We need to go after the cause of that, not just the coercion and the retaliation itself. All right. So the cause of the coercion and the retaliation that occurred around voting.
Was the deep economic and social division, right? The socioeconomic disparity led to different folks within the same society wanting and needing vastly different things. We see it now. Some people have everything and some people have fucking nothing. And from here, subsequently you see candidates looking to capitalize on this.
I would love to say that the candidates were looking to address this, not capitalize, but politicians be making me feel some kind of way. So I'm going to stick with capitalized, right? The cycle then persists because wealth and power tend to reinforce themselves unless they are disrupted by policy, by social movements or by major economic shifts, right?
So that cycle just to elucidate it for you. People are silenced by those who benefit from their silence. Power remains concentrated. Inequality is created and or it deepens. Division grows, right? Because people are pitted against each other instead of united against being united against their oppressor.
We see it happening now. The people stay silent, they don't talk about stuff, the power remains concentrated and we see the cycle fucking go on and go on and go on. So how do we break the fucking wheel? That's an actual quote from Daenerys Targaryen. Actual quote. We break it by speaking up and using our power.
Like I said, power remains concentrated unless it's acted upon. One of the best things that we can do with our power is to use it to help those who have it. If you have a platform, you have power, and this is a platform of any fucking size. If you have privilege of any sort, and my friend, we all have privilege.
I have privilege. You have privilege. If you have privilege of any sort, you have power. And so I'm not here to tell you exactly what to say or when to say it, or that you have to say anything at all, right? I'm not here to tell you how to use that power, right? Though, like I said earlier, I do believe that more specific is more better.
I guess I kind of tried to demonstrate earlier and spoke to it earlier, alluding to things sucks and having people assume things sucks, but I am not demanding that anyone do anything. I am saying that if I am asked the pointed question of should you share your political views on social media? My answer is yes.
I believe that people should. I believe that it is helpful. I believe that forced silence is at the root of all of this shit we fucking see today and what we're experiencing and thus voluntary expression is a big part of the solution. So speaking of solutions, y'all know I'm here to Um, give you resources and action items.
So, uh, what is it? I think I got four resources for you. Number one is a book recommended by, uh, recommends me by Dr. J Pop, who's one of the resources as well. Uh, and it's called say more about that by Amber Cabral. Uh, the second resource is anything by James, Olivia, true Hillman, all of their social media content.
Um, but most notably they're skilled in sovereign relationship skills intensive. Y'all know, I took that a few years ago, loved it. It will help you have conversations, it will help you with conflict, um, their, uh, Instagram handle is inquisitive underscore human on Instagram, and we'll, we'll link the website as well.
Uh, next resource, anything from Laura Jean, you all know, I love my girl, Laura Jean. She's dietitian values on Instagram, at least for now. She might change that, that handle, but, um, you can find her there for now. We'll link that and her website. Um, and then lastly, anything from Dr. Jennifer Hutton. All right.
I'm bringing her back on the podcast, actually. We're interviewing this week, um, so that in that episode will be out shortly unless she needs a specific time for it to come out, um, but keep an eye out for that. Um, she's dr. jpop on Instagram. We'll link that. Thank you, Courtney, for linking all the things and her building allyship ebook is a specific resource she has.
That's. It's incredible. She is coming out with something new as well. Um, but I also have podcast episodes with all of those people. Um, well not the first person, not the, what is that, Amber Cabral, don't have an episode with that person, but the rest of them, I have podcast episodes and we will link all of that.
Thank you, Courtney. Uh, and you too, Joe. Uh, but I give you these resources because I know it's going to be uncomfortable. I know that that's why you haven't done it yet because it feels uncomfortable. That's why I gave you the resources.
Before anyone can say, I just say out of politics, my account isn't political, homie. I'm a hold your hand so gently. When I say this, your entire existence is political. We live in the United States. No one's existence is separate from politics. Those who say that they can separate the two simply benefit from, or at least are not immediately harmed by the politics and policies that are.
And let me tell you, this current administration, they are coming for everyone, everyone, especially anyone who is not a cis heterosexual white man. And even then, if you are that. If you ain't a billionaire, good luck Bob. You about to lose your job. They don't give a fuck, right? I'm not gonna lie, right now I kind of feel like I'm in a room with a bunch of kids, a bunch of people who are playing hide and seek and they're hiding by simply covering their own eyes.
And I'm like, I could still see, everybody could still see you. You are not exempt from this, like. What are we doing? They can see you. So something to think about here, as it relates to showing up on social, sharing your political view on social, is the question, who are you most worried about upsetting?
What's stopping you? It's likely it's conflict that is, that is stopping you. Who, conflict with who? My guess is that it's folks who don't agree with you. As it relates to where we are today, those folks may not support you or they may have significantly different values, right? If this person that you, if you were to put your political views out there and someone wants to be like, fuck you, I totally disagree.
They might not support you, right? They may just have completely fundamentally different values than you. And this is not at all me saying fuck their feelings. That is not the answer. This is me asking you without judgment. To take a moment and ask yourself why you are cherishing and protecting and prioritizing and prizing their comfort.
So, I'm going to, if I circle back to last week's episode, episode, what is it, 650? The answer here is ultimately, you know, that it's likely that curiosity and curiosity, wow, that curiosity and conversation is the best outcome. It's the solution, it's the antidote, it's what's needed. But that only comes about if you speak up and share what you stand for.
