This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 066 / 4 Shifts To Finding Positivity In Media with Liesl Ulrich-Verderber

Episode Date: September 1, 2021

While there are many great purposes for social media, the news and various other forms of media, these can also negatively impact our energy, our mindset, and our confidence. I am joined by Liesl Ulrich-Verderber - CEO of Ever Widening Circles, a global positive media company with the goal of proving we still live in an amazing world by changing the negative dialogue and celebrating the people, organizations and discoveries that prove it. What impact would it have on your energy if you found a healthy way to be informed, to digest what’s going on in the world? Not to put your head in the sand, but to also look for the good, rather than allowing yourself to just be sucked into the bad. To have empathy, to remain curious, to be kind, and to remain confident, no matter what media you’re engaged in. You have the choice of who and what you let in. Choose with your values, your hopes, your goals and your sanity in mind. Choose wisely. This Is Woman’s Work. To learn more about Liesl Ulrich-Verderber please visit: www.everwideningcircles.com To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Coming up on this episode of This Is Woman's Work. We can take steps in order to retrain our algorithms, retrain our own habits and our own brain, and to start seeing not only more positivity on our feeds, but going back to the way our brain works, start seeing more positivity in our offline lives as well and change the narratives that we're walking through the world with. I am Nicole Khalil, and I'm going to say something

that no business owner should ever say. I hate social media. Okay. That may be a touch extreme, but I definitely have moments or days or sometimes even weeks where I despise going and posting on social media. I am very well aware that I am not an influencer, which is a-okay with me because from what I can see, being an influencer on social media looks like a special brand of torture. I value privacy, honesty, just a little bit too much for that. And I am certainly not a journalist or a producer or even a blogger. So I think what bothers me most about social media is the negativity, the anger, the righteousness, the judgment, comparison, arrogance, and downright unkindness.

Is that a word? Unkindness? But that's what bothers me. It's like the movie Mean Girls went virtual and is following us into adulthood. And I don't think anybody liked high school enough to want to relive it over and over. And while I know there are great things

and great purpose for social media, the news and various other forms of media, it's hard for me to reconcile with what I know to be true about what affects our energy and our mindset, what gives us energy, and what builds our confidence. So on this episode of This Is Woman's Work, I've invited Liesl Ulrich Verderber, CEO of Ever Widening Circles, a global positive media company with the goal of proving we still live in an amazing world and to change the negative dialogue by celebrating the people, organizations, and discoveries that prove it. Earlier this year, she launched this

Conspiracy of Goodness Network where the doers, helpers, and learners around the globe are coming together to support and grow their impact. Doesn't that sound like the kind of news and influence we all need? Liesl, thank you so much for being here today. I'm happy to talk about the positivity of media. Yes, well, thank you so much, Nicole, for the intro, and thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited to talk about all this. So let's dive in. The internet and news has become basically a source of division and fear, especially if you want it to be, right? It's so easy to find. Why do you believe that we're being inundated with negative media? Yeah. So that's a great place to start when we talk about our conversations about the media and about the news. And we talked about our conversations about

the media and about the news. And I think it starts with, it starts with the news, right? This is, I think a lot of our media that we have today grow out of the news and the reason why news is so negative. We get this quite, why is the news so negative all the time? It's because news is meant to report on things that are not happening all the time. And it turns out that things that are not happening all the time tend to be pretty negative. It's actually pretty rare that a plane crashes, pretty rare that a building collapses, pretty rare that an earthquake happens. These are rare things. And so when they happen, they're newsworthy. So you compound that problem of newsworthiness, you know, thousands of people every day getting out of poverty is not newsworthy, but it's what's happening in our world every single day.

These metrics of progress and goodness tend to be slow growing metrics. They're not sexy. They're not flash in the pan. And they are technically not newsworthy because they're consistently happening. So if you compound the issue of that, the things that we report on the news are negative, usually because they're not very common and thus newsworthy. You compound that with the 24 hour news cycle, the constant access, the constant content creation that has to happen. You're going to get this ever growing cycle of negative of this wave of negative news coming at you because of that sort of dual combination of content creation and also the news tending to be things that are very negative.

So that makes sense. And what part are we as consumers playing in this? I sometimes have moments where I get frustrated with us as humans, as a society where we constantly need to be infotained, right? It wouldn't be news if people weren't listening to it or watching it or looking for it. And so we contribute to a certain extent on this, to this vicious cycle of getting maybe more on the gossipy side of negative news.

