What if one of the most powerful things we can say is, “I don’t know?” Sharon McMahon came to our attention through her hugely popular @sharonsaysso Instragram account. Sharon’s ability to share clear, relevant and non-partisan facts about the US government and democracy with her followers has built one of the few sane, healthy communities on the internet. More than anything, Sharon is SUCH a clear thinker on why we need to have more places in our lives to say those three magical words: “I don’t know.” And to give ourselves permission to say, “I need to think about that. Let me get back to you.” Or to even give ourselves permission to say - or post - nothing at all. Laura and Sharon sat down Tuesday afternoon and we’re getting the conversation in your hands at top speed. We know there’s a real hunger for reliable information in the world, so we wanted you to meet her (if you hadn’t discovered her already) and take advantage of what she’s doing. It’s an unedited, fast-moving, fun conversation. Show notes: Sharon McMahon: https://www.sharonmcmahon.com/ Sharon’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/sharonsaysso/ Episode link: https://tmstpod.com/episodes/38-sharon-mcmahon-the-power-of-saying-i-dont-know Spotify playlist for this episode:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3BG8Wt5ROREYtUpNfY3ESv?si=PWHyWgXTSdio7YC4FRKioA&nd=1 Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/
Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen
[00:00:00] Laura McKowen: Hey there. It's Laura and I am so excited. I have something extra timely for you today. Our guests, Sharon McMahon, who many of, you know, as Sharon says so on Instagram, I know that because when I shared that she was coming on, I got literally hundreds of comments and messages. Uh, she's here. And Sharon is this woman who is setting a super powerful and just incredible example for all of us on how to behave and lead both online and offline from this place of integrity and groundedness.
[00:00:40] And humor, even when talking about serious things. She started in 2020 by sharing clear, relevant non-partisan facts about the US government and democracy, and it grew and grew and grew and grew. And lately she has expanded and [00:01:00] is providing grounded and much needed info on current topics. Like the war.
[00:01:05] She has built a big, incredible community. And one of the few like healthy sane places on the internet, it's truly a joy to be on her account and to receive the content that she posts and it's helpful. It's additive, it's expansive and she manages the community so incredibly well. More than anything.
[00:01:27] Sharon is such a clear thinker on why we need to have more spaces in our lives to say these three now radical, magical words. I don't know. And to give ourselves permission to say things like I need to think about that, or let me get back to you or even imagine not saying or posting anything at all. Sharon and I sat down on Tuesday afternoon and we're getting this conversation into your hands at top speed. We know there's [00:02:00] this real hunger for reliable information in the world now, and we love what she's doing. So we wanted you to meet her. If you haven't already and take advantage of what she's doing, it's an unedited fast moving really fun conversation.
[00:02:16] One last thing. We can do all of this at Tell Me Something True because we have listeners who are financial supporters. Your support of just five or $10 a month allows us to pay Paul, our amazing engineer and sound designer, and to keep TMST ad-free. You can go to tmstpod.com to support the show. All right, Sharon McMahon, let's go.
[00:02:53] Laura McKowen: How are you? How are you today?
[00:02:55] Sharon McMahon: I'm good. How are you today?
[00:02:56] Laura McKowen: Yeah, I'm good. It's good. It's fun. [00:03:00] I've only been following you for, I dunno, maybe six months or something, and it's so fun to see. Someone's face that you, you know, only see like in your phone or having your ears. So I know. It's wild. Um, I was, before you got on it, I said to Michael, I wonder like her life must've gotten pretty crazy, pretty fast.
[00:03:21] Sharon McMahon: True. Very true. Yes. I mean, I have been an entrepreneur for a long time. Yeah. I've been a teacher and an entrepreneur. And so my life has not to preneur has always been crazy. So I've always been extremely busy, so that aspect has not changed, but, um, the public eye aspect of my life has changed significantly to the point where, you know, like dozens of people come up to me at Disneyland now.
[00:03:50] So that is, that's been a big change for me. Yeah, that's straight. It used to just be people in my hometown that would come up to me and be like, I don't live in a very big city. So I feel like I know [00:04:00] everybody and would talk to 20 people at target. That sort of thing. That's that's been my, but when you travel and people notice you, it's like, well, where am I now?
