A special announcement from Whitney about a new podcast feature and weekly format. Tune into the live episodes, broadcasting live on Beyond Measure every Monday at 3pm Pacific time: https://podcast.wellevatr.com/beyond-measure
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It’s Time To Go Beyond Measure
On today’s episode, I’m doing things a little bit differently because there’s a change happening with This Might Get Uncomfortable, and I’m going to share the reason for the change and what I’m excited about, because this feels really exhilarating to me. This is something I think is going to be really good for me and hopefully for you too.
About a week ago, mid- to late-January 2023 (I still get used to saying the year—that awkward phase at the beginning of the year when you’re like, what year is it? 2023). In that time period, I found out that there was a shift happening with the company that produces this show—not actually with the way they do things, just the way that they’re doing things for this show.
I may have mentioned this before, but I work with this fantastic company called Podetize. I literally work with them—I’m a consultant for them. I support them with social media and some copy editing and various elements. I’ve even started doing some wellbeing integration with them, mostly to support their team with their mental health wellbeing, reducing stress and overwhelm.
And I met the founders of Podetize around the time that This Might Get Uncomfortable was just an idea. My former co-host Jason and I were, I think, starting to record episodes. This is probably in either late 2018 or early 2019. We had this idea to do this podcast and we didn’t know how we were going to do it.
I had a little bit of experience with podcasting from a show I had in 2015 called Reel Influencers, and I knew the basics of it. I listened to a lot of podcasts, but there were so many unknowns. And I ended up meeting Tracy Hazzard, who’s one of the co-founders of Podetize, through someone else I knew and trusted.
And I won’t get fully into the details, because there’s a whole thing that I was doing in 2019 that led to that. But the long and short version of that story is I became a client of Podetize and they gifted me a lot of production as part of this other project I was working on. That project went south, I think in early 2020 or something like that. But then I got hired by Podetize to be that consultant, as I mentioned.
And as a perk of being a client and a team member on Podetize, they gifted me what they call production, which is how the show works. When I record an episode, I submit it to them. They, their team (not Tracy herself, the co-founder), but she has a whole team of people that work for her, and they edit the episodes and they transcribe them and they turn them into the blog posts. Like everything over at wellevatr.com is done by that team. It’s not me. They make all these images. There’s so much that goes into it, and that’s a cost that I have never had to pay because of the projects that I used to do.
And because I am a team member with Podetize, catching you up to date now, in 2023, I found out that they changed things a little bit and now they will gift me, continue gifting me that service, but only for 52 episodes a year. And I currently produce about a hundred something episodes a year. I do two episodes a week. This one right now is a Monday episode. These are my solo episodes, just me. Fridays, I release an episode with a guest.
And so I was faced with the decision of what to do. Do I continue on with this format of two episodes a week on Mondays and Fridays, or do I cut back to one episode a week? I decided to cut back to one episode a week. So that’s the first part of this announcement. The second part is I had to decide what episode would that be. Would I alternate between these solo episodes and a guest? Would I just do one or the other? I love having guests on this show, even though it’s a ton of work behind the scenes to find guests to block out time. Every guest I have on the show, we record for at least an hour. We talk for a while. We have two-hour blocks.
So I’m doing those guest episodes for at least two hours every week, plus this solo episode for an hour. So right now, the show I spend between three to five hours a week on, and I also don’t really generate revenue from it, aside from the occasional sponsor that you’ll hear. So this is a big labor of love, and that’s why I’ve been so grateful that Podetize has gifted me with the free services.
Long story short, I’m cutting back to one episode a week but it was a hard decision to make and I was looking for another option. And then it occurred to me, what if I released one guest episode a week? Which may or may not be on Fridays. I might switch it up and do it on Wednesdays. I don’t know, I might play around with the day of the week. Your feedback would be very welcome. What day of the week do you like listening to episodes? We’ll figure that out together. But what do I do with the solo episodes?
