17: On Creative Sabbaticals and Social Media Fatigue

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Hello everybody. I am so excited to be chatting with my good friend Nicole Antoinette today about social media fatigue. She and I are Internet twins or siblings or cousins, whatever you want to call it. Nicole started her blog in July of 2007. I am coming up on 10 years of the Life After College website and I started blogging also in 2007.

So.

So we've been at this a long time. We've grown up together, if you will, in the online world. And so today we're gonna talk about social media fatigue. Where it comes from, why it happens, what to do about it. When I say all this, I say we're in the boat. We don't have all the answers, but we've been doing this eight years now of trying to have a regular presence online, whatever that means. And so this is an issue that we're both facing and wanted to talk about and figured, well, heck, why not share it on the podcast and let some of you weigh as well. So before we jump in, a little background on Nicole. Nicole is a writer based in Bend, Oregon. Her podcast, Real Talk Radio is where people come together to talk about the wonderful mess of being human. A recovering self help addict and former goal setting coach, Nicole's current projects explore how we can use grit and grace to close the gap between what we say we want and what we actually do she blogs@nicoleantoinette.com, of course, everything we talk about today will be in the show notes. So, Nicole, welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for being here. I'm just going to jump right in with. When I asked you when you set up your blog, you said July 2007. And then you said, and I stopped blogging earlier this year. And I did an audio double take because it's just so interesting to hear you say that out loud. I stopped blogging. What does that mean? And why?

Yeah, that's a good question. So I stopped blogging, I think, like, April ish. It's part of, like, a much longer story, really. But yeah, I mean, I've been blogging since July of 2007, which in Internet time, I feel like is a really long time. That's just eight years is a long time, right, to be putting your life online. And it was great for a lot of reasons, brought a lot of great people into my life and community and, you know, wound up kind of starting a career out of it. I just, I don't know, I got kind of burned out, I guess is like really the best way to put it. And I felt like I wanted, I don't know if a fresh start that might sound a little bit too dramatic, but, you know, I had a point where I just thought, you know what? I want to burn down everything I've done and kind of start again. And I had a lot of feelings about that. And, you know, is that okay, can I do that? Am I allowed to, you know, delete stuff? Until I was finally like, wait, this is like my blog. It's stuff that I put out for, for free. If I want to delete any of it, I can do that. And so I, yeah, I deleted my entire blog archive, saved some of the posts, like, for myself privately, if, you know, I wanted to do something with them later, but deleted everything and then kind of started blogging again fresh. I thought that that would fix whatever unease I was feeling about blogging. It was kind of an attempted fix and it didn't. It didn't fix it. And so I blogged a little bit longer and finally realized, yeah, I'm just not getting the kind of joy out of blogging that I was before. And anytime that happens for me, and if I've tried a couple of things to fix it and it's not really working, then I think it's time to take a break. And so, yeah, stopped. Stopped blogging, basically. And I don't know what comes next with that. But yeah, right now I'm not, I'm not blogging. I do send this kind of terminology, right? So, like, I'm not publishing blog posts on my website, but I have, you know, a weekly email that goes out to my people that they're kind of like mini blog posts, like little life in real time. Like this is what's happening this week that's called Notes of Grit and Grace. So I'm still kind of communicating publicly real feelings in real time. But I like the email format a lot better right now. That feels better to me than trying to create kind of evergreen blog posts.

What feels better about email?

It almost feels more throwaway. And I mean that in a good way. Like, I think I was feeling a lot of pressure towards the end with blogging to write things that, you know, I was still going to, you know, stand by a year from now, five years from now. But the style of the writing that I like to do, they aren't kind of topic specific posts. It really is kind of like just sharing my real life in real time. And for whatever reason, it feels better to do that at least right now where it pops into people's inboxes, they can read it, delete it, right? And then just like go on their way. That it gives me that real time kind of communication feeling. And as opposed, opposed to, you know, people leaving blog comments, that type of thing. Like, I always felt a little bit disconnected from that because I wasn't spending so much time in my comment section responding to people, you know, via comment. And then they only see it if they come back and look in the comment section. Now if someone hits reply on an email and emails me, I can email them right back. Like, it just, it feels like a more direct communication. I also think, you know, I know that I take my kind of not inbox privacy, but like, I'm careful with what I subscribe to and what comes into my inbox. So the things that do come into my inbox are things that I've really intentionally chosen and that I'm excited to read and interact with. And I assume that other people feel the same way and it means a lot to me that they want me in their inbox. Right. And that that's, it's like a little bit of a different relationship. And it feels more like, you know, I feel like I'm sitting down every Friday to like write a letter to my best friend that I then send to like 5,000 people. So it's just like I don't know. It has that kind of letter writing element to it where it brings out in me the type of things that I more want to share. Like it's more real, more personal than the thought of this is just going up on the Internet and, you know, it's just gonna live there. I don't know. I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's the way it feels to me. It just feels more personal.

It definitely makes sense. And I've gone through a similar thing this year, which is I eke out probably one blog post a month. I mean, at that. And a lot of times they're my monthly coffee talk roundups. So it's links and things I've been reading. But that's also not an evergreen post, or I call them truth posts when it's something that I'm struggling with in the moment. And it's been really hard for me to get those out. But I have sent my email about every two weeks, sometimes more. But yeah, I agree with you. For some reason, something about having it contained in the email inbox is just one step more private, one step less pressure. And maybe there's something to it that after blogging for eight years, there's this question of what can I say? And I always have this thing of write what's worth reading, but I don't always feel the urge to do that. Then again, there are some writers that have the mindset of, yes, inspiration strikes every day at 7am When I park my butt in the chair. So sometimes I wonder if I should just be more disciplined or something.

Yeah, I mean, I think for me it has a lot to do with.

Which format, which platform do I feel brings out the most truth from me? And when it started to get to the point that I felt like, oh, well, you have to blog because you have a blog. Right. That's. These types of things that I just accepted that that was true. Okay, well, you have this blog, so you just have to blog forever. That starts to get into a sticky territory that I don't love of. Well, that's not actually tr. I don't have to blog. Right. And so it was like looking at which platforms, like talking about blogging, talking about like all the different social media platforms, like, everywhere that I was, you know, putting out writing or content or pictures or, you know, whatever. And which of that felt good? Like, what was I excited to do and which of it felt like, well, I guess I have to do this. And, you know, I've been trying to kind of Systematically, at least either get rid of or push pause on the things that didn't feel good. Because I know, like, as a. As a consumer, as, like, a reader of other people's stuff, you can tell when they're, like, phoning it in or when they're kind of resentful of having to do it. Like, you pick up on that energy. Maybe not directly, but it's the kind of stuff that makes people not want to be in your space. Right. And I started to feel like I was getting to the point with, like, certain social media and with blogging, where I was feeling resentful of it or, like, resentful of the obligation to have to do it. Like, that's not fair for the people that are reading it. It's not their fault. They're not making me do anything. So that was like. That was really it for me that I was like, this. Writing emails and, like, telling truth in real time and sharing stories. Like, that feels really good. And I'm genuinely, like, excited on Friday mornings to sit down and to, like, write that email about my week. And, like, that there's such a different energy around it when it's something that you're excited to do rather than something that you feel like, ugh, I have to do this thing. Like, for me, I don't know. I'm really bad at faking it, like, for better or worse. And if I'm, like, really not into something, it shows for sure.

Well, where does this pressure come from? Because you feel it. I feel it. But then we could read each other's stuff and say, I don't care what you post, but why do you think we feel this pressure that just because we set up a blog X number of years ago, there is that expectation? Where does that come from? Because I think so many people feel that sense of fatigue and tiredness around it. And that's why I wanted to schedule this podcast. But yet it's this really amorphous thing. It's hard to say where it's even coming from.

I'm sure it's different for different people, and I think it has a lot to do with your motivations of being on whatever that platform or thing is to begin with. For me.

