Questioning Your Relationship With Social Media With Jamie Jensen

Jamie Jensen 0:00
You know, part of me has always loved social media and I leaned into it even before I had a business, I just loved Facebook, I love to engage in that way, like there’s a piece of it that has always felt really satisfying and natural to me and not toxic. But there has been this undercurrent of feeling like the feeling that you can’t be as at choice with it because of having a business and because of your business meeting it is, that piece is so hard to handle, because I don’t feel like I have a choice anymore. Sometimes.

Meg Casebolt 0:30
You’re listening to social slowdown, a podcast for entrepreneurs and micro businesses looking for sustainable marketing strategies without being dependent on social media. Social media is a double edged sword. It’s a wonderful way to stay connected. But it also can feel like an addictive obligation. And it’s even more complex for businesses, your audience might be right there, but you’ve got to fight with algorithms to maybe be seen by them. So whether you want to abandon social media altogether, or you just want to take a month off, it’s possible to have a thriving business without being dependent on social media. This podcast is all about finding creative, sustainable ways to engage with your audience without needing to lipsync send to cold DMS, run ads or be available 24/7. Let’s get started. Jamie, I’m so excited to have you here on the social slowdown podcast. Thank you for being here with me.

Jamie Jensen 1:24
Thank you for having me,

Meg Casebolt 1:25
y’all. I have Jamie Jensen here, Jamie, what’s your most recent URL, because I’ve known you for a while you’ve been through many of them. So tell me what your business is right now.

Jamie Jensen 1:36
So I so there are two domains. For me right now. One is just a coming soon, the website will not be live until July of 2023. That is scribing spirit.com. And that is essentially my storytelling and writing agency brand. And then the Jamie johnson.com is my personal domain that has been my domain since 2018. Ish. And it’s changed a lot, transformed a lot. But that is the current that is the current domain address at which someone can go find the tiniest information about me right now. Historically, you know, if you put that into Wayback Machine, you’d find all kinds of things. So yeah, I think people

Meg Casebolt 2:35
are so afraid to reinvent themselves. Like, there’s this fear of, well, people know me as this thing, and therefore I have to stay in that lane. And that’s one thing that I’ve admired about your trajectory is you’re like, No, that’s not what I want to be spending my time on anymore. So I’m gonna go in this direction now. So talk me through just like a brief two minute origin story. How you got here?

Jamie Jensen 3:01
Yeah, I mean, I’m gonna do my best to keep this brief. You were born in Queens, right? I was born. I was born in the Bronx, actually. But yes, I grew up in Queens, New York. So essentially, I started my business because I was a Kochi person. And like, that’s the best way that I can describe it, right? Like the reason that I stumbled into the coaching industry, which is really where how I came into the whole world of online and digital marketing prior. I mean, besides the fact that I launched, launched, I’m saying launched because I’ve been in digital marketing for so long, but I wrote a feature film digitally on the internet, and had actually began paying attention more to digital marketing in that phase, which was in I guess, we shot the movie, I think, in 2012 2011 2012. And then it was released digitally in 2013. So same year that I opened doors to my business, essentially. And I had started as a coach. Now my background is in film rights and entertainment, Film, television. But I kind of found my way into coaching because I was already really good at that type of thing. And I had friends who were in school for therapy, and it was kind of suggested to me that that might be an avenue to take. So I explored that and then quickly became the person that was very well positioned to help other people with their marketing, and their messaging and their story and the way that they were talking about themselves. And so it just I became that person in a room of folks who were trying to differentiate themselves. And my business really grew from there. I pivoted to copywriting really, pretty quickly. I had coaching clients, I want to say about four to six months into my business, I fired all of them and decided to go all in on copywriting but the truth is for me, I’ve always had some arm that was teaching some arm that was coaching and some harm that was done for you more strategic and Creative Services. So essentially, that looked like an agency for the first four years of my business. And then I shut that down and decided to pivot more into trying to do essentially more coaching and more one on one in general. A couple about four years after I was doing that I started burning out on courses. Yep. And so even though I had some incredible coaching programs that I had birthed and put out there and set up sales systems for that were beautiful and amazing and working. Late 2021, I greet resignation and burned that down. I was kind of like, oh, this is interesting, every four years, I just want to have a few nixing cycles. So I just honored that I was like, Wow, this another four years later, I think this is just like right on time, I’m not going to judge myself for it like, this is fine. And so that sort of led me to where I am now. Because that was about two years, almost two years ago now. And I kind of came to this conclusion that even though I had burned down my original agency brand, which was your hot copy.com I and then really had this big desire to like feel expressed and true. And like I had my own personal brand. I’m now I’m kind of coming into a space where it feels really yummy. Again, to have a brand that isn’t my name, and to have a brand outside of myself. And so that that’s sort of how we’ve landed here, the brands that I’ve that I’ve created, you know, the website that’s going to be born in July is it stands for something bigger than me, which is the other reason why and I kind of believe that about branding, it’s you know, what I do with folks when they’re doing personal branding, as well as like we really hone in on you know, it’s bigger than you and I think that that matters, for a series of reasons, mental health reasons as well as, as well as like sales and marketing reasons. But it just felt true for me to have this like separate umbrella that was detached from me. And that then I you know, I still am a personal brand I am who I am I do what I do. My expertise is what my expertise is, I am a storytelling expert. I’m a marketing expert. I am a writing and creative process expert. It’s just who I am. It’s what I live, breathe and do in life. And with clients. So all of those things remain true. But that is that is the briefest origin story of where we are now and how we got here.