Part of me thought I’ll just cut them out. I won’t do them at all. And then another part of me recalls the amount of feedback I’ve received from people who say they actually prefer these solo episodes to the guest episodes. I always thought it’d be the other way around because who wants to hear me talk by myself for 45 minutes to an hour on average?
But actually, that’s been a huge part of my career for the past 15 years. I had a channel on YouTube called, Eco-Vegan Gal Uncensored. I started it I think in 2012, so over 10 years ago, about 11 years ago now. And that show was me talking casually without any editing for about 30 minutes. And when I started doing This Might Get Uncomfortable on my own without Jason, I started thinking about those old days of those videos and a lot of those videos I did live, and those videos started to build a community. In fact, I haven’t made a video on that channel in years and I feel bad.
I feel like I abandoned that community there. And some of them found me. One of them might be watching or listening right now, or two of them actually, because I’m about to explain how I’m doing this episode. But I feel like some people might have continued on with my journey even after I stopped doing Eco-Vegan Gal altogether, even when I switched over to @Whitney on social media. Even when I started this show, there are some people that have been part of my journey for many years, and that brings me to today.
I’m recording this episode in the private community I built called Beyond Measure and Beyond Measure has been one of my most beloved projects in maybe my entire career. It’s a private community I built off of the idea that I wanted to deeply connect with people and bypass a lot of the superficial elements of social media that were a really big part of my work for a long time, and still are to an extent because I still work in social media just in a little bit of a different capacity.
So as I thought through what to do with the podcast, given that I can’t really afford to continue producing two episodes in the way that I was doing, what I can afford and easily do and what actually feels like a much greater source of joy for me is to do all the solo episodes within Beyond Measure. So that’s what you’re hearing right now. I’m recording this live on the Beyond Measure platform and one of the coolest things about it is that there’s two people listening live right now. So far there are two people that have been a huge part of my journey. I’m going to keep their names private but they’re here listening and they can chat and interact in real time, just like all the other live platforms, right? You can do this on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, et cetera. And I’ve done some podcast episodes through those mediums as well. It’s just a little bit clunky and as I’m going to talk more about today, my relationship with social media has changed a lot.
And I’ve mentioned that actually over the last few episodes of This Might Get Uncomfortable, how I’m reevaluating things. And I’m recording this episode on January 30th, 2023. And up until now, I—how do I phrase that? This whole month, I haven’t used social media. That’s what I want to say. Aside from uploading a few videos and aside from looking at a few messages from my sister and aside from minute things, I went from using TikTok for hours a day to once a week, and not through the app on my phone, but through my computer.
And I use TikTok right now for two reasons. One mainly is because my sister loves to send me videos. That is one of our ways of bonding. So I go on to tiktok.com on my desktop and I watch the videos she sends me, and that takes about five minutes.
I’ve, I really don’t do a ton of social media uploading, but a little behind the scenes view is that Amazon has a program right now where they’re paying content creators like myself to do some TikTok style videos for them. And I was like, great. I really like talking about products. As I’ve mentioned, I’m also still developing my other podcast.
This hits the spot. And that’s a little update for you. I’m gonna pause before I come back around to this subject matter. I think it was the episode that came out today on the show I was talking about the process of This Hits The Spot, which is a private podcast. That I have had off and on for a few years.
The idea around this hits the spot was for members of Patreon, supporters, essentially people that were paying to support this might get uncomfortable and other projects related to that. Jason and I decided to launch like a private podcast just for them. And honestly, there wasn’t enough interaction or engagement with this hits the spot in that capacity.
So I’m actually like swapping some things around. One is I plan to, and I’m in the process of launching season two of this hits the spot publicly, so it’s no longer behind a paywall with Patreon. And then I’m taking parts of this might get uncomfortable and doing that privately, but that’s also not behind a paywall.