The pressure came from kind of the unique experience that I have had with my blog. So I started blogging In July of 2007, like you said, and it was really just a personal blog, right? Like, I had another job and did other stuff, and it was just for fun. It was like sharing personal stories and making friends and doing that. So there was. I never really felt any pressure back then because it was like this just tiny, little, small thing, like, oh, I have feelings. I want to share them on the Internet. I really didn't think about it, right. It was kind of before the big explosion of, like, personal branding and that kind of stuff. And so it was. It was really just. It was just for fun. And that, you know, happened for some years. And I, you know, was a very public party girl and had this, like, kind of very fun drinking vibe. Like, you know, my life was really different back then, and, you know, my evolution, obviously, you know, kind of, you know, this, but I'm giving some context to this conversation. You know, in 2011, I quit drinking, you know, which was a huge, huge personal decision for me, and obviously was like a big departure from pretty much everything that I had been writing about, you know, for the past four or five years. And, you know, after that, I quit drinking. I started running, and I, you know, really made a lot of big changes to my life, and I made them very publicly. And as that process went on, a lot of people who had been reading my stuff for a while and saw that this was just like a real person, like, making these real changes started to have a lot of questions about it. Oh, how could I do something similar? And I thought, oh, cool, Like, I'm happy to share my story and hopefully it'll help someone. And then it started to be more of the same questions and more and more of the same questions, and I thought, okay, like, maybe there's something here. And that was really kind of the birth of turning it into a business sort of. It happened really organically, which was lovely, and, you know, developing some programs and eventually going on to do goal setting and accountability coaching and, you know, a lot of things that I loved when I loved them. But for me, the pressure came from that very kind of organic and slippery switch from. This is something that I just do for fun when I want to. To all of a sudden, wait, this is my livelihood. And, you know that I think that there's. There's some weird lines there when it's. When, you know, the money that you're making is kind of based on how you're perceived as a person and that I think that can cause, like, of burnout for people that are. For me, like, I started to feel like I just want to live my life, and I started to feel, like, resentful of the need or the perceived need to appear a certain way or, you know, I'm only Going to make money if I'm, you know, meeting this, this and this, like, lifestyle, you know, check boxes or whatever. And whether any of that's true or not true, I don't know. But that's kind of how I started to feel. And so that fatigue came that, you know, kind of from there for me.

Mm. It makes a lot of sense. Mine too, I would say, when I turned my blog into a full time business. And of course, it's not just the blog that's kind of the proxy activity, but it's the blog, the book, the coaching, everything else. Once I went full time with the business, my focus was on building the business. It wasn't just writing for fun. So whereas writing used to be the main outlet, now there was all these other activities to plan and think about. And you're right, there is a very interesting shift. I got really uncomfortable when I launched JennyBlake Me. And then a year in I realized, oh, no, you know, I built this to have something more to talk about than life after college, but now the focus is only on me. There's no space if I'm sick, if I need a break, if I anything. And that year, I was having a really hard year, the year that I launched Jenny Blake Me. And I realized that this brand revolves entirely around me. That's so weird. That's really not my goal in life, to just get paid to be myself or some projected version of myself that really isn't my jam. And that's what made me work so hard to figure out what's my next idea? What am I good at? What can I talk about? And I eventually worked my way toward pivot, but that took time and it was really uncomfortable dealing with how to maintain some kind of public pulse while going through my own transitions. Which you did as well when you went through the process of becoming sober.

And yeah.

Did you blog during that time? Was there an impetus when you were going sober and going through all that to shut down your blog kind of the way you did this year?

No, actually. I mean, that was probably some of the most active that I. That I was. I mean, I definitely had fears. You know, my biggest fear with quitting drinking because drinking was like my entire social life, which was kind of like my entire life at that point. You know, I thought, oh my God, I'm not going to have friends or people aren't going to invite me to stuff, or people aren't going to think that I'm fun anymore. So obviously I'm looking back four plus years later with Like a lot of retrospect, but.

I think that I was so eager to be really active, talking about my story and switching into this kind of new Persona. And I quit drinking and started running on the same day and had never been an athlete and never done anything even remotely athletic. Couldn't run for two minutes when I first started. So it was kind of replacing one identity with another at the time, which is what I needed to make that happen. Running was kind of the way out of the hole for me, but I made that transition so publicly because I think that I needed something. Like if I just would have kind of quit drinking and faded away, I wouldn't really have felt like I had support or, I don't know, it needed to be like, okay, well, yes, I'm quitting drinking, but I'm doing all these other things in my kind of transition into just running and being an athlete. That was all very public posting about it a ton on social media and building community around it and meeting other people who were doing those same things. So at the time, like the having social media and blogging and that community, like, that was absolutely the support that I needed at the time. I don't know that I would have been as successful doing that completely on my own.

That makes a lot of sense. And now this time around you've said, I love the way you put this, that you're on a creative sabbatical, which is a fancy way of saying that you're giving yourself permission to follow your curiosity, make stuff that feels good to make, and see where it leads. Was it. I know you've acknowledged the discomfort and the sort of the joy draining away which led to this creative sabbatical. Did you also have fear around taking it?

Definitely. So, you know, for the last, I'd say eight months.

I was. And it was so funny to talk to you about, you know, pivot and everything around that because, like, that's what I think I was trying to do without knowing that I was trying to do. I was trying to make small changes in my business and nothing was wrong. I had wonderful clients and was working with such great people and it wasn't anything was terrible. I think it's pretty easy to walk away from something that's terrible. I think it's much harder to walk away from something that's good but not great or that is fine but doesn't really fit. So I kept trying to make little changes. Okay, well, maybe I'll do group coaching programs instead of one on one. Or maybe I'll do this or maybe just trying all these little things.

And finally, based on some of the stuff that I was saying, my husband was like, I think you want to quit your job. And I looked at him, he had nine heads. It was the craziest thing I'd ever heard. Like, what I can do. When you own your own business, you can do that. Because here I am living the Internet dream of, you have your own business and you work from home, and it's location independent, all that four hour work week.

And for whatever reason, it sounds maybe silly, but I had never thought that that was an option, like to just stop doing this thing. And, you know, he said, if I felt any of, you know, these ways that you were feeling, I would hand in my notice. And when you have a more traditional job, I guess you maybe you think that way more so, but I definitely didn't. And, you know, he said that. And, you know, we sat with it for a while and talked about, okay, well what does that mean for us? And, you know, because it's. It wasn't like, okay, I want to stop doing this thing because I want to specifically do this other thing. Right. I think that's also easier when you want to quit one thing and move to something else. But I don't know. I still don't know necessarily what that next thing is. So, yeah, it was totally terrifying to decide, okay, I'm going to take a sabbatical essentially for at least three months, probably a little bit longer. And this was back in the summer when my husband and I were having this conversation. And, okay, so what does it mean to do that? First of all, what are the practical loose ends that I have to tie up in order to wrap things up with my clients and get to the point where I can take this full break?

And, you know, so there was obviously stuff on the practical front, but more of my either fear or discomfort came unexpectedly from what deciding to do this brought up for me as far as, like, the stories that I tell myself about money and worth. There was a lot, which I guess I definitely needed to deal with. I don't know that it would have come up in another way, but I definitely had that. Okay, well, if you're not working and you're not like, being productive, well, like, how are you gonna prove that you're valuable, right? Like that type of stuff, you know, and you know, also what does it mean to contribute to your family unit, to your community, you know, if you're not bringing in money? Because, you know, and I'm very grateful that you Know, because of my husband's salary and, you know, we live somewhere relatively inexpensive that I can take this sabbatical, and he makes enough money for us to live off that money. But it's, you know, it's still. What does that mean to me to not be bringing in money for a couple of months? And I had all my kind of feministy voices, and you can't do this. And it was just really interesting watching that come up. And I have to justify taking this time off. So it's been kind of sorting through a lot of that type of stuff, which has been. I don't know if scary is the right word, but it's been intense at times, but also pretty powerful in terms of realizing that. But.

When you're in a relationship, you guys set the terms for things. Things don't have to be equal in order to be fair. And so it's been really just interesting for us to have that ongoing conversation on what it means to contribute. Right. And.

