Is Being Polarizing Bad?

I can taste yo yo, yo y I can taste yo yo, yo yo, yo, yo. Hello and good evening, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, coming to you live this October 14th to Tuesday. No, today's Monday. Today's Monday. This is not. That is not a good omen for the week. Already thinking it's Tuesday. Anyway, I'm coming to you live on the Facebooks, and I say Facebooks because it's my personal and my professional page. LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and over here on my phone on TikTok. So welcome everyone. I hope you're having a great Monday and I hope you're not tired of me talking about this yet. So one of the things that I am very, very serious about in my work and with my clients is that you're not just starting a business to make money. Right. I don't want clients who are just starting a business thinking that they can make some quick cash. Okay? That's not what we're about here. The people that I work with, they all have some kind of higher purpose. They have something that they're super passionate about that they want to. They want to create in the world. It might be a non profit. It could be they want to design a business that really helps people in a certain way. Could be they want to give back to their community. It could be that they want to be able to tithe. And by the way, I didn't realize that that was spelled differently than tied with a D. I like, have heard it my whole life. And. And if you don't know what that term is, it's technically a religious term. But we're not going there where you. You like, basically give like a percentage of what you make every single month to, like, whatever religious institution you belong to. It's spelled tithe with a th, not tied. And I definitely recorded a whole, whole training video in my program where I said tied multiple times because I didn't know there was a difference. It's how agnostic I am anyway, so. But like, that was a side tangent. Sorry. I'll bring it all back. So my clients really want to make a difference. They want to make a difference with their business. They want to change their own lives. Sure. But they also want to make sure that they are doing good in the world. Right. Doing good with their work and then doing good with their money. Right. So I live this. This is one of the things that I make sure that I have enough time for. Because, you know, if my clients want to do this. I need to do this. This is. This is how we have this alignment, right? So I am starting a nonprofit. I do political work. I get involved, I volunteer. I find making time for these things incredibly satisfying to my soul. And I also find that it inspires me to be better in my work. Right. And part of this, especially right now, as we're in this election season here in the United States, part of this is, you know, speaking out and talking about what you care about. Now, I want to talk today about this question. Is it okay to be polarizing? Right. Because talking about politics online and social media can be incredibly polarizing. Right. And I had a very brave question from a client this morning. Won't name who it was, but they asked me because they're. One of their values is unity, right? And I'll just say it that way. Their values are unity and bring people together. And when you talk about politics and we're talking about supporting one candidate over another, I'm supporting Harris. I'm a Democrat, by the way, if you haven't guessed. It can create division. It can create space, like distance between parties of people. And while I absolutely agree with them, I think it's so important that we have unity. I think it's incredibly important right now to speak out for women, to speak out for women's rights, to speak out for LGBTQ + community, for. To speak for BIPOC, to, like, any marginalized group that will be harmed by another Trump presidency. I think it's so important that we speak out on behalf of everyone and say how important it is for us to go and vote and get involved. Right? But this question of polarization, you know, there's. There's been a big belief system around this in business that it's wrong. It's a bad idea to be polarizing in your content, that you need to basically be pretty. Pretty pleasing to most people in your audience and that. And hi, Hila Khan and Jesus and Maria and Monica and Jamie and Fondo and Farm Girl. Hello. They all just showed up. Hello, everyone. Welcome. So, yes and no, like, it's okay to be polarizing in your content if you have a good reason for it, right? If you're just wanting to be polarizing in your content to be a douche canoe that, like, creates controversy and gets everyone, you know, all riled up about something. Oh, Jesus, you have adhd. Yeah. Welcome to the club. You're in good company, man. But if you're just trying to rile people up for funsies, like, ah, that's Kind of a douche canoe kind of tactic. Let's not do that. Let's not. Let's not create controversy where it's not necessary. Yeah, it bothers you in class sometimes. I remember those days. It gets better when you get older. Don't worry. Anyway, but in business, in business, it is actually a great idea to be polarizing in a way that is strategic to get what you want. Right? So for me, I pride myself on making my programs a safe space for folks who are everything, everything. Different religions, different gender identities, different sexual orientations, different