This Might Get Uncomfortable will still remain free to listen to, except that there’s gonna be the element of privatizing part of it. So this is how I, oh wait, I didn’t finish my thought with Amazon in this, it’s a spot. I wanted to give you the update that I thought it was really interesting timing as I was thinking through this hits the spot and, how do I create video content that I really wanna do, reviewing products.
About a week ago, Amazon invited me to get paid for some short video reviews. And I was like, okay, great. And I’ve spent the last week making short videos and feeling really fulfilled by it. The episode I did talking about this process, I was saying how I wanted to do things that felt intrinsically good. Meaning I was doing them just for myself on some level. And maybe getting some extrinsic value, like getting paid is an extrinsic value or a motivation. Why not get paid doing something that you enjoy intrinsically? That’s how I thought of it. And I also got to practice and get back into my short video methods and, that’s helping me get clarity around this hits the spot.
So I uploaded a new video for the first time in a while to TikTok my @WhitLauritsen TikTok. I might get back on doing videos with the Wellevatr TikTok at some point, but that’s remains to be seen. So that’s where I’m at with TikTok. I’m still figuring out this hits the spot and simultaneously figuring out all of this.
So, just to be really clear, because I’ve talked about a lot, this is how my brain works. I’m taking these weekly solo episodes, recording them live within Beyond Measure. Anybody can join Beyond Measure. But here’s the key. I should probably put anybody in air quotes because Beyond Measure is, for lack of a better term, a sacred space. To me, it was designed and I am very firm on this design for it to be a safe, emotionally, psychologically, safe space for all members. Beyond Measure came out of a big challenge I faced on YouTube, and this kind of circles back to this origin story I’ve been building, right? All those years I spent on YouTube making videos.
A lot of that was fulfilling, but it was simultaneously challenging because of comment trolls, there were people that were committed to expressing what I perceived to be cruelty. There were people that would give every single video I did a thumbs down, and as I’ve mentioned a few times on this might get uncomfortable. I never could overcome that. It really hurt. And there were people that would write mean comments and then there were strangers that would come in and say mean things, and it just, YouTube started to feel like an unsafe place for me and I wanted something different and, that’s where the idea of Beyond Measure came from.
And I also wanted a place where other people could experience that. It wasn’t just about me, but it was about people coming together to feel psychologically safe. People having a place that had nothing to do with likes, no thumbs up or comments or follower accounts. That’s where the term Beyond Measure comes from. It’s knowing that we’re all in inherently worthy, and our worthiness is not based on social media metrics, the measurements there or other me measurements that we experience in life. Many of us face concerns around appearance, around age, around societal status, race, all sorts of things that we’re fighting with.
Most of us not I I guess very privileged people might not feel that, but maybe they do deep down and don’t even recognize it. So that’s where Beyond Measure came from. And it’s something that I’m going to focus on so much more in 2023. So what better place to host live conversations and interactive podcasts and Beyond Measure?
So right now, you can click the link that’s gonna be in the description for this episode and come join us in Beyond Measure. In the beginning, you’ll just have access to the podcast. I use this really cool platform called Circle that’s easy to use. It’s like Facebook groups. It’s like Slack or Discord or any of those community platforms. Maybe even Reddit could be a term. Because you can go in and you can watch live videos, you can participate in live chats, you can go into the message boards, you can privately message me. I’ve mentioned a few times on other episodes of, this might get uncomfortable that I want really have my Beyond Measure direct messaging be the main place to com people communicate with me.
I prefer that over text messaging. I preferred over other social media direct messages and email. So how do we make this the hub for everybody to feel really good? That’s what my aim is. So I’ll make that really simple for you to come check it out. But I also recognize that not everybody is going to want to be part of that for one reason or another, even though it’s free, even though it’s easy, even though it’s a really positive space, it might not be for you.