Like I sometimes like have moments where I'm like, how is this news? Like who cares? Yes. Okay. So very long winded way of asking how are we responsible as consumers? So there's two things I think we want to start with. Number one, how our brains work. So our brains are function to basically see the world in terms of what we see the most, right? So if we are seeing constant gossip, if we are seeing, if we are absorbing constant gossip, if we are absorbing constant negativity, we're going to start seeing the world in those terms. So that's number one. So our brains, what's great about that, which means we can go the opposite direction. So our brains can be trained in the opposite direction. So be, you know, be excited. Our brains are malleable. It's just right now they've been

trained on sort of what we call the attention economy. So the attention economy is the reason why you see every Kardashian headline and every, you know, look what this celebrity looks like now headline and every like scary headline that gets you to click the world of the internet, the world of content creation right now. And we're seeing trends that maybe this is not always going to be the case basically is like a click economy, right? So your click is a vote for more content. And what that means is in this attention economy, whatever you give your time to, not only will content creators create more of it, but also the algorithms.

I know algorithm can be a big, scary word, but algorithms did have a good purpose. They were supposed to be there to show you more of what you liked. And so you're training your algorithms, basically when you're on social media with whatever you're clicking on, with whatever you're spending time looking at, with whatever you're liking, sharing, commenting on. And all of those different things have different sort of amounts of power to the algorithm that they're going to show you more of. So that's sort of why we're in the mess that we're in today is that so many of us have been going to the internet without intention, without being very mindful, without knowing how it works, which is fine. We're in this state, the internet is very young.

We're in like the child running with scissors state of the internet right now. So like, it's okay. The world is not falling apart. They thought that when the printing press came out, that it would lead to the decline of society because anybody could write anything. And I don't think it's led to the decline of society personally. So like we're kind of in that stage of the internet where we believe that the internet is leading to the decline of society when in reality, we just don't have rules. We just don't have etiquette for it yet. So that's where we start is we were in an attention economy. We are in an attention economy and we can take steps in order to retrain our algorithms, retrain our own habits and our own brain, and to start seeing not only more positivity on our feeds, but going back to the way our brain works, start seeing more

positivity in our offline lives as well and change the narratives that we're walking through the world with. Yeah, so you said so many good things in there and a lot around the why and the what. I wanna dig a little deeper into the how. If I am, and this is true for me, I'm trying to be very mindful

about what I give my time and my energy. Like you said, both online and then offline, because I think they are wildly connected. Like if I pick up my phone first thing in the morning, I have no control over what starts my day or what I get sucked into. So what are some tips for those of us who want to be more mindful?

Don't click on certain things. Don't follow certain people. Don't click on certain things, don't follow certain people, don't look at certain times. What, what are some thoughts there? Yeah. So we have like a system that we like to help people work through that we call the four shifts and the four shifts are these four steps that we have seen at time and time again, help people retrain, not only, like I was saying, their algorithms on their social media feeds, but also your brain actually runs algorithms, the algorithms in your brain that are looking around the world and currently seeing all the negativity. So the first thing that we do in the, in the first shift is to pause. So number one thing we can do before we go and decide to click

on that headline that caught our attention, or before we decide to get into a fight with our uncle about the thing that he just said at the dinner table, we can pause. So this is where we can take back control of sort of that mindless wandering brain that is flipping through the channels that is being reactive. So number one, pause. Number two is we can ignore more. This is so huge. After we paused, we have all the power. So we can choose what we do with that next moment. And we suggest people ignore more. So very often we are following these sort of impulses. Our brains are really good and very well wired to sort of follow these knee-jerk impulses. It's probably what kept us alive for millions of years, thousands of years. It's what helped us get to today.

We can choose not to click out of anger. We call it the ABCs, anger, boredom, or curiosity, morbid curiosity, right? If something makes us really angry, we don't have to click on it. We don't have to comment on it. We don't have to share it. Don't.

