Ep48~ Influencer for Good

This inspiration for this podcast actually came from a Mass I attended.  During the Mass, the priest said that if Moses were alive today he would be considered an "influencer". He went on to tell the parishioners that we could all be influencers for good in the lives of those around us, not just on social media. 

In this podcast, I explore how posts on social media affect us.  I discuss my own presence on social media. Lastly,  I talk about how we can all be influencers for good in the lives of children and in our daily/work lives. 

To begin, I use the example of the loss of my dog, Nica, to show how sharing on social media can be a healthy form of expression.  I'm not above needing support and sympathy, but I think it's important to be clear and direct with our messages and captions online.  I don't think we should use our shares to be manipulative or to draw negativity. It's important to keep it real and balanced. 

Our relationships with kids, direct or indirectly can be a great opportunity to influence for good. Through divorce, even after our kids have seen us struggle, we can be examples of strength, resilience, humanity, and grace. We can show them how to make responsible choices, take the high road, be amicable, and pull ourselves together.  We can BE their emotional support person and not use THEM as our emotional support. 

If you don't have your own children, you can still have such great impact when you have genuine interest in them- what they're up to and how they're feeling. You can influence kids just by being a good listener. Your image alone can influence for good. You can emit positivity just by projecting happiness, care, and concern.

I share examples from my career of times that I used my job as a pharmaceutical rep as an "influencer" to spread joy.  There were many years when I felt as though my job didn't matter.  I was overlooked and viewed more as a delivery person than an intelligent, skilled professional who brought value to a clinic.  I shifted my mindset from feeling worthless to using my presence in the clinics as a platform to grow relationships, listen to other's stories, and share happiness with them. 

We can use brief, public interactions with strangers as an opportunity to be influencers for good. I share an example of a conversation I had with a young guy at a checkout at a local store. If we just open up and give a little, we can impact so many lives.