So I’m looking into a few options and this is where I’m at with that one is I will put short clips of every episode publicly, just like you’ve been listening to This Might Get Uncomfortable all this time. There’ll be clips of it if you wanna listen to the whole version. You’ll have two options. One is to come join us for free on Beyond Measure. And two, I may set up some sort of a paywall where you can listen to episodes in a podcast player form. There’s a great tool that I use, it’s a little behind the scenes, don’t mean to confuse you, but a tool that you don’t have to worry about unless you want. It is called Hello Audio. And it, allows people to share private podcasts. That’s actually how I was distributing this hits the spot and still am actually. That’s also how I distributed my podcast. I did for a little while called Web 3 with Whitney. It’s just like a neat platform designed for private access, and I was thinking of giving that as an option to someone.
Or, an additional thing, like you can be part of Beyond Measure, but maybe you just wanna listen to a podcast player and Hello Audio basically will distribute it just like a regular player. So if that sounds confusing to you, don’t worry. I’ve got a lot to figure out and that might not all be figured out by the time you hear this Beyond Measure’s already figured out. So that’s easy. The link is there already. You can come join us, you can ask me questions, whatever you want. But I’ll figure out the private side of it, if other, if people share with me that they want that or maybe I’ll just set it up and test it. We’ll see. And the third thing I’ll mention is, let’s say I get a sponsor for the show. It’s possible I can use the money from the sponsor to produce some of these episodes publicly again. That’s an if but they would be sponsored that, we might see down the line. And if you’re not that into solo episodes, then it’s no big deal. You can continue listening, listen to the guest episodes every week just like normal.
That’s where I’m at. And since I’m recording that this episode live right now, I’m gonna pause because there are two people who I’m gonna keep anonymous unless they give me permission to share their names. They have been part of the Beyond Measure community for a very long time, and one of them at least, has written a testimonial for Beyond Measure. It might be up on, on the website for Beyond Measure. I can’t remember. It’s been a while since I’ve dabbled in that, but they have been core members. It’s so cool that they’re here today.
They knew that I was going to do this before I told anyone else, and it was Beyond Measure. This is what happens when I develop relationships with people like them, and that is what I want. I’ve recognized that connection is actually one of my key words for 2023, and that’s why it was easy for me to make the decision to move the solo podcast episodes to this community in this format.
So I’ll pause and see if either one of them have questions or comments or anything they want to say, and make sure that the tech is working. One downside is I’ve been testing out a built-in feature within the Circle platform on Beyond Measure, and the video quality’s not that great. I’m very disappointed to see, but I heard that the audio was good, so we’ll see how that goes. I may switch over to Zoom, and that might be cool and easy for people too.
If you’re really comfortable with Zoom, it’s great. It has the transcription features in it, so you can read the episode, and you can see a live transcription as I’m talking. It has all sorts of cool chat and interactive features, which we use throughout Beyond Measure. I’m just not sure if it’s a fit for the podcast yet.
So you have the opportunity to help me test out and figure out these things by participating in the live chats. The other cool thing is that if you’re unable or not interested in listening to the podcast live, you can watch the recording and listen to the recording. Within Beyond Measure, it’ll be instantly available. There’s going to be a video and the audio component, and you can leave your feedback, comments, questions, requests after you watch it on your own time, just like any other podcast.
That is just going to be a work in progress. We’re going to do it together, and that’s the driving factor here: I’ve done a lot of this podcast with some support from others. Obviously, when Jason was involved with the show, he was supportive. But to be honest, I was doing a lot of the work. I think Jason liked the role of the co-host, but I’ve always loved the role of creating and producing and thinking things through. And Podetize has been an amazing support. I’m so deeply grateful. I love working with them, and I’m honored to have the perks of free production.
For anyone listening, that’s a podcaster. It’s either a lot of work on your own or a lot of money to produce things in the way that I do. So it’s a big privilege, and I’m rethinking the entire flow of things. Speaking of flow, I wanted to offer up some value and more behind the scenes.
