The Conversation Club

13. "Don't Make It Political" (Too Late.)

• Kieryn Wang

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 49:58

Oop, I'm bringing up politics again. Because everything is political (duh), even your business. Your values don't clock out when you clock into your business. Neither should your voice.
In this episode, we're unpacking why your values shouldn't disappear the moment you become a business owner. I share why I've chosen to be vocal about the causes I care about, how that's impacted my business, and why standing for something can be one of the most powerful ways to build a community that truly aligns with you.
I also share real ways to take action, support causes you care about, and use your platform with intention without feeling like you have to be an expert on everything.


I yap about:

  • Why "staying out of politics" isn't actually possible as a business owner
  • How sharing your values attracts more aligned clients and opportunities
  • The difference between performative activism and taking meaningful action
  • Practical ways to support causes you care about through your business
  • Why your spending habits, partnerships, and business decisions all communicate your values
  • How to speak up authentically, even if you're afraid of losing followers or customers
  • The mindset shift from scarcity to building a business that's fully aligned with who you are

Resources:

 

Does boycotting work?

  • Combined, these [boycotted] companies have faced tens of billions of dollars in erased market valuation and billions in direct revenue losses.
  • Starbucks saw roughly $11 billion wiped from its market value during a historic 19-day stock decline at the peak of the boycott (Business and Human Rights Centre).
  • Target suffered between $12 billion and $15.7 billion in lost market value as its stock plummeted up to 33% during peak protest windows (The Charlotte Post).
  • Financial media and activist trackers report that global boycotts cost McDonald’s over $7 billion in revenue (Jordan News).
  • It’s difficult to isolate an exact dollar amount that Nestlé has lost directly to boycotts, but financial reports and historical data indicate that consumer movements have cost the company billions of dollars in lower sales volumes, declining profits, and restructuring expenses (Invezz).

 

Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsallmost/

Visit my website: https://www.itsallmost.com

Join The Conversion Club: https://itsallmost.com/the-conversion-club

SPEAKER_01

Hello, hello, my beautiful yappers. Welcome back to the Conversation Club. I'm your host, Kieran, and today we are talking about politics. Kind of. Not really. Before we get into that, I do want to go over a couple updates for y'all. I don't know if you're gonna notice any of this, but I'm on a different computer today. My computer cropped out on me. For those of you that follow me on Instagram, you will know that your girl's been going through it a little bit. Like shit has been going down. My apartment got broken into, I got attacked by a really huge cockroach a week later. And then a week after that, this Tuesday, my computer was like, ha ha, goodbye. So it's in the repair shop right now. Anyway, so that's why I'm on a different laptop today. And I also, a couple updates. I was like, why am I wearing headphones during my recordings when it's a solo? I've been doing a lot of podcast interviews and stuff like that, and I have to wear headphones because obviously I'm talking to someone. We don't want the sound to reverberate, mess with the recording, etc. etc. So I was recording my own and I was just like, why am not talking to anybody? There will be no sound that reverberates. So why am I even using headphones? And especially today, for those of you that can see the video, your girl's hair is curled. Another quick story. I'm gonna try not to like make the whole episode just me telling stories of my crazy last two, three weeks. But yeah, my doctor was like, you can't shower for like five days or whatever. And I was like, ugh, so nothing serious. Don't worry about it, y'all. We're good. It's just like more of a nuisance than anything else. It's like more of a dermatological situation. Anyway, we're good, but I can't shower. And so I needed to wash my hair. And I went to the salon and they were like, Oh, you know, we'll wash your hair. And then they kept like suggesting things. They were like, Oh, do you want a hydration treatment? And I was like, Okay, I'll take a hydration treatment. And then they were like, Do you want us to like trim your hair, shape it a little? And I was like, you know what? I'm here, why not? And then they were like, Do you want us to curl your hair? And I was like, huh, hell yeah, curl my hair. So anyway, my hair looks good. Don't really want to cover it with headphones. And that's also when I was like, why am I even wearing headphones on the podcast when I'm solo? Eventually, when we bring guests onto the podcast, I will be bringing on some guests. Don't worry, don't worry. It's more of a logistics thing right now, and I just don't have the capacity to figure it out. So when we do have the capacity, which fingers crossed we will, I will be bringing guests on. And in that case, I will be wearing headphones because obviously, again, we're having that conversation. But now you get to see my lovely whole head and in all the clips. It's not me, which is like headphones. And yeah, you will notice also because I'm borrowing my friend's computer to record this, I will be recording back-to-back episodes. So you will see in episode 14 as well, the same hair. It's not because, well, maybe I'm thinking about, I'm like, maybe I should go to the salon more often and like get my hair curled, or I guess learn how to curl my own hair. I've literally never learned how to. Anyway, okay, I have gone on for long enough on quote unquote updates. So let's get into the episode. I know you heard me say we're gonna be talking about politics today. Kind of, yes, kind of no. So, what do I mean by that? I mean I feel like, especially in today's climate, especially with the fucking Hellscape shit show dumpster fire that we are currently in, especially for those of you Americans out there. I know a lot of people, especially business-wise, they don't want to like take a political stance or they don't want to be like, oh, I don't want to talk about politics. I don't want to make it political, blah blah blah blah. This episode is essentially me being like, it's all fucking political, and here's how we'll get into it. And I want to share a little bit more about how I stand in my values in my business, and how maybe you can too if you aren't super comfortable or confident about being vocal and standing in who you are and sharing that with your customers, with your clients, with your audience. I think a lot of people say that I'm like brave for posting about world issues on social media and talking about my stance and in person being very vocal and shutting shit down. I don't really think I'm brave. I'm quite literally being myself. Like, for those of you that know me, I love confrontation. I love confrontation. And with that, I think it just obviously makes me a little bit more naturally inclined to be very vocal and naturally inclined to just like be like, this is what it is, this is how I feel. So I get that like some people are just more private than others, right? There are some aspects of my life that I don't really share. You might think that I overshare, which in some cases I do, but there are a lot of things that like a lot of people don't know. Like I've had friends for decades, and they're like, I'll say something that I thought I shared with them, and they're like, How have I known you for this long and I don't know that about you, and I don't know that about your history, and I don't know that about your lore. And I'm just like, well, I don't know. I just there's a lot of it. Don't worry, your girl will be writing an autobiography, a memoir, if you will, eventually at some point. I do have enough. I have so much for a memoir if I wanted to write one right now, but who has the time right now? And also, I'm like, we'll we'll share it eventually. But anyway, point being, I think honestly, I'm not brave. I think the problem is that people and society in general and the way we've been sort of conditioned is that people are too scared of losing customers, right? They're too scared of losing brand deals, they're too scared of losing income, they're too scared of losing money. My thing is why would you want money from people who don't agree with you, you know, who support genocide, who who support rounding up immigrants? Like, why would you want their money? Why would you want to work with them? That's my thing. And so to me, all I'm really doing is being firm, right? In who I am, in what I believe in, in believing that people deserve to live and not deserve to be fucking murdered. Like, I don't know. Anyway, we all hear a lot of these terms, like, don't make this political, quote unquote, I don't know enough about the topic or the issue to speak on it. Or like, do you have to make everything about race? We've all seen and heard these either comments in the comment section or in real life, or you know, wherever it is. A great example of this is Selena Gomez. She loves to be like, I can't speak to this issue. I can't speak to this issue. Like, da-da-da-da-da. Like, I'm gonna quit social media. We don't have to be that way. We really don't, because quote unquote, don't make this political. Literally, everything is political, our entire lives are