[00:04:05] Laura McKowen: [00:04:08] Yeah.
[00:04:08] Sharon McMahon: Yeah. Totally.
[00:04:10] Laura McKowen: Well, all right. I want to get people up to speed on your work. How do you describe, I know you do many things, but how do you describe your podcasts in your Instagram account and the intention behind them.
[00:04:23] Sharon McMahon: Um, well, my Instagram account is mostly aimed at providing people non-partisan fact-based information about things like current events, current events, how the government works, uh, breaking things down into understandable chunks so that people can have.
[00:04:41] More education on a variety of topics. So they could feel more confident when they're consuming the news and confident when they are having conversations with their neighbors. Um, my goal is never to get you to necessarily agree with a certain viewpoint, but better, but to better understand. [00:05:00] What components might go into holding that viewpoint?
[00:05:03] Um, so that's part of what I do online. I'm also a philanthropist we've also raised in giving away millions of dollars, uh, in a very short period of time. Um, I also, I mean, I can't leave it unsaid that I have a strong affinity for animals that animals are on my account on a daily basis. I feel like that actually.
[00:05:28] It's not just for, it's not just because you know, uh, goats are cute. I do think that that actually serves an important purpose. First of all, I feel like no human is meant to live in a constantly heightened state of anxiety and rage. And that's not healthy. It's not normal. It's not how humans have lived throughout the entirety of time.
[00:05:55] And that is almost what's expected of us from a [00:06:00] variety of, um, places in the media, places on the web where this sort of notion that like, Everything is worth being angry about, you know what I mean? And that is, and some things are worth being angry about that's true. That's absolutely true. But some things, um, it's okay to not have an opinion on it's okay.
[00:06:23] To not know enough to form an educated opinion. And to say that it's okay to say I am leaving that open for, you know, future exploration. I don't know how I feel about that right now. That is an okay thing to say. And so in order to have that sort of white space in your intellectual development in your life, um, you need breaks from the rage machine that you are apparently expected to take part in.
[00:06:51] Uh, I disagree with that, but that is the. That's the consensus amongst a lot of other people. And so to me, like if I'm having a [00:07:00] conversation with family or friends, I mean, can you imagine if your relationship with a sibling or a parent or a spouse was raging 24/7, that that's not pleasant, right? Like you want out of that relationship, you need, it's normal for humans to have this sort of ebbs and flows and those highs and lows within a relationship and within a human experience.
[00:07:23] And so to me, it provides that. That white space or that green space, depending on how you look at it. Um, for the human mind, to be able to process things, to be able to have a breather, to be able to just be like, there's something else.
[00:07:43] Laura McKowen: It's hard to look at my cats without feeling. That there's something else going on if you instantly remember.
[00:07:51] So I get it. How, what was the realization, or maybe you've had a few that made you undertake this work because you didn't have to do that. [00:08:00]
[00:08:01] Sharon McMahon: Yeah, there was definitely one sort of, um, moment that shines brightly in my memory, which is, was in September of 2020 as we were running up into that, the heat of the 2020 election.
[00:08:15] Uh, and it was very contentious obviously, and I was on Facebook. Which I don't recommend and don't wreck a bed, but one of my friends of course, um, had posted something on her feed about how important it was to vote. You know, please consider your options carefully, et cetera. And somebody responded to her in the comments that I didn't know that person.
[00:08:41] Um, but they responded to her with some things that they were. Purporting to be factual. And that we're absolutely like that is not at all how that works. And it was a mystery that, you know, because, well, it was about the electoral college. They were, they were [00:09:00] saying things about the electoral college that was just like, What are you talking about?
[00:09:05] You know what I mean? They were, there were things that are just demonstrably, verifiably, false about what they were saying about how it functions. And there wasn't even an opinion about whether it's good or bad. And so I decided at that moment, I could either. Right back to that person who had commented on my friend's profile and be like, actually, there is no location that the entire electoral college meets.
[00:09:28] There's not an electoral college building. They'd meet in their own state capitals on a given day. Like this is me pretending to type, they are their own state capitals on a given day. And that, you know, et cetera, they just had a fundamental misunderstanding of how. So I could have done that, but then I realized that it would be like trying to put out a wildfire with one little raindrop.
