Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 29 | 10 Tips for the Real World

Episode Date: August 16, 2018

 For all of you college students, college grads, and yopros — this episode's for you! Here are my ten tips for successfully transitioning from college into the "real" world.  Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved.

What's up, guys. Happy Thursday. I'm Allie and this is Relatable. You are either listening to this or you are watching it on CRTV.com. I encourage you to do the latter, if you so desire, by signing up for CRTV with promo code Alley 20. This is episode 29 of Relatable. And I don't know why that seems like such a big number. I kind of can't believe that we've had that many. I love doing this podcast. I just want to remind you all every time I go speak somewhere, you guys, come up to me and tell me that you listen to this every week. I get messages probably every day from people on Instagram who say that they binge listen to all of it in like a week, which is pretty impressive. I was actually in Fort Worth this past weekend with my husband and his family, and I had a listener come up to me and tell me how much this podcast means to her, and that just really warms my heart. The reviews for this podcast really make me happy. Some of them don't. Some of them are really, really personal and mean. But most of them make me happy because those of you who listen seem to feel exactly how I feel when I sit down in front of this microphone and record.

And how I feel is that you and I are genuinely friends. Like we are having a conversation about the important things in life. And sometimes we talk about not important things like cats and like lifestyle bloggers because that's what friends do. We can talk about the deep parts of our heart and we can also talk about stupid stuff that we thought that we only thought about. So anyway, I just wanted to take the time to tell you guys that I love you, how much I appreciate you and how you guys make my job really exciting and worthwhile. Now, another thing that friends do is give advice. And that is what I am going to do today by popular demand.

I am going to give advice to those of you who are transitioning from college into the, quote, real world, whatever that even means. Or maybe you're still in college. and or maybe you've been out of college for 10 years, in which case you could probably teach me a thing or two. You definitely could. But I'm going to tell you just from my own personal experience, what I have learned and what I found to be integral to leading a successful life.

And I'll define successful soon because it means a lot of different things. A successful life after college. And to be totally transparent at the age of 26, I am still in the process of learning all of this and will be for a really long time. I certainly don't have all the answers or even close to all the answers. All I know is what I've experienced in the last four years since college. I've made a lot of mistakes and I've learned a lot from those mistakes. So as I give this advice, know that I am still in the process of taking this advice myself and I'll tell you which pieces of advice I haven't taken. And the only reason I even have advice is because of how ridiculous some of my life choices have been.

So some of this is going to be professional. Some of it's going to be personal. I'm going to start personal and then I'm going to get professional. And also, I guess I should mention for those of you who are new around here, this advice is from a biblical perspective for the most part. Some of it's just practical, but I try to shape it all in a biblical perspective. Sorry, my voice just cracked. Anyway, also, you guys know I do one podcast like this every week and one news podcast. So if you're confused as to why I'm doing this now, that is what.

why. Okay, let's get started. There are 10 rules or pieces of advice. Number one, join a church. That sounds pretty easy, pretty straightforward. It's not necessarily, though. Chances are that for many of you, you were at best a half-committed church member in college. Like, let's just be real about that. That's pretty normal. The idea of waking up in the single digits for any reason, except for something fun on the weekends, is just something that you just didn't want to do. You're not going to do it. Or maybe you were awesome, overachiever, fully committed to church in college, but you've moved to a new city for your first job out of college and you just can't find a church that you really like. I totally get that. I bounced around to different churches both in and

outside of college and even after my husband and I got married. That said, that is not something I recommend. I recommend picking a church that preaches a gospel, not the gospel of social justice and so-called tolerance, but the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ alone. Check their mission statement, listen to the lead pastor, pray, use discernment, and then join the church and get involved. Here's the thing. Church is not about you. It's not about me.