shades of skin color. What else? Different ableness, right? I have a lot of ADHD folks in my world. Surprise, surprise. It is incredibly important for me to have a safe space for those folks. And so when I was really thinking about, do I speak out, Do I start posting and being more visible with my political beliefs, I realized that this is not just about me. It's not just about my beliefs and, like, wanting people to agree with me, even though that does feel really good when people do. But it's more about creating a safe space for my people, for everyone who shows up on my calls, who shows up in my lives, who comments, who, you know, hangs out with me, who hires me as their business strategist and coach. It is incredibly important for me to know that they know that they're safe, right? That they know that they're never going to be judged for who they love or treated differently for what they believe or any. Any of the things. Any of the things. And unfortunately, there's a group of folks who are supporting a certain human right now. This human. I will just drop a hint. Abandoned to, like, I think 2000 of his rally people in the middle of the desert in California on Saturday night. In the. In the desert, pitch black. He didn't pay for his buses, so they all had to walk for two hours back to their cars. This human, his followers tend to be very loudly and proudly anti LGBTQ plus, anti women's rights, anti equity inequality, AKA the R word that ends with ism. All things that do not lend themselves to creating a safe space if they're there, right? And so my stance, My stance on this as a business owner, especially as a business owner who has group programs, who. Who facilitates teaching people, a bunch of different people at the same time, how to start businesses. And I want those. Those environments to be so safe for people to ask stupid questions, like, questions that they're embarrassed to ask because, like, it's just like, oh, God, I can't believe I don't know this, right? I want people to feel safe. Oh, hi. Hello. Hi, Heather. I want people to feel safe, like talking about their lives and talking about, you know, how they're doing IVF with their spouse or, you know, their, you know, what, what they're coming up against in their life and know that there's no judgment, there's nothing going on in other people's minds that is against them, right? I want everyone to like be able to show up and celebrate the big wins and cry about all the losses and all the failures, right? Because happens in business. And I know that that's only possible when people know that I have a no tolerance for, for hate, essentially. And it makes me incredibly sad to be able to generalize about a whole group of people, right? Because I, I don't like generalizing. I don't like painting like a brig, a big broad brush that's hard to get out. Big broad brush at a bunch of whole of, at a whole bunch of people and saying they're all this. I don't genuinely think that they're all this, but they're okay with that, right? If someone is voting for someone who has graped someone, they're okay with it, right? If someone's voting for someone who wants to like kick out a bunch of people who have different colored skin from our country, they might not be doing it, but they're okay with it, right? There's so many instances where like the ideology just does not match up with folks who are in that camp. And me and my people, right? And I, I, my ideal, my ideal world would be that these folks, like understand that that's not the way they understand that like hate is not the way, that fear is not the way they understand that They've unfortunately been taken in by a cult leader and they kind of see the light and do some, do some work on themselves, they do some anti racism work, they confront their own internalized misogyny. And I would be so happy to welcome, welcome them into my audience and welcome them into my, my programs at that point. But until we get there, it's just not a fit, right? We're comfortable generalizing Hitler and Nazis and we rightfully should be today has very little difference from 100 years ago. You know, Heather, it is so scary that you're so spot on with this. And I think my, like, literally, like my neck and my ears are going red just thinking about what people will say about us 50 years from now if this election goes away. I'm worried it might. Liam, let's Go back to grade school and have a session of Sesame Street. The words of the day are cognitive dissonance. Yeah. And you know what? And this is really, like, my gateway to having compassion for these folks is, like, for someone to look at someone like Trump and think, okay, treating people that way is fine. I'm going to be okay with that. Like, but I would also never behave that way in my own life, because a lot of these people would never behave the way Trump behaves. Think of the abuse of humans that they must have had to tolerate their entire life where their brain was like, cool, we have to behave this way, like, the good way. But there's exceptions for people up here. And then all of a sudden, you have these people in power who can do atrocious things, and the followers are like, well, it's fine. We won't do that. It's fine, but we won't do that. He's. He's different, right? It creates that, like, exception rule. And I. I hate that. But. But it is. It's cognitive dissonance. You know, it's. The brain has an incredibly