Sara Christensen - Cancel Culture: Can The Internet Boycott Your Business?

Well, and that's, I mean, you touched on something. I think many business owners and individual people make the mistake of assuming that they're not well known enough to be singled out by cancel culture.

Right.

I mean, that's a big mistake. I only had a couple thousand Instagram followers. You know, I'm not, I don't have a giant platform. But for someone like me, a small business owner, that, this is devastating. You know, it, it personally and from a, you know, my livelihood perspective, it's devastating. It's, it's different when a large, when this happens to large businesses, celebrities, but when it happens to people like us, it is incredibly devastating. And I don't think people realize how at risk they are.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

What's up everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast with your boys, Matt Wolf and Joe Fear.

Good morning.

Is it's not morning in San Diego?

Well, probably morning to them.

I'm gonna speak my own life. You're confusing my, my awakeness. I don't know, am I supposed to be awake at. Am I supposed to wake up at 1:30pm?

Yeah, well, don't tell them what time it actually is.

Oh, God, it's secret when I record these things.

Good morning to your. Good evening to you too, sir. If time doesn't matter, what is time after all? Yeah, time is just an idea a man made construct.

We're getting too deep.

No, we're not. This is what we like actually.

This is actually one of our deeper.

I was going to say actually we got pretty damn deep here and we talked about some stuff that most people haven't thought about and how society is working. And actually we brought on someone who has been directly affected by this monstrosity of an issue that's literally, and I'm not joking about that.

Oh, it's bigger and bigger by the day.

It's getting very bad. And that is the whole cancel culture phenomenon, whatever you want to call it. But basically the like, what is actually happening behind the scenes when that happens? And our newish friend, I mean we met her last year at podcast movement. Sarah Christensen was directly in the fire from this and is still living this day to day.

She won. She made one mistake on social media. I'm not going to, I'll let her explain it. But she made one mistake on social media. The mistake sort of went viral and then collectively the Internet essentially canceled her business. They basically decided you, you know, everybody needs to boycott you and you are just done online and you know not.

Even online, offline, business life, everything.

Yeah, I mean, they basically tore her life apart because of one mistake that she made on social media. And there's, you know, and once something like that happens, how do you recover from it? How? Like, what is the path to redemption from, from making a mistake on social media? If you ask all of the people that are spreading it, like they're acting like this is some sort of insane thing that can never be recovered from. But at the end of the day, people make mistakes and she's a real human being. She has real feelings, real emotions, real fears. And I think a lot of people online just start thinking this is a, you know, a faceless corporation and we're gonna, we're gonna stick it to the man. And in this case, she was the man, quote, unquote. I'm doing air quotes right now. She was the man in this situation that the, the general public was trying to stick it to. But when you hear the whole story, when you get the whole perspective from her side of the picture, you realize like it was a screw up and now essentially she may have to pay for it for the rest of her life.

Well, the fact that she said in this interview that when she was renting a car and you know, she had to give her ID to get the car, the person at the rental in the desk there recognized her, knew her name and was like, I know you from somewhere, like, are you famous? Or something like that. And that gets scary, man, because now. And she's not like she's a celebrity.

No, this was a. She was a small business owner. She wasn't a large brand, she wasn't a guru online that everybody knows her name. She was, she was just an everyday person going along running her business how she thought was best to run her business.

Yeah, so this is really a. I think it's an eye opening thing for everyone to listen to because this affects everyone, not just business owners, but just everyone personally too. And the fact that if you have a business or if you post on social media, really just do anything online, pay attention. She really wants to get across. Like in this interview, we wanted to make sure that we're not just telling her story and just giving her perspective and all that stuff, which you will get that. But at the same. Cause she's literally. You'll hear about this from the time of posting. Within 24 hours, she was freaking on BBC, she was on NBC, she was on the View, she was anytime. If you Google her name even still right now, you will see all those Articles. So. And the fact that my mom and my sister even was aware of this and they are definitely not in this space. That's how big it got within 24 hours. And she's not someone who had a massive following either. So this is why what Sarah wanted to get across in this interview is really identify that this is a real risk that we're all living with, especially as a business owner online with any kind of following numbers.

And it's not all gloom and doom either. I want to say that we do.

Talk about eye opening.

It's eye opening, but it's all also, we do get into how to prevent it and how to protect yourself and how to make sure that this kind of stuff doesn't happen to you. So it's not just the problems that happen. We do discuss solutions as well.

Right? Yeah. And that's where she wanted to get across like, hey, here's a big thing that a lot of people aren't talking about. Here's how she's approached it. Here are the tools and resources that she recommends you taking now very specific resources to make sure that you're watching your ass in this new society in. And it's only going to get more and more this direction. So a. This is your awakening. It should be, at least. And you're gonna have the perspective of someone who just literally had her life completely thrown upside down. And now she's giving you not only that perspective and what's possible, but also the tools to prevent that.

Absolutely.

So I think this is going to be one of the most powerful episodes that we've done in a very long time.

We've done some pretty powerful episodes. So that's saying something.

This is the biggest effects I've seen on a totally uproot rooting someone's life, you know. So.

Obviously we're not comparing here, but yeah, big deals. We're taking notes as always. We're always going to take the notes for you.

That's Matt's Kazoobas.

That's my name now.

That's his legal name. We actually went down to the court and he's now Kazuba Wolf.

Kazooba Wolf.

So, yeah, go buy the domain, Matt.

Kazoobawolf.Com By the way, Kazooba Wolf is a blend between kazoo and tuba.

Yeah, this is the.

That was the sound he was trying to make. So, yeah, get the notes. We've said it before. We'll say it again. We always take the notes for you. They're free for two weeks. By the time this episode goes live. You can get them at hustleandflowchart.com comp or text the number 38470 and then text the word comp. That is it. And you'll get the notes for free. And after two weeks, they go away into our epic vault.

So be fast if you want them free.

Yes. So the notes are good, and I think let's just get into it. This is going to be a good one. Let's do it. Hey, hey, it's Joe, and I just want to quickly shout out our sponsor for this episode, and it's actually perfect timing. I've said it before. You know, we're using LinkedIn and they came to us wanting to sponsor us. So right now, you know, we're basically looking at LinkedIn as an amazing place to really engage with a ton of professionals who are doing great things. It's not like on the other platforms where you're more of a distraction with your messaging and content, but on LinkedIn, that's what people are there for, so you can reach the right professionals at the right time. There's actually 62 million of them on there right now. These are all decision makers, so these are the people that are very interested in moving their business forward, networking, and all the stuff that you might have to bring to their awareness. So, you know, you could do all the organic stuff, you can do the networking and connecting and all that. But have you tried LinkedIn ads? These things are actually really good for driving traffic and engagement to things like, you know, landing pages, registering for events, downloading different content, all that kind of stuff. So right now is a perfect opportunity to check it out, try it out. For the first time, LinkedIn is actually giving you something really cool. So try it out for yourself. LinkedIn is offering a free $100 LinkedIn ad credit to launch your first campaign on there. So you could simply visit LinkedIn.com flowchart, that's LinkedIn.com flowchart and terms and conditions apply. You are gonna love it. We love it. And there's a lot to be, just. Just really cool stuff over there at LinkedIn. So go check it out, and let's head over to the episode. Sarah, welcome to the show. How you doing?

