Episode 30: The Vulnerability of your Visibility

Transcript

Transcript
00:00:03 Brook McCarthy
Welcome to meaningful work, remarkable life. I’m your host, Brooke McCarthy. And I’m a business coach, trainer and speaker. Living and working on the unseeded lands of the camaraderie people here in Sydney, Australia. In this podcast, we explore the paradoxes inherent in working for love.
00:00:23 Brook McCarthy
Money magnifying your impact and doing work. If you’re born to do, we explore the intersections of the meanings we bring to work and the meanings we derive from work.
00:00:36 Brook McCarthy
I thought we might start by painting a picture of March, April, May 2020.
00:00:44 Brook McCarthy
For the good.
00:00:44 Brook McCarthy
Listeners, when we camp ourselves in the same.
00:00:50 Angela Morris
Yeah, yeah.
00:00:51 Brook McCarthy
Led walls. We are the culture makers and I think I was one of two Australians. I remember that a cry.
00:00:59 Angela Morris
Ohh my God, it was such an emotional time. It wasn’t just scary, it was also really lonely and we were.
00:01:09 Angela Morris
Originally assembled to be this feminist networking group, which of course we wanted to cultivate relationships and have each other’s back, but.
00:01:18 Angela Morris
I know I didn’t have any idea that a pandemic was on the way and that we would be bearing our souls for each other and really very quickly the mask really came off who we thought we were going to be when we signed up. Yeah, became drastically different with the onset of the pandemic.
00:01:38 Brook McCarthy
Yes, yes, and it was. It was a scary time as you said. But I think it was a hell of a lot rougher for Americans as well, because you also had Donald Trump in church and then you had the Black Lives Matter movement. That kind of kicked off in June 2020. So there was a lot of chaos going.
00:01:56
00:01:57 Brook McCarthy
And yeah, I remember a lot of cry, a lot of tears, a lot of emotion. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s a nice intro to our topic today because I think you are so qualified to speak on the topic of fear of being seen.
00:02:14 Brook McCarthy
And this is really, I think a topic that is, it needs to be discussed, it needs to be discussed in a **** tonne more detail and more frequently than it currently is because it’s a very big deal.
00:02:26 Brook McCarthy
For a lot of people, including most, most especially women and those with marginalised identities, we’ve had this discussion multiple times, mainly over Instagram. Why so many female business owners and female identifying business? I just find it so damn difficult to.
00:02:46 Brook McCarthy
Be seen and be heard on on social media. Why do you think that is? Ohh, I think.
00:02:53 Angela Morris
There’s a laundry list of reasons.
00:02:55 Angela Morris
And I think it really it depends on the woman. And it depends on the business. But in general, I would say that when we look at social media platforms and we look at who is most visible and Graham really started out as a photo based.
00:03:15 Angela Morris
Platform and in many ways still is and.
00:03:19 Angela Morris
There very quickly came this way for this movement.
00:03:25 Angela Morris
Of manufacturing production and that vision of perfection is completely crafted by the white CIS heteropatriarchy. So in terms of.
00:03:42 Angela Morris
Women who own businesses.
00:03:45 Angela Morris
Even if you know you have no other marginalisation other than you’re a woman and you are passionate about something.
00:03:55 Angela Morris
That’s bad because.
00:03:57 Angela Morris
We’re not supposed to really care about anything. We’re supposed to be support people for our husbands or boyfriends. We’re supposed to be that cheerleader. And then.
00:04:08 Angela Morris
We are also not supposed to talk about ourselves very much. We’re not supposed to be leaders. We’re not supposed to ask for things. So asking for a sale, yeah, is.
00:04:22 Angela Morris
I mean, some of us can’t even ask for help from our partners in raising the children we had together. Some of us can’t ask for a, you know, day off to go to the doctor.
00:04:34 Brook McCarthy
Yeah, yeah.
00:04:35 Angela Morris
And then we want.
00:04:38 Angela Morris
To start a business.
00:04:39 Brook McCarthy
And we want.
00:04:40 Angela Morris
People to buy our service or our product. Yeah, and that requires extensively talking about ourselves, which we’re told not supposed to do.
00:04:50 Angela Morris
Ohh, talking about how great we are. Yeah, which we’re not supposed to do.
00:04:55 Brook McCarthy
Yeah.
00:04:56 Angela Morris
And telling people what we want.
00:04:58 Angela Morris
Which is I want you to support my business. I want you to trust me.
00:05:01 Angela Morris
I want you to.
00:05:02 Angela Morris
Work with me? Yeah. And then when you.
00:05:06 Angela Morris
Tack on the fact that.
00:05:09 Angela Morris
Most people who are.
00:05:11 Angela Morris
Experts in their field or have spent years and years owning their craft, so they’re probably not 19 or 20 years old, which is.
00:05:22 Angela Morris
Kind of what we’ve been shown as the ideal. So there’s this pile on, you know, I think I think what happens is a woman is like, wow, I have this really great idea. I really care about this. Yeah. And she start to quit. And then she realises that.
00:05:42 Angela Morris
Social media. She’s got to.
00:05:43 Angela Morris
Show up there and it feels like OK.
00:05:48 Angela Morris
I’m too pushy, I’m too old I.
00:05:52 Angela Morris
Life is not a perfect or aspirational enough. No. And so the tailspin comes into like.
00:06:00 Angela Morris
Who does?
00:06:00 Angela Morris
This platform want me to.
00:06:02 Angela Morris
Be or who does this?
00:06:03 Angela Morris
Audience want me to be or how could I show up here and meet my goals, but also be universally likeable? I don’t want to get trolled. I don’t want to make anyone mad. I don’t want to offend anybody. I don’t want anyone to say anything mean to me and that feels really, really vulnerable.