And this doesn't mean doing it like a fucking dick, you know, you don't have to share like a dick. We know what that looks like. Don't do that. Again, I point you back to those resources I listed earlier. She is beauty. She is grace. I think that folks immediately think about screaming and yelling matches and like.
It doesn't have to be like that, especially on social media. Cause you can just block people. You do not have to yell with people on social media. Like literally to me, social media is the safest. It's the safest and it's actually a better place to start. I think that perhaps what might be ultimately more impactful is having the conversations with your direct family and in person, right?
I think it's a both and here of like social media and this cause we're showing up congruent whether we're in person or online, but there's a lot of safety on social media. Like you could just block people. You could just, you could do that. You could just block them. And before anyone's like, Oh, but that's being intolerant.
Them dusty fucking bitches in your comments are not trying to be civilized and have a civilized conversation. They are looking for attention. So be blocked and be blessed, Sheila. And you can go look up, what is it called? The, not the dichotomy. Uh, I'm like literally going to go out right now. The, uh, something of intolerance.
The something of intolerance. You're basically like in order for tolerance to exist, you have to be Intolerance, uh, it is the, is this the error of an, no, no, that's not right. I will, I can't remember at the moment, but there's something that I'll come back and I'm going to be listening to this being like, oh yes, but either way, you got to be intolerant to intolerance.
It's okay. In order for there to be tolerance. It's, it's just a thing. Sit with it for a second. All to say, be blocked and be blessed if they're dusty. Okay. Be blocked and be blessed. So might people have, cause I want to make this realistic. All right. I want to give you some, uh, I'm going to have a future pace this.
I want to have some expectation management around this. Might you have a negative response? Might there be a negative response if you do this? Yes, for sure. Maybe, especially if you've been showing up real fucking wishy washy for a long time. I'm sorry to say that, but it's true. But might you have an absolutely phenomenal response?
Double fucking sure. Absolutely. Yes. The question that I have here is. And it's like, one of the things I see thrown out, just like, just like, just a knee jerk is like, well, I don't want them anyway. And I don't, I don't care about them anyway. And I'm like, yes, that's like in theory, but like, we're not sociopaths.
So like we do care, but I think that we can sit with some questions and then like ask ourselves some things. And the question that I have is why would you want to serve an audience that would have a negative response to you sharing your beliefs and your values? No, they're not your people. And if, if you just saying that is enough for you to be like, okay, I'm cool with this, amazing.
But I know that that's doesn't really necessarily feel like it's enough for me. And so I ask more questions, I dig a little deeper. And to me, it's like, but why am I prizing? That, why am I silencing myself? Why would I want to serve that person that actually hates me, that doesn't respect me, that doesn't value me?
And again, this is an assumption. The answer here is to dig and have the communication, have the conversations and be like, what, you know, where do you actually stand with this? All right. But it starts with you actually sharing. So more future pacing here, more expectation management. Might you lose some clients?
Objectively, yes, it could happen. Again, I'm not here to say that you have to go and do this. I'm saying that if you ask me, should you, my answer is going to be yes. It's going to be objectively a resounding. Yes, you may lose some clients initially, but you're going to create space, create opportunity, create a foundation to attract the ones that you actually really fucking want to work with.
Or perhaps you have a conversation with some people and you hear their side and they hear your side. So I, I'm going to wrap it up here. I am so happy with this episode, but I'm gonna wrap it up here. And I want to wrap it up with a quote from James Olivia. Because I want to be, I want to continue to be realistic and honest that doing this and sharing your political views may be uncomfortable and that not everyone is going to agree with you, because I know that I have a way with words, I said, I got a way with words, I can get people excited about something and they're like, Oh, I'm going to go do this.
Yes, I'm in your corner. I'm fucking cheering for you, but I'm also going to be realistic with you. I'm also going to have expectation management, set expectations here. And the quote from James Olivia is. Difference holds possibility. It's the other, the other side of that coin of maybe they will disagree with you.
Maybe they will just the same way that you see stuff on social media that you don't agree with, right? They could choose to scroll by, or maybe they choose to have a conversation, but ultimately you gotta understand that your silence is not helping anyone.
All right, that's all I got for you. If you want to chat it up, shoot me a text 3 1 0 7 3 7 2 3 4 5. If you. Want to email me? Don't because I'm not going to get back to you. Uh, if you want to shoot me, I'm just being honest, right? Uh, if you want to shoot me a DM at The Movement Maestro, I'm here to chat as well.
But yeah, those are my, those are my 15 pennies on it. That's way more than two pennies, right? Those are my 15 pennies on that. And I am big grateful for you taking the time to listen, to watch, to tune in. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends.
Maestro.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Read my conversation with ChatGPT
Read Say More About That
Connect with James-Olivia Chu Hillman: @inquisitive_human
inquisitivehuman.com
Connect with Laura Jean: @dietitianvalues
Connect with Dr. J Pop: @dr.jpop
The Building Allyship Ebook
Listen to these podcast episodes:
MOTM #004: Dr. JPop, the Pediatric Physical Therapy Prodigy
MOTM #218: You Get Stronger Every Time You Stand Up with Dr. JPop
MOTM #228: Relational Fuckery, Antidotes, and Minding Your Business with James-Olivia Chu Hillman
MOTM #298: Self-Judgement, Hard Work, And Suffering With James-Olivia Chu Hillman
MOTM #343: Start with Your Values with Laura Jean
MOTM #485: Being Seen, Heard, and Known (Part I)
MOTM #486: Cultivating Communities of Care (Part II)
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