Meg Casebolt 7:26
I think that’s so important for people to hear, like we we are in these Phoenix cycles, where we are constantly evolving and burning things down and rising from the ashes of what we created and taking what we learned from whatever the previous iteration of what we were doing. And it’s and like evolving it into the next thing and it is never for almost nobody is it a linear journey, but you listen to people’s webinars, or you listen to their origin stories on most podcasts where they’re the host isn’t me. I’m like, No, I don’t think that’s on that work. And it’s like, well, I had no money. And then I had $14 million. Like, nobody stories are actually like, I started a copywriting agency. And then I just grew it infinitely forever.

Jamie Jensen 8:14
Yeah, I yeah, I have a whole I have a whole like, I hate the rags to riches story. I think that it’s actually really damaging for people that that’s what they’re seeing. It’s what they believe they have to do in order to sell and who they have to be. And then if they don’t have a story, or if they feel like they’re in the middle of their story, they can’t show up. And like talk about themselves or have any stories and I’m like, this is this is BS. This is not the truth of like, how you how you have a brand and how you have a brand story that works for you. Like, it’s just, it’s just not it’s just not at

Meg Casebolt 8:55
all about this in circumstances where we’re not acknowledging the privilege that we are born into or that we have built for ourselves. Then there’s these two listing expectations of you know, I’m sorry, Lewis house, you may have slept on your sister’s couch once, but you’re still a you know, heterosexual cisgendered white, upper class male, right, like and so this this idea that everyone starts from home plate is just not the case. You know, a lot of people are starting at second or third base and then going look, look at what a great hitter I was like, No, you, you were not starting at the same place. So we can’t have the same expectations. You don’t have the same systemic oppressions in your life that other people do. And so this rags to riches story. I mean, I come to it from a systemic, but what you’re saying about like, if you don’t if you didn’t grow up in a difficult situation, suddenly your story isn’t valid or you have nothing that you can share or people can’t learn from you is also a Bullfrog narrative

Jamie Jensen 10:01
or like it won’t convert, right? Like, they think that that’s like the only story that people will buy into and that your story has to model, the client journey that you’re taking your client on. Like, it has to be the same. It’s like it does not have to be the same. This is not this is not how storytelling works. This is not how, like the psychology of of storytelling for marketing works. It’s just, it’s, it’s false.

Meg Casebolt 10:26
And I love that approach of like, this is not how storytelling works. As somebody coming out of the film industry, where you start, you didn’t come into it from marketing, it was like, No, I’ve done the feature film I understand, you know, whether it’s the hero’s journey, or whatever the framework is that you’re using, like starting from that, and then going, well, how does this apply to my marketing and my personal brand in a brand that’s bigger than a personal brand? And how do I decide how big I want to get? Because the default narrative is bigger is better. But I think hearing your story about like, I had the agency I contracted it, I had the clients, I fired them, you know, like, it’s very much like a Hoberman sphere of energy, where you can grow the team and you can build the agency. But then you have to hold the space in the container for the people who are working for you. And you have to hold that many more clients versus if you contract, if you bring yourself smaller, you can go deeper with those clients, but then you have a cap to your income. So then probably you’re also blowing up and it just this like constant like inhale, exhale, and our businesses where we have to find the right levels.