00:06:12
No.
00:06:21 Angela Morris
And then.
00:06:22 Angela Morris
And.
00:06:23 Angela Morris
Also, Instagram is a place all social media platforms are a place where.
00:06:30 Angela Morris
We.
00:06:31 Angela Morris
Can both show up and hide, yeah.
00:06:35 Angela Morris
So we’re still, we’re still able to.
00:06:38 Angela Morris
Hide behind something.
00:06:40
No.
00:06:40 Angela Morris
And that.
00:06:43 Angela Morris
Is really just. It’s creating a tug of war in the minds of women, I think so there’s just. There’s so much going on there and there are so many buttons that are being pushed that really press on.
00:06:51 Brook McCarthy
Hmm.
00:07:01 Angela Morris
The pain of.
00:07:05 Angela Morris
Being socialised as a girl, being socialised as a woman living under patriarchy and what we’re told we should and should not do, and what we’re told, the conditions are to being able.
00:07:18 Angela Morris
To.
00:07:19 Angela Morris
Be visible to show up and to say things.
00:07:23 Brook McCarthy
Yeah, yeah, that is.
00:07:26 Brook McCarthy
So so it is a really big problem and it’s prevalent among the client base that I see among the women that I see when I used to teach social media marketing courses around Australia, you know, it was not uncommon for conversation to get very deep and very meaningful which.
00:07:27
True.
00:07:46 Brook McCarthy
I’m. I’m all here for.
00:07:48 Brook McCarthy
But then it would slide.
00:07:50 Brook McCarthy
Into a group therapy session and there’s a lot of emotion and a lot of like, you know, ohh my God, what?
00:07:57 Brook McCarthy
Are we doing?
00:07:58 Brook McCarthy
And the question I get asked all the time was always about trolling. It was always about hiding. It was about like, how do I market?
00:08:08 Brook McCarthy
My business on the Internet but but hide from my friends and family, so my family and friends can’t see me.
00:08:15 Brook McCarthy
And it broke my heart. It was the most common question.
00:08:19 Brook McCarthy
Because it’s it’s kind of like a catch 3 too. The whole purpose of being on social media, you know, specifically on social media is to be seen and to be heard and to be paid. And yet we’re kind of, you know, in this tug of war trying to hide scared of trolls, maybe I’m minimising it.
00:08:38 Brook McCarthy
There seems to be this disproportionate fear of trolling.
00:08:42 Brook McCarthy
You know, and you’d be like, you know, Georgia, you you’ve got 12 followers like it’s it’s not.
00:08:47 Angela Morris
A problem I mean and it can, it can be easy to.
00:08:53 Angela Morris
Kind of. I don’t want to say.
00:08:55 Angela Morris
Blame the woman and it can be easy.
00:08:58 Angela Morris
To have a.
00:08:59 Angela Morris
Todd, without you.
00:09:01 Angela Morris
And be like this really isn’t a concern. Yeah, but.
00:09:06 Angela Morris
It’s not about.
00:09:11 Angela Morris
You know, our fears are not always based in realities. They’re based on past experience. Yeah. And also, there are some really sensational stories about, you know, there’s sensational stories out there about well, meaning people who.
00:09:14
OK.
00:09:27 Angela Morris
Kind of stumbled on the Internet and it destroyed their life. Yeah, I don’t think it happens as much anymore because the.
00:09:35
You.
00:09:36
That.
00:09:37 Angela Morris
Because social media is saturated, and also because people have gotten really savvy and have learned how to turn those bumbles into PR opportunities or restorative opportunities pending on how nefarious they are, I completely understand if a woman is starting a business and she’s got those 12 followers and one of them is her ******* husband who.
00:09:58 Angela Morris
Want her to work and doesn’t want her to climb out from under his thumb and the other is the Super successful sister who she’s always felt like she’s living in her chat, though, and the friend I mean the high school. I can understand why she’s like, you know, if I.
00:10:16 Angela Morris
Put this out there and it’s not perfect and everybody doesn’t love it. No, their comments and their feedback and their judgement is really going to hurt me and our brain really can’t differentiate between somebody deeply hurting our feelings and us dying. Yeah. You know, on one hand.
00:10:35 Angela Morris
Yes, it sucks that we kind of have to be each others emotional space holders.
00:10:45 Angela Morris
A lot of the.
00:10:46 Angela Morris
Time it it’s really, you know, patriarchy is the water we’re swimming in.
00:10:51 Angela Morris
So it’s like.
00:10:52 Angela Morris
We can try to divest from everything, but the reality is that, you know we’re we’re always going to be spending emotional labour. We’re always going to be picking up the slack where people get.
00:11:02 Angela Morris
Off the hook.
00:11:03 Angela Morris
But I think it’s marketing.
00:11:06 Angela Morris
Is psychology it in psychology now and it’s psychological and it’s emotional and it’s social and we are social creatures with emotions that.
00:11:07
Oh.
00:11:18 Angela Morris
Our brains can read, as you know, if you do this, you’re going to be ostracised from the pack and you are going to die. Yeah. And we we can logic our way through that a lot. But one of my clients, Abby Malik, who’s a licenced therapist and she goes by the existential coach. She told me something really wise, which is.
00:11:38 Angela Morris
About 5% of your brain control your logic. Yeah. And the other 95% controls either your basic functioning or your survival.
00:11:48 Angela Morris
And she said trying to logic your way through a big emotion is like.
00:11:56 Angela Morris
Trying to guide 95 wild horses with five well trained horses. It’s not gonna happen. Yeah. Yeah, so I think.
00:12:08 Angela Morris
Looking at.