[00:09:52] You know what I mean? Like it was not going that ultimately created any kind of sea change. So I decided to just make a little. [00:10:00] Hello video about how the electoral college works. And I kept her very lighthearted and I made a point of not even using the real candidates names. Right. Like I made up just like KA, Karen and Susan just made up two candidates.
[00:10:20] Um, I used some little props that were like, Stuffed animals so that people could free up defenses, that's right. It is precisely so that people wouldn't hear the words Trump and it, and immediately begin to spin into a rage. Um, and so I, again, I was hoping to signal that, like, listen, I'm not trying to tell you who to vote for.
[00:10:43] I'm just telling you, you know, if you want to vote for a tiny sheep, Karen or tiny Teddy bear, Susan, here's how that would work. You know what I mean? So that was the impetus. That was the moment that I was like, I'll just make some videos. People can [00:11:00] repost them if they want to. What did you think was going to happen?
[00:11:04] Um, what I hoped would happen was my friend. That I, you know, that I knew on social media would the next time somebody came into their comments saying, well, when they meet in the electoral college building, um, they could just post a link to the video, right. And that they could say, this is completely nonpartisan.
[00:11:25] It doesn't tell you who to vote for. It doesn't even name any candidate names. Um, that was my hope, just that my friends would have. To be able to repost, would they, if they ever needed it.
[00:11:37] Laura McKowen: Yeah. And then, and then we know what happened. Well, you could go check out what happened.
[00:11:42] Sharon McMahon: So
[00:11:44] Laura McKowen: I came across this explainer article from the New York Times and the headline said, what is NATO in which countries are members? And, you reposted it and said, I'm all for explainers. But the fact that the US readers need this basic level shit is part of the problem. [00:12:00]
[00:12:02] Sharon McMahon: We haven’t. I said, no.
[00:12:04] Laura McKowen: I'm sorry. You didn't, someone else did.
[00:12:06] Sharon McMahon: I'm so sorry. I'm like, wait a second.
[00:12:11] Laura McKowen: Okay. So we really have. What I'm trying to illustrate. I'm so glad you corrected me. We've lost the connection with this important part of our history. Like, and, and that, and that's a loss. I think we all know that that's a loss because that knowledge is this connective tissue. Just comment on that.
[00:12:42] Sharon McMahon: Well, I mean, the importance of a shared history is. Something that can't be overstated as part of your national identity, right. Is a shared history. It's part of being proud to be an [00:13:00] American or part of being proud to be a Canadian or proud to be Italian is your shared history. Otherwise, what, what is being American, right?
[00:13:08] If you don't have a shared history and I'm commenting from an American perspective, but this is very much true of every, every nation in the world, it's a shared history. And if you don't even know what your. History is what you're supposed to be proud of or history is what you are supposed to understand that helps you make sense of the world or what your history is that you're supposed to be like, never again.
[00:13:32] Um, then that is a, that is a loss, not just to your own intellectual development or your own understanding of the world, but that is a loss to the country. It's a loss of the nation that its own citizens don't understand, uh, their shared history, their shared national experience.
[00:13:54] Laura McKowen: Why do you think, where do you think this vast disagreement has started? As far as you can tell. [00:14:00] And what would you say are the reasons behind it that you see fueling it?
[00:14:05] Sharon McMahon: Which disagreement do you mean? Cause there's a couple, Laura.
[00:14:10] Laura McKowen: Yeah. Good point.
[00:14:13] Sharon McMahon: Um, I mean even the, the, the disagreement
[00:14:19] Laura McKowen: We could, we could talk about Ukraine and Russia. Right now what's happening?
[00:14:26] Why it's happening, what our involvement is, what it should be, how we've contributed, whether we're, let's just do this, whether we're good. We're on the good side of history or on the bad side of history.
[00:14:41] Sharon McMahon: Well, I mean, I think this is a unique, uh, experience and that this is really one of the first, um, international conflicts that has awakened the international community in the way that it has. [00:15:00] Uh, and that is of course driven by social media. Right? Of course, there's no way you can claim otherwise the ability to share information at lightning speed to be like, I have this video of this thing happening. And then for that to go viral in moments, Obviously social media is a huge driver of that.
