Don't Shrink! Embrace Your Power, Make an Impact!

Here's why you need to not shrink right now. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And welcome to the Wheat Cast. Hi, friend. As I sit here recording this podcast, I don't feel like I'm alone with my podcast producer, Neil. I don't imagine I'm sitting here all by myself in my office. I imagine that I'm sitting in a room with you and with every other listener of the Weenie cast right now.

If you've been paying attention to world events, the election on Tuesday didn't go the way that most of us wanted. It was a huge hit for women's rights, for the rights of LGBTQ folks, for any marginalized group. And while I haven't put all my thoughts together, here's kind of what is going on in my mind is that this is a huge sign that there's a lot of fear in the world. I don't think that the people who voted for Trump are necessarily bad people. I think they're extremely fearful.

I think they listened to someone who pointed to some negative things that have been happening in their lives and then pointed to a bunch of other people and said, they're the villains. They're the ones to blame. Vote for me and I'll protect you from them. And unfortunately, without casting any dispersions on them, they believed him. And for the rest of us who don't live that way, who don't live making decisions from a place of fear, it really hurts. It feels like a betrayal.

So in this episode, we're probably not going to laugh as much as we normally do, but I want to cover a few things.

First and foremost, we have to talk about self care, because you, my love, cannot pour out of an empty cup. We're then going to talk about what you can do with your business, to set yourself up, to be prepared for whatever is coming and to also make a huge fucking difference in what is to come. And then we're going to talk about mindset. How do you keep your head and your heart in the game when all this is happening around us? And this isn't just for my American listeners.

This is for my listeners all around the world who are watching what's going on right now everywhere, and are feeling really concerned. Before we get into any of that, I want to point to you. Yes, you, right there, sitting where you are, or standing or walking, however you're listening to this podcast, in this room that we're all sitting together in. If you're feeling hurt right now, if you're feeling scared, if you're really worried for what is to come, I know it doesn't feel good.

I know it feels like this heavy, hollow weight in your chest. At least that's what it feels like for me. But this shitty feeling that you're experiencing right now is actually a sign of how much power you hold. The power it takes to feel concern and care for people you don't even know, whom you've never met, who you probably will never meet.

The ability to care about our world, about our earth, about nature, about every aspect that is going to be impacted in the next few years, that's not something that can be taught. Your ability to want more for other people, yes, of course, because you know it means more for you as well. But because you believe that they deserve more, that is a superpower. Love is a really powerful thing. And the fact that you have love for so many, that is the part that gives me hope. You give me hope.

The fact that you show up and you listen to this podcast and you want to make a difference and you want to do work that you love and you want to bring joy to the world, that gives me hope. So please, never give up. Don't turn your back on that part of yourself. Don't numb out, don't disassociate. We need that care and that love now more than ever. And I firmly believe we will get through this together if we're each determined to be the light in the darkness.

So, first and foremost, you can't do that if you're not taking care of yourself. You can't show love and compassion and care to others if you're not showing love and care and compassion to yourself. Actually, that's bullshit. I know you can. We do it all the time. We're able to treat others far more nicely than we treat ourselves. But when we don't take care of ourselves and when we're unkind to ourselves, that is when we are opened up to being driven by fear.

So your new regimen for self care is you have to stay hydrated. You have to sleep enough. For men, that's between seven and eight hours. For women, that's actually between nine and 10. Get as much as you possibly can as close to those numbers. Any habits that you have that cause more stress, you're gonna cut out. This may be alcohol. If you've done any research on alcohol, alcohol actually spikes all of your stress hormones.

Even though it does make you feel relaxed in the moment, it makes it worse over the next days. So if you've been flirting with the idea of going dry or really cutting back on your alcohol consumption, I highly recommend it right now. And you are going to limit your exposure to things that upset you. There's a fine line between staying informed and just triggering yourself over and over. And lastly, you're going to find your support system. This may not be your family.

In a lot of cases, it's not. You're going to build lines of communication with people who, you know feel the same way you do, who you know you can trust to be energetically responsible with you. So if there are friends who are on the same political side as you, but they're doomsdayers, and that doesn't serve you, you get to set up a boundary with them, and you get to engage with people as much as you want, so long as your needs are being met.

Before we talk about the impact that you get to have throughout this troubling time, we need to talk about you owning your power.