Hi.

I'm good.

Thanks for having me on, you guys.

Of course. And. And we just found out that you're in San Diego, so. Dang, we gotta meet up.

I know, right? I'm waving at you guys across the city.

Yeah, yeah, we're, we're, we're trying to do more and more in person podcasts because we just, we love the dynamic and the. I don't know, I feel like you kind of get slightly different conversations when you're sitting there across the table, face to face. So we're trying to do that more often. So if we end up doing a round two, that's what it'll look like.

Okay, I'm in.

Perfect. Well, we met at, ironically, podcast movement. What, last year? About mid last year. And I'm blink. Was it Angela Hartman? No, it was Phoebe.

Yeah, Phoebe.

That's right, Phoebe. Phoebe connected us. Yes. So another amazing person. So, yeah, it's really cool. We've kind of kept in contact since then, and I think it's just been a pleasure to get to know you there. And it's always cool to connect with someone at a conference that you see multiple times, and then you kind of always have something to connect about or say or riff on. You're like, oh, okay, you're a good person.

We can absolutely. Well, you know, the cool thing about going to conferences, the education is great, but I just love going and meeting people in person because it's almost like once you've met someone in person and you've connected in person and like you've had a drink together or hung out, like, you can be fast friends and stay friends forever because of that in person connection that you had.

Yep, that's right. And that's, I guess, proves the point about in person podcasting too.

Exactly, exactly. You know, it's funny that you mentioned the in person podcasting, because I listened to Tim Ferriss, had Bernay Brown on his podcast, and they did the interview together. They were together and the dynamic was very different and it was pretty darn cool.

Yeah, I agree. It changes things. And I think for the better. It's more of a human conversation. It's not like humans were made to talk with a. Without a face in front of them.

Right. I'm picturing your faces right now, so just so you know. Same weird. Is it.

It's okay. Only while we're chatting. That's funny. But yeah, no, it's. So let's, let's get into it. I mean, you, you, you're doing interesting things. Interesting things have happened to you, and I don't even know where to start, to be very honest.

Well, let's start with your backstory a little bit. I want the audience to really get to know who you are and how you built this business in the first place. So why don't we start there Take us back to kind of around the time you started to get into entrepreneurship and decided you wanted to travel down this business path and what were you doing and how did that transition look?

Sure. So it goes back a long time because I was a hustler when I was a kid. So there was this little store across the street from my school and I would go and buy these laffy taffies for 5 cents. And then I would, I would hoard them and when the store was closed, I would sell them for 10 cents.

They were that in demand.

Yeah, right. So I really, I grew up really, really poor. So I always had to be a hustler and I was always selling things and I went to college and got a job job. But I always felt entrepreneurial. Like my first job I worked chamber of commerce. So I was working with all of these entrepreneurs. I just knew that it was my jam. And so even when I was working in corporate America, I always had a side business going on. So I had a marketing agenc a long time that I did on the side in addition to my full time job. And I just happened to be in a job where like the whole entire department was blowing up and imploding. And it was one of those things that just pushed me. Like if the time, if there's any time for me to go out on my own, this is it. So I had a marketing agency early on and then with a business partner, I started a wireless technology company in 2000. Forever ago. So I've been an entrepreneur for a long time, like for 20, I mean officially for more than 24, five years. That's terrible. It sounds really like forever. But I am 47, so the math does make sense.

Yeah, yeah.

So I had a wireless technology company for about 10 years. I sold my shares to my business partner. We were doing about 10 million in revenue and we had 75 full time employees when I sold that. And I did a lot of consulting after that. And I got involved in a mastermind group. Actually when I first, when I moved to San Diego, I went to a co working space and I met people and they were like, hey, do you want to come to. They called it a networking group. I think, do you want to come to our networking group? And I came to it and I was like, this is awesome and amazing. All these people are supporting each other and helping each other. And the woman who was running it was leaving. I'm a trinity leave. And she's like, who wants to take this group over? And I raised my hand and I really turned it into a kind of a formal mastermind group. And from that point forward, I was obsessed with mastermind groups. I was kind of like Oprah. I was saying to everybody, you need to be in a mastermind group, and you need to be in a mastermind group. And I started creating these groups kind of ad hoc and was running them in San Diego. And I literally at one point had this aha moment. Like, what if I could offer this same kind of connection and support to people who are doing business online? Because so many people who are doing business online are doing it on their own, and they're lonely and they're struggling. And so I created a company that helps small business owners by putting them in mastermind groups so that they can get the support. And sometimes it's emotional support. As you guys know, being entrepreneurs, there's ups and downs. But doing mastermind groups for people. So, I mean, my background is, again, 25 years of being an entrepreneur, being a hustler, and I've done all sorts of different kinds of things.

I think growing up without money was sort of my best training ground for being an entrepreneur, because I just. I always know that I can make money. I always know that I can hustle something. Because especially now with the Internet, I mean, I am going to sound like an old lady now, but with the Internet.

There'S no limit to the ability to make money and create a business.

Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting. You with the perspective of hustling a lot offline and, you know, and now, you know, online completely, from what it sounds like for the most part for you is. Yeah, it's. The perspective is. It is easy in that way of thinking. I don't have to go anywhere. I don't have to drum up all people in person. It's like virtual.

Yeah. And quite frankly, the tools are so good. Like when I first did an online course back in 2013. Oh, my gosh. Did we have to klude some stuff together to even get the payment processor talking to the email system?

Right.

Like, the tools now are so stinking good and so inexpensive that there's no. I feel like there's no logistical barrier to people making money online.

That's true. Yeah. You don't need a big. You don't need to be a techie. There's all these tools out there that if you are a techie, use those. If you're not, use those. Yeah.

I say this probably way too many times on the podcast, but I remember back when I was at the Shutter company. I was an operations manager for a shutter company. Joe worked there as well. And back when we ran the shutter company, our overhead at that company, just the rent for the building and the employees was like 100k a month or something. Right. So our break even was $100,000 a month just to keep the doors every day. And now you can have a business where if you can afford like $200 a month, you can run a business.

Yes, I know. Isn't that crazy? It really does change the whole financial picture when you don't have things like rent and you don't have to have liability insurance for people walking in your office. I mean all of those kinds of things are just so very different.

Yeah.

No, and that's to be honest, there's a lot of, I mean, us at least. Me included. Yeah, I don't even think about all that stuff. It's almost like taking it for gr. Granted what we have in front of us, a laptop and contractors for any kind of work that we don't want to do or can't do and selling via whatever channel, email, social. And there's all these things like insurance like you just said. I'm like, never think about that. Or overhead like 100k. I'm like, man, that's insane. I can't imagine that.

Yeah.

But yeah, I don't know. Different times and it's all.

So it definitely, definitely puts what we've got going into perspective.

No kidding. So masterminds, so after you did that, how like, is that how kick ass masterminds came to be? Did it all pretty much originate with that one group?