00:12:10 Angela Morris
Systems rather than individuals and saying like it makes sense that this person would be petrified to do this. Yeah. And there would be a lifetime of conditioning that is now front and centre and telling you better stop doing this or you are going to experience something.
00:12:31 Angela Morris
That is equivalent to that.
00:12:34 Brook McCarthy
Yeah. And isn’t it true that self employment is like the most accelerated form of self development that there is?
00:12:40 Brook McCarthy
Yes.
00:12:41 Brook McCarthy
Because you got hot, right? Like you can try to hide in your own psychology. But you know, it kind of quickly becomes apparent. Your conditioning, socialisation and you know, the all the things that are going to trip you up. You can’t. You can almost not deny them. It’s.
00:12:42
Yeah.
00:13:00
Though.
00:13:01 Brook McCarthy
You know, and it’s a.
00:13:03 Brook McCarthy
Bit of a bind to though, right? Because we’re on the Internet trying to render reach a visibility.
00:13:09 Brook McCarthy
When they’re, you know, ostensibly to be seen and heard, we’ve got this enduring, you know, irrational, perhaps fear of being seen and heard and this feeling, that there’s danger in here because, you know, as you put it, we might be ostracised from the.
00:13:26 Brook McCarthy
Back.
00:13:27 Brook McCarthy
So how do you?
00:13:29 Brook McCarthy
How do you then work with your clients?
00:13:32 Brook McCarthy
To help them untangle all of that, and to say something worth listening to.
00:13:37 Angela Morris
You know, it’s funny that the first thing that you brought up was rebel girl by Bikini Kill, and of course, Kathleen Hannah is one of my heroes and something really interesting that she used to do a bikini kill show was.
00:13:51 Angela Morris
Is she used to say girls to the front?
00:13:54 Angela Morris
He was on stage performing.
00:13:58 Angela Morris
Yeah, she would see these boys and men and they were taking up space in the front and they didn’t think twice about it because they can kind of go wherever they want and they don’t have to think about where is safe and where is an appropriate place for me to be. And so the girls would be.
00:14:15 Angela Morris
Coming to, you know, the Bikini Channel show to see their idol or to hear this music that really resonates with them and they would be standing all.
00:14:23 Angela Morris
The way in the back.
00:14:24 Angela Morris
Yeah, she would say go to the front, come up to the front and I think it takes just a few people doing that. Yeah. I’m one of the people.
00:14:34 Angela Morris
That is willing to do that.
00:14:36 Angela Morris
Am I?
00:14:38 Angela Morris
Care about what people think of me. I want to be liked. I want to be loved. I want to be accepted. But I am not willing to do that at the expense of my values or my beliefs. I don’t like being quiet. I don’t like being subservient. I’m not a shy person.
00:14:57 Angela Morris
I’m an outspoken person and so in getting on my stage, which is social media.
00:15:05 Angela Morris
I think that indirectly I and people like me are saying, hey, come to the front. Yeah, this is for you to do here. Yep.
00:15:15 Angela Morris
Yeah. And and.
00:15:16 Brook McCarthy
It’s.
00:15:17 Angela Morris
It’s interesting because those of us who really do that.
00:15:23 Angela Morris
Aggressively, I guess we do take the brunt of certain criticisms and.
00:15:30 Angela Morris
We do get a a little bit more pile on, I would say.
00:15:35 Angela Morris
But not everybody has something as intense to say as us.
00:15:41 Angela Morris
So I think sometimes it’s not so much be me or be radical or burn your raw or whatever, but just being like, OK, if that person can say that I can say what I’m thinking and feeling. Yeah. And then when positioning myself as a strategist.
00:15:52 Brook McCarthy
Oh.
00:16:00
Well.
00:16:02 Angela Morris
Really just listening to somebody and part of it is that space holding of saying hey.
00:16:08 Angela Morris
I understand why this would be scary for you to say, but when you say this, the right people are going to come around you because you’re saying or doing something that needs to be said or needs to be done. Yeah and.
00:16:23 Angela Morris
I think that just being being with somebody so they know they’re not going through the process alone. Yeah, and reassuring them and saying hey.
00:16:35 Angela Morris
What you’re saying is right? What you’re saying is good. You’re saying is well spoken. Yeah, I. That’s where my position is. And that’s how I like to help.
00:16:45 Brook McCarthy
Oh, I haven’t had the experience innumerable times over the last 15 years in business of speaking to women. And you know, as we said in the beginning of the conversation, they tend to be older because they are masters or mistresses, that their craft, they’ve been doing it for well over 10 years, if not 20 or 30 years.
00:17:06 Brook McCarthy
Not on you.
00:17:08 Brook McCarthy
And you know, I’ll see them speaking to groups face to face, or I’ll have one to I’ll have a one to one conversation with them. They’ll express the most unbelievably nuanced, interesting, complex, you know, thought provoking opinions.
00:17:25 Brook McCarthy
And then, you know, being a A a digital marketer, I’ll go on the Internet and I’ll Google them and I cannot find anything that reflects that or I’ll find you know, some banal beige something or another piece of content.
00:17:40 Brook McCarthy
So let’s pretend you had a client who was very, very inhibited and felt extremely self conscious on the Internet, especially when it came to expressing and owning an opinion.
00:17:40
Yes.
00:17:52 Brook McCarthy
How do you make that client feel safe enough?
00:17:56 Brook McCarthy
To express themselves.
00:17:59
So.
00:18:00 Angela Morris
Well, when I have clients who are really inhibited and I know that they’re brilliant, what I do is I look at their existing body of marketing work. Sometimes there isn’t much there or sometimes I love that you use the term beige because literally on my how I work page, I call that.