And I know it doesn't feel like it, but you are powerful. You are so powerful. There is a reason why they want to take away the rights of women, of LGBTQ folks, of anyone who doesn't fit the mold of the cisgendered straight, white Christian, because they know how powerful we are. But for you to access that power, you have to feel safe. You have to feel like you are grounded in a place that supports you and allows you to be who you are.

So I know a lot of folks in my world are talking about moving to a new place, either within the United States or outside of the United States. There's an argument absolutely to be made for staying and doing what you can to change things. Absolutely, if that's where you have access to your power. But if you do not, then you do. You boo, you go where you need to go. You keep yourself safe and grounded in your power. You can make an impact from anywhere in the world.

Another part of owning your power is seeing where you get to be powerful. Little P and Big P. Which brings us to impact. In times like this, it's real tempting to try to do everything. It's tempting to make a list of all the things that you care about and all the causes you want to support and all the folks you want to be there for and all the groups that you want to be there for. And if you can handle that, then more power to you.

But I'm here to tell you that we can't care about everything and have as big an impact. So if you Care about the environment, and you care about it more than everything else. Full permission to go all in on doing environmental work. If you care about racial equality more than you care about the other stuff. Full permission to go all in on racial equality work if you care about women's rights, about the rights of lgbtq. Pick your lane.

Pick your lane and make the biggest impact you possibly can. I'm a very big believer that if we all just picked a cause and gave it our all, we would make the world a much better place. And it's really the difference of, would you want to have an inch of progress in 12 different directions, or would you want to have 12 inches of progress in one direction? So pick your cause and get involved.

Your impact is not just limited to the work that you do, to the volunteering that you do, to the money that you give. It is also in who you are every single day. So be your favorite version of yourself every single day. That is the greatest act of defiance. Be the person whom you most enjoy being. Devote time and energy into the things that you love, into giving yourself joy, into creating joy all around you. This means get artistic. Start creating things. Write a book. Paint.

Even if you're not good at any of it. Create something just for the sake of creating. The most beautiful thing about the human spirit and about how we interact with each other is that art really does impact our culture. Several years ago, I went and saw Gloria Steinem speak on a panel, and one of the most fascinating things that I've never forgotten is the point that was made that art impacts our culture, which impacts our laws.

So if you know the show Will and Grace, which is really the first sitcom that focused on openly gay characters, it started in 1998, and 17 years later, we had marriage equality in the United States. I know it seems silly that a picture or a TV show or a book might have that impact, but never forget, representation matters. That once you expose people to seeing that and having it be normalized and part of their everyday environment, it takes fear away.

It takes fear away from that being different. So create as much as you possibly can. The thing that we have to remember is that there's no stealing our joy. And the interesting thing about joy is that it's not always tied to happiness.

Joy isn't getting everything that you want all the time. Joy isn't laughing raucously at the hilarity around you. Joy is having purpose. And when you are truly joyful in yourself, you spread that joy to people all around you. Now, in your business, I know it's scary. I know you're thinking, what the fuck is going to happen? Well, let me tell you. Your new initiative is to be as successful as fucking possible by helping as many people as you possibly can. That's it.

Your new initiative is to make as much money because money is power, and money equals options. Now, some of you listening already do work that helps people, that empowers them, that allows them to have access to more of whatever it is that you help them get. Could be rights, it could be peace, it could be love, it could be success. Keep doing that work. It is needed now more than ever and for others. What you're going to start doing within your work is you're going to start creating safe spaces.

And don't overthink this. Ask your if you're not sure what kind of safe space is needed in the world that you can create through your business, ask yourself, what's the safe space that I want? Because if you want it, it is needed. And I don't care if it is hockey players against misogyny or knitters for gay pride, create that space. And your goal is to do this as fast as possible.

The faster you can amass wealth, the faster you can become more influential, more powerful, and have more options, the greater the impact you're going to be able to have in the coming years. So if you need to invest in help to do that, do it. This is not the time for diy. I'll figure it out. I'll take my time. Fuck that. Get the help you need. Make it happen. Now. As for mindset, how are you going to get yourself through this? How are you going to get up every single day?