political, okay? From our identity. For me, for example, being a woman, being an Asian woman, being an Asian American woman. As women, as women of color, our identity is political, our sexuality is political, unfortunately. It's something that the government has created laws to control and to mediate and all that stuff. It just ethnicity, gender, sexuality, other groups, communities, affiliations that you may have, your demographics, income bracket, where you live, your age, all these things, us as people, who we love, where we're from, our backstory, everything that makes us who we are is up for political debate and for political intervention, at least in America, but also a lot of these things globally as well. So it's like, don't make this political. Like every single thing I do is tied to some kind of political maneuver, some kind of political action. Our entire lives are political. And so when you say like, don't make this political, I'm not making anything. Like it is, it is so. It already is. And so I do think when we are vocal and when we stand in our values in our business, you don't have to be incendiary like I am. You know, you don't have to be sort of like aggressive about it. You don't have to be loud about it. You don't have even really have to explain yourself very much. You can really just say, hey, I don't support this. Here are some ways you can take action if you also don't support this. I definitely come at it because you can tell I'm a very angry person. I get angered very easily. And so I come at it with like a what the fuck are we doing? Fuck all you bitches. Why is this going on? What do we need to do? Like, let's fucking rally. We ride at dawn. That's the energy that I bring, obviously. You can bring whatever energy you want to bring to this. But I do want to encourage a lot of you who maybe however many minutes into this episode thinking, like, I don't know. I don't, not for me, not for me. I'd rather keep doing what I'm doing, which is staying silent and not wanting to jeopardize my client relationships, not wanting to jeopardize my brand deals, not wanting to jeopardize sponsorships, partnerships, whatever it is, money coming my way. The thing is, at least for me, and again, everything I say is really just speaking from my own experience, is that when you have your sort of values laid out for everybody publicly to see, it's a lot easier to find aligned customers. It's a lot easier to find aligned collaborators, partners, other brands, that kind of thing. And so when we are forthcoming, right, publicly with our stances, that means we're getting in front of the right people, right? People who align with you and your values, people that you'd want to have an energetic or monetary exchange with. It clears, it weeds out, right, all the people that you may not really want to be dealing with. Do you really want to be dealing with these people? These people that don't agree with what you agree, and vehemently so sometimes, right? Don't agree with equality and rights for people. And like, why? Why I mean, I feel like I'm gonna ask this a lot in this episode. I'm just like, why do we want why do I want to cater to these people? Why do we want to like sim for them and try to get their money? Like, we don't need to, we don't need to bootleg these people, you know what I mean? And so I am such a proponent of really just being vocal for not even the purpose of like having those aligned customers, but like it also builds trust with your audience. And if we're talking about marketing and we're talking about this from more of a marketing perspective, this is the kind of trust building that your audience is like, okay, I know that this person does not believe in the genocide of people. Great. I'm glad that I know that because I would rather know than the other case, which is to be secretly working with a pro-genocide person, not secretly on your own, just like that you're unaware that that's their stance or whatever it is. But I just think that if we get it all out there and we are like, this is who I am, take it or leave it. It also kind of goes back to the mindset, the mindset of it all, right? Like it's a very scarcity mindset attitude to be like, uh, I don't want to say anything. I don't want to ruffle feathers because I don't want to jeopardize my bag, my money, right? And with that, it's like, do we want that blood money? Do we want to be energetically and monetarily exchanging with people that are not good people? You know what I mean? Or just like are against the things. I mean, I'm not saying like stand in your values of like blue is the best color. Not that. I mean like global issues, local issues, national issues, those kinds of things. It just makes it so much easier when you're like, this is who I am. It builds trust with your audience, it gets them to that sale faster. I mean, if that's the goal, right? People know, okay, I know this person doesn't stand for fucking rounding up immigrants in the United States and keeping them in cages and fucking killing them. That is going to make it super clear to the people who also agree that that's not okay, that they're like, okay, this person feels this way. I can trust them enough to give them my money. I know some people are like, well, I don't want to say that because what if I lose the people who don't agree with that? It's like, fucking lose them. Who gives a shit about those people? I don't want money from those people. I don't want to be in community with any of those people. You know what I mean? And so when I was younger, if you want an example of this kind of shit has actually shown up in my life, when I was younger, I was a lot more brash, which I know so many people meet me these days, and they're like, oh my gosh, you consider this a mellowed out version of you? And I'm like, Yes, I do, because I have matured a quite a bit, I'd like to think. I used to be so much worse when I was in my teens and 20s, especially my early 20s, I was a menace. So much worse than I am now. I feel like now I can like rein it in a little bit, which I know some of you are gonna be like, really? This is you reining it in a little bit. Point is, I used to be a lot more brash. I used to be a lot more careless with my words, which I'm still working on that. It's all a work in progress. I'm still young. I'm literally only 31. I'm just a baby, okay. No, I'm not gonna infantilize myself. But the point is that I was young and I was a lot more like, I will burn whatever fucking bridge I need to burn. I don't give a fuck. So before I started my first business back in 2018, I was working at a company, and those of you who haven't listened to episode one, go back and listen to episode one to get the full backstory. But the company that I left, I experienced racism, I experienced sexism. And so when I left, I was like, y'all are fucking racist, right? Like, fuck them. I was like, this is a racist place, I don't want to be here. Fuck this shit, I'm out. And probably not the best technique, probably not the best technique. I've had, I think, at least one, but I want to say even two. I don't think three. Like one or two clients that I've had over the course of a little over eight years that I have essentially gotten rid of because I've realized, okay, our values don't align. I don't need to be working with