It did. So I ran mastermind groups for about seven years as a part time thing and really it was just a labor of love. I loved it so much. I charged for them, but it wasn't my main thing. And then about three years ago, I put my all into that business. So I sold the assets of the other business that I was working on, focused on kick ass master masterminds and was really focusing on a couple different lines of business. So one line of business is directly creating mastermind groups for small business owners. Another is through a channel. So we have a white label mastermind program that we offer to other businesses and brands so they can have a mastermind under and under their business name. But we, we run them and then we also do corporate mastermind groups. So we have a large sales organization that we work with. They want their people to be sharing of what's working but in non competitive markets. So we run Mastermind groups for them. So we really were 100% focused on masterminds, but in different kinds of ways.

I actually want to stick here for a second with the white label mastermind concept because I really love that concept. But I'm curious how you actually fulfill on that because I would imagine, you know, so is it a very specific type of mastermind? Is it only masterminds for entrepreneurs or do you do, do you do white label kind of like more niche down masterminds? Like for instance, if Joe and I wanted to start like a podcast Mastermind.

Yep. No, we do anything and everything. So we work with a self help author and she has people that want, they wanted that high touch from her. She just wasn't, she wasn't willing to do all the logistics herself. So we do like life groups for her people and each one of them we design from scratch. So we go through a product design phase to really decide what are you looking to accomplish? What do your people need? How much involvement does your organization want to have? But we generally design the mastermind for every single one that we do. I mean, we have a menu that we go through. Like, are these some of the features that you want? Again, how much involvement do you want? But we design those from scratch and they're pretty cool because.

It allows the company or the brand or the person that wants to have a mastermind to be able to, to do that and only show up with the things that they're really good at. And then we handle all the details, all the logistics, all the behind the scenes so that they can just, they can show up as their best. Like the self help author, she shows up twice a month for an hour. She does a Q and A session and she does like a masterclass. And for her it's awesome because she can connect with her people, but she doesn't again, have to run any of the logistics. And for her people, it's awesome because they feel like they're in her inner circle because they're in her life groups.

That's interesting, our interest.

Yeah, we may be like kind of in your ideal client group for something like that.

I just love the model because like you, you actually said it right. You nailed on the head when it's like, yeah, the people who own it are, you know, who bring the people to the mastermind. You know, they just, they just show up and do what they're really good at. And that's where, you know, we talked about refocusing in our business. That's pretty much what we're doing, like, figuring out where do we just put our efforts best and work with folks like yourself or other things.

Yeah, well, we say like our zone of genius. Right? Like for us, our zone of genius is kind of the networking, the podcasting, the running paid ads, the creating content. That's really where we live. Where we're not really good is we're not selling. We're not great at selling things like high ticket offers. We're not good at, you know, organizing all the logistics around masterminds and meetings. Although we've. We've tried to do that kind of stuff, We've always sort of fallen off of keeping up with it.

It was just not our thing.

It just was never our thing. It was never really our zone of genius. So I can actually see that being something super valuable for us and maybe putting together a mastermind for listeners of the podcast kind of thing. Who knows? Something we could talk about offline.

Sure, absolutely. Well, and I also think that thinking about your services as white label is something that everybody can do. Like, is there a way that you can offer what you do to other businesses and other brand brands for them to sell it and have it be underneath their, you know, their moniker, underneath their brand. But you're the machine behind the scenes. I think there's so much opportunity in white labeling and so much opportunity in having channel partners like that.

I just heard Brene Brown on the Tim Ferriss podcast, and one of the things that she said was with her and her team, they really realized that they weren't good distributors of her teaching and of her work. And instead of growing this giant team to distribute the work, they just decided that they were going to partner with people who were really good at distribution. So it's kind of the same thing. But I would challenge every listener to think about is your business and what you offer, something that can be white labeled. Somebody else can sell your product under their business name and their brand.

That's very smart. I think that's the way to grow a business and not do the stuff that you just aren't good at or you hate doing. It's like we're not made to do everything.

That's exactly right.

And so how does that work for the client? Is it the client drives the traffic and then you run the mastermind and then it's like a revenue split, like, you know, some sort of percentage split or, you know, how does the whole structure work for something like that?

Yeah. So typically we will advise and consult on the marketing plan because we know how to Sell mastermind groups. And we have a lot of experience in what works and what doesn't, but the marketing is the responsibility of the, of our partner and. But again, we consult and help them with that. And then our responsibility is running the group and all the logistics. So they do the, the calling of the group up front and we handle everything from there. And typically we split the revenue 50. 50.

Gotcha.

Nice. That seems pretty, pretty good. Pretty easy going. Cool. All right, so let's, let's move on. But yeah, let's. We'll chat offline about that. I think it's really cool. Fascinating. Yeah. So you have the white label, all that stuff, and the kick ass masterminds. So you said that was three years ago, right, that you started that?

Yes, officially three years ago.

Okay. So. And since, I mean, obviously there's a big shift since last time you and we met in last year, I guess leading up to that point, is there anything that we should cover or just kind of get into kind of the bigger topic that we kind of decided was a good goal or outcome of this podcast for folks?

Yeah, let's get into it.

Yeah. So I mean, it was interesting because you sent the email to Matt and I and you're like, hey, so things have happened since we've last chatted in person and it was what, like maybe six months or so and essentially you said you were canceled and yeah, we're seeing this a lot online happen.

Well, you actually, you either linked us to a post or you said, google my name or something like that.

And I went, I have the email open right now.

Yeah, and I went. And I actually went and read an article and I went, oh, man. I actually remember seeing this on Redd. It actually was something that got moved up to the top on Reddit. So I'd actually seen the story, but never actually made the connection that this was the same person that I met at Podcast Movement. Just the connection wasn't there in my brain. And then when you emailed us, I was like, oh, shit, I remember seeing this. So let's go ahead and talk about it and let's hear in your words, the sort of story of how it happened.

Sure, absolutely. Well, and you're not the only person who said to me, oh my gosh, that was you. I saw that. And as I been digging into just how crazy and viral it went, I'm actually not surprised because the story was covered by BBC NBC News. Kind of, it blew up. So anyways, the long and the short of what happened is I was hiring A full time marketing manager. I had a woman apply for the position and part of the position, other responsibility was to handle social media. So I asked for a link to their social media account. She gave me a link to her Instagram. I looked at it and made a really dumb mistake of reposting part of a photo that she had on her Instagram. I didn't have her name, her head, anything on it, but she was in a super revealing bathing suit. And I said PSA because I know some of you applicants are looking at this. Don't share your social media with a potential employer if this is the kind of content on it. I'm looking for a professional marketer, not a bikini model. Go on with your bad self and do whatever in private, but this is not doing you any favors in finding a professional job. So I mean, my honest intention was to be helpful and provide some guidance. I'm from a generation where employers looked at your, you know, looked at everything and.

Looking back, I know it was a huge mistake. I really didn't intend any harm. But. So she had emailed me after seeing that and basically said like, hey, I'm so excited to work for you. I hope that I get a chance to talk to you. Will you please take that photo down? And I took it down immediately and I actually looked at my Instagram stats and 57 people on my Instagram had seen it. So she never talked to me about it personally other than ask me to take that down. Like I would have loved to have a conversation with her about it if she was hurt or harmed or whatever. But what happened is she went to Twitter and posted on Twitter that, you know, this had happened. And then another account on Twitter picked it up and another, and another and another. And I'm not kidding you, within 24 hours there was a story on BBC, NBC News news, the View. It was, it spread like wildfire.