Yeah, just kind of sitting with the idea that we have inherent value, even if we're not, like, checking 9 million things off of a to do list and having all of our productivity hacks every day. Right. Like, I've had to go up against a lot of those stories as well. And, yeah, it's been super interesting.

Right there. Two things that you said that take tremendous courage. And I've been noticing this, too, in a lot of the pivot conversations. It's really hard to leave something good that's. Like you said, it's easier to quit something you hate. But I've become fascinated even in recent months, even though I'm wrapping up the book. And I don't go way into this. I've noticed, wow, there's really a skill into saying no to something that's good. And then the second piece of courage that you've really shown is taking this sabbatical, not having the thrilling thing that you're leaping right into next. And even when you pivoted, you did the one of drinking and debauchery into being sober and running, that you had this really kind of compelling. This thing that took on a force of its own, and you built community around it, and it was your next. And it was. You had to find your way there, but it showed up right there. And right now, what's different is you're saying, I'm taking this creative sabbatical and I'm will exist in this space that can sometimes feel like a void. And I don't know how long it's going to be here, and I don't know what's on the other side. I just know that I need to do it.

Yeah. And, you know, I think for me, a lot of this. I mean, I know I mentioned kind of, like the stories coming up around money and worth, but a lot of this process has been questioning the nature of things that I assume are true, you know, and I think it's like, social media is a really great example that I have just assumed. Oh, well, I have to be on social media. I just. I just thought that that was true. Right. And it's. You know, I've had some interesting conversations this year with people about, like, the actual definition of truth. Right. And, like, kind of the two prevailing things that have come out of it are, like, in order, like, for something to be true, that it's true whether or not you believe in it. Meaning, like, I. I can say that I don't believe in gravity, but if I, you know, drop a pen from over my head, it's gonna fall on the ground, right? Like, that's not really, like, to me, I'm like, okay, well, that's true. It doesn't matter if I say it's true or not. Like, that's true. And, you know, then my good friend Bryce, we were talking about it, and she said, you know, in order for something to be true, it just takes, like, two or more people to, like, agree that something's true. And that's more kind of like social. Right? Like social contracts. And so it's like this nature of truth that, like, oh, well, I have to be on social media because especially if I want to make money online or do any of these things. But that's not actually true. That's not inherently true. Right. And so it's been kind of this process of questioning, oh, well, I have to blog, and, you know, I have to be on Twitter, and I have to, like, all of these things that I told myself. And in getting to the point that I wasn't really enjoying what I was doing with my work, that, like, before, kind of each thing that I'm trying now, it's, like, really playing with that idea of truth. And, like, the podcast was a really interesting example that I wanted to start a podcast for probably a year and a half before I actually did. And the reason that I held off was because the normal podcast model, where people are releasing content, you know, once a week or once every two weeks, twice a week, but on this, like, very regular kind of ongoing basis, and that's not. Not a model that I really enjoy. That makes me feel a lot of pressure when there's no end date. Like, I like projects that have completion points. And so what I really wanted to do was create, like, seasons of podcasts and release them all at the same time, the way that Netflix does with its TV shows, basically. And I told myself for a year and a half, well, you can't do that. That's not how people do podcasts. And again, it was like, finally, like, wait, that's not true. I'm telling myself that that's true. Finally I was like, screw it, I'm just gonna do that. And recorded an eight epis, released it all at once. Two months later, released another eight episode season. And that was like, oh, I can. It's like examining the things that are making stuff that feels good to make and a little bit playing by your own rules and listening to your own intuition. And I'm so grateful that I've done that because the podcast has been so wonderful. But if I would have told myself that either you have to do it the way that everyone else is doing it, I either would have never started it or I would have started it and been miserable. So part of this process is looking at, yeah, that, like, nature of truth. And now the story that I'm dealing with is, well, you can't really have a podcast if you're not on social media, because how are you going to promote it, right? Or how are you going to share it with people? And so I'm kind of in that space of, ooh, I'm enjoying being on social media sabbatical so much that if, if, if the truth was that I have to be on Twitter in order to have this podcast, probably I'm not gonna have the podcast, but I want to have the podcast. So, like, thereby that can't be true, right? So it's just, I don't know, it's just funny.

There's so much to talk about. First of all.

You did this with your podcast, and it's so creative to say, look how Netflix releases TV shows. I love it, we love it. And apply that to your podcast. And I have to say that when I was prepping for this interview and I was reading and I saw on Twitter you had said, season two of the podcast now released, I also had that moment of relief. I was like, what if I did seasons? All of a sudden, just in seeing that you had done that, I could already see the relief of not having this because just like blogging, just because you hit go or launch One day, What now you're tied to this regular weekly thing forever and ever and ever. It's weird, and it's a lot of pressure. And that, to me, is the kind of thing that ultimately leads to burnout, because there's no ebb and flow. It's just this, like, steady state. And then when you tack on 10 different social media outlets at that steady state format, I think that's why so many of us, us get burnt out and hit this point of fatigue. Because now, in the beginning, it was just a blog, but then it became a blog and an email list, and then it was two blogs, and for me, two email lists. And then it was Twitter, and then it's ad Facebook. And I just broke, like, at a certain point, I just maxed out on Facebook. I never felt that good going on anyway. And I just realized, like, I can't do all this and do it regularly the way that you have just so brilliantly articulated. And so I think I just love that idea of redefining the rules and questioning these truths, especially about social media, because it kind of drives me bananas. I just saw something today that if you don't check yourself, can, like, lead to feeling bad, which was this thing, this guideline for when people should say yes to podcasts. And it was like, if the host doesn't have over 100 reviews, don't say yes. They don't have a big enough platform. If they don't have this. If they don't have this many downloads, it means they're not taking it seriously. If they don't have the email list to match. And I just thought to myself, that stuff doesn't matter to me. The same way that having fun creating quality work and sharing it with people does.

Oh, yeah. No, I mean, girl, listen. So a bunch of things to say out of that. So the. For me deciding to take, I mean, creative sabbatical, which is like, again, a fancy way of being like, I'm not gonna work for a while, right? So, like, deciding to do that and deciding to take a break from social media were actually separate decisions. It's in the same timeframe. But you know what you just said about this infographic, right?

Part of reaching the decision to both take a break from work and take a break from social media. I'll try to tie this all together. Was the, like, very deep personal burnout from telling each other how to live our best lives. That's, like, the best way that I can phrase it, right? Like, I'm so unbelievably over like any kind of blog post or email that it's like these are the like eight things that you need to be eating or this is, you know, you have, you know, getting up in the morning and this should be your morning routine. And like if you're, you know, doing your creative work at night instead of the morning, like that's wrong. Or this is what you're not allowed to wear after you turn 30. And like this, like, oh my God, like get out of my face forever with that. And I think like having like been and this is where kind of the recovering self help addict comes from. Like, you know, I really fell into that hard for, you know, the first like three and a half to four years. Like when I, you know, quit drinking and was reading all of the kind of like self help personal development books and like the ebooks and the courses and this webinar and that, you know, just this kind of like self betterment palooza. Right. And there's some good stuff in that, right? Like I do believe in like growth and like being the best person you can be, but I think that there's such a tipping point at which that becomes actually harmful instead of helpful. And I definitely hit that personally where it was like I started to feel like my life was a problem to be fixed. Right. Like I would read this article. Oh, okay, well then I have to change my diet. Oh, well this person, this is what they do. They get up at 5am and do these. Okay, well I have to do that. And it was just this constant, every email newsletter or blog post. And I started to feel pretty crappy about myself. Like it was this thing of like, I, I'm never doing enough or I'm never doing the right things or this is the path to success. And if I'm not building my email list in this way, and I got so personally burned out and I was like, as a consumer.