00:18:21 Angela Morris
Beige pants marketing, it’s that really safe. It’s not bad, but it’s not remarkable. It’s no one’s favourite. It doesn’t stand.
00:18:28 Brook McCarthy
Out not.
00:18:29 Angela Morris
What I do with clients like that is I just have a conversation. So when we’re looking at.
00:18:35 Angela Morris
Speaking our truth through the lens of marketing, it puts so much more pressure on us because we are an ambassador to our business. That business is based on something that means a lot to us and in addition to that, we are probably supporting ourselves.
00:18:43 Brook McCarthy
Hmm.
00:18:55 Angela Morris
In one way or another.
00:18:57 Angela Morris
With the income that is generated from that work, yeah. So there’s so much pressure if you say or do the wrong thing, everything you work for is.
00:19:06 Angela Morris
Going to crumble, but.
00:19:09 Angela Morris
People that come to me like that, that are very inhibited, they’re out of crossroad.
00:19:13 Angela Morris
Where they’re like, OK, I I need to be doing something different because this is not working, but I either don’t know how or I’m and actually when people come to me, they more often say I don’t know how and what we end up finding out is that they’re a little scared, understandably.
00:19:33 Angela Morris
So we just had a conversation and I asked them about their business. And it’s really interesting how much of a shift they.
00:19:40 Angela Morris
Is between someone trying to sit down and create social media content when they’re under that pressure, and then when I have a 60 minute or a 90 minute conversation with them, all of that stuff flows it out really easily because they’re not trying to sell themselves. They’re talking about what they care about.
00:19:53
Yeah.
00:20:01 Angela Morris
Yeah. So when you talk about what you care about versus trying to figure out what people are going to like or what’s gonna make people buy stuff, yeah, what is going to make somebody?
00:20:16 Angela Morris
Respect you or think you’re legitimate.
00:20:20 Angela Morris
Then you.
00:20:22 Angela Morris
Take back your power because you’re not focused on the external. You’re focused on what made you start a business in.
00:20:29 Angela Morris
The first place.
00:20:30 Angela Morris
And I think why when we look at academics and scholars, they can stand in a lecture hall and they can talk for hours.
00:20:43 Angela Morris
Your mind is being blown the really easy.
00:20:46 Angela Morris
For us to.
00:20:47 Angela Morris
Think that everybody knows what we know and therefore and yeah. And therefore what we do.
00:20:54 Angela Morris
Or what we have to say? Is it really valuable? Yeah. Yeah. No, not true. Once somebody listens to you, that doesn’t work in your industry or doesn’t know about your business, but is aligned with your values.
00:21:09 Angela Morris
Everything you say is.
00:21:11 Angela Morris
Brilliant and novel. And it’s in.
00:21:13 Angela Morris
Your own words. And then I take those, then I write them down and I say, here’s your content and they go, Oh my God, this is so brilliant. How did you come up with?
00:21:21 Angela Morris
This and I’m.
00:21:21 Brook McCarthy
Like these are your words. Yep. Yep. I’ll be lucky. Like what? A bloody great job. I just love, you know, getting to know businesses you in industries and sectors you’ve never even considered. You’ve never heard of.
00:21:34 Brook McCarthy
For people doing the most interesting things for a living, it’s just such a brilliant job. I feel so lucky to, you know, to be.
00:21:42 Brook McCarthy
Able to talk to people.
00:21:43 Brook McCarthy
Business so that tell me about because we’ve spoken a little bit about people that are experts in their field and people that do have the knowledge, the depth of knowledge, you know and the opinions, but perhaps are just a little inhibited in how they share it. What I’d love to ask now is what about those people who perhaps?
00:22:03 Brook McCarthy
They’re on social media. They’re posting, they’re on, you know, they’re maybe they’re blogging or podcasting or doing what.
00:22:09 Brook McCarthy
But.
00:22:10 Brook McCarthy
But they’re kind of following the leader and they don’t really know what they stand for or why. There’s a lack of clarity as to, you know, their opinions or their point of difference, how, like, what kind of advice or what kind of process would you have for those people to help them?
00:22:31 Brook McCarthy
Better get to understand themselves and to to amplify that on the Internet.
00:22:36 Angela Morris
Well, first of all, I think you’ll agree with me because you work in the same realm that I do, but.
00:22:43 Angela Morris
There’s no greater example to me of why we are not meant to do things alone than trying to do business.
00:22:53 Angela Morris
Because we’re so toggled into the work that we do that we can easily, easily miss things. Yeah, like I work for other copywriters. And sometimes I get consult from other copywriters. And so.
00:23:08
Ohh.
00:23:08 Angela Morris
It makes sense to me that someone would be really, really passionate about.
00:23:12 Angela Morris
What they do and then their.
00:23:16 Angela Morris
Marketing or the way that they show up is?
00:23:18 Angela Morris
Very middle of.
00:23:19 Angela Morris
The road is because they’re.
00:23:20 Angela Morris
Emulating what their thought is right and correct, yeah.
00:23:26 Angela Morris
And to those people.
00:23:28 Angela Morris
The people that know notice. Wow, I feel like I’m doing everything that everybody else is doing or more often is the case. They phrase it as.
00:23:36 Angela Morris
Like I’m I’m doing everything that I was told to do. I’m I’m entertaining, inspiring and educating and all that. I asked them to go back to like, why did you start your business? What is your business’s origin story?
00:23:54 Angela Morris
And sometimes it takes a little bit of work. Sometimes the first answer is like, well, I was a social worker and the pandemic hit, and I had just had a baby and it was easier to work at home than work in the office and like, No, No, no, no, no. That’s not why you started the business. You started a business because.