Jamie Jensen 11:33
Yeah, it’s funny the year that I decided, in 2021, when I made the choice, it aligned with this year that every seven years, like this is sort of a this is in Israel, and it’s like a Jewish thing. I’m a Jewish person. I didn’t even know about this, because I’m not not really Jewish enough to know these things. But I had a person in my life who was I’m gonna say more Jewish than I am. Which like, it’s not because I’m not 100% Jewish, I am 100%. Jewish, if we’re talking about ethnicity and lineage, I am a descendant of I’m a descendant of four Holocaust survivors, that is 100% my lineage it is like not it’s, there’s no half, there’s no half disease, it’s just what it is. But in terms of like, you know, how I identify and do all spiritual, cultural, religious, you know, there are pieces of, you know, every culture and religion that really aligns with me, but it was shared with me that every seven years, there’s a sabbatical year. And what that means is, even in Israel, they like they don’t tell the land, they like don’t try to get more crops out of the earth, they like, let everything rest, the profits are like given back to the community. And there’s like a pause. It’s not like, we’re just going to keep growing infinitely and keep trying to get more and more and more in suck as much as we can and extract from the earth and right, it’s, the attitude is like, it’s seven years, and then we reset, and we start over. There’s no infinitely growing concept like capitalism, where it’s just this like this bubble of constant like, it’s like filling a balloon, and then seeing how big it can fill before it explodes. And I had no idea that this existed, right? Like I didn’t even know about this practice. But I ended up having this conversation out of my decision to take this sort of sabbatical time after 2021. And it was an interesting perspective, because, you know, when you’re talking about the energy expanding and contracting, we really do have to ask ourselves, like, like, is infinitely growing really the most, like, sustainable to human life concept? And I mean, that on an individual and collective level, like,

Meg Casebolt 13:49
Yeah, our planet cannot survive if we have 10 billion people on it. Yeah, we’re only at eight. We’re getting there, though. To me, I have big environmental concerns. But you know, even at a smaller level of these businesses that we’re running, or the goals that we have for our lives, like we cannot all take up more space we cannot all grow infinitely like there it’s like matter can only like every every I’m looking for the physical physics Yeah. Jamie, do you not know you’re not a physics professor on top of everything else. But this idea that there’s like a consistent amount of matter. And if you get rid of some then like, it has to be stuff moved somewhere else. So like when you burn something, it turns into smoke. It’s it’s not that you can just hoard and take more all the time. So when you when you need more energy for yourself, it’s like you almost have to pull it from somewhere else. Yeah. And if you need more energy for your business, you might be pulling it from your Personal tanks, you know, like it’s, it can be a really hard give and take. And the expectation of constantly having enough is just not reasonable. So I know when you and I were like, we should have this conversation and record it. You were like, I want to talk about like the the mental health side of things. Yeah, let’s move in that direction of ads, you’re doing these expanding, attracting and doing your own marketing and helping other people with their marketing and building your own brand while holding space for others? Like, that’s a lot of mental capacity that you had to hold. Yeah. A lot of the big questions. Yeah. And

Jamie Jensen 15:34
the funny thing is, um, like, the funny thing is, I’m like, I don’t even I, you said a lot of things quickly. So I don’t know that I caught all of it either. But the other pieces, like, I’ve also been writing movies, and like working in that realm, and doing the sort of the emotional labor with myself of being vulnerable in that way, and also doing that work. And so I just also, I’m like, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because I, I questioned what it means to be burned out. Like, really, I think that there are so many different definitions. You know, I was with a friend, you know, last week, and I just said to her, I’m like, I just like, I don’t know, this week, I just like, don’t feel like working. I just don’t care right now. I just don’t feel like it. And it became this joke where she’s like, I think you’re burned out? And I’m like, No, I don’t think it’s that. And she goes, Well, maybe you just need time off. I’m like, I took like four months off last year. Like it’s not, this isn’t what it is. Like, that’s not what it is. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Because there are I feel like there are layers to it. I feel like there’s the emotional exhaustion of doing something. And like the grief of feeling like it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to. Right. There’s like, there’s that layer. And then there’s the layer of like, actually putting out more than you’re getting back, which I think a lot of folks do, period, I think regardless. And again, we’re talking about like social media. So when we think about marketing, in general, there is this sort of, there’s an in there’s, there’s no measure of what enough is like you, you really have to set it for yourself. And I think that it’s really challenging. I listen, I was having a conversation with a entrepreneur friend last night, and she’s also been in business 10 years, and she’s having a rough period. And the conversation we’re having is, you know, it’s really hard to know if the season she’s in is like a spiritual thing that she’s going through. Is it her? Is it? Is it energetic? Is it is it a result of like marketing less over the last six months isn’t an economic issue, is it messaging, and like positioning, and like the choices she’s making in the offers she’s putting out, like, there are so many variables that it can be so challenging to point to one and be like, well, that’s the problem that I need to fix for things to to, like be working again, or to feel different, or for sales to start coming in and for leads to charge start showing up. And I think there are a lot of folks who are promising a solution. And they’re promising it as if it’s a permanent solution, when like, there is no permanent solution to anything. So I know I’m kind of off on a tangent about just this concept of like, hitting a low point or feeling really, you know, disappointed burnt out grieving, sad. Like there are so many, when you’re kind of hitting the low of business not feeling exciting, or you don’t have the dopamine rush or the motivation to do what you need to do. You kind of end up in this pool of like, does defining an even help? You know what I mean? Like, does it help us call it burnout? You know, does or like, will you just cry it out and feel better tomorrow and keep going? Like I don’t? I don’t know. You know, I think that and then like, I feel like I’ve read so many articles about what the definition of burnout is. And I had I was on another podcast interview few months ago about like, oh, well, then you burned everything down. It’s because you were burned out. And I’m like, I wasn’t burned out. Like, I wasn’t that wasn’t. That wasn’t the like, the felt sense of my choice. I actually for a whole month just sat with it in my body and was like, this is just the right decision. It wasn’t like a rash.