Wow. Even I can't even imagine. This is insane. Yeah.

And so, so when that happened, what, what sort of impact did it have on your existing business?

Oh, it was.

To say it was a war waged on my business would be saying it mildly. It was a full on attack of every single business asset I had. My website was hacked and infected with malicious code. I had to take it down. So I lost all my SEO juice, all my content, all my funnels. I got so much activity on my website that I actually had to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for additional hosting bandwidth. I mean, it was that crazy. All my opt ins got spammed. I had to shut down my activecampaign account. I had hundreds of bad podcast reviews within a couple of hours and I had to delete that right away. Thousands and thousands of awful YouTube comments. I had to delete that. I was reported as violating the terms on all the social platforms. So all my social platforms got shut down except for Instagram and I had to delete all my content on there. Thousands and thousands and thousands of DMS. This one woman, Julie, DM'd me on Instagram and said, glad to see you're still gone from the Internet. I hope you're dealing with the deep shame you fully deserve. What a shitty person you are, Sarah. I hope this destroyed your life and work. Thousands and thousands of voicemails and text messages. People tried to hack into my online banking. Like when I say it was a war, there was a full fledged attack on my business.

Yeah, you said, I mean, you told me that you had death threats. You. I mean, obviously you're, you're in San Diego now. You moved from, you're in Austin at the time. Right?

Right. Yeah. So my home address and my phone number were published online with comments like, you know, the, the Internet has your information, now you know what to do. And, and I'd love to share with you some of the more insidious death threats, but I can't from my legal counsel. But they were so aggressive and I was even receiving, I received an eight page handwritten letter to my home detailing how they were gonna kill me.

Lovely.

So, I mean, they were, they were calling for my head. There was promises of violence that were coming in. And so, I mean, it was, it was terrible. Like the FBI got involved, the police got involved. I didn't leave my house for a really long time. And when I did, I had to be with somebody because I was absolutely terrified. So, yeah, we had to sell our house and move out of state. It was so bad.

Yeah, well, this, I mean, and so you approached us and this is what, just giving the listeners some context. You sent us this email essentially telling us that story. And then Matt and I checked it out online and like you said, Matt, you're like, yeah, I think I saw that. And I actually mentioned this to that we're gonna interview you. To my mom and my sister and her friend, which it just came up in, I think it was. Cause we were talking about some other celebrity that going through a similar thing. And they're like, yeah, I thought, I think I heard about her, actually. I'm like, really? I mean, like, maybe, maybe they did so I mean, it's wild to see how you're a small business owner. It's not like you're some massive corporation. You're not Johnny Depp or some big celebrity in the news all the time. You're. You're literally a business owner that was in Austin hiring someone. That's right. And something like this. And like you said, you regret posting it, but at the same time, that's insane to see the power of the Internet and how a post like that can just go crazy. And 57 people saw it on your Instagram. Yeah, that's awesome.

Exactly. Well, and that's. I mean, you touched on something. I think many business owners and individual people make the mistake of assuming that they're not well known enough to be singled out by cancel culture.

Right.

I mean, that's a big mistake. I only had a couple thousand Instagram followers. You know, I'm not. I don't have a giant platform. But for someone like me, a small business owner, that, this is devastating. You know, it, it personally and from a, you know, my livelihood perspective, it's devastating. It's. It's different when a large, when this happens to large businesses or celebrities, but when it happens to people like us, it is incredibly devastating. And I don't think, think people realize how at risk they are.

Right. And that was the big reason why we wanted to bring you on and why we will introduce you to more people as well. And there's a side of the coin where I think you even said even some podcasters and other people who've kind of published you or supported you or at least got the word out for you or previous maybe were getting attacked or under the light and like, whoa, hold on. This is an extremely valuable thing that everyone should be knowing about. About, because we're in this new culture and the Internet, we were just talking about how the Internet's so powerful for business owners, it's also very destructive for business owners and risky in this regard. And you're lining out, I mean, you just lined out how possible it is for everyone listening to potentially be in a similar scenario.

I think with the Internet, everybody has this sort of false sense of anonymity. I don't know if I said that word right, Anonymity. But when it comes to things like social media and stuff, I think everybody just forgets that the fact. Fact that these are still humans communicating with other humans.

Right.

Like, I think that the humanity sort of disappears a lot of times on social media. And we're just staring at a, you know, A static image with a name next to it. And we sort of take out the element that. Oh, that's actually a person sitting on their phone or at a computer that has real feelings, real emotions, real struggles. And we're sitting here just, you know, saying things about them, just ignoring the fact that this is another human being. And you would probably never say that thing about them if they were sitting in the same room with you.

You are so right on. I mean, this is mob mentality, right? Mobs hide behind masks. Like real mobs. Like the kkk, right? Or the Guy Fox. Or have you guys seen the movie Joker?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's when the mob went crazy. Yeah, they wore those masks. So when you hide behind an alias or an avatar online, it's. You can lose your own humanity and pile on in these kind of situations. I mean, oh, my gosh. I was listening to. There was an invisibilia podcast about cancel culture, and one of the cancelers was describing the feeling of canceling as like, such a rush. Like, he just like, totally was like, it feels so good. He said it was like having an orgasm.

Really? Wow.

Yes. Like, how crazy.

Well, to me, that what you just described sounds like the exact same sort of description you hear about psychopaths who get off on murdering people.

Well, yes. And I have to say that the people that attacked me, I mean, some of them were downright mean and awful and saying, you know, really horrible stuff. Like, I hope this boycott causes you to go out of business and fail at everything you try. I mean, there's. There's that shitty stuff. But not everybody who attacked me are bad people. They're really not. They believe that they're doing good work and shifting the power with social justice. Justice. Many of them believe it's a way for them to like. Have you heard this term of like, punching up or punching down?

Yep, yep. They use it a lot in stand up comedy. Yeah, yeah.

So they believe it's a way for them to punch up and take to their own hands because the existing systems have failed them. Like, I was portrayed as the man, right? Like this, I was. Had more power than this. This woman that I was going to hire, and how dare I do that to her. And they're taking their own, you know, vigilante justice. So I think that's part of the thing too, is I'd love to chalk this up to people being batshit crazy, but it's really not about that.

Yeah, and I agree with you. I think when I was making the reference to, like, the psychopath. I was thinking of the person who specifically said, it makes me feel great to cancel people like, that specific sort of archetype that sounds sociopathic. Psychopathic to me for sure.

For sure. And believe me, I got a lot of messages that I really was, like. Like, can I come to your house and give you a hug? What's happened to you in your life? Like, that you would say these terrible things to someone.

Well, that's the wild thing. I mean, us knowing you prior to this ever happening and we met you in person. This goes back to how we started this podcast out, actually, is the whole, like, hey, we met at a. At a conference. We had some drinks. We were at a party there. And we kept in contact throughout that conference and after we've helped each other out. Out, like, wow, Sarah's a really cool person. And, you know, she has similar friends to us. Awesome. And they're good people, too. And she's doing cool shit in the world. And then all of a sudden this happens and I'm saying, oh, God, she's the devil. It's like, hold on. Context here a little bit.