I don't want that. I don't want to be exposed to that. And that's a lot of what I was seeing coming into my inbox with newsletters. It's a lot of what I was seeing people yelling about on Twitter, buy this thing. This course is going to change your life. Oh my goodness. I don't know. I got really burned out. And so that was, was part of my decision to kind of shut down the input side of that. But it was also a big part of the decision of being someone who has worked in that space, coaching, goal setting, that type of stuff that I really wanted to step back and not, I Don't know if I'm going to kind of work in that same space again or what's going to happen. But I don't want to do that until I can very confidently feel that whatever I am offering, providing, inviting people to, doesn't have that kind of fear based. You're gonna miss out. You know, this is what you need to be happy. Like marketing energy behind it. Like, I'm really, really not into that. And I don't want to contribute to that. I don't want to make other people feel bad about their lives. I don't want them to think that they can never be like productive unless they take this course and buy now. And so like kind of from both sides of the coin, I was like, I need to step back from this. Like, that was another big part of the decision too, was just I didn't really. I don't really like where kind of the self development, like world is going. I don't know if that's like too.

Ranty for you, but bring on the rant. No, I love it. I agree so much. I think that's why you and I are getting enjoyment from doing the what I'm up to this week kind of a newsletter, because it's less prescriptive and more just real and in the moment. And I think there's so much value. I always strive in my newsletters to be honest. Like, sometimes people will write back and they'll say, thank you so much for sharing that. That must have taken courage or thank you. It's always when I share something I'm struggling with and it's actually not at all about having the answers. It's just to say, this is what I'm dealing with. This is how I think I'm gonna fix it. You know, just wanted to let you know. But the thing that I could rant on for hours and hours is exactly what you said. Like, there's this. This thing of your life is a problem to be solved. And I got way hooked into self help for a long time too. To the point where during my pivot year, this was in 2013, I was pissed because I looked at my bookshelves and I was just like, why aren't you fixing this? I've read everything under the sun. I've worked on myself for hours and months and days. What is the problem? Why can't I seem to get through this? And that's kind of what inspired me to write this book based on what's already working, like who you already are, that you're not broken. There's nothing to fix. It's just fixing the puzzle or solving the puzzle that's right in front of you. But the thing that drives me bananas online is this relentless online marketing mindset and list building where you start to see websites, landing pages, newsletters, giveaways, courses. Everything is optimized for the list. Everything is about capturing an email and selling it. And again, maybe this is like shooting my own self in the foot. I don't know. I am trying to. I do make a living by doing things that are primarily disseminated online when it's not the book and it's not me speaking. But at the same time, I feel like it distorts. And I see so many newer bloggers or authors, whomever, podcasters, where it just seems icky to me that the focus is this numbers game. And then I'll even be at parties and there's this like, whose list is bigger than the other? It just, it's just weird to me. It's this circular logic and it's kind of like, you'll never be happy, you'll always be comparing to someone else. And the reason that it bothers me, like, why is it on my radar at all? Because there is a part of me that wonders, well, do I need to care about this? And I think even when I have coaching clients and we talk about how to do social media in a semi authentic way and not get totally burnt out by it, it's hard for me to tell them to say, forget about it altogether. You don't need any of it. Because in a way, that's what got me here. But when I look toward the future, I also don't want to be a slave to my numbers or to social media or any of it. That doesn't resonate. And I think that's a big part of, of why I went through my really challenging year in 2013.

Yeah, I mean, obviously I agree with that. I think, I mean, it's. I don't think that there's like a black and white perspective to take where it's like, you know, all these things, bad list building bad, you know, like, that's. Because that's not true. I think it's. My issue is when we lose the humanizing aspect, like we're all humans. Like, everyone who's reading your email, like, who's on the other side of an email that you send, is a human being who has their own shit going on. They have their relationships, they're stressed, they're tired, they didn't Sleep well. Just stuff. So I think that part of what I'm digging into now is just this. That's the impetus behind the podcast is just talking about the wonderful mess of being human. We're all people. No one likes to be aggressively marketed to. No one likes that kind of fear based, oh my God, I'm not going to be cool enough, good enough, smart enough, thin enough, whatever if I don't buy it. This thing, you know, nobody doesn't feel good. Nobody likes that, right? So I think it's, for me, it's not about whether or not to use Twitter, whether or not to have an email opt in, right? Because like all these things are just tools and they're like inherently neutral. And I, in my past, because I haven't really believed in myself enough, I have had the tendency to need to kind of demonize something or make it bad in order for me to give myself permission to stop doing it. You know, so there was that tendency to say social media is evil, like for this, this and this reason. So, like, I'm not gonna do it. But really I don't believe that. Like, I think there's a lot of great stuff about social media and I wouldn't have most of the best friends in my life if it wasn't for social media. I wouldn't have met my husband. I wouldn't, you know, so there's like so much great stuff there. It's really just about like your relationship to the thing. And for me, I think that if we just, there's an element of just like, yeah, like being human. And you know, I would rather have a smaller, for example, email list of people who actually want to be there. Like, I'll give you an example. You know, at the end, every month I go, I use AWeber for my email list and you know, you can filter your subscribers through kind of all different things. And so what I will do is I will pull up the subsection of my list of people who haven't opened an email in 3 months and I do this at the end of every month and I delete them all. And that's. It makes my list smaller every time. Like I just did this, you know, whatever it was at the end of the last month and I deleted 434 people from my list list because if they haven't opened an email in three months, obviously they're not really interested. Why am I going to pay for those 434 people to be on my list? What to say that I have a bigger list? Like that's not so. Something about that has felt, like, really good to me, like, to this intentional culling of, like, you don't have to be here. You can unsubscribe, like, the unsubscribe buttons at the bottom. That's fine. Like, if you like what I'm up to and you want to be part of this community, that's awesome. But I don't know, just, like, giving the people the respect to, like, make those decisions and. And I don't know, I just think that remembering that whoever's reading your emails like a human being, and that that's helpful for everything, like, for business, for just in general, it's not this faceless mass of robots to sell your stuff to, you know.

Oh, my gosh. Yes. That's so true. And I love what you said as well, that everything, all of it, all of it, every platform, every piece of marketing advice, they are tools, and they are inherently, most of them, neutral for the most part, but it's your relationship to them. And I love what you said about not even having to make them wrong in order to say no. And I think that connects to a thread that you brought up earlier in the conversation, which is just being able to question, do I. Wait, do I have to do that? Who set those rules for me? And says who? And is it true? And just questioning the assumptions. And I think right now there is an assumption, you know, X leads to Y and Y leads to Z in terms of. Of social media and how it can help you build things and do things. And same for me, it's helped me do so many things. You and I are friends because of it and have kept in touch because of it, but being able to question, well, what's the right frequency for me and how do I turn the dials in my own life to make it worth it. And I love the way you described your email list, and I know you also went through a similar culling on Facebook. Can you share that?

Yeah. Yeah. So one thing that I'll say, and then I'll share the Facebook story. So I think. I think with.

Social media, and maybe, obviously we all see the world through our own eyes, I'm exposed to this small, tiny section of the population that I decide to follow or whatever. I know there's tons of people on the Internet that I'm not familiar with, but I started to feel like it was maybe. I don't know what caused it, maybe because I was kind of in this personal development space, social media was really just everyone yelling about Their own stuff. Buy this thing. This is the course that I'm building. This is, you know, whatever that. It didn't even really feel like true connection and conversation anymore from where I was. It was just a lot of people yelling about their own stuff, right? And my friend Liz was like, the way she explained it before she decided to leave Twitter, she was like, it just felt like I was at a party where everyone was yelling in my face, and if I was at that party for real, I would leave. And I mean, I laughed. But also, that was. Felt really true for me. And so that brought up this assumption. We tell ourselves, like, I can't be successful online without social media, right? I think that's, like, a thing that a lot of people believe. But if everyone believes that and if everyone. And obviously this is, like, a polarizing example, and if everyone is just using social media because they think that they have to, like, then it's really just a lot of noise, right? Like, everyone just, like, going through the motions of what this, like, Listicle article says that they're supposed to be doing in order to, like, keep their business flowing. And then it. And it's just. It's noise, right? And, like, no, the same way that we start to, like, desensitize ourselves to, like, ads on websites, right? Like, we know where the typical ad sites are. They don't really catch our attention as much. I think it's the same thing. Like, I started to notice that I wasn't even really. I was just filtering everything out because it was all just, like, noise. So at that point, like, is social media really helping? Like, of course I think that it does help for some people, and I think it helps probably for a lot of people if they're using it in a way that's, like, smart and authentic, like, within their business or their community. But we don't really know, like, when we just say, okay, well, you have to be on Facebook or you have to be. Why? How do you know? Right? Like, it's such, like, this amorphous, like, is that really where your people are coming from? So I think there's, like, something to be said for kind of questioning even that belief that you have to do it, right? The Facebook thing. For me, like, I've used Facebook really just personally, like, I don't have the unhealthy relationship with Facebook that I do with Twitter and Instagram. So that's kind of the only thing that I'm still on right now, especially because I use the Facebook group feature for some of my programs. Like I haven't found anything else that works as well as that. But you know, I recently went through and I went from having like, you know, 12, 50, like you know, over a thousand friends to having 250 friends. Like I called it a lot. And my criteria used to be like, if I know someone or even like if I know who they are and we're like online friends, that I would accept them as a friend on Facebook, like, oh, I know them, like, sure. And then that's fine. And I went through and my new criteria wasn't whether or not I know them, but whether or not, if they were like in the area, let's say like they were saying like 40 minutes or an hour away, like would I drive an hour to go see them? That was my new criteria. And that obviously like a thousand people later, you know, not, not friends with, on Facebook. Um, yeah, I don't know. That was just like a helpful way for me to kind of make that list smaller.