you. I don't need to be in any kind of working relationship, partnership, whatever it is with you. And the thing is, you don't really have to be confrontational, right? I say this to myself as well, because you go, confrontation. But the point is, I realize you don't have to be confrontational. Like you could literally realize a piece of information about someone and you could be like, okay, got it. Understood. I will adjust my behavior now, right? And that happened at least once, I want to say at least two times, where I had a client and I found out that either the CEO or the manager, like the person who was managing me, was problematic, right? And I did not align with their values, and they did not align with mine. So what I chose to do in those situations, instead of like blowing up and making it a whole thing, it didn't feel like it needed very public attention or anything like that. You know me, if it was ever the case where I'm like, people need to fucking know that this shit is going down in this company, I will share it. But yeah, essentially with those clients, I kind of just like ended my contract with them. I was like, hey, I don't think we can work together anymore. And here's our end date. And I chose not to like work with them moving forward after having learned the information that I learned about them. Of course, if they had actively done harm, right, or it was a situation where I was like, people need to know, and I didn't want to quietly leave, I would have made my voice heard. And I encourage you to do the same, right? Obviously, it's a case-by-case basis, but understanding, like, okay, I can just leave, right? I learned my information, I know what I need to know, I'm done. I'm done, and I'm leaving. And then there are situations, of course, where you want to be taking up space, right? You don't want to quietly leave. You want to let people know that this company, this person, whatever it is, has actively done harm and is continuing to actively do harm. And I need to make my voice heard. I need people to know that this is going on, right? I don't have a lot of examples of clients that I don't align with and having to get rid of them just because I am very vocal about who I am, very publicly vocal about who I am, as many of you know. And so people know where I stand, and that really weeds out a lot of the people that wouldn't align with me. Like it really weeds them out very easily for me. Again, you don't have to make all your content about this stuff, but like, let's not stay silent, right? Let's not let this go by without A, shedding light on it, and B letting people know where it is that we stand when it comes to these things. So some of the things that I'm about to get into are some of the things that a lot of people have said to me, like, oh, you're so brave for talking about it, are you so brave for sharing this? And the thing is, is it's like, it's at least for me, not that hard. But I do think for most people, it's really not that hard. Again, show up however you need to show up. Show up however it feels authentic for you, right? Sometimes it's more of a simple like, hey, you can donate to this family here, or like, hey, sign a petition here. Call your senators, call your representatives, like, here's a script, that kind of thing. Like, it doesn't necessarily have to be this whole like stories or posts or whatever, like breakdown of everything, da-da-da-da-da. It really can just be take this action, take this action right now, educate yourself on what's going on right now. And that lets people know without you having to be like, here's my exact stance on how I feel about X, Y, and Z and da-da-da-da-da. And in this essay, I will like blah blah blah blah. You don't have to do all of that. If that's what you want to do, please, by all means. But again, show up however you need to show up. Okay. So, like for me, obviously a little bit of a different example is just the fact that I am so, so, so, so vocal. For example, with my anti-AI stance, right? If you haven't listened to episode two, please go check out episode two. It is basically part one of my anti-AI episodes on this podcast. But for me, when I tell people I'm anti-AI, when I'm very public and vocal about it, brands who don't want to use AI, who don't want to use AI in their content, in their creative work, they know that I'm the right partner. They know that they can work with me and they can trust that I will use my own brain for client deliverables. I won't be using any AI slop, that I won't be relying on something, a tool. There are clients out there that want their contractors and stuff like that to be using AI to like make their time more efficient or, you know, whatever it is. But the reality is that like I have found so many brands who are like, thank God that you don't use AI. You know, it might be this like tool or whatever to make time more efficient, but like everything on the internet is the same right now, right? Like everyone's making the same content, everyone's saying the same things in the same ways. Anyway, the point is that like I being anti-AI, brands or clients who want to work with me, they're like, okay, we know that like she's coming up with this on her own and that she's not gonna use AI, she's not gonna use these shortcuts, she's not gonna ruin the environment for the sake of creating some marketing content for us. And to me, I'm like, when I say I'm anti-AI, I'm like, if you are uh pro fucking tech billionaires and if you are pro destroying the environment, I don't want your money, I don't need your money. And that weeds those people out pretty easily. And then also with things like anti-ICE. So this podcast, we do not publish on Spotify because Spotify has, if those of you who don't know, they have ice recruitment ads on their platform. They allowed ice to recruit on their platform. So I, in good conscience, could not post this podcast to Spotify. I just can't because who am I if I'm not actually standing in the things that I say that I am, right? And I know that, like, oh, it's gonna help my reach to be on there, whatever it is. And I also know that like Apple and Google, obviously, YouTube, they're not problematic free. I know that. I know that. And unfortunately, we will get into this a little later in the episode. Unfortunately, it's very hard for us in today's world to be fully detached from all of the problematic institutions. So I get that, but also I was just like, I can't do that and also be on Spotify. Like, I just can't do that. So saying that publicly and sharing that publicly, I know some people are like frustrated by that, but like to me, I am standing in my firm stance of like supporting our immigrant communities, right? The ones who actually contribute to our country, countries all over the world. I'm talking about America specifically, but countries all over the world. And knowing and saying that I am anti-ICE, that I am anti-immigration fucking enforcement. What the fuck does that even mean? That people know I am a safe space for people of color, that I'm a safe space for immigrants, that I'm against police brutality and like virtually basically martial law, right? And so when I am anti AI, I just combine anti AI and anti ICE. I'm like, I'm anti AICE. But when I am anti-ICE, I am saying to people, to people