So that was a long-winded announcement and explanation, but there’s still more to this show today. One is that as live participants, people can always request topics. If there’s something on your mind, you can share that. I might even in the future allow people to come on video and audio and contribute in that way. I think, like the two people that are watching right now, you could raise your hand and I could bring you up on camera.
The cool thing about switching over in the way that I am is that I can share my screen and do demos and make an educational or interactive experience. There’s so much more I can do by producing the podcast this way. So I’m very excited about it. I love tech. I love the interaction. And I want to incorporate elements of that interaction so people can get to know each other. That’s at the core of Beyond Measure, but you might also want to be a podcast guest of mine.
Maybe that’s just not accessible to you yet because of the vetting process I do for guests. You can come onto the show and be a guest on one of my solo episodes just temporarily. You can raise your hand and come ask a question or make a statement. There’s all those cool features that might not have been accessible or weren’t really accessible to you in the way I was doing the show before.
So that’s something I might emphasize as a perk for the interactive live episodes is you get to be part of it in so many ways that you weren’t able to in the past. All right. The other thing I intended for today’s episode and the remaining time, which is I’ll probably spend about 15 minutes more, is that I’m getting ready to do a presentation today.
If you’re watching the video, you might have noticed that I have my hair down, which I talked about in last week’s solo episode. How I generally don’t wear my hair down, but today I’m speaking at a virtual event, and when I speak, I like to have my hair down. I prefer the way that I look, so I actually curled my hair a little bit today. It’s not done yet. Once I finish this recording, I’m going to go play with it a little bit more. I put on makeup and I feel really good.
It’s really interesting. Last week’s episode I felt like I couldn’t look at myself, but today when I put on my makeup and did my hair in my professional presentation mode, I get so much confidence from that. I just don’t want to do this every day. I might do it from time to time on these recordings, but I mentioned that because I want to share with you some thoughts and maybe an exercise for you as a live listener or a regular podcast listener of social media and mental health.
That’s the topic that I’m going over today. I’m presenting to a group of actors and people in the entertainment business in Los Angeles, and they want me to speak on how to approach social media mindfully with mental health in mind. So I’ve spent the past several days at least deeply studying this and pulling resources. I have so many ideas in my head, so I’m going to share some of them with you today as a warmup for me, but also for you to have that insight.
And if you want to hear more of this, I can do another episode. This is where your feedback matters. I also want to make some of this an exercise for you because this is how I envision upcoming episodes now that they’re within Beyond Measure. Beyond Measure is centered around value and support and doing that in a really intentional group think type of way.
I offer group coaching now and a lot of that is centered on asking questions for you to ponder. If you like journaling, you can pull out a journal and write down your thoughts and feelings around this. And my aim is with these episodes within Beyond Measure is to cultivate more of that so that you’re not just passively listening, but you’re learning and giving thought to things and going through exercises if that sort of format is supportive of you.
So let’s try that out right now. I have some notes. I’m going to go through the different subject matters covering in today’s talk. Now my presentation is interesting because it’s like a fireside chat where a woman that I know is going to be asking me questions and there’s going to be a live virtual audience that they might ask questions to.
So it’s cool because I don’t have to do a presentation with slides, but that’s something else I’d love to do within these solo episodes is when I do have a presentation like that. Maybe I’ll practice here and you can see and influence how those go. I actually have one coming up in about three weeks, so maybe that’ll be one of these episodes.
The first thing we’re going to focus on is the question around, as a creative, do you need a social media presence? And here are some things that I’ve written down for this. One is that social media is a place where you can share your work, you can connect with a potentially wider audience.
However, social media doesn’t guarantee a big audience or the right audience. One of the books that I’ve been reading right now is super fascinating because it’s all centered around getting off of social media. It’s really a fascinating resource. I believe it’s called 10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media. Something like that. I’ll link to it for you.
I need to make a note of that now that I want to have the team doing all this work for me. I have to generate all of these things and remember them. But it’s been a phenomenal read for me. Especially because I haven’t been, I did delete social media from my phone, but it’s not a hundred percent deleted because I’m still using it on my computer, like I said.
