Pushing Boundaries in Your Content

Emily Thompson 0:00
Hello, and welcome to being boss. This minisode is all about pushing the boundaries of your content.

Kathleen Shannon 0:13
Okay, so we got this question from a listener in our Facebook group that says, Hi bosses, I'm looking for an input from those of you who blog, I recently started blogging, and I'm still working on finding my voice. My brand is all about holistic mental health for women. So I focus on any and all topics that fall into that category. Here is my question. I want to spice my blog up a bit by making sure I'm including topics that some people are afraid to touch on, such as sexual issues, romantic relationships, parent issues, with personal stories, etc. I'm completely fine sharing things like this with complete strangers. But I also know I have family and friends reading my blog. And that is what makes me a little camera shy, so to speak, I want to make sure I'm not hurting any loved ones in the process. But I also want to make sure I'm sharing my experiences, if it will help others. How have you guys dealt with this issue? Ooh, good question.

Emily Thompson 1:09
That is a good question. Um, I want to touch really quickly on this idea of talking about family and friends, because this is something that's been coming up a lot for me lately, and especially in regards of like sharing my kid, which is something that I do less and less of these days. And one of the things that I've had in the back of my mind is to make sure that the story that I'm sharing is my story. And that it's not my place to share anyone else's story, I think you can share stories, share your own stories that involve other people, especially like if you need change names, you can protect the innocent and all that jazz, like do so. But I think that going into any story telling with that mindset of sharing your story, and making sure you're not sharing someone else's story is a really good line to draw, just in like basic human kindness. But I think it's different for everyone, obviously. But that's something that I've been keeping in the back of my mind a lot. Whereas I can share my story very openly and as much of it as I want. It's not my place really to share anyone else's story.

Kathleen Shannon 2:15
I think that's exactly what I would say as well. I struggle with this a little bit. And honestly, I kind of quit personal blogging because I became a mom. And my story was no longer my own. So I'm still in a place where my story kind of is my son's story, probably because he's two. So it's a little bit harder, especially in those first couple of years to separate ourselves. Because literally like in our what we're going through is very one in the same. But like let's say I want to tell a story about my husband. Sometimes I'll run it by him. And I'll say, Hey, is it cool? If I share this, or even sometimes sharing some of the behind the scenes stuff of being boss? I think that you and I have a feel for each other enough that we can share certain things. But there are certain things where I might kind of give you like a raised eyebrow? Well, yeah, could raise my eyebrow. He will just call that aside, I die. Yes, I this is a joke, because I've had Botox, which is pushing the boundaries of what I share. So I'll give you a side eye and be like, Hey, is this cool? If I share it, we've kind of felt each other out with our boundaries. But I think explicitly asking someone, one thing that I always like to do too, is to tell the difference between my inner critic telling me not to write something versus really figuring out the lines of sharing someone else's story is, I'll write out a list of five people I'm specifically afraid of offending, or I'm specifically nervous about what they might think. And then I really reevaluate whether or not it matters. So that's what I would recommend doing is specifically write out the list of people that you're afraid of offending. And then I think it's a really cool writing challenge, actually, to figure out how to tell your story and how to tell it with other people in it without really doing them any harm.

Emily Thompson 4:08
I agree. And then on the topic of, you know, working, or even the content that you want to share as a person and to any brand you're feeling I think, you know, they actually braid exercise. There's you guys have like a little worksheet somewhere about how to like, find out where on the scale you fall in terms of in terms of how personal you want to be with your personal or non personal brand.

Kathleen Shannon 4:32
Totally. Yeah, so we have a worksheet on it's called your sharing spectrum. And it really is saying that you can have a personal brand. Even if you're not a totally open book, you can still have a personal brand, you can still share who you are. Sometimes it's just as simple as using the words that you actually use in real life. So that alone can push the boundaries of your content.

Emily Thompson 4:55
One of my very favorite examples of this and what I think that everyone listening will know is Marie Forleo, like if you actually check out like her social media and her blog, and even her Instagram, like it's all Marie Forleo. But you don't know anything about her. If you are reading her content, at least for the past couple of years, I think she used to be a lot more personal before she started getting really big. But I think she is such a great example of someone who shares all kinds of content, but doesn't actually share too much of her like, she's actually really reserved in terms of how much she's sharing about her real personal self. So I think there are certainly ways to make a brand feel very personal without getting too private, and personal. And there, it's really just a spectrum where you can decide where you fall on, Kathleen and I are kind of even on like, actually, you have definitely shifted your place in that spectrum a lot. In the past couple of years, I've always been pretty, pretty on the more reserved side of the spectrum. But even then, that doesn't keep me from sharing topics that I'm interested in, even if they're not completely in line with my brand. I mean, that's the beauty of the personal brand, is that if you are building a personal brand you your personal brand encompasses anything that you are interested in enough to share. So I think that even if you like, if I'm doing like online business building, but then I do a blog post about a recent trip that I took, because I'm building such a personal brand, no one ever thinks that that's as weird as I may feel it is very often, especially before I was really comfortable with the crazy array of content that I was sharing, I would have people ask me like, how are you blending so easily the work that you do with who you are? And I'd be like, what are you talking? I'm just as stressed out about this as everyone else is I'm just doing it. So I think on some level, the the fear we put into sharing different kinds of content and being afraid that it's going to water down our brand, is a lot of times just in our head, if you're building a personal brand, it's probably not as convoluted as you are thinking it is.

Kathleen Shannon 7:14
You know, as you were talking, I was thinking about myself.