Work environments are a huge part of our lives and they're not always positive . When your work environment is negative, you can choose to go against the grain by shedding a positive light and by not allowing yourself to be pulled down by negativity.  Our work environments are ever-changing and you can even be a catalyst for good by simply being positive. When your influence spreads to others,  that's when the game changes.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to man shopping with Stacey, where I share my real transparent dating and life experiences for your amusement and inspiration. I'm your host, Stacey weer, and you are listening to season two, episode three influencer for good. Oh, I know many of you, if not, most of you are absolutely cringing. Just adhering me, say the word influencer and I get it. Oh, I, I get it. But hear me out, hear me out in this episode, I'm going to share with you my unusual inspiration for this topic. Kind of my why as to why I think that this is important, um, for all of us single people<laugh> listening. Um, and then I'm going to share with you some of my personal motivation for building the platform with man shopping with Stacy, that I'm doing, why I transparently share my stories on this podcast and why I post what I post on social media, as well as the conversations that I have about, about my online presence and my public image with my daughter, with, um, with others in my life and how it has impacted me and others around me. But most importantly, I'm going to share with all of you, how I think all of you can be influencers for. Good and know, I don't just mean on Instagram, I mean, in your real life. And I've got lots of tips and situations to discuss that. I hope you all find very helpful. Okay. So let me start by just telling you the story of where the idea for this episode topic actually came from. Well, I was sitting on a pew in a church at mass on a Sunday squeezed in between my daughter and her boyfriend's mother, who is my friend listening attentively to a very compelling priest. This guy has personality. He demands attention in the best way possible. He uses humor and charisma to captivate all of the parishioners who attend his mass. He is a force and I think he's awesome. And it's one of the reasons that I've been attending church with, um, with my daughter's boyfriend's family, my friends<laugh>, um, here recently. So anyhow, I'm listening to him talk about Moses. Moses wrote the 10 commandments. Moses helped the Israelis escape. Egypt. Moses was a follower of God, but he was a leader of people. And so the priest who I was listening to said that if Moses lived in the modern day, he'd be considered an influencer that's right. An influencer for good specifically. So this priest went on to talk about how all of us listening, the kids, the adults, the grandparents, all of us can also be influencers for good. So as I sat there in church on that Sunday morning, I was feeling quite introspective. I was digging deep people. I was thinking about what is my motivation? Why am, am I so transparent? Why do I put all this stuff out there on social media, everything from photos to very lengthy descriptions about how I'm feeling or what I've gone through. And then of course, this podcast where I'm sharing a lot of intimate details about myself, wow, what leads a person like me to do this? Well, I'll tell you at my very core, deep inside my soul. I think it's my gift that I am an open book that I am happy to share of myself with others to help. It's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to help people in a small, small way. So every time I post a photo or record a podcast episode, my intention is to spread a message of happiness, to help single people like me find just a little bit more joy in life. Be relatable, be real, and also spread a little optimism because a lot of us are in circumstances that maybe we never wanted to be in. Maybe they were completely unforeseen shocking. Um, and it's tough. It's hard to be single later in life. It's not an easy place to be single and living alone or trying to raise children with someone you don't get along with or, or raise children all by yourself. Um, this is some difficult trying and maybe even turbulent times for most of us. And you know, when I first started recording man shopping with Stacy, it was all like, oh my God, I've been through hell and back. I feel like I have had so many storms in my life that I have somehow survived and come out of happier that I felt like I was kind of unique. I think in a lot of ways, I thought I was different somehow and maybe could shine a new light for some people to start appreciating, um, the little things in life as a single person that maybe they couldn't see on their own. Maybe I needed to point some of this stuff out<laugh> for all of you who, who, you know, some of it just gets lost on us. Um, the freedoms and enjoyable parts of being by ourselves, but the longer that I've been single and the more experiences that I've gone through, the more, um, appreciation I think I have for other people's situations. And I, I think it's just part of my growth process. So when we're talking about influencing for good, um, all of season one, I mean, I was high as a kite. I was like, this is awesome. Life has never been better. I, things are peaceful. I mean, I'm bragging about like how great I sleep and how fun life is. And I'm vacationing with my daughter and I have all this financial freedom now, and nobody's gonna bring me down and dating is fun. And I have met so many great people. Don't have a boyfriend, but I don't care. You know? And then here I am a year later, right? One more year under my belt, hundreds of singles have come into my life. Like I know so many people's personal stories now and have such a better understanding, um, holistically of what divorce means for other people or just what being single means. Um, to other people that I, I hope in this season two and going forward and future books and everything that, that my influencer status is more of a relatability status because rather than trying to position myself as someone to admire, because I've overcome some stuff and I'm super freaking happy, I would rather be known as someone who gets it. Like she gets it, like she lives this stuff too. And she knows that it's not easy and I've never tried to sugarcoat anything. And I've, I've always been honest, um, about my experiences, but I think the longer I'm single, the more obstacles that I have faced and gone through too, that I definitely will be sharing with you guys on going. I mean, the most recent experience that I went through, if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you know, all too well that I just lost my beloved dog Nika. And I shouldn't say I, we, we lost Nika. Nika was a source of love and affection and amusement for so many people, of course, for my daughter, for my parents, for my friends and neighbors, anybody who's been around her to know Nika was to love Nika. And even though I had been preparing my brain and my heart for years, that she was not in the greatest of health, she was diagnosed with cancer recently prepping myself, right? Because I knew I'm a realist. Like she's, she's not gonna live forever. But when the day came that Laney and I made the very, very difficult choice to end her suffering and take her to the vet to be put, to sleep. It didn't make it any easier. It was so hard. And I know so many of you are animal lovers, pet lovers, too. You, you get it. Like there is just no other kind of pain. So in going through that experience just a few days ago, I'm like, I am more alone. Now. Nega was my constant companion. She was at my feet. I mean, you know how it is life with a dog, right. She sat next to me on the couch. You know, she stretched out and laid on the floor right next to my bed. Every night she got in my car all the time. She followed me to the toilet. Like this dog was glued to me and now I'm alone. I'm not gonna be interrupted by barking anymore. Like while I'm recording, I do love that you can hear her bark.