difficult time holding two things to be true at the same time when they're contrary. Right? So if, like, you know good from bad, and you know good and evil, and you see someone that you have accepted as a leader in your world and they're behaving that way, the brain can either say, oh, cool, these do not match up. Let's. Let's get rid of this leader. He's not any good, because it doesn't stand for my values, or the brain can make a rule that makes this okay and this okay. Right. And that's the cognitive dissonance thing. And this is really my gateway into having compassion for Trump supporters right now. Because I can't. I mean, I can. I've. I've been in abusive relationships. I know how. How. How many pretzel bends the brain can do to excuse bad behavior because it just doesn't match up with your reality. And that is so sad for them. And I wish them a very, you know, gentle healing journey. But there's a reason why I talk about being pro everything that I am so much, because I don't want them in my programs. Right? And so that's really the instance where being polarizing is okay. It's something that you do want to do if it has a good reason to protect people in your communities. Justin. My daddy voted red. My grandpappy voted red. My great grandpappy voted red and had a white sheet. Oh. So I'LL vote the same way they did Cletus, your non splitting family trees showing. Yeah. You know, but here's that. Yeah. That cognitive dissonance. If, if your grandpappy got to do that and still be a good grandpappy, then your brain already has cognitive dissonance. Your brain already has an exception for bad behavior up here. And hi, Laura and hi Haley and hi Susan and Valerie and Isabel. Welcome. It's just, it's. Yeah, it can get you all kinds of riled up. Right. But there's things that we can do about it. Right? There's. There's actions we can take. I'm taking one right now. Right. I'm talking about it. I'm. I'm confronting the elephant in the room. If you love a good pun. But I'm bump. Oh, my God. The laugh that just came out of me. Oh, my gosh. So the elephant in the room is that we need to head this or face this head on. We need to talk politics. We need to talk to our friends and our loved ones and really anyone that we've ever really known. And we need to make sure that they understand why we care so much, why we want to vote for Harris, why we want to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot, what it means for our own personal freedoms and, and, and sharing stories. You know, hope is not quiet. That's a quote from, I think Harvey Milk or either him or his campaign manager. I can't remember. I heard it from Vice President Harris at an event in, in Provincetown the day before she announced. But hope is not quiet. Right. If we want to have hope that this is going to turn out the way that we want it to, which I have a lot of faith it will, we need to be as loud as. Okay, we need to talk to basically everyone we know. And here I am, I'm talking to collectively over 20,000 people. If, if everyone were logging in. We need to talk about. What color is that wall? I don't know. I painted it. Actually. I still have the paint. Can you want to know? Hold on. Oh, gosh. I never put it away after I painted. I painted like a year and a half ago. It is bare Ultra Base. 720. 17. 20. Ancient ivory. It is ancient ivory. Yeah. I hope you're asking because you liked it and not being like, that's disgusting. Painted something else. Okay. But yeah, hope isn't quiet. I love America. Do I love. I'm getting asked on TikTok if I love America. Of course I love America. I think, I think this is a beautiful country. I think it is a country that is full of potential. And I don't think we've gotten to the full potential of what America can be. I really don't. I don't think we have realized just how magical our government can be for its people. And that's one of the reasons why I'm voting for Kamala Harris this year, because I genuinely, genuinely believe that that is the right direction for us. But we need to be having these conversations. We need to be brave. I. I had a little like, moment with myself a couple days ago where I was like, okay, I'm doing these lives. You know, it'd be really funny is if I went through my whole, like, contact list in my phone and just called everyone and just did that on live. And then I realized there would be people on that list that, like, I'd have like a one night stand with. And I'm like, I don't. I'm brave, but I don't know if I'm that brave, especially to do it on live with you guys. Oh, that could. I mean, that could be a whole reality TV show. Oh, my gosh. Okay, personal story. I was a far right leading Republican. I came from a super redneck town. The military, by definition, is right leaning. I vote for the Cheeto man. And I voted for the cheeto man in 2016. What changed in 2018? When one of my great friends from the Navy told me about the daily routine of him telling his son, if you encounter the police, make yourself small, always make your hands visible, be polite and respectful. His son was seven years old. And that's when I changed everything. Yeah. Yeah. You know, as a white person, I can't imagine having to tell a seven year old that. Right. A seven year old, like, you know, it's completely out of my realm of awareness. And I know it happens now that because I've been doing a lot of anti racism work, but every time I hear, I hear an anecdote like that, it just, it breaks my heart that there's their children who do not see themselves as safe leaving their homes. Right. And that shouldn't be the case. That absolutely should not be the case. Right. I was on a tangent and I read that and my tangent changed. I'm so bricked. Yep. Yeah. Laura Ann, Dorothy. Hello, Rose. Hello. Anyway, yeah, it's. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking what some people go through to be. Be citizens of this country. And we can make it better for them. We genuinely can. I think we are. I Think we're. We're really taking a stand right now for what we believe people should experience as citizens and as. As people who want to immigrate here. So how can you get involved? How can you do something? Right? Because we don't just talk about shit. We don't just sit here and like, talk about stuff and then feel really good about it and then be like, okay, well, I talked about it. I heard someone on a live, and now I'm involved. That doesn't count. That does not count. Okay, so what you're going to do is if you have not voted, you're going to make a plan to vote, right? And hopefully, hopefully, if you have any questions about Kamala Harris or any Democrat DM me, I will look them up. I will ask my people. Very involved, right? If you have any questions, if you want to, like, really sort through who can be your people that you're going to vote for, I'm here, I'm volunteering as a resource. But you are going to make a plan to vote and support women this year and LGBTQ + and BIPOC and everyone, right? Okay. And you're going to do something a little bit more. You're going to text a minimum, minimum, you get extra points, but a minimum of 10 people. 10 people, bonus points if any of them live in a swing state, right? You're going to text them and you're going to say, hey, just want to make sure you have a plan to vote on November 5th. Right? And here's why. I'm voting for Kamala Harris. Right? You're going to text them and you're going to start that conversation. And you know what? Like, the more cringe it is, the better it's going to be for you, because you're going to realize that it's not going to kill you. You're going to realize that you can do scary things. You can put yourself out there. You can, like, start weird, awkward, confrontational conversations with people who are basic strangers and not die. All right? That is going to be what you're going to do. And if you want to do more, there's so much you can do to get involved. You can phone bank, right? I'm phone banking now several times a week or a couple of times a week to New Hampshire, because it's really important to turn out the vote there. You can phone bank for Pennsylvania, for Georgia, wherever you want to phone bank to, you can. So you don't even have to leave your house. And it's super easy. Literally, you just log in and it auto dials for you so you don't even hear a ring. You just like get patched through two people and you read a script and then you ask a certain amount of questions and then you hang up and then you just do it again and again and again. You could do it for one hour, you could do it for two hours. It's amazing. So you can do that. You can go door knocking. Door knocking is amazing. And you just go and you'll get a list of folks. So you're not going to end up knocking on Trump supporters doors. You're really just going and talking to Harris, Harris supporters and independents and making sure that they have a plan to vote and ask them if they have any questions. And you do it with friends. You're never, you're never alone when you're doing this. We want you to be safe. You can also go and do door hangers. You can go and like leave literature. Just all these things you can do through your local chapter of Democrats. Right. There's so much you can do to get involved and it really does make a difference. I want to, David, I want to get to your comment first, but I want to say this, you know, for. I think it's like people are four or five times more likely to go and vote on election day or before if they get these four touches. They get a phone call. Right? They get a phone call. It doesn't matter if they're just like, they hear you for a second and then they hang up still. They were like, I got a phone call from someone about this thing. I'm going to remember it. Number two, a door knock. Someone comes to their door and knocks on their door and says, hey, are you going to vote? That's, that's a huge thing to get them to go. They find a piece of literature like dropped off at their home. Right. Not in the mail. Right. But literally like under the door or, you know, in their, in their screen door, whatever. And then number four is they get a mailer. Right. And that's the political campaigns are handling that. You don't have to do that. But there's so many ways you could, you could literally help change the course of history and make this world so much better. David, throwing this out there, that outreach works so much better if your circles include people with radically different political views. Yeah, you know what? I, yeah. If you're brave enough to go after those conversations with folks who are supporting Trump and really understand why they think this, this individual is going to be a Good president for them and have that brave conversation without emotion about, you know, why you're voting for Harris and, like, how you