So I’ve been reading through this book trying to understand why you might delete social media and I think it’s helping me understand that there’s a lot about social media that we can’t understand when we’re in it. There’s a lot about social media that isn’t true. Literally, there’s a lot of fake stuff and fake people.
They’re literally, and figuratively, I should say, literally, bots are on there pretending to be real people. There are real people pretending to be other people. There are people pretending to be different versions of themselves.
That was a lot of my experience and I didn’t want to be part of that. So these ideas around like a creative person, such as an actor who I think is at the core of who I’m speaking to today is, do you need social media? My answer is no. You don’t need social media. But there are benefits and, so it’s more deciding what works for you.
So if you want to think these things through for yourself, whether or not you consider yourself to be a creative it’s helpful. See the benefits, being you’re sharing things, right? Social media is great for that. You can present your photos and your videos. You can present yourself, you can present what you’re seeing.
The sharing is a key side of it, and the potential to reach more people and different people outside of your current network might feel appealing. And, networking is another big element of social media. Promoting these things that you’re working on, not just sharing them, but especially for an actor or another creative.
You, you have a project you want people to know about, but that’s tough. I have to say I don’t promote much on social media having it in years because in order to effectively promote, You have to really know the algorithm and the algorithm is constantly changing. It’s unique to every single platform, so you need to understand how they all work.
You need to be studying it every week, at least some, sometimes it changes, every it’s probably changing every second based on what I’m reading. It’s a complicated thing. And so it’s hard for people to, to be successful, to reach, quote the right audience, to promote their work because social media is not currently designed for that to be easy.
It’s designed for advertisers to make that easy, but you have to pay money to advertise those things. So there’s a lot of, in my opinion, false ideas around promotions because it’s just not simple. So the average person, they can’t just sign up on social media and effectively promote something unless they happen to be lucky.
And that’s another thing I want to point out is that social media feels a lot like gambling and a lot like a slot machine. Many people make this reference, whereas you don’t know. There’s lots of possibilities, but you don’t know for sure. And the house always wins. So at a casino is designed for the house, the people that are running the casino to make money.
And you might make some money too, but ultimately they’ll always make more money. And with social media, that’s basically how it’s like a business. It’s a company, a huge tech company that designs these platforms and they’re there to make money. That’s the whole reason that they want each of us to have accounts, is that they can make us money through showing you advertising and or by collecting your data.
So they can use that in other ways for advertising. There’s a so much manipulation going on there. So you have to be aware of these things. If you really want to mindfully use social media without that awareness, you can fall into a lot of these mental health traps that I’m trying to guide people out of.
So ultimately, social media is up to each individual to decide for themselves. It’s not necessary. Podcasting is a great alternative. This is one of the reasons I’ve leaned so much into podcasting. Private communities like this are amazing and you have to be comfortable with having a more niche audience.
In those cases, maybe you won’t reach as many people Beyond Measure. For example, I’m okay with it being small. While I’d like to invite more people in, I’d like more people to know about it. It’s okay. Regardless of how many people show up, that the beyond measure, the whole point of it would be defeated if I was focused on the measurements and the amounts of people.
Blogs are a great alternative to social media, private newsletters. There are plenty of incredibly talented creative people that don’t use social media. Actors I know like friends of mine have phenomenal newsletters. And that’s how you find out what they’re working on. That’s how they promote their projects, that’s how they stay up to date with their friends.
And they might either not use social media at all or barely be on it. And one thing I’m researching is effective ways to promote a podcast without social media, cuz I have a general sense for it. But I’d like to learn more on. More alternatives. So I’ll keep you posted on that if you’re curious, whether you’re a podcaster or not.
I think this exposure idea on social media is an interesting one. And, one of the big focuses for this presentation or, not, like I said, not presentation what I call like a talker fireside chat that I’m doing later today is busting some of these myths around social media and helping people get to the core of it.