who may work with me, who may want to give me their money. If you support rounding up people and imprisoning them just for not being white, I don't want your money. I don't need your money. Okay. That is what people see and hear when I tell them and I stand firm in my anti-A. I'm going to keep saying anti-A ice. So it's being anti-AI and also anti-ICE. Okay. Yeah. So I'm trying to share some examples of like when I do this, when I show up this way, this is what it's telegraphing, right? This is what it's telling my audience and it's what's telling my potential clients. A big one that like I think a lot of people have gotten a little quieter about. I have also, with the updates and everything lately, I feel like I've also been posting a little bit less about Palestine and about what we can be doing, the actions that we can be taking. So I would like to ramp that up more. I am donating to Watermelon Warriors, and they have an ESIM program that essentially helps get Palestinians connected to the internet because Israel. Because they are limiting their telecommunications, obviously their ability to tell the world about what's happening to them. So ESIMs are a really great way to help and like tangibly support Palestinian people in their ability to connect to the internet, to tell the world, for medical providers to communicate with each other, for people to go to school, for people to fucking scroll Instagram reels to consume content to literally just try to fucking live life as they're being actively fucking targeted. So I will link resources and everything that I mentioned in this episode in the show notes because I want you all to go out there and like find something. It will be in the homework, but I want you to find something and I want you to take an action on it this week. Okay. So anyway, I am, despite being a little less focal on the internet, I have a weekly recurring donation to Watermelon Warriors for E Sims. It's literally like $10 a week. It's very easy. And when I can ramp it up a little bit more, I ramp it up a little bit more. When I ramp it down, if I need to, but like literally $5 a week helps. $5 a month helps. Anything you can contribute helps. I also am doing donations to individual families that reach out to me via DMs, communicating with them, talking to them. Sometimes I do a community outreach sort of situation. I say, everybody, like donate to my Venmo if you would like to contribute to this family or to helping XYZ people come together and we do sort of like a crowdsourcing fundraising situation with $1, with $5, with $10, with $20. Anything anyone can contribute is helpful. Anyway, the point is I want to highlight that because I think a lot of people they say, like, oh, I'm not posting online about it, but like I'm taking action in real life. And I know I literally, quite literally just gave you an example of me doing that. But I feel like a lot of people say that without actually taking action, right? They're like, oh, I'm taking action in real life. And I'm like, what action specifically are we taking? But again, it's not my responsibility to monitor you. It's not my responsibility to police you. And so I really truly hope that if people are saying, like, oh, I'm not posting actively online, but I am doing things in real life, that they actually are doing things in real life because, and I will say this later in the episode because I really want to hone this in silence is complicity. And that's why we share and that's why we talk. And so I am going to publicly right now and just commit to myself that I'm gonna be ramping back up on my posting and sharing more education and sharing more actions that we can take. And so, anyway, point being, I did want to address that a little bit because I know a lot of people are like, oh, I'm not posting because of this, I'm not posting that. And I'm just like, if you're actually doing the actions, great. But like, I feel like a lot of people, that's a cop out, unfortunately. But yeah, I mean, in regards to Palestine, I feel like that's the one that most people are like, oh my God, I can't believe like you're you're gonna speak up about that. Like, I want to take action, but I don't think I can talk about it publicly online. And I'm just like, people are being actively genocided right now. How are we at this stage at this point? I mean, I do want to hone in and I want to emphasize, and I will always say this in my content as well. Zionism is not Semitism. Okay, being anti-Zionist and anti-Israel does not mean you are anti-Semitic. Let's just get that out of the way. Also, I feel like there are just so many fucking bootlickers for APAC right now, especially in our government, especially in our representatives, unfortunately, because APAC has a lot of money and they can fucking buy people to fucking have their stupid little talking points or whatever it is. But like also, to me, when I hear things in a conversation with either a client or they having a conversation with someone or however they're showing up online, and I hear or see any of those red flag talking points, the ones that are just like, oh, like they'll kill you if you're gay. Like, why are we supporting Palestine? I'm anti-Hamas or whatever it is. Fucking stupid red flag talking points. When I see those, I'm just like, okay, now I know that like we don't need to work together, right? Like, if you support genocide, I don't want your money. I don't fucking need it. We're good. I'm fucking good. Okay. I also really want to talk about being active in our boycotting and the things that we can do and that we should do as we are continuing to take action, right? So for those of you that are boycotting and have heard of the BDS movement, the boycott divestment sanctions movement, it's Palestinian-led. It was launched by 170 like Palestinian unions, refugee networks, women's organizations, professional associations, popular resistance committees, and other sort of civil bodies, civil society bodies in Palestine. And the goal is to do three things, right? Boycott, so withdrawing support from Israel's apartheid regime, and not being complicit in any of Israeli like sporting or cultural or academic institutions from all international companies who are like boycotting them because they're engaged in like this active violation of Palestinian human rights. So, yeah, boycotting those organizations, businesses, divesting, so divestment to encourage and urge banks, local councils, churches, universities, whatever it is, institutions to withdraw their investments from the state of Israel and all sort of like Israeli international companies and companies that sustain the Israeli apartheid, right? Weapons, oil, and not even those things, like it could be fucking baby products, it can be food, it can be CPG, it could be any of those institutions and brands, and then putting sanctions on governments to pressure governments to fulfill legal obligations, right, to end Israeli apartheid. So yeah, not to like aid in its maintenance, not to aid in the continuation of genocide, right? To like suspend their membership in things like FIFA. Like, why are they still in the fucking World Cup? I know the World Cup just happened as I'm recording this, or no, it's actively still happening, right? I don't know, I'm not paying fucking attention to