Right. Going back to something you said just before, it's interesting with social media and the people yelling in a room that actually one of the turnoffs for me was I don't have, I don't enjoy consuming that much content in a day. So if I'm going, I actually like reading books, I like thinking, I like writing. But I realized I didn't like the endless stream or the expectation to even keep up with, with everyone in that party at that room. And that's sometimes how I feel on Facebook, that.

There'S an expectation now that I'm on there. There's an expectation that when I see any one of these 2,000 friends at a party, I'm supposed to know what's going on. But if I did that, that would be my full time job, would be following things on Facebook. And that's not the activity that I most enjoy. So how do you juggle consuming and seeing what other people are up to, if at all, versus the activities that you enjoy and maybe that's one of the ones you enjoy. So this could be.

Yeah, no, that's a great question. So yeah, I think one of the arguments that I made to myself, specifically with Instagram, when I was deciding a couple months ago whether or not I was gonna take a break from essentially Twitter and Instagram, take what felt like a social media sabbatical to me, it's like, oh, I'm gonna miss out on so much stuff in my friends lives. That was kind of the argument. The, the excuse that would come up for me was a fear of Missing out as far as social stuff goes. And then it really made me think about.

There are a lot of people that I feel like we are friends or I feel like we're in touch simply just because what we, like, double tap each other's photos on Instagram, right? But I was like, that's actually not real friendship to me. Or that's not the type of connection that I'm looking for. Like, I really value, like, deep friendships and I don't need a lot of them, but I'm. I'm not interested in having like, you know, 3,000 acquaintances, right, that, like, just because we're connected on social media. So I got to the point where I was like, okay, well, first of all, I am gonna miss some stuff. There will be stuff that people post that I won't know about. But wouldn't you know, kind of the flip question I asked myself is like, won't this be an interesting experiment to see not like, who your real friends are? Not like, kind of in that, like, cynical way, but.

Who do you miss seeing their stuff enough that you go that you take the extra step to pick up the phone and call them? Right? Or, like, people who are my friends, like, I don't really want to be hearing about something big in their lives for the first time, like, through Facebook. That's. I. That's. I don't know. Like, I don't really love that. So it's. It's been, it's actually been really great because I, you know, I think there's. There's a lot, especially from our generation of people that are kind of anti talking on the phone, right? That's like, it's like, cool to hate being on the phone or like, oh, my God, like, don't leave me voicemails. I don't check my voicemail. I'm like, check your voicemail. Someone left you a message. Someone wants to speak to you. Like, your mother called. Like, what do you. So, like, for me, I'm like, it's been really nice to just like, oh, who are the people that I'm just gonna like, pick up the phone and call them and, you know, like, really starting to, like, do that. And who am I gonna invite to come, like, stay with me and do, you know, do that type of stuff and text and email. And so it's made some of my relationships actually quite a bit stronger, which was something that I wasn't necessarily predicting would happen. But it's. Yeah, it's really great. I mean, and the fact that I have been kind of was public about the fact that I'm not using social media, if that makes sense. I don't think anyone expects that I'm looking at their stuff, right? So, like, it's actually awesome for them to have to be like, hey, I got engaged, right? And like, then we can have an actual conversation about it or I think can take them out to dinner or we can celebrate as opposed to, you know, I just like, like their status on Facebook. So it's been interesting in that way. Um, you know, it's. I don't know, like, the reason this topic's super interesting and I was glad you wanted to do a podcast about it is because I think there's so many layers and like, there's so many ways that social media, like, has its hooks into us. And I think it's different for different people. But two of the things that came up for me that were kind of unexpected were in. I never realized how.

Like, the social validation guided my choices. It was kind of like a feedback loop, meaning subconsciously, you know, I. I started to learn that people preferred, you know, pictures, let's say using Instagram, of like, things that were related to like, running or like pushing yourself or pictures of nature more than like, like pictures of food or pictures of my cats. Right. So, and which is, which is fine. But I then I started to kind of subconsciously choose activities that I could take pictures of that would be more popular. Which, like, as I'm saying this out loud, is like, actually kind of embarrassing. But I think it was just a subconscious thing. Like, you start to know, like, oh, these are the things that give me more social validation. So I'm going to do more of these things as opposed to actually what do I want to do if I don't have to prove anything to anyone? And I had this really interesting moment at the first weekend of May of this year. I was training for my first ultramarathon and I was just miserable. I had not been enjoying it for like, you know, four or five weeks. And I was really unhappy. And I was on this, what was supposed to be a two hour trail run, and I was like halfway into it and I stopped and I burst into tears. I was like, I don't want to do this. And so I had, obviously I'm like an hour out. I have to then, like, walk back to my car, right? So I had this like very long walk of time to think about, like, what's really going on. And I realized, okay, Nicole, if you couldn't post a photo from the finish line of this ultramarathon. If you couldn't put that on social media, would you still do this? Like, would you still run this race? And it was such a clear, like, unequivocally, no way. I was like, oh, yeah, you can't do that. You're done. And I mean, then I wound up taking like a six month break from running to like reevaluate my motivations for these types of things. But that was like a really clear example of I was doing something because I wanted people to view me a certain way. And it all happened like, slowly. It wasn't like I sat down and thought, I want people to think of me this way. I'm gonna sign up for this thing. It was like a kind of deeper, more subconscious, more insidious thing. And it was just like very eye opening for me.

That's really powerful. It's so true how sometimes it takes getting to that point and it's almost even anything when taken too far becomes, becomes too much. So even something like, oh, accountability, yay, social media. It's providing support and then fascinating to hear your insight about. Wow, okay. And here it is taken to its extreme where it's changing on, even on a subconscious level, your behavior.

And I think, yeah, oh, definitely. I mean, and it's been, it's. That's been the most interesting. And I didn't realize that until really taking this break. You know, that was kind of like the clarity that I've had over the last few months when, like every day, you know, when it's like, it's a Saturday and I'm okay, what do I want to spend the day doing? It's actually what do I want to spend the day doing? Because I'm not worried about, oh, I haven't posted to social media in a couple days. Like, I need to post something about running and something about nature and something about healthy food or something. Like, I can actually just do whatever I want. Like, I can bake apple pie because I want to eat the pie, not because I want to put it on Instagram. Right. Which sounds silly, but it's been like so crazy how many like, hikes and, and like really funny full story. When you asked before about, you know, how I felt like kind of being public during the time of like, getting sober and starting drinking and how I, I really needed social media then. Right. Like, you talked about accountability and the complete opposite has been true this time. So, you know, I ran after I started running, I ran and trained and raced pretty seriously for about four and a half years and got, you know, completely burned out and wound up taking, like, five, six months off of running, um, basically from, like, May, you know, up until, like, very recently, like, basically six weeks ago. And now I'm running again. And, you know, I'm. Which feels amazing, but it's, I think, wouldn't have happened if I was still on social media. Like, I need it, for whatever reason, to be totally private, because I need to know that I'm doing this, like, for me and not for anybody else, and not because I want to make money off it or because I want to, you know, anything like that. Like, it's really interesting to see the difference between I needed it to be so public before and I need it to not be public now, because I need to be sure that, like, I'm doing this for me, even if I could never tell anybody about it.