Meg Casebolt 19:21
Well, no, it wasn’t physical. It was just like, This is not what I want to do. Yeah. And that’s not the same as being burned. I mean, there have been some correlations between those two feelings. But

Jamie Jensen 19:34
yeah, I don’t know. I just I, the reason I mentioned it is because I personally experience a lot of like, moments of wondering, do I still want to do this? What am I doing? I feel lost a lot like I have days like that. And then the next day I’m like, I know exactly what I’m doing. This feels this is exactly right. It’s just that when you’re on any journey at an org and or committed to anything, you’re gonna have good days and bad days and That’s not what marketing tells you. So we are led to believe that our human experience of doing hard things, which by the way, choosing entrepreneurship is a very hard thing. Like, it’s not easy. I think there are many of us who choose it because, because for me, I was always, I always was like, I just can’t, I can’t be asked to not have a certain level of creative freedom in my life, I can’t do it. Like I have projects that I need to write when like, and I can’t not write them, because it would be the greatest crime against myself to abandon the part of me that has stories to tell, I just can’t do it. If I had a full time job, I wouldn’t be able to do it to the point that it would be self honoring. And so it’s just like, regardless of neuro divergence, mental health, etc. My choice ultimately came down to that, but that it comes a lot of stuff that is just hard.

Meg Casebolt 20:59
As you were talking about, like, some days are just hard. Yeah, sometimes there are more variables that you can consider. And sometimes you just doubt, every single decision of your life, I come back to like, the film and the storytelling side of things, which is like the universal story is filled with self doubt. Yeah. And there’s a point where you in some stories, the trajectory is you overcome the self doubt, and you go pursue the dream and you are satisfied. And there are a lot of stories out there where it’s like, Nope, that’s not the dream anymore. And maybe the achievement of what you thought the goal was, becomes the motivation for what you actually need. And I can, I mean, I’m a romance novel lover. So I can tell you a million stories and that way where they get what they want, but it wasn’t what they need. And I think that happens to us in our businesses. And then we have to go like, Oh, shit, I got what I wanted. I got no, maybe not. I got what I was told I was supposed to want. I’m supposed to want this huge social media following. I’m supposed to want this hyper automated funnel, I’m supposed to want all like this, this PR that says that I’m awesome. And maybe you have all three of those things. And you have $0 in your bank account? Because yeah, seems huge. And your software expenses are high and sales just stop because who knows why, like you said, like, Is it is it my energy is my positioning is that the recession that we’re in right now is the great recession that we went through two years ago that, like there’s everything is up in the air, and there’s so much self doubt and you still have to come out? Maybe not every day, but like regularly and be like, No shit, I know what I’m doing. Look at me, give me money. I know what I’m doing. Even when that self doubt is like, in your stomach telling you that you have no clue

Jamie Jensen 22:45
what you’re doing. Totally. Yeah, it’s true.

Meg Casebolt 22:50
How social media work for you. How’s that piece of the puzzle for your business?