That's telling content creators to create more of it because they're getting eyeballs on it. Boredom. Like don't mindlessly scroll. That's when you probably are finding yourself in the gossip section and being like, I wonder what this celebrity is up to. Right. And that's just telling content creators that we want more of that kind of energy on the internet. And then the morbid curiosity thing, like we've all seen at the bottom of like those news things where it's like, you won't believe what this celebrity looks like next. Or, you know, the picture of like kind of the, and the anaconda with like a human shape in the middle, just don't click on that, that, that is creating more of this attention economy. Right. So we can number one, pause, we can to

ignore more. This also is true in our regular lives. We can choose to ignore what our uncle just said and engage with it at a different time. We don't have to get into the fight. So we're not elevating and escalating the situation. Then we can seek signs of goodness and progress. And this one, people are always like, oh, that's so hard. I don't know where to start. Start, I think, starting with your social media feed is actually pretty easy. Start in places where you're not necessarily looking for good news. Look for things that like make you feel happy and alive and curious about the world. Right. So if there is a, um, an Instagram, uh, account that makes you see the world in brighter terms, or is like, I love following that national geographic and a lot of science things. Um, and so I try and

follow them on my other social media feeds because they're expanding my notion of what content is out there and what I'm seeing what's coming at me. So, start there seek signs of goodness and progress, don't let yourself kind of get down into that that bogged down state, and you'll be able to be retraining your algorithms retraining your brain algorithms as well to start seeing more things that make you feel curious, happy, engaged with your communities. Why we all came to the social part of social media to start with, right? And then last one is share signs of goodness and progress. So once you've seen those things, tell other people about them. The share is the most powerful thing on social media. It's more than a like, it's more than a comment. It's more than a subscribe, share things because there are so many people doing wonderful things in this world that are toiling in obscurity because they're not getting shared. We're sharing the thing that made us

angry. We're sharing the main thing that made us outraged, but we're not sharing the thing that enlightened us that day. We're not sharing the thing that made us feel like, oh my gosh, there's goodness in the world. And when we are in our conversations in the real world, we can choose to share those stories instead of getting ourselves in the downer's bow. Oh, the weather's so bad. Oh, you know, did you hear it? Marge broke her hip. Oh, did you hear like this and that, right? We can choose instead to share more positive things that we know are going on around us. And so if we did recap number one, pause number two, ignore more number three, seek signs of goodness and progress. And number one, pause. Number two, ignore more. Number three, seek signs of goodness and progress. And number four, share signs of goodness and progress. Those four things,

start to do them in your online lives. There are easy ways to sort of take those habits and put them into your quote unquote real life. And you will start to see the shift in your mindset and your outlook on social media and, and in the wider world. It is so good just in life. Like I feel like those four shifts are applicable everywhere, right? And, you know, some of them may come a little bit more easily to each of us than others. You know, I, I feel like I'm relatively good about seeking the signs of goodness and sharing the signs of goodness have been a pretty big work in progress on the pausing and ignoring part. And, you know, still, um, but just that reminder, I often tell myself, you know, nobody's ever changed somebody's mind by a comment on social

media that we get into these, I don't know, not conversations, debates with people. It's like, nobody's winning here and I get to choose what I give my energy. So is that even accurate? Like, has anybody's mind ever been changed? I don't think so. And there's a lot of science to say that's not true. I mean, just think about, I always use this silly metaphor. I grew up in a sports family. I wouldn't walk in. I'm a technically a Red Sox fan. I think by location, I wouldn't walk into a bar in New York where a bunch of Yankees fans are and like convince them by yelling at them to become a Red Sox fan. And there, I think, and sports are like a funny metaphor for like these things that we intrinsically value because

we grew up with them and we have no other mode of thought for who I should be a fan of or what I should be a fan of. Now, maybe I go live in Cleveland and I fall in love with Cleveland's teams or something like that. But until I've had a lived experience, I'm not going to change my mind. And so we have to have that same understanding when it comes to all kinds of things, right? Sure. My team may objectively be better in my opinion, or maybe by the scores, but until that other person has had a lived experience that is equal to mine, I'm probably not going to change their mind. And so I think the best thing that we can do in those spaces is a, just take it out. Don't, we don't need comments on, on these things. In fact, by commenting on them, you're

giving things that you don't like fuel and they're actually rising to the top. So now more and more people are saying that more people are piling on. We don't need to do that. And number two, you have to go into things with curiosity. You have to, if you're going to go in and have a conversation with somebody, you have to be equally in a good mindset to what they are, if not in a better mindset, because you're the one coming with an objection to their view on reality. Right. So if I'm coming in a combative way, instead of a curious way, right. If we can come with curiosity and said, Hey, uncle Mike, why do you think that like, what life experiences led you to this way of

thinking or Kelly, tell me a little bit about like where you came from and why you think this way and not doing it in a way that seems like I'm going to figure out how to change you, or I'm going to figure out, you know, how to turn you onto my side, just genuinely being curious about their life and life experiences and not even trying to do the persuading thing. Maybe that's seven conversations down the line. You are just there to listen to that person to understand, because very often you'll find you have more things in common than not in common. And if you really care about helping someone understand the world and maybe broader terms, it starts with curiosity. It doesn't start with combativeness. And you have to know that you are in the right mental and physical headspace to do that.