00:24:13 Angela Morris
The way that something was being done was not working for you and you wanted.
00:24:18 Angela Morris
To end it.
00:24:19 Angela Morris
And so by asking that question, we really go back to the heart. We go back to their heart as an individual and I say quite often that you are not.
00:24:33 Angela Morris
A saturated market. You’re not capable of being a saturated market because there’s only one you. Yeah, and the thing that differentiates you from the others is you. Yeah.
00:24:44 Angela Morris
Yeah, I mean origin.
00:24:45 Angela Morris
Story that is unique to you and so if.
00:24:48 Angela Morris
You go back to that.
00:24:49 Angela Morris
You can actually create a road map for your.
00:24:52 Brook McCarthy
Well.
00:24:53 Angela Morris
About what makes you different now and don’t have to struggle to find a niche we don’t have to invest in all these other external things. I mean obviously I think you should invest in your business in various ways, but I think.
00:25:11 Angela Morris
Women really get caught up in, like, what do other people need to hear? Right. And so it makes sense that if they see a successful person that is in their same industry or in an adjacent industry, they’re going to do what that person does. Yeah, and.
00:25:26 Brook McCarthy
That and those people that are the leaders in their field are oftentimes fairly bland and middle of the road people like I look at some of the big people that have much larger businesses than me in business coaching and they’re oftentimes really playing it safe. Their brands aren’t really that interesting because they.
00:25:46 Brook McCarthy
Are going for that mass market middle of the road kind of stuff.
00:25:53 Brook McCarthy
I think it makes sense that when we aren’t confident or we’re just starting out, we’re not familiar and we’re not that clear on what we’re.
00:26:00 Brook McCarthy
Doing you look.
00:26:01 Brook McCarthy
At these kind of mainstream big business people and you think, oh, I’ll just copy that person cause that’s a process of learning, right? We first start by copying, but then.
00:26:12 Brook McCarthy
You realise? Ohh actually.
00:26:14 Brook McCarthy
Enough anyone else realises, but I find a lot of other people’s marketing really bloody dull. Mainstream big business stuff.
00:26:24 Angela Morris
Yeah, yeah, I have a an Internet bestie who has become an in person bestie. We hung out in San Francisco. Her name is Anya Parker Lenz and she owns a social media agency called the Landau Agency, and she just recently had just the.
00:26:44 Angela Morris
The most brilliant idea.
00:26:46
Yeah.
00:26:47 Angela Morris
She.
00:26:48 Angela Morris
Sent out an email and there’s very few email, unsubscribe to everybody’s emails, but I rarely read them and I rarely get excited about them. But she wrote about how we’re going to take a 5 day Instagram pass where it’s a no content challenge we’re going.
00:27:07 Angela Morris
To take 5 days.
00:27:08 Angela Morris
Off of posting which to some people it’s terrifying.
00:27:13 Angela Morris
So you’re not going to post anything for five days, right? But instead you are going to go through your social media feed and you are going to notice what grabs you. Yeah. What gets your attention and after five days, then you realise that how you have been told to mark it.
00:27:26
The.
00:27:33 Angela Morris
And how you’ve been told to behave is radically different than how you react and respond to contact.
00:27:42 Angela Morris
So there are ways to break out of that middle of the road. Bland, usually appealing. I’m showing up all the time, but I don’t have anything to say sort of trap.
00:27:55 Brook McCarthy
Yeah. Yeah. Well.
00:27:58 Angela Morris
And I I thought that was, I thought that.
00:28:00 Angela Morris
Was brilliant. It’s.
00:28:01 Angela Morris
You know, instead of what you’re supposed to do, think about.
00:28:05 Angela Morris
Ohh what turns you want? Yeah. Yeah. So and we can.
00:28:10 Angela Morris
We can relate that to other areas of our lives as well.
00:28:12 Angela Morris
And tell us.
00:28:13 Angela Morris
Like I think you want me to do what turns me on and social media and marketing is the same way. What?
00:28:20 Angela Morris
Do I like what I want?
00:28:21 Angela Morris
What helps me on what bores me?
00:28:23 Angela Morris
Yeah. And you those as cues?
00:28:26 Angela Morris
And.
00:28:27 Angela Morris
You know, if I think everybody starts out with boring marketing, everybody does. They did? Yep. Yep. And it’s it’s a process. So if you’re just starting out, don’t worry about being good at it right away. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Allow yourself to emulate other people and be like, oh, that’s not for me.
00:28:46 Brook McCarthy
Umm.
00:28:46 Angela Morris
Allow your sync to go back at the old content that you created and cringe at it, and also allow yourself to.
00:28:55 Angela Morris
Recognise what’s a real challenge for you and what drains you and ask well that that is literally my job, that is.
00:29:02 Angela Morris
What I’m here?
00:29:03 Angela Morris
For yeah, one of my clients they.
00:29:06 Angela Morris
Hit it out of the park with lots of things. They know stuff. They’re really, really smart. They transform people’s lives. They’re just not a writer. Yeah, I’m just not a speaker. So.
00:29:19 Angela Morris
No, I can come in and I can take the strengths that they already have and I can turn.
00:29:23 Angela Morris
Those into words.
00:29:24 Brook McCarthy
Yeah. Love it, love it. And I think that’s such a validating thing to say because there’s so many of us who think ohh, I really suck at this. And it’s like, I’ve been doing this for 15 years or longer. Really. We count my career in PR like I’ve been publishing stuff on the Internet for 18 years now. You’ve been doing it for six months.
00:29:46 Brook McCarthy
Of.