Thank you for saying that. You know, we all make mistakes. I made a mistake. That was not a nice thing that I said. Not a nice thing that I did. I'll be the first one to say that. But does it. Does it warrant death threats and ruining my business? And we're all human. We all make mistakes. I would guess that the people who attacked me, they're probably not perfect either.

Sure. Yeah. Well, it's typically a reflection or some inadequate adequacy or some, you know, justice thing. They're trying to help. And you know what? Maybe they had, in an interesting way, the right intention. Yeah, maybe there's some. Cause they're fighting for, which is fine, but it's the approach. It's the tactics of getting around to it.

Well, here's what's interesting, and here's where the conversation I feel like, gets a little bit complex is, you know, is there a good element of cancel culture, like Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly? Like, is there some good that happens out of this? You know, and obviously the two that I just said are huge celebrities, but, you know, there's this. This kind of struggle of. So there was the whole thing with. With Johnny Depp, right, where Johnny Depp was basically accused of. Of beating. I don't know if it was his wife or his girlfriend or what the relationship was, but his significant other, he was sort of accused of domestic violence with her. And he was kind of always claiming, no, no, no, it's her who's beating me. It's the other way around. It's the other way around. And nobody listened to him. Everybody listened to her. He essentially got canceled. The whole Pirates of the Caribbean. He lost that franchise, and it sort of ruined his career. And now, just recently, it started to come out. He was telling the truth all along, and his girlfriend is actually the asshole who. Who was making shit up and trying to get him canceled. And so there's this weird sort of like, you know, you want to listen to the people that are speaking up about stuff, but then how do we know what's truth and what's not truth? And how do we decide what to hang our hats on and what sort of bandwagon to jump on around these things? And I feel like it starts to get real fuzzy and gray about how normal people should handle seeing these kinds of stories.

It's incredibly fuzzy and incredibly great. It really is. And.

I think we've also lost through this and this point that we're at, at this moment in time, like, we. We don't give people the benefit of the doubt. We've lost the ability to give people grace and to show kindness. And it's just like there's a lot of. There's a lot of complaining and there's a lot of anger, and it just. It comes out through the magnification of social media. And then, then, then the media, the traditional media picks up on it. But it's. It is. I just wonder. I mean, I think about this a lot, like, who are we to be judging each other? And again, my post was shitty, so I'll be the first to say that. But it's gotten me thinking so much about kindness and grace. And can we not have conversations that are nuanced and that are complicated, and can we not still be friends even if we don't agree on things? I mean, that's the thing that I think we're losing, is we're losing the ability to have meaningful conversations because people are scared shitless to say stuff because they don't want to be canceled.

Right. And especially, yeah, if that. If that saying something is through a public forum like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever, people are worried about putting their opinions out there, and that's not human. Yeah, humans should be able to converse together and actually freely exchange ideas, because that's what progresses humanity as a whole. And I think this is a perfect example of something that should be progressed in some form, because like you said, it's way too fuzzy right now. There's a lot of good, but there's a shit ton of bad as well.

Well, one person I've been listening to a lot of lately is Sam Harris. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him.

Oh, I just. I just did Sam's meditation before we got on here. I'm obsessed with Sam, by the way.

I love Sam Harris. I haven't done the meditations yet, but I'm about to get the app.

Yeah, you guys, the app is so good.

It's called Waking up, right? Is that.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay, I have to grab it. I've not grabbed it yet, but I've, like, gone down the Sam Harris rabbit hole. I think I heard him on Joe Rogan. Or no, I heard him on Dax Shepard's podcast. And then I was like, I need to hear everything this guy has ever done. And so I started. But he talks a lot about cancel culture. Quite a bit.

He does.

And. And so one. One of the things that's like, a big point that he brings up a lot on when I've heard him talk about this. There was one specific Joe Rogan episode where I think they actually talked about this topic for a good 45 minutes or so. But, you know, what. What is the path to redemption? What is it? How. How. I think in. In the. The context of what he was talking about on the show, he was talking about some of these large selections. He was talking specifically about people like Louis ck Like, what. What is the path to redemption? Like, he knows he. Up. He knows what he did was, you know, not a great choice. He's remorseful for it, but at the end of the day, he's still a human being. He's still alive. He's still. People still need to give him a chance to climb out of the hole. I mean, we give murderers a chance at redemption, right? We put them in prison. We give them time to think about it. We, you know, we put them through training and we put them through that, and we give them a chance to redeem themselves when they come out. Yet if you're a celebrity or an entrepreneur and somebody comes out and says, you did this, and then you're canceled, it kind of seems like there's no real clear path to redemption. That's always going to be a gray cloud hanging over your head for the rest of your life.

Yeah, well, and apologies and mea culpas aren't enough. Like, it's like no act of contrition is enough. I put out a public apology. And I have hundreds and hundreds of people who ripped my apology like it didn't matter what I said. And.

The virality of my story. And the reason that it will be a scarlet letter I'll have forever is because of how it was picked up by the media and how.

It was brought forth by some of these really high authority sites. Like, I can't write a couple blog posts and push the NBC story off the first page if you Google me, right? Like that, that the, the scarlet letter that they put on me is going to be with me for a very long time. And is that fair? Is that fair punishment for what I did? I don't think so.

No.

And it's, It's a, It's. I think it's a, It's a really good point that Sam brings up about, like, where, where is the. Where is the apology and the redemption and what, What's. What's fair and not fair? And I'm like, this has been such a struggle for me personally, like, in my personal development, because I'm a fairness person. Like, I want everything to be fair. Like when I give my dog treats, everybody, every dog gets the same size treat. Like, I'm a fairness girl.

You are.

And for me to feel like I was treated unfairly so harshly, man, it's been a real journey for me, me, because I've also been helpless, right. I couldn't stop these news stories from coming. I couldn't stop these death threats from coming. Being completely helpless and feeling like this is so out of my hands, I just, you know, I just need to breathe through it. And that's all I can do at this point when I'm, you know, curled up in fetal position crying, like, that's. That sometimes is the only reaction to that. So, yeah, that has been such a.

You know, a big universal question about what is my path forward from this.

Well, that's.

Well, I think. I think coming on podcasts like this, you know, hopefully doing more of this kind of thing, we could start to shape the narrative a little bit and we could start showing the people. No, this is the story that you're. You should be paying attention to, not the initial stupid story that the news is spreading around. That is really insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Right. It didn't affect that girl's life really at all. Is, you know, it's. It's insignificant in the grand scheme of what the sort of aftermath was. And I hope that coming on shows like this and us helping you potentially get on more shows like this. We can start to reshape that narrative. But saying that, I do want to hear sort of some of your thoughts around, you know, what. What do you think that path looks like? What are. What are some of the ideas that you've had and some of the. Some of the things that you've been doing to kind of just put one foot and step in front of the other?