<laugh> on a couple of my podcast episodes, um, that they didn't get edited out. I don't even care. Like, I'm so glad to have that memory, but, you know, I, I found, I found myself in this space for a few days now. Like, oh my God, I'm so much more alone. Wow. Do I feel for some of you who didn't get the dog and the divorce or lost a, you know, lost a cat to your spouse or whatever your case may be, it's freaking hard. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is let's just use Nika as an example, two days in a row, I sat on my phone and I'm not joking for hours, hours. Going through photos of Nika made a folder just for her created a reel on Instagram, shared the reel admitted in my post on Instagram, that it was somehow therapeutic to go through photos of her because it really was, it was a good, it's not that it was a distraction. I was completely focused on her, but I didn't feel sad in the moments or in the hours.<laugh> that I was that I was sifting through all of that. So I didn't post a reel on Instagram for people to feel sorry for me. Right. Like, no, I don't, I don't need your pity. Like I feel sorry on my own. I feel sad on my own. It's okay. I'm not looking for attention. Don't worry about my mental health. I'm okay. Over here. I, I posted it because it was meaningful to me. And I know that many of you have experienced very similar loss. Um, and you get it. And I am not above needing words of encouragement or support or love. Some of you feel as though you've gotten to know my dog over the past year and it matters to you too, you know? So I guess she's kind of a, a good example of influencing for good. I, I tried to show my appreciation and gratitude for having her in our lives as long as we did and just to celebrate the, her life and what she meant to me and to Elany and to everyone else who was lucky enough to know her. So with that being said, the only way that I could convey my intent for the post is to type words underneath the pictures, right? Or the video, like if you're going to be an influencer for good, you can't post ambiguous and think that people get your intentions or your motives. If I just posted the real photos with Nika, what would happen if I didn't post any caption to it, I would get a million messages in my inbox and a couple, you know, posted for the world to see did something happen? What's wrong with Nika? Is she okay? Did she pass away? Oh my God, I'm so sorry. People would speculate. People would wonder it would, you know, it would stir up emotions in other people. That's manipulation people. And that's one of the reason we don't like influencers<laugh> we don't like feeling manipulated. We don't like click bait. We don't like people who use social media as a platform to grab attention or to deceive us, or to show us a perfect image of a perfect life. Those are all the things or a few. Those are not all of the things. Those are a few of the things that turn us off about influencers in general. Right. So I think it is something to keep in mind if you're gonna post a photo, you know, a selfie in a bathroom, maybe, maybe either think to yourself, like why or freaking type a reason I'm having so much fun out with my friends tonight. New top felt cute, whatever. I don't care. Like I, I get the impulsive nature that a lot of us have to share things with the world, but I think it's, um, I think it's kind of a, a good learning experience when we get those, um, urges to share, like, why, why do I wanna share this? Um, what does it mean to me? What does it mean to others? What's the freaking point, right? Personally, I just have a really big appreciation for positivity online and in my feed. It's why I freaking watch videos of golden retriever puppies and, you know, read all the inspirational quotes and all the Tinder, blog, and wine for wine and funny, funny memes and gifts and other things that people share because it adds happiness to my life. And doesn't bring me down because if I'm gonna be scrolling on my phone, wasting my time, I hope it's with something that makes me smile or laugh.<laugh> and not something that freaking brings me down. And likewise, when I post things on my feed online, um, I try really hard to keep it real. I don't wear makeup in some of my photos. I have ball caps on and sweatshirts, and I am not 24 7 in full makeup using fancy filters and looking my best, because that is a joke. That is definitely not what my real life looks like. And anyone who knows me knows that all too well. And on here too, I try to share the good with the bad, right? And I think that balance is important to keep it real and to be relatable. And I hope that you guys feel that in listening to me. So I'm gonna move on and talk about how all of us can be influencers for good aside from social media, like in the real world. I think the easiest example is just to talk about kids. Now, clearly, if you're a parent, you have an, a gigantic opportunity to be an influencer for good. But if you're not a parent, maybe you're a stepparent or an aunt, an uncle, or a quasi aunt or uncle. I am that to a couple of my girlfriend's kids. I call myself their aunt, right? You get what I'm saying? Kids look up to us. Even the, you know, teenagers who roll their eyes and slam their bedroom doors. They still look up to us. They're watching they're emulating. They are freaking sponges, soaking it all up. And I think, especially in the situation of divorce, we have an opportunity to be honest with them, to shelter them from inappropriate topics, things that have happened, experiences that they don't need to know about. And ultimately we can just be a very solid example of strength, resilience, humanity, grace. We can show them that even when mom or dad goes through hard times and they've seen us cry and they've seen us yell and they've seen us at some of our low points, hopefully they've also seen us making responsible choices. They've seen us take the high road a time or two to be a bigger person, a time or two. They've seen us try at least to be amicable in difficult situations. And they've seen us pull ourselves together to continue to go to work, to continue to be there for them to not use them as an emotional support person, but to be that person for them. And if you're a peripheral person in a young person's life, like a quasi aunt, like what I call myself, oh, trust me, you can still have such great impact. Kids are no different than the rest of us. They can sense it when you have genuine interest in them and what they're up to and how they are feeling. And just being a listening ear, being a source of comfort, guidance, fun, whatever that is, is such a beautiful way to influence kids. So don't underestimate your value. If you are not in a kid's life day in and day out how special you can be to them, um, on your more infrequent interactions, it all matters. And you know, even when we're talking about influence, some of it is just your image, right? Like you are the sweet aunt that brings her puppy over and makes yummy brownies and like drives the cool Jeep and has a fun job and seems to go to like lots of concerts and cool stuff that their parents don't do. Like your image says a lot about you too. Right? How the people around, you know, you, what you project do you project happiness? Do you project positivity or do you project something different?