it, but that we are not just fucking allowing them to exist, right, within those organizations because why? It's not a real fucking country and it's dumb anyway. Point being the goal with boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning is to ultimately end the occupation, right, and colonization of all Arab lands, to recognize the rights of Arab Palestinian citizens to full equality, and then also respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in a fucking UN resolution. UN resolution 194. You can fucking quote me on that. But anyway, this movement has, I think, highlighted a lot of the ways that we as consumers can actively take action in standing in our political values, in standing in who we are in our business. We are not going to work with Target. We are not going to work with McDonald's or Starbucks or Amazon or Coca-Cola or Nestle or any of these companies that we are boycotting because we don't want to fucking promote and contribute to the wealth that has grown towards and contributed towards fucking continuing to fund this fucking genocide of people. So anyway, boycott divestment sanctions the BDS movement. It's Palestinian-led and it was Palestinian-founded. Boycotting, divesting and sanctioning, boycotting can apply to other causes beyond Palestine, right? You can be anti-ICE boycotts, you can not want to support pedophiles, you cannot want to support problematic people, artists, whatever it is. So boycotting is a really great way of withholding our dollars, of saying with our money, which is one of our most powerful voices and tools for communicating, is to say, I am not going to contribute to this company, to this company for the reasons of they are fucking actively contributing to the harm of people, right? Whether it's like two, three, five, whatever steps removed from the actual killing and murdering, it is still contributing to that cause. I know a lot of people are like, oh, boycotts are hard. I order from this place to save myself. It kind of goes back to the similar AI talking points. It saves me time, it makes my life more efficient, it helps me in XYZ way. And the thing is, is I know, I know there are so, so many people out there that are like, I cannot do this because I need it for this reason. I have a medical condition. This does make my life more efficient. It does help me a lot. And I'm like, I get that. It's not that I don't recognize that. I really do. Being anti-A, not using AI, boycotting these companies, it's not easy. It's not always easy. It's one of those things where it's like, what are we willing to sacrifice? What are we willing to do to not contribute to people being murdered, to being mass murdered? What are we willing to do to say this is not okay? I will not support this. And I know a lot of people are out there and they're like, what is me? What is one person, me, gonna do, not fucking buying from this company? What is that gonna do? But the thing is, is when we all take action together, we think about it. Like, we've all watched Finding Nemo, we know how this works. When all the fish work together and fucking swim down, the net comes down, okay? One fish doing it by itself is not gonna do anything. But when we collectively all work together and fucking don't support these institutions, it works. Boycotting works. I should have looked up some stats and I apologize and I didn't, but I'm going to link some in the show notes, okay? I apologize for not having it ready for this episode to share it with you because I was just like, as I was speaking, I was like, oh, it would have been helpful to have these stats. But essentially, like boycotts do work, okay. McDonald's has lost money quarter after quarter. I think Starbucks, one of the CEOs of one of those companies, had to step down because they were losing so much money. Like, this shit does work, okay? And the thing is, is you can find alternatives. I know some of them are gonna be harder than others, but there are alternatives out there, okay? Some take time to incorporate, take time to figure out logistically how it's going to work with the flow of your current life. But the thing is, is like, can we just do 1% less? Even if we're like, I need to go to Target, I don't know why anyone would say that, but they're like, I need to go to Target. Well, like, can we just go to Target less? If we can't do 100%, which I don't really understand why you can't just go somewhere else. But you know, if you are in a situation where you're like, I need to go to Target, I go once a week. Can we just go like one less time a month? Two less times a month? Can we go somewhere else instead? Can we spend less money there? Can we reduce our amount that we're spending? 1% less, 10% less, 20% less is better than 0%. Obviously, we want to get to 100, but sometimes that's a process, right? And again, I'm still unlearning this because I'm trying to unlearn my American sense of urgency, but you do not need things urgently, okay? You just don't, you don't. You can buy local, you can support small businesses, you can do all of these things. It's gonna take a little time sometimes. It's gonna take a little more time, it's gonna take a little more effort. And I know a lot of people are like, I shop at Target, I shop at Amazon, I shop at whatever for convenience. And this takes away the convenience of it. It doesn't save me time, it doesn't, whatever. 1% less. Let's just try 1% less. And then maybe we're like, okay, we could do the 1%, let's try 2% less, okay? And let's just work our way up to 100%. I know it might take a little bit of time, but it is well worth the effort, okay? And I know a lot of you are out there, people have said this to me before. They're like, so if you're so anti-capitalist, like, why do you have a business? Why are you trying to make money? We need money to survive. Unfortunately, in this world, that's how this fucking system works. That's how it was fucking created, okay? Being anti-capitalist doesn't mean I don't think you should promote your product for sale. I don't think that promoting your product, your service, whatever for sale, for money is a bad thing. I think as an anti-capitalist, and what anti-capitalism means is you are against the exploitation of people for labor and profit. Okay. There should not be billionaires. Okay. Billionaires should not exist. Billionaires only exist because someone has been exploited for this person to become a billionaire. And not someone, many someones, okay. Tens of someones, hundreds of someones, thousands of someones, right? There should not be wealth inequality. Okay, five people should not hold the large majority of wealth in the world. One person should not be a trillionaire. That should not exist. That should not be a fucking thing. Okay. So what am I saying? What am I saying here? I'm saying that being anti-capitalist, it doesn't mean that I don't want to make money. I do want to make money. Unfortunately, we need money to survive in this world. But I am against people being exploited for that money, for obscene amounts of wealth, right? People being taken advantage of, people being fucking undercut, people being mistreated, people being fucking put in really truly inhumane conditions. That's what I'm against. That's what I'm not for. Okay, that's what anti-capitalism is about.