That is really important to remember when you're looking for a church. It's not about how you feel or the church meeting all of your needs. It's about you meeting the needs of the church. It seems like young Christians especially, maybe older Christians too, have this scorecard when we go into churches and we allocate like a certain number of points for worship music, a certain number for the vibes, a certain number of points for what the pastor is wearing for the quality of jokes, how many times they sing good good father, how many babies are in the audience, whether they have communion every Sunday or just once a month, whether they pass the plate around, or they just have a giving up. But the thing is, none of these things are actually qualifications for a good church. Can we have our preferences? Totally.

But all of these things are really superfluous and ultimately, you know, not in an eternal way. So listen when I say that there will never be a perfect church. And that is okay. We're not called to go to a perfect church. Go to a church that unapologetically preaches the gospel. When my husband and I move to where we live now, we went to a really cool church, a trendy church with a lot of trendy people, with a pastor that we had been listening to via podcast for a really long time, who I still think for the most part

is a really good preacher. But we left that church for two big reasons. Number one, the pastor started teaching on biblical principles about racial reconciliation that encourage resentment towards white people and reparations to black people. And number two, they made it extremely difficult to get involved unnecessarily so. Their system to join a small group made it extremely difficult to be a part of one. And they told us to our faces that our help wasn't needed in the areas in which we felt like we were called to serve. That meant that we were going to a church sitting there for an hour and a half a week to

listen to a cool trendy pastor and then leaving. That's not biblical community. Plus, even more importantly, the pastor had moved away from the gospel and into a message that mirrors the world's message of social justice. That's just not, that's not negotiable for us. It's not okay. So now we go to a church that is much less cool, but it's gospel-centered. It is smaller.

It's simple to get involved in the people there have been nothing but hospitable in Christ-like. So it's not wrong to change churches. I want you to understand that. But as someone who has church hopped for many seasons in my life, I can tell you that dating the church just typically ends with you being lonely and really disappointed. You are here to serve the church. And yes, in seasons, the church does serve you. That's the beautiful part about the body of Christ.

But its purpose is to not make you feel good or make you happy. It's to glorify Christ and you get to play a small part in that. Being a part of a church and serving the church is going to help you stay grounded in all areas of your life. And that's the really big concern, right? Staying grounded. It's going to help you keep your eyes on Christ and your identity in Christ through biblical selfless community through accountability, instruction, reproach, opportunities for charity.

It is absolutely essential that you get into a church right away after you graduate. No, listening to a podcast doesn't actually count. That is, again, making church about you, what's convenient for you, what feels good for you, rather than you being an active member of the body of Christ. that's something that honestly every Sunday I still kind of struggle with. I'm learning this because to be honest, there are a lot of weekends when I'd rather sleep in and do nothing. So I get it.

But I also realize that this is an act of obedience and that it's absolutely worth it. And my husband is very good at leading us in that direction. Number two in life after college is read your Bible. Pretty simple. Find a plan, stick to it. Read your Bible, not just a devotion, but a Bible, and meditate on it for 20 minutes every day, preferably in the morning. You will have good weeks and bad weeks, as I still do.

But it's important to learn to find joy in God's word and to go there for wisdom and renewal. You're not going to find that anywhere else. People are going to be directing you just as they have your whole life to all different kinds of resources for direction. But this is really the only one that matters. This is going to help you discern between good teaching and bad teaching, good advice and bad advice. So hide his word in your heart as the Bible tells us to do. Number three, find good Christian friends. Now, this is a little bit, just to be real, a little bit the pot calling the kettle black. So I have good friends from high school that I still talk to every day. I have good friends

from my first job out of college that I talk to all the time. I have close relationships with a lot of past coworkers. I have good friends in this industry. We live close to my family right now. We have our Sunday school class. But as far as a solid group goes that we actually consistently do things with, don't have that. And that's our fault, mostly my fault. We haven't sought that out. And I really never have. I've just never been a group person. Maybe you're not either. But I do see the benefit in it. I see how my parents still have some of the same friends that they've had for 30 years. Same with my husband's parents. And I see the importance of having a group of people that you do things with, that anchor you, that are there as soon as you need them. That that is

true biblical community. And you know what? We, my husband and I have not done a good job of cultivating that. Much of that is, like I said, my fault because my schedule is so unpredictable every week. And like I said, I'm really, I'm a homebody to the max. I am an extroverted introvert. I am totally fine being by myself all of the time. But what you will find out of college is that it's really easy to get lonely. You've spent your whole life so far with access to friends. You go to class with them. You play sports with them. You live next door to them. Now you have to make an effort to find them. You may or may not like your co-workers. And even if you do, you might actually need a break from them. You need solid friends, godly friends, selfless friends.