Like why do they actually want to be on there? And I think a lot of people feel like they should be on social media or they have to be on it. I think people, especially in the creative industries, there’s a lot of peer pressure. It’s a standard. There are even actors who feel like in order to get a role, they have to have a huge social media audience. It’s a tough thing. They’re using it to stand out. They’re using it to increase their visibility, not invisibility. And I think there’s just a lot of competition there. My heart breaks a little bit this is what’s gonna be interesting about this talk today.
I’m actually really grateful that it’s a fireside chat style because in order for me to get out across a lot of these ideas, it would take me so much work. Even just these ideas that I’m sharing with you right now, I’m like feeling a bit all over the place. And this is where the interaction would be amazing. Like having someone right here as a moderator would be so phenomenal. I feel a little bit nervous about doing this presentation, or I keep calling it that this talk today, but I’m also so excited cuz this is my passion. This is so thrilling for me to be able to help people think these through.
One of the other things that’s coming up in this talk is what platforms to be on and what type of content to create. And I find that really interesting as a social media consultant. A lot of people ask me that question and. I think the best platform is the one where you get the results that really feel in alignment with who you are and the people that you want to be surrounded by. Where the pros outweigh the cons, and that takes a lot of experimenting. Depends if you’re the type of person who wants to just dive in and feel it out. Or do you want to go ask your friends what platform works really well for them? Or do you want to do a ton of research? Do you want to understand the terms and conditions? Do you know want to know how they collect data on you? Do you want to know what they do with your content, what you’re agreeing? Some of these platforms, at least in the past, the agreements included the rights to use your content in all sorts of different ways. And that can be scary. This is why some parents don’t show pictures of their kids is because they don’t want to give away all this data on children, or they don’t want their pictures or videos driven around the internet. So every platform’s gonna have different terms and every platform has different algorithms, as I mentioned and, comfort levels and types of people on it. You want to find your people. Where do you feel good? What? What is the whole purpose of you using this platform? If you’re just there to showcase your acting capabilities and promote your pro projects? It’s the platform where it’s the easiest. Like TikTok is a great choice right now cuz it’s easier to go viral, it’s easier to reach a wide audience.
But I’ll also be honest that the last video I put on TikTok had less than a hundred views after a few days. There’s this huge myth that you can go viral on there so fast, and these platforms are also designed like that slot machine casino type thing where sure, the person next to you might be winning hundreds, thousands of dollars and you can see it, you’ll know it’s possible, but you yourself might not make anything. You’re lucky to break even. You might even lose, you could put all this time and effort into social media and it might not be worth it for you. And that’s something you have to think about for every single platform. It’s a lot to think about, and I think that is the reason that most people don’t think that deeply about social media is it’s actually quite complex. I’ve been on social media and teaching social media consulting, advising, coaching on social media for over 10 years now, and I can barely keep up. So how is the average person going to be able to navigate that without thinking? Without going? Yeah, I guess most people just want to go on and they want an easy experience, is what I’m trying to say. And it, it’s just not that easy. You could pretend it is, but it’s much more complex. But the benefits of spending a lot of time researching and understanding can be huge.
The benefits of spending a lot of time researching and understanding what you’re in for on social media is that you can protect your mental health because there’s a lot going on for us emotionally as we’re using these platforms that we might not even be aware of. It’s actually quite common. There have been studies done that show that the more time you spend on social media, the less your wellbeing will be. I was just reading about this today and the study said that, “Individuals consume content from other people that highlight more positive aspects of their lives. This results in negative social comparison. People are feeling things like being left out, having fears within them, feeling envy, guilt, regret, defensiveness, unmet cravings, and being more likely to lie and to blame.” All of this data is saying that this is more likely to happen on social media. So if you’re not paying attention to it, you might not even realize how it’s impacting you.