Jamie Jensen 22:55
It’s so complicated. Because I have such a love hate relationship with it. Like I really do. I don’t for me, it’s not all bad and all good and it’s not it’s like I it really is a love hate. And right now I don’t I’m not getting sucked into like a compare despair vortex, which is like a real easy hole to fall down with social media. And I find myself doing it occasionally. I think sometimes I’m on there really looking more for like something that feels inspiring, and something that feels innovative and something that like, pops open a new creative idea for me in terms of content and things I want to play with. So, man, it’s really complicated. I think. Sometimes I feel like I noticed that my energy is worse after I’m on social, like I’m like, Oh, I just opened this or oh, I’m, I’m you know, and I’m addicted. Like I’m not even in a question mark about it. I have an absolute addiction to social media. I don’t think that I even utilize it as strategically for my business as I could as much as I just am addicted to it. Like I have an anxious attachment to social media. And there’s layers for me, lino layer one is that I’ve been working as a solopreneur for 10 years. I don’t report to an office. I don’t have a community outside of myself that is physically in my real life. I mean, I have friends and a community. But in terms of the day to day, there’s no water cooler, there’s no, like, Hang space. And for me, social media has become that it’s become like the place where I get my connection fix. And so sometimes it satisfies it, and sometimes it doesn’t. You know, I think

Meg Casebolt 24:45
I’m taking over our Slack channel to replace social media for you. Here’s what our topic is for today.

Jamie Jensen 24:54
I’m here for it.

Meg Casebolt 24:56
You wouldn’t be in poly and dusty. Who else is gonna be like, we need to get worse.

Jamie Jensen 25:00
I’m here for it. Listen, I have I can’t tell you laughter So 2021 when I shut everything down, I really for the first four months was like in this question mark around my relationship with social media because I was choosing to go on like a marketing diet. It was like an intentional, it wasn’t about oh, I don’t want to work was like I don’t want to market. I don’t want to market and sell, I want to re examine my relationship with marketing and sales. I want to look at how, how it the dopamine, like rush for me around selling around money around revenue around like, what I’m getting out of marketing, you know, that I really wanted to have this, this moment of silence around all of those things. So I could pay attention to the nuance of texture and myself of like, when do I feel myself getting hooked? Like it’s addictive. And like, I don’t have control over it versus versus when I’m in a space of like, Oh, I’m just methodically doing the next thing. And so, you know, that was it was like this intentional diet I was putting myself on to just be an exploration of what it feels like to then reintroduce some of those things.

Meg Casebolt 26:10
And like, it really could feel like an elimination diet. Like I tried to stay away from language around diet culture, but when you’re sitting reintroducing things to see how they can feel like, you know, okay, my, my stomach’s off. So I’m going to cut out gluten and dairy and soy and see how I feel. And then I’ll slowly add them back in and notice the reactions in my body, but instead of it being like a gastro, I mean, it could be a gastrointestinal thing. But you’re noticing that like polyvagal, like fight or flight of adrenaline, cortisol, like what’s happening with your dopamine, what’s happening in your brain when you go back on these platforms? And, and I think you said something really interesting, which is like, sometimes your energy shifts, and you realize that after you come off, and I think sometimes our energy shifts when we’re on the platform, and sometimes we lead, like we go seek out those tools, because we’re feeling a certain way. Yeah, you know, maybe the you feel lower. But it’s partly because you were already low. And so you wanted social media to be a stand in for you in some way you were looking for connection. And so when I’m feeling lonely, I pick up my phone and the first thing that I go to might be those channels, because I’m feeling lonely. And if I don’t feel that connection, I’m speaking to me now, I’m not trying to like put words in your mouth. But like, if I don’t feel some sort of connection after doing that, then I feel lower instead of feeling higher, because my expectation was some sort of connection. Whereas if I’m just doing it as well, I need to create something for my marketing and I need to engage in the DNA like that feels very different than what do I expect to get out of this tool?