Well, that, all of that. And I also think empathy, curiosity, openness is challenging, but an important opportunity for all of us in all situations. People don't believe what they believe or see the world the way they see it by accident that based on their life experiences and their upbringing. And, you know, it's, it's really challenging. I think sometimes to interact with somebody you love or care about, or know who sees something polar opposite way that you do. And it's been a little bit easier, I think in the last several years, at least, you know, since the last couple of elections,

I think where, where it became like a, we got to write this person off or I have no longer have space for that as opposed to leaning into that curiosity, empathy? What do you think? Yeah. I think that I heard a very interesting thing, which is in the United States, almost politics had become the new religion, right? It's something you believe in so hardly and it becomes like a part of your persona. And I think that it's good to name that and good to understand that so that we can walk into conversations with more compassion and more empathy, right? So again, going back to, I'm not going to convert somebody on their, you know, I think we hold religion is pretty sacred as like something that somebody is fundamentally a part of somebody. We're not trying to go in and change them very often.

So if we can understand that about maybe somebody's politics, what it allows us to do is go in and have conversations where we're not trying to convince and convert. Instead, what we're doing is having conversations that help to open up a dialogue between two people. And my biggest suggestion there is just to be very aware of how you're walking into the space, aware of how they're walking into the space and making sure that if you're going to have those conversations, you're doing them in a space where both people are open to that conversation. Um, you know, the Thanksgiving dinner table is not that place. No one came there for that kind of conversation. Uh, your DMS are not generally the place, uh, comments on your Facebook are not generally the place Christmas, not generally. Like if you want

to have that kind of big conversation with somebody in your life, cause it is a big conversation to have. Let's I don't want to diminish that. But I think you need to be able to come to both people need to have. And so I think you need consent from both sides to like move forward with that conversation or else you're just going to be somebody yelling at another person and hopes that maybe they, and that never converted anybody to anything. So I think we just have to be more conscious of the way we talk to and with people and make sure that both people in any conversation are in a space to be thinking more empathetically and more, more out of curiosity. And I think the biggest thing for us to remember, empathy is like

a muscle. You have to, you have to practice it and you have to cultivate it. Um, and start with people that you distinctly love and have a lot of empathy for cultivated there. You can't just like walk into a conversation, um, with somebody that you don't necessarily agree with that have very different value systems from and expect empathy to just come pouring out of you. It's not, you have to have practiced it before. Agreed. One of the things I think the media supports, I don't think it's a media thing,

but I think that media really supports and reinforces the idea that there are like two sides to everything, as opposed to that this is a very complex issue with multiple viewpoints. And so much so that I think, and tell me if I'm wrong, that these algorithms reinforce and support our viewpoints. So whatever it is that we believe, or whatever quote, quote side we're on, we're just going to see more and more and more of that. And then we become even more convinced that everybody sees it the way that we see it,

except for these morons and idiots who, you know, just aren't reading the news or aren't educated or aren't informed. So how do we begin to see a more balanced worldview? What are some tactics or ways that we can not just reinforce our own ingrained beliefs over and over and over again? Yeah, I think you're right. I think what has happened is in this attention economy, there has been no room for nuance, right?

Everything is a soundbite. You know, these big issues that are affecting our world are very nuanced. You can't just go in and do this thing and expect this outcome. It just seems like there's no space for this nuance. And it's more interesting to talk in the binary. It's either this color or this color. It's yes or no. It's this belief system or that belief system. And yet at the fundamental level, there's a lot of overlap between those binaries and we have to have make the space to talk about them. So I think one of the ways that you can start to see a more balanced worldview, number one, start using the four shifts, right? That will start to basically on your algorithms, start to clean up a little bit. Um, what, what's there, what now you're, you've told your algorithm now for however many years

you've had, whatever social media, this is what I like. This is what I like. This is what I like. Now, what you're doing by like actively trying to change that is you're like, kind of, you're kind of messing up the algorithm, right? The algorithm is like trying to find a new way to serve you. Right. Again, algorithms were built with good intention. They were not built with bad intention.