<laugh> you know, that kind of makes me think about my career. And early on as a pharmaceutical rep, I seriously felt like a glorified ups driver. Like I spend all this time learning about a disease state and a drug and pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and then I'm told to stand, and this is literal stand on the duct, taped X on the floor by that drug closet. And you just wait until my doctor has time to sign your stupid computer is that is what my life felt like for a while here and there early in my career, I felt like I didn't have much to offer. No one really took me seriously. And I just stood there and waited for someone to sign a computer all day long. Or maybe I just sat my happy in a waiting room for two hours to get 30 seconds with, um, with a doctor. Yeah. So there were times in my career, this is my point where I decided that my job for the day was to spread happiness to the doctor's offices that I visited. And it felt better. I felt more gratified in my job when that was my goal. Yes. I had quotas to meet. Yes. I was a salesperson. Yes, I did my best on that front. But when I got discouraged, I just tried to view myself as that cheery girl who maybe brought Starbucks and listened and tried to get to know people and cared. Right. I'm just gonna show up and spread joy. Yep. That was me for some amount of time and looking back hashtag no regrets. Now that's not a bad way to live, not a great career choice maybe. Um, but things evolved and got better. And I obviously developed a pretty good reputation for myself that I was a kind person, the kind of person, maybe that deserved a better job<laugh> and got referred to job after job, after job, over the years. And maybe a little piece of that was because of my image, right? What we portray, what people perceive. It can change your life in a lot of different ways. When you take a second to think about it, think about your day to day influence you have on others. You know, while you're out shopping, while you're grabbing a cup of coffee, I went into a local, um, restaurant recently and I was, I had my interaction at the, you know, at the iPad check, like closing out my tab. And this young guy was like asking me what my plans were for Easter. And I told him what my plans were and he goes, you know, I really wanna see my grandma and she's gonna wanna take me to church, but I'm gonna feel like such a hypocrite if I decide to go to church with her, because like, I don't usually go to church and everyone is gonna know that I don't go to church and I heard'em out and listened and I totally get it. And I was like, oh my gosh. Most of the people, especially at Easter service are not regular churchgoers. Like, you'll get that right. Like the highest attendance ever is like Christmas Eve and like Easter for obvious reasons. I'm like, don't let don't let what you think others are gonna think of you hold you back. Think about your grandma. How happy would your grandma be if you were sitting next to her, think about how good you would feel doing that for your grandma. Like it's not just about being at church. It's about being there with her, for her right. Dude. I hope that that guy thought about me later and thought, you know, maybe I was a positive influence him on him that day. I mean, we can influence in the smallest, but most meaningful ways if we just open ourselves up and give a little, okay, one last little example and I'll just use work, right? Most of us have jobs. And in those jobs we associate with other coworkers or customers on some level, and those relationships can be challenging and work environments. Um,<laugh> ever changing, not always positive, huge part of our lives, um, for better or worse. Right? So how about trying to be an influencer for good in your workplace? Maybe don't go down that rabbit hole. When everyone starts complaining about, you know, X, Y, Z, the vacation policy or the pay, or an manager, maybe don't jump on that bandwagon and get pulled into all of that negativity. Maybe stand up and be an influencer for good, try to make change happen. You maybe, you know, met with a lot of resistance. Um, sometimes you need to just be a head nodder and go along with things. Hey, I get it. But showing leadership in your place of work by being positive can do nothing but good things for you for those around you. And the best possible outcome, I think is when your influence, when your positivity spreads to others, that's when the game changes. And that to summarize is what I'm trying to do here. Just trying to be an influencer for good, trying to spread a little joy and happiness to my people, singles like me, people who have found themselves in a difficult spot in life and are trying to make the most of it. Thank you all so very, very much for listening to season two, episode three influencer for good. It just means the world to me that you guys have come back after my long hiatus and are helping to spread the word about the podcast with other singles in your life or people that you may just think would get a kick out of this. I totally appreciate it. That's how podcasts grow by word of mouth. And so coming up next, here's your little teaser season two episode four. Hmm. Gonna have to put a positive spin on this one because the title is single a F and I don't even mean to trivialize it. Sometimes I'm disappointed in myself that the title of the podcast is man shopping with Stacy<laugh> because it comes across so shallow and does not at all encompass what I talk about on this podcast.<laugh> my fear is always that people will think this is only about dating or that I am a man basher, or that this is just something silly and flippant and that they should just brush off and not take seriously. Um, but those are my insecurities to deal with right? On the, on the flip side, it is catchy, right? That's obviously another reason why I kept the title, but the larger reason is because it's the name of the book that I'm writing. And I am trying to build a platform at the end of the day, and I am not, um, gonna shy away from that. I mean, I am trying to grow my Instagram followers. I am trying to, to increase my podcast listeners, but it's because it's part of a bigger piece to the puzzle that I hope to be able to publish more and more books and, and grow, you know, I would call it an audience, but it's people who are interested in the topics that I talk about and write about. And it's a sense of community that I wanna be a part of. And I want to learn from, I say all the time that this podcast and my writing is a huge tool for self discovery for myself. And so those are the conversations that I have had with my daughter Laney and my family and my close friends. Like they understand my intentions and my motives and my heart and they, they get it. They just get it.