SPEAKER_00

So for those of you that are like, oh, she's talking about money, we want a cop, we want a boy, we don't want to give money, but she's also asking for money, whatever.

SPEAKER_01

Sorry, this topic really gets this side of me out. So thank you for bearing it with me. I do want to talk a little bit about mutual aid. For those of you that aren't familiar with that term, mutual aid, it's not charity. Okay, we are talking about supporting our communities in a very like rising tide lifts all boats concept. It is social solidarity, it is not charity. Okay. I know a lot of people think mutual aid is like, oh, I'm just like giving money to people and that's charity, blah blah blah blah. Mutual aid is quite effectively a system, a structure of community and cooperation. It is building this like bottom-up structure where we're not relying on state or wealthy philanthropists to address our needs and to address issues. We're emphasizing this like very horizontal network of solidarity. It's not this top-down solution or situation, trickle down economics. It's where these networks flow in both directions, right? People are supporting each other. We are gathering, organizing to support a family, a cause, whatever it is. We are actively working together to be in solidarity with each other. Okay. So what can we do? What kind of action can we take when it comes to mutual aid? Well, number one, you can tap into your local network. Okay. You can look to people who are already established and are already organizing and are already bringing people together to take action. Okay. I know a lot of people are out there and they're like, oh, you know, I want to start my own thing. Like, I see this and I want to do this. And you know what? Honestly, like in some cases, fine, great, do that. Maybe someone else hasn't created a space for that yet and you want to do something your own way. Great. But what I also will say is that there are very likely already organizations that have been established that you don't need to continue taking up space by starting your own outfit, right? If someone has already established any kind of organization in your community for this cause that you're trying to tap into, support what they're doing, amplify their work. Okay. You don't need to be going and being like, I'm gonna do this this way, and da-da-da-da-da, or even virtually the same way. Tap into that network that already exists, okay? And then go out there and like find causes you care about. Find whatever it is you care about and focus on those. You can show up however you want to show up. That makes sense for you. But like the goal isn't necessarily I have to help everyone across every single thing. It's like find what you care about and focus on those things. Because again, if we're all focusing in our lanes of what we want to contribute to, what we care about, what we feel passionate about, all that tide will continue lifting us up. We don't have to be like, and I have to do this and I have to do that, and I have to do da-da-da-da-da. If that's how you want to show up, fantastic. Okay. But again, show up however you need to show up. But please show up. Okay. That's first thing. First and foremost, please show up and please show up consistently. Not just once, but make it a commitment. And again, it doesn't have to be a huge commitment. It could be whatever it is you have capacity for, but to continue showing up. Not just to show up one time and be like, pat myself on the back. I did the damn thing. I did it. I'm a great person. Like, yes, once is better than none, right? Once is better than never doing it. But like, let's continue to show up. That's what mutual aid is about is continuing to be consistent and showing up. I know some of you have listened by now to my personal finance journey episode where I talk about everything I know about money. And I do reference some ethical investing in that episode. But I do want to talk about it if you haven't listened to it or you didn't pay attention when I was talking about it, is ethical investing. So, for those of you who have watched The Good Place, for those of you that don't know, essentially in the good place, it's you get rewarded points for doing good things, you get taken points away for doing bad things, right? And essentially, by the end of our current modern society, earlier, towards the days of Cain and Abel, it was a lot easier to calculate, okay, this was a good deed, this was a bad deed. But nowadays, right, because we're buying an apple from this corporation that this pedophile is fucking in charge of, and also it's sprayed with pesticides and harms the environment, whatever it is, like all of these things, choices that we're making that we can't necessarily research every single thing and control every single thing. That's why everyone was ending up in the bad place, right? Because they just didn't, I mean, spoilers for those of you I won't spoil much more than that, but like so many people were ending up in the bad place because any good action, quote unquote, that would have been good in the Cain and Abel days is now riddled with all this bad because it's attached to these problematic CEOs, it's attached to this problematic farming technique, it's attached to having the apple transported and using a lot of fucking fossil fuels and ruining the environment in the process of doing that, et cetera, et cetera. So I get that it is hard to be a hundred percent ethical in our current global society, right? But the thing is, again, 1% more. Let's do 50% more, let's do 20% more, let's just do a little more than we're currently doing, right? In an effort to just not align with these problematic institutions and give our money to people we don't want to be giving our money to. And so when it comes to ethical investing, Amanda Holden, love her. I will link her in the show notes as well. Dumpster Doggy, she does a really wonderful job of not only in invested development, her course. Again, this is not sponsored. I'm not getting an affiliate link or anything like that. I really just want you to be able to ethically invest if that's something you're interested in learning. And so she teaches not only in her course, but actually like in workshops and stuff. And there are a lot of free ones too, and or very accessible priced ones. So definitely go check them out. But she teaches how to like screen out weapons and screen out oil and screen out, I believe, AI as well, but don't quote me on the AI part. But I do think Amanda is so fucking awesome. So anyway, she teaches how to like screen that shit out of