Most of them were built with good intention, I should say. And so what we can do to start to balance that worldview is number one, four shifts so that we are A, sort of throwing our rhythm into a new space, right? We're not just polarizing ourselves. And B, I think start, again, following positive curiosity, right? So again, because the algorithm is looking at what we're clicking on, let's say you are interested in a topic and you want to read about it in more nuanced ways. You know, I think it's hard to find that nuance. There are some good content creators that are doing some of the nuance. Unfortunately, the way the internet works now, I don't have a good response for it. There's nobody that's like doing this for you. We try and do a lot of the heavy lifting at ever widening

circles for people so they can go get and find and have the nuance. But a lot of organizations aren't putting a lot of great citations in. They're not like linking to more things that grow your and expand your knowledge. And we're very conscious about doing that at ever widening circles. So when you find something that you have questions about, or that seems to either too good to be true or too bad to be true, or like it is sitting in the binary, I would suggest, you know, Googling, searching, trying to find like a differing opinion on, or a sideways look at it right so if we're looking to something at something about let's say climate change and there's some grandiose figure that says like this is never going to change or whatever it is um do some googling around and see

if there's some more in-depth opinions or more in-depth stuff that you can read because again the algorithms are taking note of you not reading this kind of stuff. And so they may try and serve you more nuanced, diverse stuff on your, on your feed, but it really does unfortunately fall on us. There's no easy answer to like, do this. And like the world will happen again. It's like a muscle, you kind of have to flex it. And I think my best suggestion is follow that gut instinct. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. And if it seems like one person has all the answers, there's probably not a singular guru on this one idea. Maybe it's time to go look for some diverse thoughts and opinions.

And even like if you have a friend who you know is very smart and intellectual, just ask them, hey, I read this. Do you have any, have you read anything that you know about this? And they may have the article they read in the New York times that you maybe saw, but didn't read and that to send your way. It's unfortunately, I don't have a great answer other than it kind of sits on us to try. Yeah. So that kind of leads me to the next question. One of my bigger frustrations with media in general is what feels like a lack of responsibility to the truth or to stating an opinion as an opinion or having something be well-researched. Can you tell us, you know, what's the difference between the news and somebody writing something, the amount of stuff that's being shared. I'm like,

that's not real, right? Yes. So where do we go and how do we tell if we actually want to get something that's fact-based or if opinion-based is clear that there is a difference between fact and opinion or perception. Right. So I think the number one thing you can do is, and this sounds weird, but like follow the money, like, right. So if you are on a site and you read something again, following that, like gut instinct, like either this is too good to be true or too bad to be true, or something is off here, find out where this individual is writing from, right? What is their modus for writing this? Is it, if you go to a site

and there's clearly a lot of ads and there may be in a political direction and it's clear that they are kind of maybe getting money, a lot of news organizations will also say who their sponsors are and good news organizations, I should say, will say who they get their money from, how they get their money, that kind of stuff. That is like a good way of knowing whether or not you

are going to a place that's giving you a biased opinion because it's for a particular worldview, right? I would say another thing is like the internal links are a huge thing in the internet world. Internal links are the way that all these websites get connected. And so, sorry, inline links. So there's two kinds of links. One that's internal, so it'll lead you to another article within that website. And the other one are the external links. Look at who they're sending you to externally.

Is it a lot of places to buy things? Then that means they're probably using what we call affiliate linking, And they're sort of like telling you this list of things to go by and they'll probably get a kickback, which if it's a content creator you love, great, support them that way. You know, we use affiliate linking sometimes and as a way of supporting us. And we only promote things that we would actually go, we actually want to use. So follow the money a little bit there. Another thing is to, and look for their biases. So the follow the money thing lends into this other idea of look for their biases, right? So if this person on their social media is proclaiming to be, you know, the number one

wellness coach, blah, blah, blah. And they're talking about some sleep aid that also relates to the, you know, pill that they're selling, I'm guessing they're probably not using science there to, to really make a difference. Right. Or I'm guessing that there's probably some reason why they're telling you this. So you just have to have your antennas up a little bit about why people are writing what they're writing. What is the nature? Are you going to a blog? Like, is this on the side is like, hi, I'm Mackenzie and I work for blah, blah, blah. And here's where I put my stuff about my life. Mackenzie's probably