probably have the same goals and all that stuff. Absolutely. Yeah. But you're a lawyer. I wanted to want to name this. You're extra brave with a lot of your conversations and you have those negotiation skills a lot of us don't. And I want to make sure that people aren't feeling like they have to go and start fights with family members and, and their community, because I think that's what a lot of people end up in because, you know, they don't have that negotiation training. But 100%, if we can change the minds, that's. That's magic. But, you know, again, like, we can win this if we just make sure more Democrats and more independents who already like Harris or at least dislike Trump, we can win this if we just make sure that they actually get out of their house and go and vote on election day or before then. There's a lot of early voting going on. Oh, and one more thing. Make sure if you live in a state where the voting rolls have been, like, cleaned out, because a lot of folks are. A lot of states are basically wiping their roles to sway things to the right. Make sure that you are registered. Make sure. Just double check beforehand. And if you get there and they tell you you're not registered, then you get to ask, my friend, you get to ask for a provisional ballot. Okay? That is your constitutional right. All right. Or constitutional. Is it? Or is it just a right of voting? Right? David, you're a lawyer here, you tell me. Anyway, let me see who else has been here. Ashton, Amanda, Henry, Shirley, Lara and Pash. Hello. Thank you for the likes. Oh, my gosh. Anyway, we can all make a difference. We can all make a difference. We can speak to people, we can inspire people. We can remind people. And remember, hope is not quiet. Hope is not quiet. So for women, like, if you've ever had a miscarriage, you ever struggle with infertility, if you have, you know, ever been afraid that you might have been pregnant and known that that was not in your. In your desired future in that moment, share that with friends and family. I know, I know it's a very vulnerable place to go. But they'll understand once they know someone how scary it is to end up at a hospital and have to, like, bleed in your car, essentially because the doctors won't see you. And that's literally what's happening in a lot of states in our country right now. You know, if, if you are part of the LGBTQ community, you know, talk about the impact it's having on you and, and people in your community in a lot of these states where your rights are being taken away. If, you know, if you have been, if you viewed, if you've experienced racism in any way, shape or form, you know, talk about it. You know, much like Justin shared that his military friend was telling him that he had to tell his 7 year old son to make himself small and show his hands whenever the police came. Like, like white people, we don't know this stuff until we're told this stuff. All right, so start telling like, and, and if you're a white person, it is your responsibility to make sure all the white people in your world understand this is life for people of color. Okay? It is your job, it is not their job necessarily to teach us now that, now that I'm telling you, it is your job in passing the torch. But really, like, we need to get this done. We need to elect Harris this year and as a business lesson, bring it all back. You know, here I am, I'm being fairly polarizing. I'm speaking to a very specific audience, you know, and I know I'm speaking to an audience that is either, you know, considering what I'm saying, maybe doesn't agree with me 100 yet or maybe does and you understand that we're aligned. We're aligned with a lot of the same values. When we realize that we're aligned with the same values as someone, we tend to trust them. We tend to want to, like, take their advice and follow them and like their content more. Which. And you might not even be my ideal client, but you know what, that doesn't matter because the algorithm, the algorithm gods see that and they're like, oh, cool. You know, Katie's content does pretty well with people like this. And I bet there are more people like you who just so happen to want to start a business. And that's just my. My use case for my business. Right. Being polarizing is not necessarily a bad thing for your business. It can actually be incredibly impactful and it can bring your soul clients to you. I have a few people in the chat right now who are my soul clients and have worked with me on and off for a very long time. And I'm so grateful for them and also, you know, like, I haven't scared them away yet. So anyway, with that Lara nickname, Albert, Aiden, never going, Joseph, Sugar, Leo, I love all the names on Tick Tock, Tash, Money, Christina. Thank you all for being here. Over on LinkedIn, David and Justin and Heather, thank you guys so much for hanging out with me. And then over on Instagram, I always forgot Instagram because it's another thing my dad has been watching. Hey, dad. And hi, Michelle. And hi, Tal. And hi, Tamzu. Welcome. And thank you for being here. If you have any questions about how you can get involved, DM me, I'm around. And I will be going live every day until the election. So stay tuned for more. All right, everyone, good night. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And I'll see you tomorrow. The awkward part where I have to end on several different streams. There we go.