and what you'll find too is that the friends you pick after college might be different than the friends that you had in college. They might not have been the people you would have chosen to hang out with then. I actually think that's a good thing. You are changing, you're maturing, you're growing up. This is a new season of life. They don't have to all be the same. I also think it's important to, if you can, get involved in some local things like Chamber of Commerce or volunteer groups. Again, something I myself could get better at currently and we all go through seasons, but it attaches you to something that's bigger than yourself, and that is important. I also think it's a good idea to find a mentor and someone to mentor yourself. Someone's pouring

into you. You can pour out as well. Look, there are going to be people out of college who are like I was, as you guys know, still wanting to live as if they are in college, going out all the time, pretending like you have no responsibilities. And I'm going to get more to that specific thing. soon, but those are not the friends that you want out of college. They're just not. They're going to hold you back. They're going to stunt your growth. After you graduate, you are not in college. When you were in grad school, you are not in college. You need friends who are responsible and will help you be the best version of yourself that you can be. Number four, exercise. I know this sounds like I'm kind of a mom. I really, I don't care if you exercise or not, but this is just kind of what's

helped me. You think that after you graduate the 15 pounds you gain in college magically disappears, it doesn't. All of the excuses that you made in college for not working out after you graduate are no longer there. You are an adult. You can't go to cook out at 2 a.m. You will feel better about virtually everything in your life if you develop a weekly routine where you can work out. That does not mean that you have to be skinny, that you have to be toned, that you have to look perfect, become some kind of like CrossFit addict or run a marathon. It means do something that is physically challenging yet beneficial multiple times a week every week.

That's really it. It's pretty simple. It's not as complicated as all these Instagram ways try to make it be, try to make it as for me beginning to take my fitness seriously in college was really a game changer for everything. So full disclosure, I have never been athletic ever in my life. For some ungodly reason in middle school, I decided I was going to run the 400 in track. That is probably the worst thing you could ever run.

And I literally never got anything except last place. I'm just not at all an athlete. And because of that, I told myself that I would never like working out. But in 2012, when I was a sophomore in college, I made a New Year's resolution to be able in 2012 to be able to run three miles. Three miles. I had never done that before. So I downloaded this app called Couch to 5K and I followed it. I distinctly remember the day that I ran eight minutes without stopping for the first time.

It was like a huge victory. And then a few months later, I ran a 5K after a lot of training and probably crying. Then I decided that I was going to keep going. So long story short, by October of that year, I ran a half marathon. That was the first time in my life. I did something that I never thought that I could do. And it really changed my life in a lot of ways. Because it wasn't really the physical accomplishment.

It was the mental accomplishment. I would say that the whole thing was mostly mental because it was my mind that told me I could never work out, not my body. And it was proving to myself every week of training that, hey, last week I could only run seven miles. And I thought that that would be the farthest I could ever run. Today I ran nine miles. And it was freaking hard.

It never became easy. I hated every single time I ran and I actually still hate running. Sorry to break it to you. I don't run, but I'm still so glad that I did that because this is what I learned. Just because something hurts or seems difficult doesn't mean that it's impossible. I learned that I could do something that I previously thought that I couldn't. That realization has honestly helped me in every stage of my career. Now, my fitness has ebbed and flowed over the past few years.