Right. That's awesome. Congrats that you're running again. That's very exciting.

Oh, my God, dude. It's, I think, very needed. It's like my mental health savior tool. It's. I'm so, so, so grateful that I love running again. Like, I. I mean, that could be a whole other podcast, but, yeah, I.

Think for me, it's interesting hearing you talk about this, because my concern, my red flag, was when I would start a new social media tool and realize that it took me out of the moment for two reasons. One, the reason I never really stuck with Instagram was because I started in the moment trying to Instagram a photo when really I could just be enjoying something, anything, whether it's the meal, my walk through New York, meeting a friend's baby. And it was taking me out of that because I was suddenly to create an image from this rather than having it in my mind. And so for me, that didn't work. Also, I'm just like a bookworm. So words are my jam, not so much images. But the other thing that, when I really had to start saying no was when I would wake up feeling guilty or I would go through the day with this pervasive layer of guilt of, I'm not writing back to everyone who's writing to me, whether it was on Twitter, on Facebook, on email, on the blog comments. And there was a point where I felt, based on the implicit rule of, I'm so honored that someone has taken the time to write to me. It doesn't matter if it's email, a blog comment, a tweet, and I want to meet that with a response that just felt like the right thing to do. But then as even my Twitter platform grew or things grew, I realized it's not that scalable. And I'm spending the whole day worried or feeling guilty or feeling like I'm not meeting expectations or someone's gonna think I'm rude. And I was just spending my day consumed by this ever growing to do list of reaction instead of creation, or just rest, like walking to the park and doing handstands and going to a yoga class and not trying to ply on Twitter while walking on my way there just so I can squeeze them all in. And so. So a consequence of that is a lot of replies fall through the cracks, or I'm really slow on email and I don't have a great solution. I just knew that that wasn't sustainable for me. The same way how you were describing the kind of choosing activities based on what was going to be shareable wasn't.

Well, yeah, And I think that's what's so interesting to me about social media is like, again, like we said, it's just a tool. Right. But it brings. I think it brings into focus everyone's own stuff. Because, for example, I completely understand everything that you just said, and that makes so much sense to me, but that was never my experience. I never had that feeling of guilt about not replying or. Because, I don't know, for whatever reason, I didn't. But I've had other things. I think it's really interesting how social media, even in conversations with people, it magnifies certain things for certain people. Right. And. And so, like, for example, for me, there would either be certain people that I follow or certain situations or things that they would post that for whatever reason would make me feel bad about myself. Right, Totally.

It's like the Instagram. Yeah. Or the compare and despair mode.

Yeah, totally, totally. And I know, like, I know for sure that that's my stuff. It's not them. It's not that they're like, I'm not talking about someone posting something like, mean or offensive. Right. Just for whatever reason, like, I'm jealous of something they're doing or, you know, whatever. Like, it brings up something in me or triggers something in me. And I spent a lot of time giving myself, like, I spent, like, a lot of energy giving myself a hard time about that, you know? Well, like, you very. You should be able to see this and not get triggered. Right. Or, like, you should be strong enough to, like, be around this, this or this, like, input. Like it was that kind of thing. Like, it was almost like the making myself still receive these things to like, prove that I could. Right? And finally it was like, it's that thing, like, just stop poking yourself with a needle. Right? Like, if I'm sitting here poking myself with a needle and bleeding and it hurts, like, the answer is to stop doing that, right? So like, part of it for me was like, actually it's fine if like, whatever thing triggers something and you like, you can just step away from that. Like, I think. And that was also part of this kind of self help thing. Well, it's not. You should look at like, what this is triggering in you and like, sometimes, sure, but like, sometimes just like walk out of the room. Right? Like, again, not everything is a problem to be fixed. So like, for me, like, it's fine if my like, self esteem or whatever right now or always is like, not strong enough to like, be exposed to like all this shit that makes me feel bad. It's like, I don't know, like, it's.

You, I want you.

I don't have to do that, right?

Of all the things I could, I could go deep on and meditate on and really try and improve in myself, like, I just rank that list and like, coming to grips with every social media platform isn't one of them because I know what you mean. There's this feeling I get of where I go on Facebook and maybe for me it's the guilt, for you it's something else. But I'm. I don't. I'm not just not gonna do it. I'm just not gonna stick the nail into my head, you know, I'm like, I have enough other things. I'm sort of thinking about that same. I had the same exact conversation of, you know what? This is one that, okay, maybe I'm flawed, maybe there's something wrong with me. It's obviously definitely my shit of whatever reaction I'm having. But I'm just. That's ranked so much lower than dealing with other psychological things, like questions seeking that I have.

Absolutely. Well, it's. It's, you know, it's again. And I think that you and I are both, you know, kind of coming from a perspective of having spent a lot of time in like the personal development space. Right? Like, people who use the Internet for totally different reasons. Maybe they're a food blogger, maybe whatever. Like, I'm sure they have a whole other set of things, right? So I think like, you and I are talking from kind of like the same perspective, but it's like, even to the fact that like.

You Know this, this like obsession with, with productivity or like it's, it started to like, I forgot that like pleasure is important and that rest is important. And you know, like I realized about a year ago how long it had been since I read fiction because I'm like, well you don't have time for that. You need to read these books to better yourself or to improve your business or to do. And that's been part of this kind of whole sabbatical and taking a step back is what do I actually like doing with my time. And obviously I know that taking a full on break from work, for example, that comes with a lot of magic beans of privilege. I know that that's from a very privileged place. But just in general of like we don't, we have like a set amount of time. Right. And like how do you, how do you want to spend that time? Like what's fun for you? And like a lot of this for me has been like reconnecting with just like pleasure for the sake of pleasure. It's fine to read something or watch something because it's entertaining and it like makes you laugh or smile or feel things. Like it does not everything has to be about like being the best person you can be. It's, I don't know, like I think and I think stepping away from social media. Yeah. And what you said about, you know, being present has really, really been the case for me too, that I can, you know, go on a hike or a walk with like a friend here in town and just like leave my phone in the car because I don't have to take a picture of it. I don't have to prove that I did this thing.

Right.

Right. And then I'm like actually there with her and we have whatever conversation we have and who, anyone who called me, I'll call them back. Like it's just these things that sound like really simple but that I wasn't acting on, you know, in my life. And that just was not really in alignment with like my, my value values, you know, I don't want to be that person. You know, those people where you're sitting there with them and they're like scrolling through their phone.

Oh, drive. That's crazy. That's not absolutely crazy.

Like that's not ever what I want. That's not what I want to do. Right. So it's, you know, for me it's just a lot of like reevaluating, you know, these behaviors and you know, and it's, it's not to say I'm never going to use social media, get like, I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen. But I, and I, I. There are some things that I may miss. Sure. You know, like connection opportunities and just kind of like being a part of that. But the, for me right now, the good does not outweigh the bad. It just doesn't. And like, I think that everything's a trade off. Like we said, like, it's easy to walk away from something that's terrible. But I just, like my life is so much better and I'm so much happier in these couple of months from not using social media. Like that was even way more impactful than taking a break from work, was taking a break from being on social media.

And just interesting.

Yeah. And I think I've taken breaks before, like small, you know, a week or a couple weeks. But those, I, I was taking those breaks under the umbrella assumption that it's true that you have to be on social media. So like those breaks kind of felt like those like last desperate days of vacation before you go back to, quote, real life. Right. Where like it never actually felt like a break because even though I was taking a break from the behavior, like actually posting, I wasn't taking a break from the emotional attachment to it, which is the more important thing. And now that I believe that it's possible that I go the rest of my life without being on social media, it feels like a real break. And I think if it ever does come back into my life in hopefully what would be a healthy way, it's definitely going to come from that place. I don't believe that I have to.

