@Steven Dimmitt You're not a people pleaser, you're a person who people pleases sometimes :). It's awesome that you recognize your pattern of people pleasing, but we don't need to identify with our patterns! Great ownership man

@Steven Dimmitt You're welcome!

@Jennifer Esskew Well done!

YESSSS! Go for it dude! It'll be so liberating. Also check out my reply to your other comment. There's an opportunity for you to make this more about "what" and "why" issues you care about rather than the "who" of what candidate you endorse, which is what will help people understand and feel more connected to you. Regardless, just go for it and see what happens!

@Jennifer Esskew Awesome, thanks for opening up about your struggles Jennifer. These are definitely things we can help you with 😀. What are the settings in which you want to share controversial truths with people you don't know? Is it wanting to share your thoughts online? In communities you're in?

@Steven Dimmitt Love this and it's super relatable for me personally! On Wednesday's call we're going to have more open space (per your suggestion) to talk about people's specific issues, but here are some thoughts in the meantime: First a little context on the perspective I'm coming from. I've been life coaching for the last 3 years and have changed the focus of my business several times. First I just coached anyone and didn't have a specific niche, but generally focused on helping people become more confident. Then I started to focus on men's work and helping men who struggled with overthinking, addictive habits, and their romantic lives. Then it was purpose. Now it's courageous communication. Every time I switched my focus, I lost some of my audience and gained new audience. My approach is to prioritize authenticity no matter what because I belief that authenticity makes every part of the process easier: 1. Marketing becomes easier because rather than trying to find a message that pleases my audience, I'm saying what I actually believe and I've noticed that when I'm passionate about what I'm saying, my content is WAY better. 2. It makes sales easier because by the time people hop on a call with me, there's already a high chance we're a good fit for one another because they already know what I stand for and whether they like me. 3. It makes fulfillment easier because I attract clients who already feel like they know me, trust me, and like how I view the world. As a result, they are easier and funner for me to work with, and get better results. So to respond to your question, here are some considerations: 1. What kind of people do you want in your audience, and what do you want to talk to them about, that they would want to talk about too? That should dictate what conversations you're having. If you don't enjoy interacting with the people in your audience, and don't enjoy what you're talking about with them, it'll impact your desire and ability to make truly inspired content. 2. You cannot be loved by many without being hated by some 😀. The more real you are, the more you'll polarize people positively toward you, and negatively away from you. This is a good thing! It means you'll be cultivating an audience of people who are LOYAL, will advocate for you, promote you to other compatible people with shared values, and those people will be much more likely to listen to your podcast, buy your sponsor's products, buy your products, etc. If you are more neutral, you may still have listeners, but they won't be loyal fans. Think about yourself - you're probably drawn to RFK because he's so authentic and willing to polarize for what he knows to be true. And that positioning is why people gave him money, campaigned for him, and were willing to promote him, even though the establishment and mainstream media labels him a conspiracy theorist. Do you want a lot of people to be "meh" about you, or fewer people who absolutely love you and will invest in you? 3. What do you care about or love so much you're willing to be hated for it? That's my razor for deciding whether to engage. I have all sorts of things I enjoy, dabble in, and could talk about, but don't feel in my heart like I need to comment on. For example, I enjoy hip hop, but don't care enough about it to be willing to deal with the unpleasantness of being misunderstood and attacked on a regular basis. But when I think about media misinformation, dishonest politicians, existential threats, free speech, I feel so lit up that I MUST say something to feel at peace. I would rather be at war with the world than at war with myself. Being misunderstood and getting backlash is inevitable when you're being authentic. And it'll hurt. But if you care so much about something that it actually hurts you NOT to say something, that's a pretty indicator that you need to say it. 4. No, it just means you have conflict priorities that need to be reconciled. And the cool part is, because you're an entrepreneur, you have total autonomy in figuring out how to do so! If you really want to lean into talking about civilizational issues like the health crisis in America, you just need to do some reflection on what kind of person cares both about rock climbing and the health crisis in America, or at least is open to conversation about it. You can even make this fun by weaving in rock climbing analogies when talking about the latter. There's definitely a subsection of rock climbers who are more entrepreneurially minded, really value freedom, and are connected to themselves. You're an example and I know others like you. Where can you find more people like you and what kinds of conversations, services, and products are they interested in?

LOVE THIS POST! Way to show up and be real man. Really happy to have you be a part of this community. Some thoughts on the fear of being worthy of an opinion. Many people aren’t craving expertise and information. Often they just want to hear someone say what everyone is thinking, said clearly, courageously, and compassionately. There’s no shortage of information, but those are in short supply. Often the biggest political questions actually don’t require a ton of information or expertise. For example, in America, some of the biggest issues are abortion, immigration, and foreign wars. There’s an infinite amount of information you can take in about any of these topics but ultimately one’s opinions about any of them can be boiled down to two questions: 1. What are your personal values? 2. What are the collective values we should all be able to share? Most of my commentary is not that information heavy. The reason my message resonates is because I point out simple truths, obvious lies, and intuitive wisdom that we should all be able to recognize if we can take off the labels of Republican or Democrat. A recent post of mine went viral on TikTok about abortion not because it had a bunch of information in it, but simply because I pointed out a basic intuition we all share about miscarriage and what that reveals about abortion: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFjXJAUb/ Additionally, don’t be hard on yourself. There’s no need to have an opinion on every issue facing civilization. I’m guessing there are issue that you are interested though - so take some time to understand the basic arguments for the various sides of that issue. You can just ask ChatGPT or Grok “Give me the strongest argument for and against _____” and they’ll do a very good job of giving you a high level overview. From there, just follow your interest as far as they go in the topic. Maybe the AI summary is enough, or maybe you go so far as to listen to podcasts on the topic. Just enjoy the exploration and as insights naturally emerge, share em

@Max Cuartas