your investments so that you're not investing in weapons and oil and the harm of people. And again, I get that it's hard to achieve 100% ethical behavior, but we are gonna try to get as close as we can. Okay. All right. Okay. I know, I know this is gonna be a little longer episode. I really have been trying to like keep my episodes shorter, but you know, your girlfriend fucking yap. And so, okay, I'm gonna try to keep it nice and short and sweet. When we're talking about speaking out, because that's what this episode is about standing in our political values, standing in our values as business owners, start with what impacts you, right? If you're like, I don't know what to talk about, I don't know what to speak about, just start with what impacts you personally. Do you come from an immigrant family? Do immigrant communities Communities impact you, your gender identity, your sexuality. It is easier to speak to things when you can relate to them. Of course, when you can tell your own story, or you can relate it to your own story or the story of someone you love or care about. Start with those things because that's an easy place to start, right? And you can go from there, right? Again, we're putting in the reps of like, okay, I can say these things, I can do these things, and no one's gonna cancel me. I'm not gonna lose my clients. Again, losing clients who don't agree with basic human rights, not a bad thing in my book, but I digress. But I do want to encourage you when you are speaking out about things to remember to amplify the voices of people who are already doing the work, right? Especially if you are white, I would really like you and encourage you to defer to people of color who are doing this work, amplify them, hold space for them, don't talk over them, don't try to correct them. They are speaking from their lived experiences, okay? So remember, remember not to be taking up unnecessary space. Give other people a platform, amplify them. Okay, you don't necessarily need to be contributing your voice by speaking over people, okay? And also really just start small. Speak from what you know, speak from what you've researched. You don't have to be an expert on a topic, okay? I don't agree with genocide. Saying I don't agree with genocide, that's all it takes. That's all you have to say. You don't have to know everything about Palestine, you don't have to know everything about its history. Doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt to educate yourself on that, okay? It doesn't hurt to do that. But you don't have to be an expert on any topic to speak and say, I don't agree with XYZ. I don't think that we should be fucking mistreating people in this way. That's all you really have to say. You don't have to say, oh, I've researched, da-da-da-da-da. Like, sure, you should back up your thoughts with actual evidence and knowledge and information, but you don't have to write a whole fucking essay about it. You can just show up and speak however you need to and want to show up, okay? And just really stand in those values. You know what your values are. Speak from your heart, speak from your lived experience, speak from your point of view, show up authentically as yourself. Because, like I said earlier, silence is complicity. Okay. When we stay silent, it is automatically taking the side of the oppressor. Who did I just quote? When we stay silent, we automatically take the side of the oppressor. Yes. Okay. So when we say that, when we do that, when we're not saying anything, actually, when we're not doing anything, it allows this to continue to fester. It allows it to continue to grow, to continue to mutate and to allow those stupid talking points to be the ones that people hear. When we share online, when we share in our everyday lives, when we're talking to people, it helps prevent these terrible systems from growing, from taking over, right? It helps make sure that they don't grow in the darkness, that they don't continue to like create these intricate webs and root systems and networks because we are shedding light on it, because we are talking about it. So we're gonna do one more test, okay? One more time to answer this question. When we say being silent is taking the side of the oppressor, who are we quoting? We're quoting Ellie Wiesel, okay? Someone who actively experienced what the oppressor can do. So your homework, your homework, don't stay silent, don't stay complicit. Okay. Today or this week, I would like you to share one thing, one thing on social media about a cause that you care about. Any cause, any cause that you care about, local, national, global, personal. Share something on social media, one thing, and then also think about is there a fundraising effort you can organize? Is there something you can do to support a cause, an institution, people, whatever it is, even if it's like what I do, which is crowdsource and say, hey, like contribute to my Venmo if you want to help this family? Or can we take our business profits a percentage, even for just one month or one week, whatever it is? Take a percentage of our profits and contribute to a cause that we care about. Can we do that? Does that feel doable? Okay, how are we feeling? I know this was a long episode. I'm trying to shorten our episodes. I just have so much to say. I have so much to talk about. But thank you so much, all my beautiful yappers. Thank you for being here. Thank you for wanting to stand in your values, in your business. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you learned something. This is not the last time we will be talking about these things. Do not worry. I definitely want to do like a full boycott divestment sanctions episode. But here we are. We are like an hour in or almost an hour in. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you all. And I will see you next week. Ciao ciao. If this episode gave you something to think about, take it and do something with it. If you want more of this or you just want to see what my life actually looks like, come follow me on Instagram at it's almost with two L's. Be sure to link it in the show notes. You can also follow me at Almost Consulting for some juicier, spicier takes. And if you're serious about getting your emails to convert, you can check out the Conversion Club, a monthly email marketing membership for founders who are ready to turn email into their most profitable and sustainable sales channel with expert guidance, plug and play tools, and strategy you'll actually use. Check it out. That's the link in the show notes. I'll see you in the next episode, Yappers!