00:29:46 Brook McCarthy
Boss. Boss. You’re not gonna be much good at it cause you’re not. You’ve gotta get your reps up. You’ve gotta do your reps. You can’t do your reps for you. You’ve just gotta go through that process of sucking before you’re going to get any good at it. I think if from what you were just saying, then in relation to.
00:30:06 Brook McCarthy
And what I heard you say anyway was it’s really about following your curiosity. It’s really about allowing yourself to wholeheartedly run towards what you find interesting and fascinating and memorable.
00:30:22 Brook McCarthy
And then when you allow that, you can start to give yourself permission for one of a better phrase to actually produce something or create something that’s equally fascinating to you rather than for somebody else. Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:38 Angela Morris
And you know when you’re forming?
00:30:41 Angela Morris
When you’re fulfilling other people’s expectations of you, it’s an act and you have to keep that act up all the time, and you’re going to.
00:30:50 Angela Morris
Draw people to.
00:30:50 Angela Morris
You that are only interested in that act. They don’t know you. Yeah, and they don’t.
00:30:57 Angela Morris
Know what you care about because you haven’t.
00:30:59 Angela Morris
Told them all they know is you’re image, yeah.
00:31:02 Angela Morris
So when you make efforts to show up authentically, and that can look different to different people, but what really inspires me?
00:31:11 Angela Morris
On social media personally is I love people who.
00:31:17 Angela Morris
Offer me a different perspective as they agree with me in general. Yes, they are able to explore a deeper nuance, yes, or a different aspect of the issue. Yes, it can be really thought provoking for some people, which I really enjoy because we start to have thought provoking conversations.
00:31:19 Brook McCarthy
Yes.
00:31:37 Angela Morris
But for those who are upset by that, yes, are made uncomfortable by that. They’re going to excuse themselves.
00:31:45 Angela Morris
Clients say like ohh you know what, if I upset someone? Or what if I alienate my audience by talking about this thing that’s important to me and.
00:31:54 Angela Morris
That that’s the exact point is if they are only interested in your performance. If you’re interested on how interested in how good you can make them feel.
00:32:07 Brook McCarthy
Yeah.
00:32:08 Angela Morris
Then they’re not your clients. And that’s one thing. If if you say something that’s genuinely harmful, yeah, absolutely. Somebody coming to you saying, hey, you caused harm, what you said.
00:32:19 Angela Morris
Is really problematic.
00:32:21 Angela Morris
I think that was really wrong. I think you missed the mark. That’s welcome. Yeah, but some who is going to get defensive.
00:32:32 Angela Morris
And is going to completely shut down. That’s a person that, if they’re my client.
00:32:37 Angela Morris
And I say, hey, this this.
00:32:40 Angela Morris
In your mission statement is really racist or ableist or classist. They’re not going to listen to me. They’re going to get angry at me because they don’t want to hear it. Yeah, and especially with those of us who are identify as feminist or progressive or liberal or left leaning or whatever.
00:33:01 Angela Morris
You want to identify as.
00:33:04 Angela Morris
There are a lot of people in our circles who don’t want to do the work. They just want to look like they are doing the work or they want to learn the script or they want to learn the language. Yeah. And when you show up and you?
00:33:20 Angela Morris
Create thought provoking conversation. Or you mentioned something that maybe people are not talking about. If you talk about a nuance or an aspect of something that everybody’s kind of in an echo chamber.
00:33:32 Angela Morris
There.
00:33:34 Angela Morris
That really separates.
00:33:37 Angela Morris
The people who.
00:33:39 Brook McCarthy
Are with you and the people who are just along for the ride. As long as you keep them comfortable. Oh, I love that so much and everything that you you’ve just said recently has reminded me of the fact that the original purpose of social media is to be social.
00:33:57 Brook McCarthy
And that might sound facetious, but so much of that gets lost. Is it supposed to be a conversation? It’s supposed to be?
00:34:05 Brook McCarthy
Debate at its best, it should make us more intelligent, more thoughtful, more able to understand a bigger, broader perspectives, or diverse perspectives. And yet there’s so many people still who don’t get it, and they’re using it as a broadcast channel, and they put something out there, and this happens to me.
00:34:26 Brook McCarthy
All the time they put something out there, I respond and.
00:34:29 Brook McCarthy
Women.
00:34:30 Brook McCarthy
And then you don’t you get next to nothing, you know, like you’ve said something that you think should be at the very least responded to. But it’s like, you know, this is my broadcast channel. You don’t understand that. I don’t want to engage you and I. It’s like, I think you’re missing the point.
00:34:41 Angela Morris
Thank.
00:34:51 Angela Morris
Yeah, yeah. And those folks who are more inhibited. Yeah, I think that too. So there’s definitely that, I’m afraid of being trolled or I’m afraid of being embarrassed or of making a misstep. But I think they also see.
00:35:06 Angela Morris
And those Collins or those agreements and they haven’t been taught to have a debate date. Yeah, they haven’t been taught that I can have one perspective. You can have another and we can still get along. We can still respect each other.
00:35:26 Angela Morris
You can still like sort of.
00:35:28 Angela Morris
In the same ballpark, yeah.
00:35:29 Brook McCarthy
Yeah, this is really important because this is how wars start. You know, we need as as humans, as systems, societies, countries. We need to find a way to have healthy debate with each other.
00:35:45 Brook McCarthy
And not pull out a gun and shoot someone like we need to figure out a way to engage people in conversation because I’m not trolling people on the Internet. I’m not jumping on people’s social posts and trolling them. I’m just hopefully trying to provoke a conversation or pointing out something like I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say here.
00:36:05 Brook McCarthy
Well, it’s unclear what blah blah blah why? And people just kind of go. Whoa. And and back off in a big way. So I think it really is.
