We gotta talk about how we talk about each other.
Some notes on boundaries.
Recently, someone who I thought was a friend called me out on social media.
They didn’t name me directly. (A few people probably guessed.)
But they did accuse me of doing something pretty awful.
Except….
I didn’t do that shit.
I have screenshots.
It never happened. 🤷🏽♀️
At least, not the way the story is being told.
I’m gonna be intentionally vague here, because believe it or not, this is not a callout. It’s something else.
In business, as in life, your network matters a great deal. To whom and how you refer work, who has written your testimonials, to whom you yourself have paid money—all of these connection points are the lifeblood of your business.
And, y’all.
How we talk to each other about each other needs some fucking work.
I myself am certainly guilty of this.
I messaged someone outside of my inner circle just last week to discuss someone else’s live video. It maybe shouldn’t have been a live video. I DEFINITELY SHOULDN’T HAVE TALKED SHIT ABOUT IT.
I still feel bad about it.
See, the thing about this online business stuff?
There’s a lot of network overlap.
When I look at my mutual friends with clients or teachers I have worked with for a long time? Dozens, hundreds of shared contacts. Hundreds of connection points in common, where WHO those people are matters.
I have friends (and you do too) that I will use as a yardstick for accepting new requests or as a metric for behavior. “Oh, this person is friends with _____? I’m sure I’ll love them.” Or conversely, “this person is friends with _____? No wonder they’re a dick.”
It doesn’t really matter if those impressions are correct.
What matters is the way in which we are using that network to benefit ourselves, and others.
Because that person who called me out?
Never came to me about it beforehand.
We’d been pretty good friends for a few years now, which in internet time is AGES. We’d been promoting each other’s stuff, and I recommended them when they were the right person for the job.
Sometimes, they weren’t always the right person for the job.
Sometimes, what the client needs is something, or someone, else, and if I also have that person or product in my network, I may recommend THAT instead.
That’s because one of my particular talents is connecting the right people together at the right time.
And not everyone is for everybody, all the time.
It would be doing my clients a grave disservice to recommend to them a product or service just because it’s my friend or referral partner’s product or service.
So I recommended several products and services, INCLUDING the one that belonged to my former friend.
Because I keep records of everything, it was not difficult to track down the actual conversation where this happened.
At this point, I had several options.
I certainly could have gone on the offensive, screenshots in hand.
I would have been morally in the right, and technically correct. (The best kind of correct.)
Doing nothing was also an option.
I mean, you haven’t made it in this business till you have haters, amirite?
Y’all, believe me when I tell you, doing nothing is almost never the right answer here.
I could have approached this person privately.
And, in most cases, this is probably the best option.
But this was not the first time something like this had happened with this person, and I’m not begging for forgiveness for an offense that’s not mine.
Here’s the problem.
Because we have internalized toxic systems of behavior from outmoded hierarchical traditions, we continue to perpetuate those systems in our own businesses and ecosystems.
We can pay lip service to the IDEA of better business morals, but when it comes right down to it, we mostly don’t keep those ideals.
We gossip.
We assume the worst.
We compete for scraps.
If you are neurodivergent, this game also comes with a free Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria upgrade, plus a finely honed inner sense of justice, for extra spicy flavor.
So let me be perfectly clear. This is not about energetics, or any such law of attraction crap.
I didn’t create this mess, and there is very little blame that actually belongs to me. But I’m willing to own what is mine.
No, this is about culture, and how we want to be having these conversations as a community.
At some point, we’re going to have to have a real conversation around the harm that we continue to perpetuate by allowing our network to dictate our morality, instead of the other way around.
But I’ll come back to this.
Let’s shift focus for a second.
Let’s talk about our ecosystem.
As in, who are we?
When I look around right now, I see the ranks of entrepreneurship thinning out pretty drastically.
Some people are “retiring.“
Some people have had some very public meltdowns, and they need better people, because our ongoing trauma should not be for public consumption.
Some people are realizing that entrepreneurship is not for them, and that’s perfectly okay.
Some people have lost business through no fault of their own, but lack the skills or experience to pivot into something else that will be profitable.
And when I look around at those people who are still standing, I can very clearly see that we are the entrepreneurial middle class.
I know some Fortune 500 business owners and CEOs.
And I’m sorry to tell you this, but most of you don’t do business like them.
You lack clearly defined policies and procedures.
You do not create environments suitable for the long-term retention of either clients or employees.
You would rather do things outside of your zone of genius so you can do it yourself, than find the person who is a genius at that thing.
And, perhaps most importantly, most of you are not building businesses that you can sell.
There’s nothing wrong with having a lifestyle business, but if you can’t sell your business or business model, then you are unlikely to ever hit that Fortune 500 list yourself.
And for the record, THAT’S FINE.
But if that’s the case, then what exactly are we doing here?
I don’t know about y’all, but I’m not here to play by the rules. I came here to break them.
So, if the rules we have been playing by are trash, how do we fix it?
How do we create something new from something broken?
Listen, I’m not gonna pretend to have all the answers here.
What I’m doing right now is elevating the public callout to a community-wide call to action, but it’s still got that callout spice to it. Who was it??? Do you fuck with this person? I’m not telling.
The point is, we have all been this person at one time or another.
Which means I might as well turn it into an object lesson.
Here’s what I know.
More of you need so much more active support than what you’re allowing for.
You literally cannot do it all.
But you also can’t think of it all, either.
And when it comes to how we interact with each other, some of you are missing some key roles in your support structures.
Get yourself a group text. You need people who you trust to ask, “is this a good idea? Should I post this?” These are going to be the people that tell you, “respectfully, bestie, NO. 🛑”
Hire yourself a wrangler. Executive assistants don’t have to be full-time to be incredibly valuable. You need someone who is in your life or business without being close to it. This is the person who takes the phone out of your hand and says, “let’s get lunch. Don’t post that.”
Seek out specialized help. If you’re terrible at xyz, the answer isn’t to figure it out yourself. Who can help you do it better? Who can help you be a better version of yourself? Who can do it FOR you???
What I know for certain is that what got us here will never take us to where we want to go.
And I truly believe that most of you have big dreams, big plans, actual CHANGE to bring this world.
But that’s never gonna happen if we don’t begin to understand the profound effects our actions are having on our networks, and the work we do.
Ultimately, better boundaries are what is needed here.
Boundaries around our work, and our lives, and our friendships.
Boundaries around what is and isn’t for social media.
Most importantly, boundaries about your time. The more you fine tune what you will and won’t do, the more you realize how much of the stuff you do is meaningless bullshit.
If it’s not going to be important next week, or next year, it’s not important today, either.
It’s time to let that shit go.
Make this your Year of No. I want to see what happens.