Do it, which is so it's such a great position to be in. And, and as you were saying that, it just occurred to me, I don't talk about this much and I don't know if you felt this way, but it's a hard thing to talk about for me because I'm so grateful for everything that social media and blogging and every extension of it has brought to me. So it feels like really whiny to sit and be like, I'm overwhelmed by anything that comes from this because I'm so grateful. But I think that as we look and start to wrap up to talk about what to do about it. Okay, so there's this fatigue, at least if we can talk about it and acknowledge it. And it doesn't mean that either of us are ungrateful for any opportunity, friend, connection, husband, as it were, in your case, it's not ungrateful for any of it. It's just looking at. That's a phase. That's a phase of this, and now how do we create the next phase in a sustainable way? So we don't want to be too.

Prescriptive, but if we.

If we could share any insight of what to do about it. So let's say someone's at this social media fatigue, like, you've hit the plateau, like you or I have in moments now or in the past, what to do about it.

Yes. No, I think that's a good question. I mean, I, And I agree with you on, like, feeling grateful for what it has brought into my life. And that's really what I mean in terms of I don't have to. To make something horrible in order to walk away from it. Right. Like to say. But I think the flip side of that is that we need to give ourselves permission to change. It's fine for the truth to be that blogging and social media and the Internet brought so much wonder and magic and potential and wonderful people into my life and that that season has ended temporarily or forever. Like, it's like, I think the problem with social media and the Internet is there's this, like, foreverness feeling to it. Okay, well, this is your blog. So you blog forever, right? Or, like, okay, this is your Twitter handle. You're on Twitter forever. And I don't know that that's serving us. Like, I think that we're just inherently like cyclical creatures. There are seasons for things. There's times. This is my problem with a lot of the productivity advice. We're not the same every day. Like, some days you have a lot of energy and, like, can harness that energy. And some days you, like, for real, need to hibernate. Right? So I think just like, first of all, just like, allowing that to be fine, right? It's not like, all systems go all the time. And like, one of my favorite, favorite, favorite bloggers, pretty much the only blog that I read, it's called the Fluent Self. The. The writer, her name's Javi. She talks a lot about this idea that, like, the game is rigged. Meaning, like, you. You can't do all of the things ever. Like, you just can't. The game is rigged. You just can't. Right? And so, like, that accepting that and like, social media is part of that. This, like, 247 operating model is not sustainable. The game is rigged, right? So I think like, accepting that that's true, and then like, operating from within that and like, giving yourself Permission to change. It's fine if you loved something and don't love it anymore. It's fine if you had, you know, I said food blog before. Let's say you had a food blog for five years and it like brought you a lot of funsies and now it's not funsies and you don't want to do it. I think so. I think that like accepting that that's possible, like that's comes first. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Something else for anyone that's like in this place that's been helpful for me is, is a question that I really like to ask myself is. And to journal on specifically is what is true for you that you have been denying?

And I think a lot of this came out of that. What's true for me that I've been denying. And that that was like, oh, it's true that I'm not enjoying my business, I'm not enjoying social media. Getting to the heart of what's true without judgment, I think is pretty much the place we have to start for any of these things. It doesn't mean you have to take action. Like if your truth is that you are absolutely miserable being on Twitter and for any number of reasons you don't feel like you can immediately stop using it, that's fine. But let's just like start with admitting what's true and then like make some decisions from. From that place. Like that's been what's worked for me.

Yeah, I think I a hundred percent being able to say admitting what I mean, that's a great question that you just asked. I would also say then you can start to ask more creative questions like how can I be on Twitter and enjoy it? And maybe that means tweeting once a week or it just could be some totally different out of the box format. And that reminds me of the. How you did the podcast seasons. So how do I do this in a way that's sustainable for five years? Thinking of. And I normally don't like five year questions because I think they're for the most part irrelevant. None of us know what we're going to be doing in five years, but when you can ask a social media question, it becomes maybe a more sustainable lens because. Because same. I don't know how old you and I were when we started blogging. It's like 22 or something, but we didn't know what we're committing to. Like, oh, now you have to have a blog the rest of your life. That's kind of weird. You know, that's like a very long commitment. So, yeah, questioning, is it a seasonal thing? And then I always like to put myself in the shoes of a reader. So I say I'll think about a blogger or an author I most admire, and I'll think, if they only wrote to me once a month, would I care? Definitely not. I don't care at all. In fact, I don't have time to read a lot of the stuff that is sent weekly or multiple times a week. And so that's how I gave myself the permission to not blog twice a week, which I had been doing for the first four or five years. And so putting yourself in those shoes of, like, as a reader, would you care if someone you really liked did this? No. Okay.

Yeah, No, I actually, I love that. I think that's something that really helped me. Um, my dear friend Alex Franzen, she's someone that, I mean, I look up to so much and she, she was a really big, you know, she doesn't use social media and has, like, a very successful, like, very financially profitable business. Right. And so she was kind of the port in the storm for me of this is possible. Like, here's someone who is, like, doing this exact thing. Right? And so, like, conversations with her were. Were really helpful. And I look at, you know, she blogs. Yes. But she sends an email out to her people maybe once every two weeks. Ish. Right. And I mean, obviously she's a friend of mine, but before we were friends, I was just like a fan of hers, basically. And I read every single email that she sent. And I'll tell you more. So when she stopped using social media, because that was my only way to gain access to her. So that was all also something that, like, I think there's something to be said for like, less is more. Right. Like, if you're just like constantly putting stuff out on like a million different platforms. I think for me, as a consumer, that's oversaturation. So, like, I really appreciate the fact that she, like, thoughtfully sends emails only when she really has something to say or share. And I read every single one of them. Right. So, like, what you said is, is a really good point. Like, it's like dropping those arbitrary rules. I have to blog every week. I have to this. No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't know. You don't.

Consequences. Because then you can. Then what you just described with Alex is the exact opposite result. Like, in fact, not only will you not lose people, you're going to gain more. Maybe more people will come into the fold. I remember it's different sound about social media, but when I was thinking about leaving Google and I was like, well, what if I spend all my money and I end up combing, you know? And then I made myself ask, what if I earned twice as much in half the time? And that just reframing that question was so helpful. And it was fine for me to have the fear question. I knew that was not going anywhere. But as long as I'm going to have the fear question, I'm also going to throw in this other, more creative one. And then my vision became, how can I earn twice as much in half the time? And sure, it's not like you arrive at that answer overnight, but at least you're taking that flipping the perceived consequence of an action. And that's the exact opposite.

But, you know, but it comes from, I think, you know, in what we're talking about, about social media or putting out content or any of that type of stuff, like, people are inherently attracted to, like, I think, truly kind of excited energy, right? Like, I let's. You know, one of my favorite kind of icebreaker questions to ask people is like, what are you totally obsessed with? Right? And it could be this pumpkin bread they just baked or this new show that they love, but it's the energy that, oh, my God, like, this thing and the thing itself could be something that I don't care about at all, right? Like, you want to tell me how you're so into bird watching? I couldn't care less about bird watching. But if you have that energy, I want to listen to that, right? So I think that if, if you're burned out and you're at this place, the stuff you're putting out there probably isn't even landing that well, right? So it's like giving yourself permission to first of all, like, step back, get to the heart of what's true for you, and then give yourself the freedom to experiment. What would feel good? Would it feel good to, like you said, tweet once a week, do whatever, and start to do some experiments and find what the path is that's going to reinvigorate you, I think, and let you. For me, it was shutting all this other stuff down so that I can send my Friday emails? There's a lot of heat and truth and energy in those because that's real for me right now. And so I, I think experimenting with that, and that's what people are going to respond to. If it's one thing every three months, if it's once a week. If it's one, whatever the platform is or the thing that really gets that out of you, I think that's going to be what people respond to. Even if it's less frequent, even if it breaks the rules. I don't know. That's for me, what I think, really it matters. That type of thing is what attracts people and especially is going to attract the people that are going to be fans and, or clients and or customers of your stuff.