Yeah. Well, the first thing was just making sure that physically I was safe, that I wasn't feeling like I was going to. To, you know, get attacked. So leaving Austin was a big part of that. I can definitely say that I feel way safer than I did before. But weird stuff happens. Like, I was renting a car, and I was leaving the rental car thing, and the guy was, like, looking at my. My license. He's like, I know you. And I'm like, oh, shit. He's like, how do I know you? I've seen you on tv. He keeps going on and on. I'm like. And I'm trying to make a joke, right? I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm super famous. I'm like, get me the hell out of here. Stuff like that comes up, and I like, oh, gosh. So talking about it like this conversation is therapeutic for me because I don't want to have gone through this for nothing. I want to bring this into the light that people are really exposed, especially business owners that have their livelihoods attached to their online brands and their names online. And if I can help at least one person not to go through this like I did, I feel like it will. My work will be done. So I want to have more conversations and bring it into the light and help people to understand that they are exposed. But there are some things that you can do to protect yourself against it, and there are some things that you can do if it starts happening so that it doesn't create an entire shitstorm like it did for me.

Yeah. And let's talk about that, because I could see you're passionate about it. You've lived it. You're living it right now. So what are some ways to. I guess to start by defending your business from being canceled.

Sure. Well, the first thing that I want to say is, again, everyone is at risk of this. Don't think that you're too small or that you need to, like, post some awful political thing online to get attacked. Stuff comes sideways, and I see this stuff happen every single day now that I'm tuned into it. And so you really have to know that you are at risk. But you can do some things about it. So the first thing is be extraordinarily careful with what you are putting out there and what you're getting involved in. Unfortunately, we are no longer free to say what we think without summoning, like, a giant digital mob. So if you don't already have procedures in place for your social media and for email communication and all of that kind of stuff, I definitely will put together some review process to make sure that what you're putting out in the world is not going to offend or piss somebody off. And I hate saying that because I want people to express freely, but it's really, really risky to do that. Like, I will be far more careful in my public communication. Now, I'm not going to offer my opinion on some things knowing that other people will take it wrong and consider it an attack on them and, you know, summons the mob. So you have to have a plan for your communication. And if you're using outside resources, like, I know a lot of people like to hire VAs from other countries to communicate on their behalf, oh, I think that's a huge risk. You don't want someone who's making $3 an hour to take your business down. So there's that whole, like having a process for being extraordinarily mindful about what you're putting out into the world and how you're communicating. So that's the first thing.

That's a good one. And that's something that, you know, not even a va, but it could just be an assistant or some, you know, someone working on your team locally. You know, someone that isn't as invested or maybe doesn't understand the complications that arise from possibly posting something that's like, half thought out. And I think, yeah, that's crucial because there's a lot of businesses, us included, that leverage some other folks in certain scenarios to do the posting for us. And yeah, awesome. So that's a great tip right there.

The other thing is to understand the power of social media is so amazing and awesome, but it also can be weaponized against you. So being really careful and mindful about using social media as a building block to your business, but also thinking about, are there other ways to make sure and diversify where your clients are coming from, how you're taking care of your clients, all of those kinds of things. Because one of the big mistakes that I made is that I had all of my business assets tied up into things that got taken away from me. So through my website, through my podcast, through YouTube, through social media, all those things were gone in a heartbeat. Built up other ways. Like, other. Whether it's in person or email or whatever, other ways to communicate with people. So I think you just have to be extraordinarily mindful of the fact that social media is amazing. But what if that got taken away from you today? What would you do for your business? What plan would you wish you would have already had in place? Whether it's building more relationships, right? Using social media to start those relationships, but building more relationships and having phone calls with people and staying in touch with them, whatever that might make, what might make the most sense for your business. But just understand that social media can raise you up, but it can also really tear you down.

Yeah, that's true. It's not a. It's not a one size fits all kind of thing, that's for sure.

Have you. Have you gotten back on social media yourself since this has all gone down?

No.

So are you. Are you just avoiding it, or do you think you're going to sort of ease back into it?

I don't know yet.

Honestly, I don't know. It feels. It feels. Still. This sounds. This sounds funny, but it still feels really scary to me. It feels like I'm opening myself back up. Instagram is the only account that I still have because the other ones were taken down when I was reported as violating the terms. And in Instagram, I took my account private. I deleted everything. But I still get messages, a lot of messages from people. People. Not nice messages. So it feels like I'm. It just feels really vulnerable and scary to me. So I don't know. I would like to say yes, but I don't know. Although, you know what? I am on Twitter talking about cancel culture.

What terms did they say that you violated?

I don't know, because I don't know what the complaints were, but I got messages from Facebook and LinkedIn saying that I had violated their terms and they were shutting my account down.

Yeah, they probably. I mean, yeah, it's not much you could do there.

The old.

I don't know. I mean, that's another thing. I had so many personal photos on Facebook that were gone in a heartbeat.

See? Yeah. And this is something we told you about, a live stream we're about to go to next week. It's literally talking about big tech, and it's with Rich Sheffrin, if you're familiar with him. And. And he. Yeah, it's basically what you're talking about now is like, they can control so much of our livelihoods as A business owner. And, you know, we're not necessarily talking about cancel culture. I wish you were there now because this would be a fucking amazing topic. But maybe next year. Either way, we can get you talking over there. But, yeah, there's big tech controls, data, personal pictures and all these things, and a lot of folks aren't aware that they probably should be downloading that data occasionally on a regular basis and not relying so much on that because, shit, I know a lot of my personal stuff's on Facebook that was gone tomorrow. I'd be like, oh, that sucks.

Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of images that literally the only place that I know of that they're located are on social media.

I'll say right now, like, there's probably a lot of pictures of me and my dad. He passed away last year. If they were gone, that would pretty much wreck me.

So, yeah, download those.

Yeah, that was actually one of the things that Rich said was make sure you take a backup of your social media.

Yes. I'm going to make a note right now because I haven't done that yet.

Well, that brings up kind of an interesting thing, too, and that is.

We'Re seeing now through AI and some of this scraping technologies, that your pictures can actually be weaponized against you. There was just this story in CNN about this guy, this business, that they're illegally collecting billions and billions of photos. Have you guys seen this?

No.

Okay. So there's a guy who has a business, business, a startup. I think Peter Thiel actually invested in it. But what he's doing is he's collecting billions and billions of photos of people, and he isn't saying what he's going to use them for yet, but it's creepy as heck. And there are also AI apps right now where like if. If, say, for example, we were in a restaurant, you said something I hated, I could take a picture of you, run it through this app, it would id no. God, you immediately in that moment. So imagine like the digital mob or the physical mob that I could summons if I was pissed off at something that you said all through your pictures of AI. And they're scraping that shit off of social media. So I'm. I don't know if I'm going to be putting pictures of myself or, you know, people that I love on social media because I think this is just the beginning of this data collection. And I sound like a crazy person at conspiracy theorist when I say this, but it really is. It's already happening.

No, you're not A crazy person at all because there's obviously examples of this happening through and through. It's happened to you and yeah, no, I've heard about AI technology like that. I didn't know that one specifically, but my God, that just shows how this, how culture is just getting very, I don't know, it's just completely unbalanced. I don't know what the term looks like but, but now you're pairing these things that were. People innocently were putting pictures of themselves and their family, their kids, all that stuff. And now every single one of those folks are in jeopardy potentially if you know, with this technology just makes it a lot easier in person now if something just a crazy person took a picture of you get em.