I've had seasons where I've taught Pure Bar. I've done CrossFit. I've been an amazing shape and like 15 pounds lighter, orange theory, pretty much everything that you can think of. I've also not worked out at all some months. And this past year certainly has not been my best season of fitness. But the principles that I learned running that half marathon haven't changed. So my encouragement is to make a routine and challenge yourself every week.

because the benefits are really more than just physical. Number five, for some reason I don't have this number, which is stupid, but I think this is number five. Limit your alcohol intake. So this took me a few months after college to lock this one down, but man, it is really important and I wish I learned it sooner. You and your roommates who want to go out Thursday through Saturday after college, trust me when I say that it's not worth it. Maybe you're 22 and your hangover is not that bad yet.

And you can still wake up at 6 a.m. on a Friday and seize the day and go to work. But over-drinking is not only a sin as Ephesians 518 says, but also B makes you a significantly worse person. And what I mean by that is that it has the tendency to kill your energy and motivation so that you're only operating really at about 50 to 70. of what you should be on the days after you drink. You're not going to want to wake up. You don't want to get dressed. You don't want to work out. You don't want to finish your work.

You want to eat carbs and watch Netflix, which, let's be real. I want to do that without alcohol. But being hungover definitely doesn't make it better. Plus now, now that you're out of college, your reputation matters a lot more than it did when you were in college. When you were in college, you could get by by saying, you know, hey, I'm in college. live it up, but out of college and even in postgrad, like grad school, that stick is just kind of pathetic. Like it's kind of sad. You say stupid stuff when you're drunk and you do stupid

stuff when you're drunk. And if you're trying to do something with your life, then you don't need to be wasting, not just your nights, but also the next days being incapacitated. Also, you're not 20 anymore. Those liquid calories catch up to you. Also, depending on your job, you may or may not have co-workers who like to drink. You may have happy hours multiple nights a week or they may want to go out on the weekends. Let me tell you, while all of that in moderation I think is great and fun and vine, you going to happy hours and drinking no matter what your coworkers or even your boss tells you is not going to advance your career.

I just promise you that. It's not. Let me just make this really, really simple. do not get drunk with your coworkers. Just don't do it. Just don't. It's a really good rule of thumb. It's not going to make you more well-liked.

People aren't going to respect you more. And in fact, you have a better chance of embarrassing yourself and losing the respect of other people when alcohol is involved rather than when it's not. I'm not saying not to go to happy hours or not to enjoy drinks with your coworkers. I'm not saying that at all. I am saying don't get drunk and just be careful. Okay. Number six, don't worry about finding your spouse. I don't mean don't think about your future spouse. I don't mean don't date. I actually am a big fan of dates for other people, obviously. I highly recommend dates. I'm saying don't be anxious about it. Don't make this your primary focus. Your grandma, mom, dad, aunt, uncle, brother, sister might all be asking you when you're going to meet someone. But you tell them to mind their business.

I have seen too many friends, too many people fall victim to this crippling anxiety that at 23 years old, the fact that they're still not in a serious relationship means that they're going to spend forever alone. That's absurd. You have time. Trusting God, follow him, rely on his timing, make friends, go to church, get involved in various things, join a rec league if you want to do that, and it'll happen if it's supposed to happen. You know how Luke 1225 says, who of you by worrying, can add a single hour to your life? Well, I ask the question, who of you by worrying can add a single prospect

for marriage to your life? Not one of you. I did go on several dates after college, but then I met my husband working out. It was totally random. And it was, that worked for us. Personally, I knew that I was going to marry him like two weeks after I met him.