How are you going to show up in your business? How are you going to show up for your clients? How are you going to show up in your community and be the change that the world needs to see right now? I'm going to say this as if it's simple and easy. It's not. Okay. I have so much compassion for you. If I say this and you're like, oh, God, that's so hard. It is. But it's really the only way.

Our inclination right now, as we're hearing all the scary rhetoric, so we're hearing who they want to go after, is to shrink, is to make ourselves small and invisible and to hide away. And I want a name. That is a very natural human instinct. If we were walking through the wilderness and we saw a predator, you don't want to go up screaming at the predator and be like, Hi, I'm here. I'm really tasty. Hello? That wouldn't be good. It probably would result in you getting mauled by a predator.

Don't want that for you or for myself. But we're not walking through the wilderness. Our nervous system doesn't know that, but we are not walking through the wilderness. And the more you shrink, the more you hide, the easier it is to ignore you, the easier it is to enact things that work against you. So do not shrink. Be loud, be big, be bold.

I want each and every one of you on every single fucking stage you can possibly get up on, talking about the good work that you do, talking about the impact you want to make, talking about who the fuck you are and showing everyone else. We don't shrink, we step up. I want you amassing tens, if not hundreds of thousands of followers on all the social media platforms. Because with that reach, you're going to be really hard to ignore. You're going to be really hard to step on.

The more powerful we become, the harder it will be to deal with us and the more people will listen. The FTC recently passed a new a new rule that you're not allowed to buy followers if you're also using that account to sell anything. And the reason they did this is because when we see how much impact someone has, how many people are following them, we assume it's because they have power, we assume it's because they have credibility.

We're more likely to buy from someone or to buy the thing that they tell us to buy, if they're an influencer, if they have a massive following. Which tells us that the more people who are listening to us every single day, the more people who are tuned into us, who get notifications when we share something, the harder it is to ignore us. And for each and every one of those people that you reach, that you touch every single day, you'll be able to share the things that you care about.

Whatever area you've decided to have impact on, to organize around, you'll be able to point to it and say, hey, pay attention here. This matters. You care about these things. Cool. Let's do something about it. Do not shrink. Take up as much space as possible. There's a really common story that happens when people start manifesting the, the life that they want, right?

So you'll have perhaps a middle aged woman who is married, has a couple kids, works corporate job, and she just decides, I want to go on a manifestation journey. I want to have everything that I want. I want to Have a successful business. I want this. I want that. And what always happens if she's doing the work correctly is she ends up losing relationships. You know, I can't tell you how common it is that someone will start that journey and then end up getting divorced.

That someone will start that journey and be like, you know what? I hate this house. I'm going to move that. They'll have to go. No contact with some relatives that they realize are really harmful to them, that they quit their jobs or get fired. Even better. The universe has a way of setting you on the right timeline to get what you want. But if your life is already full of a bunch of junk that doesn't surprise, guess what has to happen first. Some shit has to burn down.

Some structures need to go away. Relationships that are getting in the way of you getting what you want, they have to end. I know this feels like the world is ending right now, but so does a divorce. So does losing a job. We have each and every one of us, gone through some kind of variation of our world ending before. And I just want to remind you, you're still here. The world did not end. I'll bet you things actually got better on the other side.

And I want you to remember back to that moment where things started crumbling, where you were panicking and melting down and thinking, oh, my God, this is it. That feeling did not last. Because what actually happened is that that whatever it was that crumbled actually made space for something better to come along. And I need you to remember that something better is coming. And just like with a marriage ending and a new partner coming into your life takes time.

And just like job loss is really traumatic, and then it takes a while to get your next job. This will take some time, but you cannot lose hope. Our minds are the most powerful thing in this world. I firmly believe that. So what we all need to do collectively is train our minds to identify all the opportunities to make the world better for ourselves and for everyone else. Because when we do that, we're far more likely to identify the opportunities where we can make a difference.

So, my friend, that's all I have to share today.

And as we sit in this room together, I want you to know I'm giving you a massive hug. And we will get through this, and we will be stronger together. And if this episode helped at all and it reassured you and it made you feel more grounded in the power that you have to make the world better, save it somewhere. Come back to it. If there's someone in your world who you know needs to hear this right now. Share it with them. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here.

Thank you for being in the weeniecast world, for devoting yourself to making a difference for yourself and everyone around you. The fact that you're here tells me you will. And I love.