00:36:16 Brook McCarthy
Important and as you say, some people don’t grow up in houses where it’s OK to have a debate without it going sideways. I grew up in a family where.
00:36:27 Brook McCarthy
We’re all yelling over the top of each other. Everybody’s opinionated. Everybody’s disagreeing with each other. Sometimes we’re even resorting to name calling, but it’s fine. It’s not a big deal. Like everybody continues to love each other and nothing, nothing bad happens. I think when people say.
00:36:46 Brook McCarthy
I hate social media. Social media should never have been invented, and this happened for years after it became.
00:36:54 Brook McCarthy
Until 2010, eleven 12/13/14 people were still talking about, oh, this is a trend. It’s terrible and it’s gonna go firstly, it’s not a trend. Secondly, if you’re saying you hate social media, you’re basically saying I hate people. I hate society. I don’t know how to exist.
00:37:14 Brook McCarthy
With people that.
00:37:16 Brook McCarthy
Of opinions I disagree with, or opinions that are banal or opinions that are I find offensive, like we have to find a way to not just tolerate this, but to thrive with it.
00:37:28 Angela Morris
Yeah, I like that perspective, I think.
00:37:32 Angela Morris
That.
00:37:34 Angela Morris
I don’t know when I joined Myspace in 2004, it was a different ball game.
00:37:41 Angela Morris
As I remember.
00:37:43 Angela Morris
Being able to search for like minded people all over the world and being able to connect with celebrities, I remember sending like a celebrity that I liked a message and she actually responded. The world was a lot smaller than yeah. And you know, every once in a while you would stumble upon.
00:37:47
Yeah.
00:38:02 Angela Morris
White supremacist Myspace page.
00:38:05 Brook McCarthy
Yeah, and.
00:38:06 Angela Morris
The thing was that.
00:38:09 Angela Morris
The algorithm was not feeding it to you. If somebody that you knew. Yeah. And you were like, oh, he’s always been an ******* or. Oh, wow. He really went.
00:38:19 Angela Morris
Off the deep end.
00:38:20 Angela Morris
Or, you know better. Stay away from that person and interesting.
00:38:25 Brook McCarthy
You know, this is advice I give my to my clients all the time is we don’t curate our online worlds nearly well enough and we would not be tolerating a white supremacist coming into our house. And yet our our feed will be littered with people whose views are deeply offensive.
00:38:46 Brook McCarthy
To us or who **** us off, or who annoy us, and for some reason we continue to think we need to tolerate it as a condition of being on the platform, and we absolutely do not need to do that. I think investing some time and some effort in finding the good eggs and unfollowing and unsubscribing and changing.
00:39:07 Brook McCarthy
Your feed so that you literally do not see these people that you know make you wanna crawl out of your skin is, you know, time and effort well spent.
00:39:17 Brook McCarthy
100% so look I I want to this has been such an interesting conversation and it would be remiss of me, I’d feel considering that we’ve spoken so much about social media to not mention threads. What I’m especially noticing is, you know what we were talking about with the conversation versus the broadcasting.
00:39:37 Brook McCarthy
Like what’s been your experience? Cause my experience of.
00:39:39 Brook McCarthy
People are on there and.
00:39:40 Brook McCarthy
They’re like ohh wow, we can be ourselves here.
00:39:45 Angela Morris
You know what I mean? I’m. I’m.
00:39:48 Angela Morris
I wanna say I’m new to threads, everyone’s new to threads. Yeah, but we all know what Twitter is, and we’ve been on Twitter and the joke 10 years ago was.
00:40:00 Angela Morris
Facebook was, you know, look at this funny joke. Look at this funny video. Yeah, Instagram was. Look at this filtered picture of my lunch and Twitter was, let’s argue, let’s fight. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously since then, it’s changed the conspiracy theory.
00:40:21 Angela Morris
These and angry conservative ransfer on Facebook the you know girl bosses are on Instagram and the protein Powder Bros, and then we have Twitter, which is just to dumpster fire. But what I think my observation based on what I.
00:40:42 Angela Morris
Have experienced with Twitter and the fact that threads isn’t pretty much identical platform.
00:40:48 Angela Morris
Is that it is a great place.
00:40:53 Angela Morris
Or sharing complex ideas.
00:40:56 Angela Morris
And.
00:40:58 Angela Morris
It is a place that is tricky in terms of debate, right, because there’s something about having a visual attached.
00:41:11 Angela Morris
To what you’re saying, that can create some sort of connection like humans are meant to.
00:41:19 Angela Morris
Will seat bases and to read body language and we are really, really good at that, even if it’s in a still brain picture and when we see another human being and we see them.
00:41:31 Angela Morris
Kind of moving.
00:41:32 Angela Morris
And talking and you know that kind of thing, we.
00:41:37 Angela Morris
Even if we don’t like them like we have a biological connection to them and when we are simply exchanging words.
00:41:45 Angela Morris
Things can get.
00:41:47 Angela Morris
Tricky.
00:41:48 Angela Morris
Yeah, just like when.
00:41:49 Angela Morris
You know, like when I get a text message from somebody and it just says OK.
00:41:56 Angela Morris
I’m like ohh my God, they’re so mad. They’re probably not that. That same phenomenon can happen on thread and something so interesting that a friend of mine said.
00:42:12 Angela Morris
You know, back in biblical times in, like, you know, 2006 back in the days of Lowe’s, because that was when people really started texting. Yeah. Yeah. Calling on the phone, you said you can’t listen over text.
00:42:27
Hmm.
00:42:29 Angela Morris
And I think about that when I think of threats, yeah, is.
00:42:36 Angela Morris
I can’t listen.
00:42:37
Hmm.