We dated for five months. We were engaged for four months, kind of crazy. And then just bam, we were married. That's not going to be the deal for everyone and that's fine. It doesn't have to be. Be patient. Be obedient. Do your best glorifying God where you are now and that's really all you can worry about. Number seven, be smart with your money. I am certainly not a financial guru. If my parents are listening to this day or laughing, I'm not even close to that. But when I got

my first job, I made it a habit to do two things every month, tied 10% and put 20% in savings. I just did it without thinking. And guys, when you graduate from college, unless you have a lot of student loan debt, which I understand that many people do, you are going to have as little financial responsibility as you will ever have in your entire life. I made $31,000 in my first job as a publicist, and I felt so rich. My rent was $400 a month with a roommate. I could have gotten a thousand dollar apartment if I wanted to but I didn't I would get my few little groceries every week I think I had like avocados and quinoa literally every week and I had my normal payments but I had as much as I needed as a single person I probably had more that I needed so when my husband and I got

married I had a little extra money and savings that really came in handy um so y'all can do that or you can be much smarter than I was you can invest you can save 50% of your earnings if you want you could live at home for a few months. You can vow to never go out to eat. I don't really recommend that because that would be a sad life, but you can do that. But do what you can to save as much as you can while still enjoying your life. Instagram makes you believe that every 20-something has this beautiful state-of-the-art apartment with marble countertops, floor-to-ceiling windows, and tapestries on the wall from anthropology. No, that's just not reality. My first apartment had all furniture that was not mine. So we had an orange couch from the 70s. We had disgusting carpet. We had a life-sized

poster of Tupac and Snoop Dog in our living room and a kitchen that was legitimately the size of a coffee table. And it was fine. It was totally fine. It worked. So be okay with roughing it. Now, for some more professional advice. Number eight, love the job you have, even if you don't have the job you love. I wish that I could just shout this from the rooftops for everyone. to hear. You will not find your dream job out of college. At least you're probably not going to. Maybe you will and that's awesome, but 99% of you won't. I am so incredibly grateful for my first job and for the people that I'm still friends with from that job, but I didn't like the work that I was doing. To be honest, I'm just not really good at having a boss or structure in general. You can call me

a typical millennial. I am. But other people dictating my structure has never been an environment in which I've thrived. I hope that you are different than me because honestly, it's made me kind of miserable many times in my life. I did not like my first job or my second job out of college and I wasn't really good at them, marketing, PR, social media. I was good at the actual work, the creativity aspect of it, but I wasn't a good employee because I thought that I was supposed to love everything about my job and then I deserved ample praise for doing my job well and that I deserved to be paid more. And I was, Like so many college graduates when you're 22, 21 years old, I was entitled. So just go ahead and just knock that idea out of your head right now that you're going to have

a dream job that pays you six figures. You're entitled to nothing. You may not like even 40% of your first job. You may not like your bosses. You might hate your coworkers. That's okay. Your discomfort in your first job is not unjust. It is life.

And you can either learn from it and use it as a springboard for the rest of your career or you can sulk about how. how unfair it is and harbor resentment against your first job for the rest of your life. This week, interestingly enough, I actually just felt kind of randomly compelled to send an email to my first boss, as she and her husband owned the PR firm where I worked. And I just wanted to let her know that even though we've had our differences, that I have gained so much respect for them, especially over the last two years that I've been an entrepreneur, I had no idea how much time and responsibility

and pressure that they had and that they had to expend. And I still don't fully know because I don't have 15 employees and clients the way that they do. But I do appreciate more of the hustle and the work that they put into building a business and how stupid I was, how stupid I was for acting entitled. I have used what I learned in that first job in every single stage of my career since then. I personally think that working with clients trains you better than any other kind of job can for dealing with people.

learning how to communicate and make people happy. I'm so thankful for my first job and everything it taught me. And that's how you can view your first job or jobs too, or maybe even the next 15 jobs. What can you learn? What can you get out of it? What can you work to do? How can you work to do the best of your ability to serve the people around you? Plus, for Christians, this is also a matter of obedience, which is not always easy. But it's like, it's that verse in Colossians 323 that says, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord and not for man. This is really hard to do when you don't like your job or the people that you work for, but it is also what the Lord requires of us.

