🌀 Letting It Out with Katie Dalebout [BONUS]

[0:01] Welcome to Off The Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients.

[0:08] Music.

[0:26] Hi, Off The Grid listeners, Amelia here coming to you from my podcast break.

[0:30] Yes, the show is still on break, but if you're feeling hungry for more Off The Grid, I've got a little snack for you before the season resumes.

Last week, I was on one of my very favorite podcasts, Let It Out with Katie Dale Bout, and I was a guest to talk all about my journey with social media, why I've decided to leave social media, why I think that is maybe an easy choice for many business owners to make and also a very hard choice for us to make as people who want to maintain relationships in the year 2023.

It was a gorgeous, heartfelt conversation. Katie is a longtime podcaster, a stellar interviewer, and we went places that I have not gone in any other interviews that I've done on this topic. So I'm going to give you a little preview of that conversation here on the feed, share about 10 minutes of the amazing things that we talked about.

And I'm really going to invite you to head to the show notes, click through and listen to the whole conversation on Let It Out pod.

Thanks to Katie for having me on. We are planning a part two all about podcasting.
So when you go over there and listen, make sure you subscribe so that you don't miss it when it comes out.

But for now, I'm just going to let you hear me and Katie have a little chat, going to to remind you to head to the show notes, go listen to Let It Out, and I'll be back in your earbuds on the Off The Grid feed in a few weeks.

[1:58] Hope you're having a wonderful summer. See you Off The Grid.

[Katie:] One thing I heard you say is somewhere, and I think in relation to marketing, but you've said Instagram is easier than relationship making and I'm curious if you can unpack that a little bit and why that is.

[2:19] Yeah. Oh, so much here. So, I think when I say that, I am...
It definitely needs unpacking, because I don't actually mean necessarily that Instagram is easier than relationship making.
But I think what I'm trying to get out there, every time I talk about it, is this sort of myth that we've been fed, that has now, like, become true.

[2:43] So, I think, for many of us, Instagram has become this proxy that we do all of our relating through to other people, to the world, to the news, to our local environments, like Instagram is where we go for connection and all of those areas.
And as a result, it feels like the first thing we turn to.
It feels so easy. It feels so easy to just, it feels way easier to pull up someone's Instagram profile than to actually talk to them.

[3:17] Reach out to them in a more direct way, ask to be friends, ask to collaborate, share something vulnerable with, you know?
So it's become, I think, through habit and through sort of cultural shifts that have happened over the past decade, it feels way easier to use a social media platform and let that be the sort of mediator of all of our relationships than it can feel to actually be in relationship sometimes.
And I think that on Instagram and on social media, like when things get sticky, when the relationships get challenging, we have ways to blame the platform for it, right?
So it could be a cancel culture thing, or it could be an algorithm thing, or it could be any sort of other platform-specific thing is the problem, instead of maybe there being an actual conflict in our relationship that we need different tools to handle or to speak openly about or to heal together.

[4:24] And so that's kind of one lens that I would bring to or qualify or unpack that statement with of like, Instagram is easier than relationship-making, but it's less.
Fulfilling, less genuine, less long lasting, less all these things that I want to bring to my life. All the things that really nourish and support me are not the types of easy Instagram.

[4:56] Connection that I can get. Those things all live in deep relationship.
Yeah. Yeah. One thing that you said related to this is on a podcast with Michelle and Wallace, Holisticism, you were talking about the connection between Instagram and control and Instagram and social media and really we're talking about Instagram and trying to be cool and caring and how it's it's cringe to care. And I think this sense of, you know, rejection essentially, and like avoiding rejection, it's less scary to put yourself out there and be like, whether you're trying to make a sale for a business, or you're trying to, you know, get a romantic partner, or, you know, whatever it is, it's easier to blame it on the algorithm or the way Instagram has changed or whatever that is, then maybe it's me. Like, maybe it's the work or maybe it's that, you know, I just need to work a little harder or I need to, you know, and sometimes maybe it is true, but it's just, there's, there's a nuance to it. And.

[6:13] And I just, I think that that sense of control is something that, you know, I think about a lot and, and think about surrender and control and the dichotomy between the two and the addictive, patterns that I've had have all, you know, mostly, maybe for all people are related to that in some way and, you know, social media being one of those. So what has the space that was previously occupied by social media, what has it given you? And what have you noticed since being off of it.
Well, when I left Instagram, I would have told you that any of the other major life changes I was making were a bigger deal, right?
Like I got my PhD, I got married, I moved. Like those all felt like the big choices and it was just like Instagram happened to be the thing I was doing.
But now it has, it really, a joke I often make, it's not even a joke, it was just true, is like I thought those things were important but all anybody ever wanted to ask me about was how I left Instagram that year.
And I launched Off The Grid podcast because I got so many questions about it.