Right. I love your metric is excitement. And I ask that a lot, too. I'll say not like it's your only metric, but it's a great guiding light. And then the other one I use is quality. Like, I don't think people care about quantity much at all. It's quality. It's when you put something out, is this helpful for me, do I want to pass it along to a friend and that that's where viral growth comes from? And in some ways, I'm not hard on myself, but I'll just think to myself, if my list isn't growing, the quality is not there because people aren't sharing it. So there's some part of me that, yes, I could do all this marketing stuff on top of it, but at the end of the day, what's going to sell books is when someone tells their friend, you have to read this or sell a TV show or sell anything else or grow a list or grow a community, it's because there's inherent value there. And so I love the excitement, question and doing things we're excited to do and talk about. And then quality, like, don't worry about piping up until you have something you really want to say that feels worth saying.

Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I'd just like to say one more thing to add on to that. Like, I, for me, found that social media and like, kind of that, like, extra stuff became really effective distractions for me from doing my actual work. Work meaning that, like, whatever the thing was to like, sit down at the blank page to write or to create something like, that's scary, obviously, because you care about it. Because it's hard because all the things that are associated with, like, doing your work right. And it's. I got into the trap of, like, doing a lot of what I call fake work. Like, I would end the day feeling like, okay, well, I just quote, worked all day. But, like, how much of that was like being on Twitter or doing whatever? And not to say there isn't value there, but, like, I had so skewed in that direction, you know, as like promotion instead of just like working on this stuff. And like, that's a balance for me that can get like really out of whack. And so I, yeah, definitely echo like what you said of like, are you using these tools? Like, is this, is this like a way for you to like resist doing the actual heart of your thing, whatever the thing is? Because, like, yes, I think that like marketing is important, but I also think that a lot of things are marketing, right? Like word of mouth. Exactly what you just said. And like, to some extent, I think good work gets found. And that's something my friend Melissa Cassera says. And not to say you can just do good work in a cave underground and like assume someone's gonna find, like, of course there is the balance. But I do think, like, when something's genuinely great, like when I read something that like really moves me, I like email that directly to the people that I think it's gonna matter to them, right? Or like, you have to be on this person's email list or you have to try this restaurant. You had like, good work gets found, you know, And I, for me, I found that I wasn't spending nearly enough time and energy on the work and too much on my brand, right? Or like, look at me and my like fancy running. Whatever. I don't know.

When I do business coaching, I often remind people about there are direct income generating activities and indirect. Direct is picking up the phone and or emailing your network and saying, hey, I'm open for business, I'm taking on clients. Indirect is building your newsletter list or building a blog or building your Twitter following because those things don't have people knocking right away. And it's like we forget that people have built businesses in the past without a website at all. And it's not to say I would recommend that today, but that it is possible. And think about all those old school activities that helped people connect with others and form community that had nothing to do with some of the tools we have have today. And it's not, as you said earlier, it doesn't have to be black and white, but more of a blended approach where we actually do the activities that make the biggest impact. On the podcast that I did, this was called how to Optimize for Revenue and Joy. Those two things simultaneously, not one instead of the other.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, that point about like brick and mortar businesses and this kind of stuff, like how much of the world, right, in the past and even now, like, doesn't use these tools, right. Like there's a lot of it. Like for us to like for me to tell myself, like, well, I can't have like I can't make a living unless I'm going to use social media. That's just like categorically not true, right? There's like plenty I could give you like thousands of examples of people for whom that is not true. So like again, that's like getting to the heart of what's true without judgment. Like that's just a story that I'm telling myself. Right. It doesn't mean that I can't use it, but like, let's get real about, you know, this like pressure. Oh well, I have to do it. When I also think that that story is a way to hold ourselves back from doing things. Like I've heard people that really want to start their thing, whatever their thing is, right? Oh well. But I, I don't know how to do all these different things and I don't have time to be on all these different platforms and stuff. So then they never do the thing, right. Because it's that tied in belief that I have to have time to be on like eight social media platforms otherwise I can't do my thing. I'm like, that's not true. Right.

I think the secret name of this episode is Truth Without Judgment Questioning.

Yeah, man. I mean that's, yeah, that's like a big theme for me in like, like in my life and in my work. And I'm just, I'm interested to see kind of what happens just like for me going forward with, with this like operating from this place. Like I, I. The very first program that I created that I did for kind of like the whole life cycle of my business, a running coach friend and I started a like beginners running program like to help people basically exactly like me that like really wanted to run but had never done done anything like that before. And we're starting from like complete zero, like helping to get them into running with this like virtual training program. I've run it for three and a half years, you know, taken over 300 people through it. It was the absolute, my favorite part of my business. And we were doing it again. Like, you know, the 2016 one is starting up relatively soon and this is a really interesting test for me to invite people into it without any of that stuff that we talked about, right. Like, like I'm opening the doors to this without being on social media, without using any of those fear kind of scare tactics like in the email that I sent to my people last week. I was basically like described what was going on and like even addressed that, like, there will be no urgency. You have to do this now. Fear of missing out. Like, if you want to learn how to run, like, you know that if this feels like a fun community and support in which to do that, cool, awesome, let's hang. You know, and so I'm like interested to kind of see what the results are, approaching it from like a different perspectives. That's again, like you can just try stuff and experiment, see like how it feels.

You know, that's a huge part of the pivot method too, is just experiment. Takes, takes the pressure off, puts the fun back in. So thank you so much, Nicole, for sharing all of these wonderful thoughts. It's so cool you're right in the midst of a social media sabbatical and I just love hearing your thoughts right from the thick of it. So thank you. I feel a little funny asking where can people find you online, given the topic of today's call, but if you want to leave them with any links, please do.

Yeah, yeah. So nicoleantoinette.com I mean, that's my site and it's. Right. It's funny that there's like a link to Twitter and Instagram on there, which I'm not using. But like, I mean, like I said, the thing I am doing is email. So you know, if you're kind of at all interested in these topics, basically real talk with yourself. Just like, yeah, the wonderful, crazy, hilarious, heartbreaking mess of being human. That's. I mean, the best place is through email. Yeah, that's, that's where I'm at. Or you know, check out the podcast. Real talk radio.

Awesome. I like that. Even if people go to your Twitter, it doesn't mean there's a tweet that you've written in the last 24 hours, but it does show what you've been doing. It's like, okay, the podcast launched great. That's actually all I need to know, you know.

Well, but that's, that was a funny thing. Like I was on my social media sabbatical and then when I came out with the second, second season, I felt all this pressure to get and I was like, well, you have to promote it. So I was like, okay. I took a one day like break from my sabbatical to tweet about it and post about on Instagram. And I'll tell you what, the whole thing felt icky. I was like, you're not doing this for the right reason. So, like, if and when I do a season three of the podcast, like, I'm gonna do that without being like, we'll see again, you know? So that was. That was my fear talking. My fear was, you have to get on social media and promote this. And, yeah, it didn't feel good. So. But yeah. And yet the Twitter's there. Like, you're welcome to follow me on it. Nothing will happen. Nothing will come to you.

Well, I know. And I'm thinking, yeah, cool. And for everyone listening and I'll put all the links in the show notes. And I'm like, it's almost an anti show notes because it's like, there's nothing we're talking about. Not talking about things.

Well, I mean, yeah. I mean. And yeah, any links would be like, you know, people we've talked about. Right? Like, to Alex's stuff. Her stuff's great. Especially she's actually. Actually got some great posts. I can send you links to put in the show notes of, like, why she's not using social media and how to do that while still running a profitable business. Her stuff's great. And yeah, a couple other things I can send you Javi's thing about how the game is rigged. Like, things that anyone who's interested in these topics would probably really like that stuff.

That would be awesome. Let's definitely do that. I'll put links to our emails where the real talk's going down. And yeah, thanks so much to everyone for listening. And Nicole, thank you again for being here. It's not.

Thank you. This is my favorite topic to rant about, so thanks for having me.

Thanks.

Bye, everyone.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. To learn more and get in touch, visit jennyblake Me, where I blog about systems at the intersection of mind, body and business. Or find me on Twitter Ennyblake. And remember, build first. Then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.