Also, along with that comes this charge to be humble. No matter what, you are not better than your first job. You are lucky to have your first job. It might not be your int goal, but that's okay. Do you really want to peak when you're 22 years old? No. The answer is no. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

So keep your head down, work hard, and be humble, and accept criticism and teaching opportunities from your bosses and coworkers, especially then when you're right out of college. Number nine, learn to communicate. This is so important. I'm really passionate about this. As a millennial origin year, if you can communicate well, I promise you that you are going to get farther than your peers. Today, it's very rare, sadly, for someone to be able to have a coherent extended conversation with a young person. We are distracted. We are checking our phones.

We're checking our Apple watches. We're awkward. We are insecure. We're selfish in our conversations. We don't know how to ask questions, how to keep the conversation going. We have no sense of wanting to impress authority or people ahead of us. We are disrespectful. We are arrogant. Do not be that. A subset of this. Learn how to write a freaking email. I can't tell you how important this is. Learn how to write a proper former email from start to finish. Like, hi, Sally, I hope you're having a great week. I was wondering if you're available on Wednesday afternoon between three and five to go for the deliverables my team sent over last Friday. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, best alley. And then learn etiquette for informal emails. Sometimes you don't have to put a greeting.

Sometimes it can be shorter than that. Sometimes people prefer you get right to the point. And sometimes there is no etiquette at all because you're talking to a coworker or a friend and it doesn't even matter if you use full sentences. It does depend on the relationship and the context, but you must know how to write a formal email to an employer, a potential employer or a client or anyone else whose favor you need to curry. And you have to do that by employing three things or doing three things. You have to make sure it's one grammatically correct, two, polite, and three as concise as possible. If you need to take a class on a class on grammar or email writing, do that.

There's no shame in that. Being able to write a good email is so important to your career. And then the next little subset point. Learn how to make conversation. Also crucial is being able to communicate in general in a more formal setting. So to a boss, to an older person or someone you need to impress. Number one, make eye contact at all times. Number two, don't check your phone in the middle of a conversation.

Number three, ask questions, appropriate questions. It is much more important that you are interested than interesting. Everyone like to talk about themselves. If you want to impress someone, indulge them and talk. talking about themselves. Unless, of course, they're asking you questions about you, in which case you obviously need to answer them. If you need to take a Toastmasters class, if you need to get on YouTube and learn how to carry a good, attentive, non-awkward conversation that impresses people, do that. You being able to win people over through solid communication is going to get you so

much further than those around you. I promise you that. I would say that 98% of the opportunities that I've gotten and the people that I've met is because of communication than anything else. That would be why I have chosen to do this for a living. You don't need to be a professional communicator, though, to be able to speak well and to write good emails, but they're absolutely essential. And then another subset in this, which I would say, see, interview well. So here's how I think you interview well. There's probably a lot more detail that you could go into.

One, smile. two, shake their hand. Three, make eye contact. Four, bring your resume and cover letter just in case. Number five, don't fidget. Number six, have good posture. Number seven, don't talk too quickly. Number eight, be self-assured but not arrogant.

Number nine, accurately articulate your skills. Don't undersell or oversell. And number 10, have an answer for when they ask you your short and long-term goals. And at the very least, make sure that your short-term goals, align with what you would actually be doing at this job. So if you have to change that just a little bit, that's fine. Now, the last tip of all of the tips here, number 10, do not be afraid to fail.

At some point in the last four years since college, or at many points, I have failed at all of these things. That is how I have this treasure trove of wisdom that I am opening up to you guys. I know that following these things can set you up for success because I've learned the hard way. And it's by looking back that I realized that I didn't know any of this stuff when I graduated. I was, you know, close-minded, short-sighted, like most people when I graduate, thought I knew everything.

I really knew nothing. I needed to be humbled. I needed to struggle and I still do. But that didn't just happen when I was in my first couple jobs. That didn't happen until I was in my first couple jobs out of college. I didn't know what it was really. to risk and to put myself out there actually until I started this endeavor though, until I started posting videos of myself on the internet.