I feel like the sort of rise of social media also created this, this sort of culture of people who just isolate themselves and just play video games and live on social media because they're getting that sort of networking and social needs met through the Internet instead of real life one to one interaction. And I think this sort of isolation that's happened of people just living on social media and kind of leaving their house less has caused them to, to lose the sense of humanity and lose that sense that these are other humans on the other end.

Absolutely, 100%. And our, you know, Gen Z and younger millennials, they are the very first generation that grew up with the device in their hand. They're hyper networks like the Internet is their primary communication. And it. And that, you know, it's great for a lot of reasons, but also it allows. There's a wonderful book called the Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and he talks a lot about Gen Z and the younger millennials and how they truly are struggling with depression and anxiety and.

A lot of emotional kinds of things because of the Internet's a big piece of it. Parenting is a big piece of that. But it's such an interesting book because it talks a lot about how they are having a hard time connecting socially because they're so used to, used to communicating through their devices and communicating on different platforms and even just like using emojis instead of actually real emotions.

Oh, you actually made a really good point. Is like the kid like emojis are now like a trendy thing for little kids. I fostered a baby for a while and she's almost three this year and she's all about emojis and like wait, hold on, that's not how you express, express emotion. That's just a caricature of an emotion. But yeah, you're right. That's how people live in text. A lot of folks do. Or at least that's how they get their emotions out. And it's. I don't know.

It's not the full human experience. It's part of it. Of course, it always has been written, but dialogue and human interaction, face to face and feeling, seeing, body language and tonality, all of these different things. Things. It's scary when those go away.

It really is. And, like, I would have loved to have had a conversation with the woman that blew my story up. Like, if she would have called me on the phone and said, I'm hurt, I'm embarrassed, I'm harmed, or whatever. And, like, I feel like that could have been a moment of connection and a real moment of learning for me.

Sure.

Instead of, like, taking it right digital in this. This environment. But.

I definitely have found myself since going through this, looking at my phone a lot less and realizing how, quite frankly, addicted I probably was to it. And I just want to have a conversation with real people, look into their eyes, because that's where the humanity really comes from. And I think we are losing some of that, and it's a shame.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, so very soon, the three of us will definitely meet up for coffee or beer or whatever drink you prefer.

All of it?

Yes, all of the drinks. All of them. So we're gonna make that happen because you're speaking our language 100%. And I feel like this is just. This is probably one of the most important topics everyone should really think about and think about how it applies to their specific livelihoods. Like, not just a business owner, even though that's huge, but their fricking lives. Like, the fact that now, you know, you've had all these death threats and you continue to have all these nasty messages. I mean, I've gone through some shit this last year. I know Matt's gone through stuff as well. I can't imagine the shit that you've gone through and the mental load and just anxiety and stressors and whatever else. Stuff that you haven't told us. Like, I mean, lots of tears, I'm sure. I mean, that's. That's the least of things I would imagine. I mean, yeah, I don't know. It's just hard to think about. And the fact that. I guess what I want to get to is just really quick is you mentioned the meditation app with Sam Harris. What other ways are you keeping yourself? And I love the fact that you said that you're checking your phone Less, because that's something that I'm very conscious of because I have kind of an aversion to social media as well in some regards. Not because of the whole canceling piece, but just the addiction piece, because I know it's taking me away from, like, the present moment with people around me, but what other ways are you keeping yourself. I don't want to say sane, because you sound, like, grounded. Grounded.

How are you staying so grounded around all of this?

Grounded, but also progressing because you're young, you have a shit ton more to do, you know, like, how are you keeping yourself in this. In this forward thinking, not, you know, but also grounded in the moment.

How do you not fall into a pit of desperate spare? Is that what you're trying to say, Joe?

That's a good. That's the question. Honestly, I was there for a long time. The first month was horrible. Nothing stopped. It was just full on attack, attack, attack. It was really aggressive for about three months. And honestly, I had a really hard time. I couldn't eat. I was. I saw a trauma therapist, which was really helpful. But I was in despair for a long time over the this. I felt incredibly hopeless. And slowly but surely because of. I mean, I do have to thank Tom, my therapist, who's this fabulous, awesome guy in Austin who helped me through this. And, I mean, I do love Sam Harris and the meditation. That helped a lot. I took. And I'm still continuing to take a lot of walks with my dogs, and we're in San Diego, so I'm spending time with my family and putting my face in the sun. Honestly, it's just more about. About.

Simple stuff. Like, I'm trying to just be really focused on the simple things that I think it's easy to lose track of simple things like sitting on the porch and having a glass of wine and just saying hi to the people that are walking by. I mean, it sounds kind of corny, but I have found a lot of my sanity back through just grounding into the simplicity of relationships and people that I love and appreciating that I have a great little restaurant and I can walk to and get an oat milk latte, like that kind of stuff. And that's not my natural tendency. I mean, I tend to get whipped up about stuff, and I'm a type A. Like, I want to continue moving forward, but also talking about it and being genuinely helpful to people so that they don't. They don't get into these situations. Like, I had a conversation with a business friend the other day. And I was telling her about this website called truepeoplesearch.com and there's a bunch of them out there, but it's creepy how much of your personal information is on the Internet. And like, her eyes almost popped out of her head. We were like, I'm like, okay, I'll help you or work on a plan. We'll get your, you know, your home address off of the Internet. All that kind of stuff, like being of service and helping is also tremendously cathartic.

Well, what's. That's. Actually, you brought up a really good point. Because I've used. I've seen those sites and I was curious enough to. One time, you know, I like, paid for a month because I was like, how much data is actually in here? And it's fucking creepy. And like, personal records and public record, all that stuff in your address.

You looked up my name and there was actually stuff in there that wasn't true about me. And I was like, this is freaking weird. There's data in there, but that makes it more creepy. There could be data in there that's actually not about you, but linked to your data. That makes it even more creepy in my mind.

So really quick, Sarah, what's just a quick resource or a way that people can remove that data? Because I think that's a big thing.

Well, honestly, it's not quick and easy, but there's a really good article. I can send you guys the link if you want to put it in your show notes or anyone can DM me on Twitter. I'm Aradafil and I'll. I'll share it with you. But there's a great article from reputationdefender.com that talks about how to remove yourself from the top people search sites.

Perfect. Yeah, I think that's an awesome resource that everyone should do in this day and age.

Yes, well, and let me also just say that do not be using your physical home address for anything that's government or credit or data related. Like if you suspect any place might be selling your data, don't use your home address. And that includes stuff like your vehicle registration, your driver's license, your. Your corporate filings. Get a P.O. box. Or I use ipostal1.com. Don't use your physical home address on anything, because that is what rolls up to all of these people search websites. It's all publicly available information. Or like with your credit cards, they sell the information.

True. That's a very freaking good point. Okay, all right, Matt, we got to do that because I Know, we're.

We have a P.O. box, but we don't actually point everything to it.

Exactly. We're a little sloppy in that regard, so.

All right.

Yes. It's time to do that.

Yeah, we got it. All right. These are amazing resources, and I. I know we're going to do everything in our power to get you on more podcasts, on more stages, and telling this. Because this is. This is freaking. This is the thing that everyone needs to hear and take precautions around.

Nobody thinks it's going to happen to them until it does.

Until it does.