00:42:37 Angela Morris
Yeah, I really wish that it was monopolised by Mark Zuckerberg, but I think people were excited about it and I think for those of us who.
00:42:49 Angela Morris
Have really been conditioned to be super image conscious because of the really impossible standards that Instagram has imposed on us over the last 15 years or 12 years or.
00:43:00 Angela Morris
Whatever it’s been.
00:43:01 Angela Morris
I think that’s a great space to talk. So I think it’s all good or all bad. I think that white male.
00:43:09 Angela Morris
Billionaires with a lot of power.
00:43:11 Angela Morris
Don’t always do what’s best for us, and I think that human beings in groups, they tend to do a lot of things that are not particularly flattering or beneficial. And that was true way before social media. So we’ll, yeah, I think it can be used. Here’s what I’ll say. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version book. Do you have? Do you have the Reader’s Digest?
00:43:33 Angela Morris
In Australia. Yeah. So you, so you know what, that you know what that expression means? Right. Yeah. What I’ll say about threads is that.
00:43:41 Brook McCarthy
I believe it has the potential to be at a useful and helpful tool, period. Excellent. And let’s hope it lasts a bit longer than clubhouse.
00:43:53 Angela Morris
Yeah, like, like, you know, like it too.
00:43:58 Brook McCarthy
You made an interesting point about nonverbal communication and images and and and how we need to eyeball each other, but I find it really liberating to just have text only. I find that sometimes I get to the end of the day where I’ve had five zooms.
00:44:15 Brook McCarthy
Back to back and I think is it not hard enough to just?
00:44:19 Brook McCarthy
But we now have to eyeball ourselves on video all day long while we’re scratching our nose and trying to look engaged. And we just think and listen and respond without having the video of ourselves on the big screen to like friend reached out on Instagram.
00:44:38 Brook McCarthy
The day and said to me in the day I’m I’m so pleased to see all your wrinkles and your crows feet on your videos. It’s so nice to see that you’re not using Botox or fillers.
00:44:55 Brook McCarthy
And I just wanted to cry.
00:44:57 Angela Morris
Ohh see, it’s funny because.
00:45:01 Angela Morris
Hearing that, and like, you’re such a gorgeous person. I was like, Oh my God, what a beautiful compliment. But a couple weeks ago, somebody really hurt my ******* feelings because they’re like, I love that you show up on Instagram stories, not always looking conventionally attractive. I think it’s really great. It gives me permission to do that.
00:45:21 Angela Morris
And I was.
00:45:21 Angela Morris
Like I.
00:45:23 Angela Morris
I am gonna go put on some eyeliner because got really ******* hurt my feelings. And she was like, oh, my God. No, no, no. I’m so sorry.
00:45:31
And on the.
00:45:31 Angela Morris
One hand, I guess.
00:45:34 Angela Morris
We’re our own worst critic and he can see what can see of thing. Yeah, well, and I mean, we can. We can see where we are. We are conditioned.
00:45:36 Brook McCarthy
Yes.
00:45:46 Angela Morris
As women to believe that we are in danger all the time of rejection and criticism, and Oh my God, we could do a whole podcast episode on me, analysing like the history of makeup ads after the Industrial Revolution, I was a makeup artist for 13 years and the whole narrative is.
00:46:06 Angela Morris
You know, if you don’t wear this lipstick, yeah, you’re not going to find a husband or your hug is gonna leave you. And because you can’t have a job, you can’t have credit. You can’t hold a mortgage, and you can’t drive.
00:46:16 Brook McCarthy
Guess what that means? You live in a gutter, *****. Yeah, that’s literally an ancestral trauma that’s carried to us. And like that. And answer the door of the evening to your husband having up and done your makeup redone, your makeup and enthusiasm.
00:46:36 Brook McCarthy
And be light hearted so that the man can sit down and have some light relief from his hard day at work.
00:46:45 Angela Morris
So.
00:46:45 Angela Morris
Great. Good to see you, Glenn. My relation that you would laugh so hard.
00:46:53 Brook McCarthy
I like to.
00:46:54 Brook McCarthy
When when I pass my partner a cup of tea or something and he says thank you, I like to say it’s my pleasure to serve you.
00:47:03 Brook McCarthy
It thrills me. It’s just a little nod to the 1940s.
00:47:08 Angela Morris
There’s. So there’s so much beauty in having reciprocal relationship where you can really be yourself, and that I I learned that way too late in life. I mean it’s. I’m glad it happened. Yeah. But I was 30.
00:47:26 Angela Morris
When I met him.
00:47:27 Angela Morris
And when I think of that in relationships, social media, I think a lot of people are gonna look back on their businesses and on how they market them on social media, and they’re gonna go. I really wish I would have gotten authentic a long time and 100% now, now that I’m showing up as myself. Yeah, I found that. Yeah, absolutely. I could not agree more.
00:47:48 Brook McCarthy
On that one and on that note, I have had so much fun talking to you and listening to your big sparkly brain on all things you know, visibility now social media fear of being seen.
00:48:02 Brook McCarthy
What a fortuitous meeting that we had in a very, very strange and unusual time with lots and lots of tears, lots and lots of tears. It was a very emotional time and thank you so very much for lending your brain and your opinion to this year podcast. It’s been a pleasure.
00:48:22 Angela Morris
Ohh thank you so much for having me.
00:48:24 Brook McCarthy
Real quick before you go, if this episode has gotten you thinking, gotten you excited or has you changing the way that you do business or life, would you do me a super quick favour and write me a short review? Your podcast review means so much to me and it helps other values based business.
00:48:44 Brook McCarthy
And it’s just like you to find this show, which is a fantastic gift to me.