68. Their discomfort is not your emergency

This is my love to courageous ones everywhere.

People aren't just listening to what you say.

They're listening to how you're saying it.

If you're saying something that's worth saying... whatever it is, say it with your full chest. 

Say it like you believe yourself.

It matters. 

Transcript

Welcome to another episode of Liberatory Business. I'm your host, Simone Seol. Thank you so much for listening. Today I'm a little bit sick, so bear with me — my voice isn't what it usually sounds like.

So let me tell you a quick story.

There's this famous actress here in Korea. Very successful, been famous ever since I was a little girl, been working for decades, A-list star. And she recently started a YouTube channel — lifestyle content, vlogging, showing us her life. Her very beautiful, very luxurious life. She's very beautiful, everything's beautiful, right?

And almost immediately, she shut it down.

Why? The haters came in hard. People called her out of touch, really went for her. Said she was rubbing her wealth in people's faces during a time when a lot of people are having a hard time. So she caved to the haterade and shut down the channel.

And look, I'm not like a particularly big fan of hers. I think she's cool, I liked her work, but she's just an actress to me — I don't have any special feelings about her. I've never seen her channel, and that kind of lifestyle vlogging content isn't really my thing. But having heard this story, I couldn't help but think — damn. That kind of bums me out. I wish she'd stuck to her guns.

And what I want to tell her, if she were to ask me for advice — which for sure she didn't — but if she were to, there are things I want to tell her. And it's actually also what I want to tell so many of you, so I'm going to say it here.

I get the backlash. The economy is so hard for a lot of people. And in that context, somebody walks in in their designer clothes and designer bags and their fancy this and that — I get why people react the way they do. I understand that reaction.

But you know what else?

There are so many wildly successful accounts — YouTube channels, Instagram pages, TikTok, entire media empires — built entirely around very aspirational, opulent content. Rich people doing rich people things on camera, for an audience that eats it up. An audience most of whom would never come close to being able to afford any of that stuff. People who've never been on a yacht watching yacht content. People who've never been inside a five-star hotel watching someone stay in a $10,000 a night hotel suite — and they love it. It's called vicarious pleasure. It's entertaining.

And far be it from me to judge how anyone unwinds or what anyone finds entertaining. I'm a trash reality TV junkie. I live for the tackiness, the manufactured drama, the vicarious enjoyment of extreme wealth. I love it. I'm not above anyone's taste.

So the question isn't whether content that doesn't necessarily try to solve the important problems of the world is allowed to exist. It exists, and a lot of people love it. The question is — who gets to make that kind of content and survive?

Because if that Korean actress came to me for advice, here's what I would've told her.

Okay. I know getting a lot of hate is a lot. But take a breath. Take a bath in your beautiful marble tub. Go get a massage. Eat a delicious meal. And then come back, look at the camera, hit record, and say:

"Yeah, this is my life. I have a very privileged life. I worked incredibly hard for a really long time to build this life. I'm not spending your money. I'm not asking you to want what I have. My content is for people who find it interesting to see what I'm up to on a day-to-day basis, because this is a meaningful way for me to connect with people. And if that's not your thing — that's totally fine. You don't have to watch. I'm here for the people who do want to be here."

Something like that. In that register. That's what I want you to be able to say when your moment comes.

Because here's the thing — it's not always about what you say. It's about how you say it. It's about your posture.

There are people, you've seen them, who share stuff that's ten times more provocative than "here's my beautiful life that I paid for with my own money." A hundred times more controversial. And their media empires are thriving, because they are totally unbothered. And I'm not saying that's always great or whatever — but they're doing something a lot of us could learn from. Which is that when people come for them, they don't reorganize their entire existence around it. They shrug. They keep going. They've decided, at some fundamental level, that other people's discomfort is not their emergency to solve.

And guess what? A whole appreciative audience gathers around that kind of energy.

That's a skill. And it's learnable. But you actually have to commit to it.

Because people aren't just consuming your content — they're reading you at the same time. As they're listening, they're assessing: does she believe in what she's saying? Does he believe in himself? Or are they waiting to see how I respond to figure out how sure they should feel about what they're saying?

And the second they see you wavering — the second they can feel the apology coming, the hedging, the shrinking, the editing that pre-empts the criticism — they lose faith. Why? Because humans are wired to follow people who look like they know where they're going.

So when you hold your ground — when you respond to the pile-on with a posture of okay, and I'm going to keep going — that has the power to change everything. The critics who were never going to be your people anyway, who were never going to buy from you or be part of your community — they can keep yelling into the void. But the people on the sidelines who were curious, waiting to see how you'd react, waiting to determine for themselves whether you actually believe in what you're saying? When you show them that you do — when you say it with your full chest — they step forward. Because you showed them: I'm here, and I mean it. That energy is what people want to be around.

Listen, my friends — if you're listening to this, you are one of the brave ones. Building businesses, making things, putting your ideas out there. We're going to be criticized, we're going to be misunderstood. We're going to make something that's genuinely ours, that comes from the most loving and sincere place in our hearts — and someone will still find a reason to be angry about it. It's not fun, but that's just the tax on being visible, on being courageous. There's no way around it, and there's no way to make yourself small enough that it stops. Trust me, I've tried.

So if you can't avoid criticism — and you can't — the question is: when it comes, do I let it tell me who I am? Do I let it decide what I'm allowed to make and to say? Do I hand the loudest, most reactive voices in the room the keys to my business, the keys to my body of work?

Or do I take it in, sit with it, figure out if there's anything actually worth listening to and integrating?

And by the way — sometimes there is something real in the critical feedback. Sometimes the discomfort someone is expressing is actually pointing to something that you care about. I'm not saying develop a bulletproof ego where nothing gets in. That's not posture — that's just armor. What I'm saying is: you have to be the one who decides what to take seriously and what isn't meaningful to you. You don't get to hand that job to whatever random person has the loudest voice. That discernment is yours. Not anyone else's.

I hope that Korean actress comes back. I hope she comes back and posts the handbags, the steaks, whatever else her life contains — and I hope she does it like someone who has nothing to apologize for. Because she doesn't. There are a lot of people doing genuinely harmful things in the world, and enjoying the life you've worked so hard to build is not one of them.

And I hope you do the same. Whatever it is you want to share, whatever you want to say — say it with your full chest. Even when other people are loud about it. Especially when other people are loud about it. Because that's where it counts.

Don't be surprised to see the universe organizing itself anew around your energy.

Thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next episode. Bye.