Jamie Jensen 27:43
Yeah, yeah, I think yes, I just am I’m just I’m just nodding, I’m guessing I don’t have like it’s, yeah, reach its true. Identify with all of that all of that feels true for me also. So there’s so there’s the layer for me that’s like connection, which is a human need, right? I don’t look at it like it’s that’s just the human need piece. But then when you’re being hit with like, the dopamine and the shame, shame, arrows, and like, the Compare and despair and the whatever, instead of like this feeling of belonging, or which I get both like I am in groups on Facebook, I am in communities, I feel like I curate my feeds pretty well. So there really is a mixed bag. And then there’s a second layer around self expression, where like, I just have, I’m just a torch carrier and a torch lighter. It’s just part of who I am. And so even though sometimes, my rejection sensitivity kicks in, and I get afraid to post things that feel really spicy. And, by the way, my desire to post those things has nothing to do with business. Like it’s like, I just it has like almost nothing to do with like, I’m doing good job marketing. I’m like, I just have shit to say like, I don’t really, this is zero. This is doesn’t even connect to my messaging, like completely. So it’s a funny like, piece there where I just, I just want to have shit to say I want to be able to go say it when I have a question for the community. I want to go ask it when I you know, and so some of my addiction is like, when it’s here, I just want to go blast it out. I don’t want to like be in a oh, well, for two hours a day is when I’m doing social media. And then the RET it’s like I’m like, I’m kind of just in a relationship with social media all the time. And then it’s managing if it’s toxic or healthy.

Meg Casebolt 29:37
I really like that. Because I feel like when you’re in a relationship with somebody, you don’t wait until they get home from work to have that you’re just like, I’m gonna text you and see what’s going on with you. And like, while we were on my husband texted me and was like, hey, what do you want? You know, like, it’s just how you are when you’re in relationship. You have that impulsive connection with people. And like, when you have a question, you ask the question, you don’t get Like, you have to wait around for it and you can ask and get in. That’s the other thing about social as you get immediate feedback from somebody, your question or your thought goes out based on the algorithm, it goes out to, you know, maybe 10% of your your followers right away. And if they respond to it, it goes on to more and more and more. So it’s like, if you can hit the timing of it, right? You get immediate feedback to that impulsive need that you had, that you’re not gonna get if you’re just texting one friend, and they’re in a meeting, you know? Yeah, it’s a level of engagement, like fast, rapid engagement. Especially when you don’t want to wait till you know, oh, well, I go on social from 10 to 1015. Every morning.

Jamie Jensen 30:43
It’s just not my vibe. No. It’s not my vibe, also, because like, I yeah, I don’t, there’s a level of like, what is the structure that’s going to support you, and when is it like too constricting of a structure, and for me, deciding that I have some strict boundary, and then like, sit like, this is what it is, is like, just so unhelpful. Like, I’m like, Well, I’m just setting myself up to fail, or to then like, want something and not be able to satisfy it. Like, it’s just, it’s just, it’s like a diet, like, it doesn’t really work for me. So that’s like, the second piece. The third piece is like, I do make money on social media, like, it does work for me for my business. And I think even though I’ve had this undercurrent, this low key desire for probably my whole business, you know, part of me has always loved social media, and I leaned into it even before I had a business like I was like, I just loved Facebook, I love to engage in that way. Like I’ve it’s, there’s a piece of it, that has always felt really satisfying and natural to me and not toxic. But But there has been this undercurrent of feeling like the feeling that you can’t be as at choice with it, because of having a business and because of your business meeting, it is, that piece is so hard to handle, because it does feel like I don’t feel like I have a choice anymore. Sometimes. And even though I’ve focused a lot on building a mailing list over the 10 years of my business and prioritize that over social media in terms of growth, I still feel I mean, I’ve even the data will, I will, there’s data, I can point to that, which it wasn’t always true. But in the last, you know, year, I would say that half of my revenue has been because of engaging on social media posting on social media making offers on social media, and even if I’m using my mailing list to I’m still getting a combination of like, it’s social media, its mailing list, it’s all those pieces. And they work as an engine of like, if someone is exposed to something, they’re getting exposed in multiple places, and that’s helpful for visibility, it’s helpful for marketing, for people to see it, especially organic marketing, like I’m not paying to make sure someone see something seven times, but if I’m on, if they’re on my email list, and my Instagram and my Facebook, you know, or if they’re on two or three, two out of three of those platforms, then like I’m guaranteed they’re gonna get see something at least once, if not multiple times over the course of a launch or a promotion. So that’s, that’s sort of been my marketing strategy for the last forever. And I’ve had this fantasy that I will remove the necessity of marketing on Instagram or marketing on Facebook. But the reality is, like, when I look at the data, I don’t know that my business could financially sustain that I would have to like really pull myself into another very specific strategy. And I don’t know, I don’t even know that another strategy would suit my personality type, honestly. So it’s such a sticky, complicated, you know, thing and, and I do get sucked into vortexes of compare and despair, I do feel that my I scroll a lot more than I engage a lot more than I promote a lot more than I am posting content, you know, and sometimes that scrolling does feel productive, because you are getting ideas for things you want to do especially with especially with short form video, like it’s important. You can’t you can’t tick tock or real without looking at TIC TOCs and reels you have to understand what’s trending to get ideas, you have to find sounds that are working. And that’s fun. You know, it is genuinely fun. But but it’s like that what is that balance of like, it serves your creativity to do it and it feels like a fun thing. Versus like, this is a job I gave myself but because of how connected social media is to who you are as a person, right? It’s like, it is you engaging and so everything does feel personal. It feels personal when people don’t like or share or engage or comment it feels personal. When I post something funny and people don’t laugh, which by the way doesn’t happen they never do. I’m like, I’m like, What the hell? I’m sorry.