That's exactly right.

So I think it's better to be prepared. You know, let's not assume it's going to happen to you. You. Chances are it won't happen to you, but be prepared in case it does and start thinking about it and think ahead, because it happens to people. And so you need to be thinking ahead with this stuff.

Absolutely. And the thing is that this is kind of. Without getting into all the backstory about why, but this is kind of our new normal going forward because we have a whole generation who likes social justice as a way of getting stuff done because it actually works. And. And.

They'Re gonna be with us for a long time. And these are their tactics. So they're like, this is a new normal. So I think we have to just go into it with our eyes wide open, do what we can to protect ourselves and defend our businesses, our families ourselves, and just be aware of it.

Yeah.

And there's no trial process. You're just convicted and it's over.

Right.

Good point. Yep. No, this is the new norm. And who knows what's next with AI but all we can do right now is focus on what's at our. What's in the present, and if there's tools to protect ourselves and knowledge, of course, let's make sure we're all doing that.

Yep. You know, one more tool I'd love to give you guys is. Well, a tactic is turn off your location services, don't allow yourself to be tracked, and you can go to takeout.google.com, so takeout.google.com and you can download all the data that Google has on you, including the location stuff that they've been tracking. That is crazy creepy.

Okey dokey. I've never heard of that. And I know Facebook has something like that. You can. Yeah. Okay. Anything we can.

Well, I mean, with all the new laws, the GDPR laws, and now there's the California one. I forgot the acronym for that one already. But there's these new laws that are basically telling companies you've got to tell people what data you have on them. It requires that it's now legally required that the companies do it.

So I believe you can block some of that. Like I think from Facebook there's certain things you can now block your data or certain regards. I don't know, it's something to probably explore.

Yeah, for sure. I mean the key is just on your phone especially turn off your location. Based services don't allow any sort of, you know when like vox pops up and it says, do you want to show your location? Always say, no, don't show your location.

Yeah, I've seen that before. I'm like, wow, this is kind of creepy. I know exactly where this person is that's talking to me.

I'm like, Joe's voxing me from the bathroom again.

How long have you been in there?

Oh my God. All right, well, this is. I can see us doing an in person round two after we, Matt and I protect ourselves a little further and the things that we learn, ideally not be canceled. But you know what, we're going to take precautions.

Wrap it up. Sarah, I know you. What's the book that you mentioned? One more time, just the title of it.

The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haig and Greg Lukanoff. One other book that I think is important in this conversation is a book called Hate Inc. By Matt Taibbi. So Matt is a Rolling Stone reporter and he wrote this book all about how the media is so different now than even the media we knew three or five or 10 years ago. And I think it's an important book at this time because the media, the traditional media is so dovetailing and trying to keep up with social media and that's what causes these things to be a wildfire. So I think that's such an important book for business owners not only for from a protection perspective, but also from just a general public relations and getting media coverage perspective. It is excellent, awesome.

I've heard of it and I will now get it.

Now what about, what about your business? If somebody wants to look more into working with you on some of the mastermind kind of stuff, where can they go check that out?

Yeah, so everything is kind of underground at this point, but certainly can reach out to me directly with my email is scarah christensen.com and if you guys want to put that in the show notes, that's cool. But would love to talk with people about masterminds or white label Masterminds but again, we're. This year is really a year of pulling back on the marketing.

Yep.

And just focusing on. Yeah. Focusing on our existing clients that we still have. The ones that we didn't lose because we did lose a lot of clients.

Right.

And just kind of re figuring out what that looks like going forward.

Awesome. Cool. Yeah. We'll link everything in the show notes and your Twitter one more time. What's the name. Name of that?

I'm Aradefends D F E N D S and that's where I'm really talking a lot about cancel culture and sharing stories of other people who have gone through it. And quite frankly, one of the main reasons that I started. I just got on Twitter is because I want to show some support and love to people who are getting canceled. Because I will tell you, of all the. All that, I estimate I had about 50,000 hate messages that got sent to me and probably five supportive messages from strangers. But those were like life rafts in the storm. So I want to extend that same kindness forward to others and help others who are going through this.

Well, I think you're spreading a powerful message, and I think it's something that everybody needs to hear and everybody needs to be aware of and everybody needs to start thinking about protecting themselves around it.

Yeah. And hey, there's no one better than you to freaking champion this and lead the charge.

And thanks for being so open and vulnerable about all of this stuff and just kind of openly sharing it and just not holding back on this story because I think it's really appreciated and I think it's going to help other people listening go really realize that there are humans on the other end.

Absolutely. Yeah. You're welcome. I mean, it's not easy to talk about this, to be honest, but I do feel like it's important and the conversation needs to happen. I mean, I certainly wish I would have been more. More aware of it and maybe I would have made a different decision and not have, you know, gone through this. This. This hell time. But I appreciate you guys having me on and giving me an opportunity to talk about this and share.

Of course. Very welcome. All right, Sarah, well, we'll meet up soon and thank you so much again.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for tuning into that episode. I hope you dug it. I know Joe and I dug it. I actually kicked Joe out of the room. He's not here right now. Because I wanted to tell you about. About a tool that I really, really dig. We use it in our business. We recommend it. All the time. It's called Easy Webinar and it's a tool that lets you do live webinars, automated webinars, hybrid webinars, and, you know, pretty much any other kind of webinar, if there are other kinds of webinars. But anyway, this tool is kind of like your all in one, do it all tool for anything webinar related. It's Easy Webinar. It's put out by a dude named Casey Zeman. He, he's been on the podcast. If you haven't listened to that episode, it's a killer episode. He's a really smart dude, but his software is amazing. It does everything. It's, you know, the title tells you exactly what it does. It's an easy webinar platform and we use this in our business to run automated webinars all the time. We don't do a lot of live webinars these days. We like to do the kind of automated webinars where somebody can register and then it, you know, they can either watch it like 15 minutes later or they can, can watch it the next day, but it's just kind of always running. And it's a system that helps us make autopilot sales off of our webinars. Super cool tool. If you haven't tried it yet, you know, it's, it's, it's an amazing tool. And Casey is actually hooking you up. He said for listeners of Hustle and Flowchart, I can't believe he's doing this, but he said for listeners of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, he's giving 25% off of the membership to use Easy Webinar. It's already super, super inefficient, expensive for what it does and all the cool features it has. But he's hooking you up with 25% off because you're a listener of Hustle and flowchart, go to easywebinar.com hustle. That's where you can get that 25% off discount. That's easywebinar.com hustole. It's a awesome tool. You're going to dig it, so just go grab it. Check it out. Easywebinar.com hustle See ya. No, not see ya. You'll hear me in the next show. I don't know. I don't know how to close these things. Go get Easy Webinar. Talk to you later.

Thanks, everybody for listening to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, for taking the time to listen we want to give you something a little bit special. Every single episode that we do, we actually have somebody on our team take notes. We basically have a Cliff's Notes version of every episode where you can go and find all of the tips and tactics that they laid out, all of the reactions, sources that they laid out, all the good stuff from this episode. We actually have a nice simple notes version that you can find on our website. So go to evergreenprofits.com find this episode that you just listened to, and give us your email address and we'll send you the notes. Thanks for listening.

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