not writing news. She's probably writing a blog. It's probably opinion blogs or opinions. They're not news. Um, even we shy away from saying we're news. We say we curate, um, things because what we're trying to do is educate people through the curation of what's on the web. We're not trying to like do breaking news. We're really trying to do evergreen, thoughtful content. So really take a look at the modus for why people are writing. And then another big tip that I have is when you follow those external links, are they leading you to places that are reputable? You know, are they leading to major news sites that are reputable? Are they leading to journals and scientific research that's actually reputable? Like psychopinion.com, not a reputable journal for psychology or WebMD, not really. There are medical journals that people can be linking to. So just take a look at this sort of level of journalism that people are putting out there, the level of writing people are putting out there when it comes to who they're citing from and where they're getting their facts. If there's no citations, if there's no references to people that they've actually called firsthand and talked to, there's no reference to any of those things.

Again, it's definitely opinion. They're not coming from a place of having done a lot of research. Thank you. It can be overwhelming and a little bit confusing. And, you know, I think again, because a lot of times what we see is directly aligned with and in support of our already established beliefs. So it's sort of easier to get sucked into and believe something as news, as opposed to this is another opinion that happens to reinforce my own. So I love it that much more. Right. Right. And I think that's just a gut check, right? If we are, if something aligns with us way too well, it's kind of the opposite of it's too good. It's like, that sits in the too good to be true category. Like if it aligns with us too well, it may not

be something that's perfectly obvious. There's, again, I think you have to start from the framework of there's no one answer and nothing is black and white. And so for feeling that way about something, that's kind of a time to check in to pause and then to try and, and kind of start the four shifts again. When I find myself getting into that, like kind of either a judgmental or angry or reactive space, the space where I really should be pausing and ignoring. I often try to check in with myself and say to myself, how arrogant, how righteous must you be to think you have it all figured out or that the way you see it is the best and only way to see it stay open. Like I kind of have to coach myself

through it. Liesl, I want to give you an opportunity to share a little bit about your summit, but thank you for all these tips. I love the four shifts. I think that's so important in today's day and age. Uh, if you're listening and you want to learn more about Liesl and her work, you can check out her website, everwideningcircles.com or follow her on Instagram at Liesl.uv. So L I E S L dot U V. And also follow on Instagram at everwideningcircles. Liesl, tell us a little bit about your summit coming up in October. Yeah. So October 10th, we're putting on our second annual conspiracy of goodness summit. Uh, this year, our theme is live with purpose. So we are talking to thought leaders across many different, um, fields who are living with purpose, who are doing good with the work that they do, who have found ways to create a

life where they are living, um, with a sense that they're doing good in the world, but also in a way that aligns with who they are and what their aspirations are. And so that summit is going on, like I said, on October 10th. Tickets are available at cogsummit.com. And there you can grab your tickets for the summit. It's a couple hours in the afternoon on a Sunday, and it is well worth it. Last year, we had some incredible people, including an astronaut, in our midst. So it's a great way to come together and also get access to the Conspiracy of Goodness community. People who sign up for the tickets are going to get a couple free months on the network as well, so they can

take all their excited action from the summit and have people celebrate it with and keep moving their projects forward. Liesl, thank you for your commitment to showing the good in the world and to bring some positivity in where there's so much of the opposite. And thank you for your time today. Thank you so much, Nicole, for having me on. My pleasure. All right. I don't know if it's just me, but I'm committed to figuring out a healthy way to be informed, to digest what's going on in the world, not to put my head in the sand, but to look for the good rather than allowing myself to be sucked into the bad, to have empathy, to remain curious, and most importantly, to stay true to myself while being open and holding on to

my confidence, no matter what media I'm engaged in. And as a participant in social media, I'm committed to being real, to sharing the stories behind the best moments, to showing up unretouched and often just as I am, even if I'm shiny with wrinkles and rolls and a messy house with imperfect relationships and failures and bad days that are filled with fear and doubt and questions. We don't do anyone any favors by pretending to be, or possibly even worse, trying to be perfect. And letting in all the noise, negativity, competition, comparison, division, and fear that the media is serving us only makes us weaker, more tired, and more alone. You have the choice of who and what you let in. Choose with your values, your hopes, your goals, and your sanity in mind.

Choose wisely. This is woman's work.