Meg Casebolt 35:03
You have an upgraded version of Instagram where you hear people laugh when

this comes back also, you mentioned it really briefly, but let’s talk about rejection rejection sensitivity. Yes. Rejection sensitivity, dysphoria, I can’t even say it. But that like feeling of when people don’t like something, or when they don’t respond to something, and your, your brain just assumes they don’t like it. How does that impact everything else that you’re doing and how you’re feeling about it?

Jamie Jensen 35:37
I mean, here’s the truth. The truth is that, like, all of this depends on the day, right? It’s like, if you’re having a bad day, if I’m in luteal, and I’m highly sensitive, and I’m on the verge of like, wanting to burn my whole life down, because that’s just what PMS is for me. Then it’s, yeah.

Meg Casebolt 35:57
Talk to me next week, I’ll be much nicer. It’s fine. Yeah,

Jamie Jensen 35:59
like, it’s just gonna hit different. I think there’s the other reality of the hormonal cycles that women moving literally physically have, like, I am not a man, I do not experience the world as a man, I change every day, every week of the month, I’m a different person. You know, like, I there’s resilience I have in certain weeks that does not exist in other weeks, it is just the reality, and I am already a highly sensitive person. I am undiagnosed neurodivergent ADHD, but I have been diagnosed with a series of other things throughout the course of my life. And I have always known I was highly sensitive. Like, in high school, I like didn’t go to school a lot of the days and like, studied from home. And, like, got great grades and graduated well and went to great universities, but but I was I would cry and not and begged my mother to not make me go to school. And it was so like, the sensory experience of it was so intense for me that I just was like, there were days that I just couldn’t do it. And I still have that I still and I would say that it does correlate to hormonal cycles as well for me. But you know, so in terms of rejection sensitivity, there are definitely days where like, when I feel lit up, you know, I’m usually surprised because I’m like, that was a smart post, like, why is anyone paying attention? I’m fucking genius. And like, so it’s more just like what the fuck, you know, and like more like the algorithm or whatever, right? That’s more the response you’ll get. But then there are days when I’m like a little sensitive little nugget, and I’m so tender and I want to crawl under my cozy blanket on the couch and just cry and eat soup and watch watch Shonda Rhimes shows. And there are days like that, where if I choose to still post something, I have to be able to hold myself in a different place because I’m gonna have more of a like a tender little nugget, like I don’t want to let you know it’s like a totally different vibe. And I don’t I don’t I’m not the same person every day of the month, every day of my life. So it’s, it’s I think that that feels like the most challenging piece of navigating social media is like do I still choose to like put stuff out there when I know that the response or lack of response or even more sometimes I’m like afraid of responses because I’m like, I don’t really want to have conversations or engage in a fucking thread or just it’s just not where I am today. So for me I usually just move with myself and make choices based on where I am but if I’m in the wrong mood, and I don’t get the response that I want like it does start to send me somewhere I do start to go on a little magic carpet ride into sat down and question like whether I should be using social media at all is is usually where that leads me so yeah, that’s the truth.

Meg Casebolt 39:16
I imagine also on those days where you are a sad little nugget as you said like the sensitivity is up the overstimulation is up so even if you’re not creating the engagement and feel very like yeah, the and hot

Jamie Jensen 39:36
Oh, yeah. Yeah, like even engaging in other folks posts or seeing what other people are posting or it’s an interesting it’s an interesting space

Meg Casebolt 39:48
and it’s out of your control. Because so much is out of your control. So when you went on your your marketing, not just social media, but your your marketing elimite I

Jamie Jensen 39:58
was still I was still you Using social media, I just wasn’t intentionally trying to market and sell. It was like a choice.