Emily Thompson 7:21
Of course you were I saw your face.

Kathleen Shannon 7:24
No, I'm just kidding. But I really was thinking about how am I sharing boundaries have very much changed. But I've also at the same time been building a personal brand more and more with what we've been doing with being boss. So one thing that I like to do is, I like for people to feel like they know me because I'm having conversations with you, Emily, and people are kind of getting to eavesdrop on in on that. But I have been a little bit more intentional about what I'm sharing and what I'm not sharing. And one of the things is that. And this isn't necessarily asking about pushing the boundaries of sharing other people's stories, but sharing stories that I'm not quite ready to share yet. So for example, whenever I was in the thick of some postpartum depression, I wasn't ready to necessarily share that because I didn't even know I hadn't done zero processing on it. Right. And so one of my boundaries for sharing is I kind of have to be out of my shit a little bit to start sharing on it. But one of the things I respect about Nicole Antoinette for examples, she's someone that we interviewed on the podcast recently is that she's actually sharing the story while she's in it now who knows that might change for her. And that's kind of cool for people's sharing boundaries. But like she can talk about, I think that she was sharing while she was in the process of sobering up for examples. So she's gone through some hard stuff, and she's sharing it as she goes. And I think that that's a great way to have accountability and to feel a little less alone. And maybe that is your way of processing. But for me, right now, I'm kind of experiment experimenting with my boundaries. And sometimes I experiment with them by pushing right up against them. So for example, one thing that I wrote about that felt really scary that I felt compelled to write about was circumcision. Right? That's one of the most complex and it took me a year to write about it. Like I wasn't ready for a full year. And I don't necessarily want people to know the details of my son's penis. But at the same time, I felt like I was doing more of a service by sharing this complicated thing for women. Really, what I was trying to say is women, you have a choice in what happens to your kids junk, like, you don't have to leave the decision up to your husband. And that was really the thesis of my whole statement. Like I can have my opinions on what people should do or not do. But really what I wanted to do was help women feel like they could be a part of that decision making process. That was important enough to me that I finally talked about it. So I think that's part of it too is like with that. I don't even know how to say her name and nice men do You know, I'm talking about anais nin. Oh, nice. Yeah. Do you know what I'm talking? Nope.

Emily Thompson 10:08
I just know how to pronounce that name.

Kathleen Shannon 10:10
Okay. anais nin has a quote. Here's the quote. And I think that this applies to all bloggers. Sorry, this is getting a little bit longer than I wanted it to. But her quote is, and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Emily Thompson 10:33
Yes, I agree with that. And I think I think the filter that I want to throw out there as something you should always think about whenever deciding to talk about or write about difficult topics, whether they're just difficult for you or difficult for society as a whole, is making sure that you're writing content that you can stand behind. So not putting out content that as soon as you write it, and someone leaves a negative comment, you're going to go take it down. Because if you are writing difficult content, you are going to get a pushback. So make sure that the content you are putting out there is somebody you can stand behind. Otherwise, keep it for yourself. Because I think that's just as important sometimes as as writing the content or putting it out there is knowing what not to put out there. And Kathleen and I have plenty of topics in our heads that we are not writing content about, or that we're not producing podcasts about. We have a filter. And one of the things that we keep in mind is one what our brand is, so is content that we're sharing in line with the brand, that with the brand boundaries that we have created, and to is it really going to serve our people as a whole like, or is it going to bring someone down? Or is it going to start a riot? Or is it going to shut us down? Like we certainly have opinions, but we also know where to draw the line in terms of the content that we create so that we can continue creating the content that makes a difference? So you know, is it content that you can stand behind? Does it lie within the boundaries of your brand? And is it going to be something that you could just keep to yourself and keep just as happy otherwise share that shit.

Kathleen Shannon 12:18
I want to share a specific example just to get really real about an example of this is one topic that we both really care about a lot that we're not really talking about is feminism. So like, obviously, if you listen to the show, you know that we're feminists, but we have not done a topic specific episode on feminism, because neither of us feel entirely qualified or eloquent enough to really speak on feminism. Rather, what we're doing is just weaving it into the tone of everything that we produce. Does that make sense? So that's something that like, is a topic that we both care about, that we've kind of stayed reserved on, not because we're afraid of, I think a backlash on feminism we just haven't know articulated our thoughts on it.

Emily Thompson 13:08
I just know that whenever the time comes to talk about that kind of content, I want the words that I use to be precise.

Kathleen Shannon 13:15
Yes, I like that. Yeah.

Emily Thompson 13:19
So in that case, I think that a little bit of filtering in order to get you to a place where you are ready to speak about those things is just as important as the want to speak of

Kathleen Shannon 13:30
Kathleen here, I wanted to pop in and let you all know that branding, business visioning and coaching creatives to blend more of who they are into what they do, while also positioning themselves as confident creative experts is my one and only focus over at breathe creative. And I spent years developing an online program for creative entrepreneurs who need a bit of their own brand clarity. Learn more at www.braidcreative.com where you can read free articles, sign up for our mailing list, and get access to free branding webinars. We're also offering an E course to new students only until August 8, so be sure to click ecourse in the main menu to learn more.

Emily Thompson 14:12
Did you like this minisode. Be sure to check us out on our website at beingboss.club. There you can find more from being boss including our full episodes minisodes and blog posts. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for our mailing list so that you can get access to behind the scenes and exclusive content from Kathleen and myself to help you be more boss in your work and life. Do the work be boss