That’s the reason why I left social media at the beginning of this month, even though it might just be temporary. I wanted to step back and see what it looked like for me. I wanted to see if I felt better and, yes, I do feel better. I don’t know if I just feel better because I’m doing other things right? I’m spending more time on things like Beyond Measure, reading books, understanding the world, taking walks, and making food. I’m doing things that really bring me joy. So could I still do all of those things and feel that joy and use social media perhaps, but I won’t know until I re-enter social media. And by that time, social media could have drastically changed because, like I said, it changes so frequently.
By the time I re-download it, it will be different from what I experienced a month ago. So I’ll leave it at that. That’s actually my time. My timer literally just went off, so I’m going to wrap it there, even though there’s so much more that I plan to cover in my talk. I’ll keep you posted. If you’re curious, I can do a follow up episode. The talk is not going to be recorded, but I was wanting to record something. I’m also considering starting another podcast. Beyond this might get uncomfortable beyond this hits the spot. I really want to start a marketing podcast and the title I have in mind is Marketing Beyond Measure. So that’s in the works right now. I’ll just have to see if I have the capacity to do that show amongst everything else. But I yearn for that. I love talking about this stuff. This is like one of my special interests. I could talk about social media, read about social media all the time, so it makes sense for me to do more of that.
Probably just don’t know if it makes sense for me to start another podcast. We’ll see. That concludes the first live episode of this. One person in the chat said thank you and gave some claps. Another person said that they had fun being here live. I appreciate both of you so much. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining.
Actually, I’m going to ask one of you again. Here’s a little behind the scenes perk. At the beginning, I tried on this blazer. For those that are just listening, this will not make any sense. But this is what I’m planning to wear for my talk. I feel like a different person when I put this on, but I wanted some live feedback on it. One of you already gave it to me, but if the other person wanted to see, because you weren’t here earlier, you are welcome to. And this is the thing, like we can give each other feedback. We can chat like friends. That’s what I want it to be like. I want everybody to feel like they’re part of the process. And I did get some live feedback. Thank you.
I also want to acknowledge again that I don’t normally dress like this, do my hair like this. It’s because I have the talk coming up and that’s part of the authenticity of acknowledging when things are different. And why, because as I do the studying around mental health, wellbeing, social media, I see how easy it is for us to look at somebody else and make a lot of assumptions about them and then compare ourselves to that. And so my mission, my commitment is to always be very transparent and clear because I want the opposite. I want people to feel closer to each other. I want people to support each other with boosting their self-esteem, their confidence to feel good and supported and loved and accepted. That’s why Beyond Measure exists. That’s why I started.
I’m doing the podcast there now, and huge thank you to that. This might get uncomfortable listeners to the Beyond Measure members. I welcome your feedback, your requests, anything you’d like as we together shape this new element of the podcast. That’s it for now. So two last things. One is in the podcast description. There will be a link to this episode. I think I might have the Podetize team produce this episode as usual. So the way that this, I don’t know, I’m a little bit torn. I still have the ability to have them do this episode, I believe, before we switch over to the once-a-week frequency. So we’ll see. I haven’t decided in this very moment, but regardless, if you’re a This Might Get Uncomfortable listener, just look in the description to click to come join us and be on measure and be here for the next live to hear the full episodes that used to be available publicly and to just get into the groove.
As I switch over to that, I do intend to at least put clips, maybe like half of the episode. I don’t know. I’m not quite sure, but some part of these episodes I intend to put or keep on This Might Get Uncomfortable, but the full experience will live from now on on Beyond Measure. It’ll be every Monday. Right now, I’m working on the time of day to fit for people’s lives. So there’s still things to be considered, and your input is great. So the input you can share with me within Beyond Measure. If you don’t want to join though, and you have other comments or requests, and Beyond Measure’s not for you, please email me. That’s the best way to get in touch. My email is on the wellevatr.com website. If you haven’t been there yet, it’s spelled wellevatr.com.
All right, bye for now.
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