Meg Casebolt 40:05
And then when you started to add things back in and see how they felt, what were the, what was the experience there? How did things feel as you moved back in?

Jamie Jensen 40:16
Well, I didn’t really slowly. So I started by like, what do I want to put out there now? You know, and what do I even want to express? And what do I want to say? And what do I have to say? And then what offer do I want to make? And so the first thing that I ended up putting out was a coaching program, like a lower ticket, longer term coaching program around like, intuition. And it was a very, it was around like creative birthing and intuition, and small group, six people. And so I just followed my inspiration is the honest answer, and how it felt was, like, exciting and vulnerable and fun. And I did it with very little attachment to the outcome. You know, I wasn’t grinding it in the way that I think the, I think the way that I would launch programs previously, was very grinding towards an outcome. Doing everything, right, hitting all the marks, like pushing myself to do like everything consistently on every channel in a particular way. You know, there was a lot of, I want to call it perfectionism, but I do feel that it is, it is best practices for marketing. And for a launch to do it that way. It’s just that as a human, with a small team. That isn’t always really a sustainable choice. You know, particularly for someone like me, who’s you know, moody little moody, cutie. So when I came back into it, I kind of made this choice of like, I was really following my intuition and following my body and following where I was guided and really listening, like I was very, I was very tuned in. And so it didn’t feel heavy. It felt like, oh, like, I know, I was this reminder of like, Oh, I know what I’m doing. I know how to market I know, I know how to launch like, and because I’ve done it so much, I can just do it. And I have the ability to do it this way. It’s kind of like I’ve worked out for so long, I could go to the gym, without a trainer and just make something up and have a great workout. Because I’ve been working out since I was like 15. And I feel like I’m I’m kind of in this place now with marketing where I know how to do it. So I get to kind of really be at choice with how I operate there instead of trying to learn strategies, and, you know, like, learn the rules before you break them kind of thing, right? It’s like part of

Meg Casebolt 42:53
what I was thinking is I’ve had I’ve had team members who say like, Oh, I didn’t realize you did it that way. I thought that we would do it this way. And I’m like, Oh, I’ve done it that way. Right? Yeah. Like I’ve done the the three video email sequence. And I’ve done that, you know, I’ve tried the the five day challenges, and I’ve done all of these things. And that was how I determined what works for my personality, what works for agency brand, how I want to feel while going through this process. But it very much can be like you have to spend the first couple years figuring out what the rules are. So you figure out which of them work and which you are allowed you which one you give yourself permission to break. Yep. I think sometimes, you know, I’m having a conversation with a lot of people who are exiting social media, I don’t I very rarely have conversations with people who are like, I never did it at all. Because it’s almost like you have to make the mistakes to realize that maybe you’re just pulling back and you’re not spending time on this platform, you’re doubling down on this one. And that’s a choice to. But that choice to minimize the choice to simplify the choice to subtract requires you to have something larger to subtract from. I would love if I could teach people how to do a minimal business from scratch, but that’s just not how humans work.

Jamie Jensen 44:13
Yeah. Yeah, that’s a great point.

Meg Casebolt 44:16
I never thought of that that way. Yeah. I also love that when you were making that adjustment from these are the best practices and these are the rules to follow. And then you contracted and then when you came back you were teaching intuition. Yeah. And letting yourself lead the conversation from a place of your gut leading the conversation versus your brain, you know, and that’s not that’s not easy. So, if people want to come follow the Jamie give them your Instagram, give them your Facebook and give them your your website and email. All the places. Yeah, I’m going to eat this Girl Scout Cookie pretzels because yeah and taunting me this.

Jamie Jensen 45:07
Oh my god, please. I am Jamie Lynn Jensen on Instagram. I am scribing Spirit also on Instagram and the Jamie johnson.com or scribing spirit.com. Very easy,

Meg Casebolt 45:21
very easy and we’ll put all of those in the show notes. Thank you so much for your honesty, your transparency, knowing exactly where you are in your cycle.

Jamie Jensen 45:34
It’s just like a part of the equation. I can’t lie.

Meg Casebolt 45:39
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to the social slowdown podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe or come on over to social slowdown.com and sign up for our email list so you never miss an episode. We’d also love if you could write a review to help other small business owners find the show you can head over to social slowdown.com/review Or grab that link in our show notes for easy access. We’ll be back soon with more tips to help you market your business without being beholden to social media Talk to you then

Please forgive any typos/errors, as this transcript was automatically generated by Otter.ai.