[7:28] And now that it's been two years, so I left Instagram in April of 2021, I launched Off The Grid a year later in March of 2022, and we're recording this in June of 2023.
So I've been off social media for over two years.
And I think the biggest gift it's given me is just time.

[7:53] Like to reclaim so much time, and then also the clarity that has come from taking those thousands of voices I was engaging with out of my head.
And I think like those are the most precious things in my life, right?
Time and clarity are things I have always wanted more of. And to be able to make one decision that gave me so much more of both has been a real gift.
Now, does that mean that I'm over here like, feeling like I have hours of extra time each day and I'm so clear on everything I'm doing?
Like, absolutely not. So I think when I first left Instagram, it did feel like this huge world had opened up to me, but like life fills your time and life raises new questions.
So I recently sent an email to my list that was like, what are all the things I do on my phone that are not Instagram?
Because my partner had asked me like, how do you spend so much time on your phone when you don't use social media?
So I went through, I was like, what do I do? And it was like, I play this silly game and I like spend a lot of time on apps where I like look at movies and books and TV shows and things and, you know, rate them and talk to my little internet friends about what we've liked recently, a lot of time on Discord where I'm in a bunch of communities with different people I care about.

[9:16] I think the difference between any of that and social media is I just feel like the connection is real and genuine and that I'm actually deepening relationships by being present there.
And I think that's another gift that I've gotten upon leaving, is just...

[9:34] So many of my parasocial relationships fell away, like those sorts of people that I really only engaged with by liking each other's stories or the people who I only knew because they commented on a bunch of my stuff, but I never really engaged with them.
So all those sorts of parasocial or one-way relationships, many of them fell away and I've been able to be much more intentional in my community building and nurturing efforts and that feels like another gift.
So yeah, I guess like time, clarity and deeper community are the things I feel like I've gained.
And at the same time, I still spend a lot of time on my phone.
Like that hasn't changed. I'm still like a human in 2023. And my iPhone is with me most of the time.
Although I will say I was just on a business retreat with a dear friend and co-founder of mine, shout out to Taylor.
Taylor has been on Off The Grid and has talked about kind of her relationship to social media, which has kind of de-escalated a lot in the past few years.
But I did notice that, like, I just never had my phone on me the whole time we were there.
And, like, Taylor was the one documenting, sharing our retreat, and putting it out there.
And people loved that, but I was definitely not doing it. And it didn't even occur to me.
The way in the past, I would have been the first person to, like, take a photograph of every single thing thing we ate or did the whole time.

[11:00] Okay, wasn't that conversation with Katie just like so thoughtful and interesting?
She asked me such good questions. I felt inspired just receiving them. So I hope you'll go listen to the whole conversation on the Let It Out feed. It's linked below or just search Let It Out in any podcast listening platform of your preference. And you'll find us there. The episode just went went live last week, if you're listening to this in real time.
So it should be easy to locate.
If you're listening in real time, I also want to remind you that there is still a really great discount on the refresh happening right now.
Details are in the show notes.
This is the three-workshop series that I'm teaching live in August.
We have an amazing group of small business owners, creatives, influencers, people just really thinking about how they can work, live, love, make money online without being tethered to social media.
And if you wanna be among them, and we spend three days releasing our relationship to social media, reconnecting with our business and mapping our business ecosystems, if you want all of that goodness, head to the show notes, learn more about the refresh, grab that discount code for 20% off.

[12:18] And on that note, I'm gonna head back into my pod break in style.
I can't wait to see you babes again at the end of the month with a brand new episode that's gonna be one of your all-time faves.
For now, we're gonna cruise into that new theme song that we've got, and I will see you Off The Grid.

[12:34] Music.

[12:50] ♪ Let's go off the grid, babe ♪ Thanks for listening to Off The Grid. Find links and resources in the show notes, and, don't forget to grab your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at Softersounds.studio.com.
This podcast is a Softer Sounds production. Our music is by Melissa Kaitlyn Carter, and our logo is by Natalia Studio. If you'd like to make a podcast of your own, we'd love to help. Find more about our services at Softersounds.studio. Until next time, we'll See you!

[13:20] Music.