And it took a long time for the conservative millennial to be anything. It took a year and a half of speaking, you know, pro bono at colleges and of blogging for me to actually make something of this thing. And then it took another year for me to start this podcast and really feel like, you know, I'm getting my footing in this industry and coming into my own. I'm just at the very, very beginning of all of it. I've really kind of just, hopefully, just scratched the surface on my career. So I'm learning a lot.

But I needed those first few years out of college to teach me the things that I've just listed for you, to be equipped for taking a leap of faith in becoming an entrepreneur. I wouldn't have learned any of this if I hadn't failed or had been afraid to fail. You're going to try things. A lot of things aren't going to work. There's only going to be a few things probably that do. that's okay. What matters is how you use that failure to actually push you forward. Okay. Now, for a few of your listener questions, I got a lot. I can only answer three today.

So I thought this was an interesting question. Do you feel like people in the professional world treat you differently or take you more or less seriously if you are married versus not married? Okay, so I can only speak from my experience here as a conservative. It's really unpopular to say that sexism exists. And I don't think that there is some pervasive patriarchy that's keeping women down. I just don't. But I have certainly felt patronized as a young woman. I don't know if it's because of my age or because I'm a woman. But I've definitely experienced that married or unmarried by older male bosses. I think any young girl can say this. I think young women, are seen as more kind of malleable and more easily manipulated than young men. And maybe we actually are. Maybe we are more malleable and easily manipulated. I've experienced this in multiple places. We are usually more soft-spoken.

We're less likely to demand higher pay or fair treatment. I think, though, that when you're married, there is sometimes this assumption that your husband is providing for you. So you don't need that promotion or you don't need that raise as much as the husband and the dad does, which of course is not actually fair. Now, again, statistically, there is no gender wage gap. I've talked about that on previous episodes. But in my experience, there is definitely a sense that especially when you are a young

post-grad girl, you don't need to be taken as seriously as a man. And as soon as you do speak up for yourself and defend yourself, part of my language, but you are called a bitch. When men are domineering and ambitious, they're a bulldog. When women are, they are bitches. So women, be kind, be caring, be polite. don't be afraid to stand up for yourself and be a go-getter. You might get called a bitch, but at least you'll be a boss bitch.

And that's the best kind of bitch that there is. Number two, what are your tips for growing your social media following? So I get this question a lot. And there are a lot of people that are way better at this than me. I don't have any tips. But being a social media strategist and now having social media channels, I've noticed that it's really just good content. It's what people want to see and watch and read.

That's it. There are different strategies. A lot of people say that they're secret sauce. They're all lying. There's really not. I would encourage everyone also, though, to remember that a large social media following really doesn't equal success or importance.

Number three, how do you balance your task as a follower of Christ with your desire and passion for politics? So even though, even though as Christians our citizenship is in heaven and my identity is in Christ and my purpose is to glorify him, we do live on this earth and we are given earthly talents. He has called us to be salt and light. We are salt in light by entering into dark places that includes politics and the media. Two very dark places in my opinion. God invented the government. He is sovereign over politics and media. If all Christians stepped out of these things, there would be no

light there. So I am called to use my talents to the best of my ability in a way that alleviates the suffering or confusion of others to glorify Christ. I use what I've been given to serve others and to share the gospel. That's what my purpose is. Serving others might look like having a podcast where you outline biblical perspectives on politics or maybe it's being a missionary in the Congo. We have different gifts, different callings. And as long as we are living in accordance with God's word for his glory, then it really doesn't matter what we do. So I hope that helps. I hope that you guys enjoyed this episode of the podcast.

If you have any questions or constructive criticism, you can always email me at Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com. Please leave a nice iTunes review. I love reading those. They just really make me happy. Or you can message me on Instagram. It's Ali B. Stucky on Instagram. Conserve Millen on Twitter.

You can follow Ali on something. TRTV on Facebook as well. I know I made it really easy that I have three different names on the three different social media platforms. So you have to do a little bit of work. But anyway, I appreciate you guys. And I hope that you have a great weekend.