[00:15:21] Additionally, it allows us to seek information from people that we would have never had access to before. Right. So people who are following me are able to get information from me. Whereas maybe, maybe in another lifetime, maybe I would have had a little column in a newspaper. Do you know what I mean?
[00:15:41] Or maybe, maybe I would have been a public speaker and I'd go to school gymnasiums, or maybe I'd still just be standing in a classroom educating the next generation. I don't know, but my ability to speak to such large audiences. Undoubtedly not what it is today. [00:16:00] Um, and so, because now we have had this democratization of information, uh, and by democratization, I don't mean that all the information you have access to is good or factual or true, or.
[00:16:14] Um, but nevertheless, you do have equal access to it. There's not that gatekeeper of say a news network or a gatekeeper of a newspaper editor being like, where are the fact checks? Like I need three people to run this down and make sure that this is accurate before we run it. Um, because we don't have that anymore.
[00:16:32] We have this democratization of information. It allows us to hear a huge variety of viewpoints. And to some extent that is wonderful. It gives people who have traditionally been marginalized, the ability to share information that they would have been kept from sharing in the past. Um, but it also, you know, with that responsibility or with that access [00:17:00] comes a great amount of responsibility in my opinion.
[00:17:03] Um, and not everybody agrees, not everybody steps up to the plate to take that responsibility for their own words. Um, it would just want to pass the buck onto blaming someone else.
[00:17:15] Laura McKowen: So how do you think about, how do you think about guiding people through facts and history and the meaning we assigned to them because knowing this, having that base of information, knowing, knowing our predilection towards arguing and that there is so much disinformation, how do you think about the way?
[00:17:38] Because it seems very, very thoughtful and very specific, the way that you share information, how do you go about doing it?
[00:17:50] Sharon McMahon: One of the things that is important to me is to really understand an issue before I talk about it and to not just, uh, and to [00:18:00] not, um, just repost information because it sounds. Um, or not just repost information that I agree with.
[00:18:08] Um, and if I can't get my arms around it, cause I don't understand it. Um, then I don't talk about it. And so consequently, there are huge swaths of things that are happening in the world that I don't talk about. For example, um, I rarely, if ever talk about. Uh, and it's not because COVID is not important and it's not because people, millions of people around the world have died.
[00:18:37] It's not because it's not a mess. It's not an issue that I don't care about this because I'm not a scientist. And I would rather not share, uh, information that, you know, maybe some of it would be. But some of it could be wrong and people are then potentially making health decisions for themselves that could have life and death consequences that [00:19:00] I mistakenly made.
[00:19:02] And without malice, just missed shared misinformation, you know, even if I had no bad intentions, um, those types of things we're not talking about. Something of no consequence, right? Like which lip gloss is best. We're talking about things that people make life and death, death decisions about. Right. So there are some things that I just, um, I think it's important to admit what you don't know to me.
[00:19:28] I have a very strong ethic to just be, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. I'm not a scientist. I'm going to be training in epidemiology or statistics or, you know, like aren't gonna understand how they come up with these numbers. So I'm not going to pretend that.
[00:19:43] Laura McKowen: Yeah, that's something you've given a lot of people permission to say, by the way, that's a wildly radical thing to say these days.
[00:19:50] Sharon McMahon: I don't know. Oh, absolutely. Everybody feels compelled to know everything and to know things with sharks. Right. Like the, you are, [00:20:00] your intelligence is gauged by how certain you are, right. Uh, in the opinion that you hold, how certain are you that your beliefs about COVID are the correct ones, right? Like that is
[00:20:15] Laura McKowen: How do you feel so comfortable standing that ground?
[00:20:17] That might seem like an obvious question. But it's not for a lot of people. How do you feel comfortable? Because I'm sure. Or maybe not, you've been pressured to, to speak about things that you do.
[00:20:28] Sharon McMahon: Oh yeah. Oh, absolutely. I get phone calls from major news organizations that shall remain unnamed. Um, but I get phone calls regularly asking me to be a guest to talk about certain topics that I turned down, even though I could probably have, you know, 500,000 more followers. If I, if I took that opportunity. Um, to me, it's really just about the ethic of what is, um, what [00:21:00] legacy do I want to, what kind of digital legacy do I want to leave for myself and for my children. Um, and just being cognizant of the fact that, um, these are very, very important matters that I am not qualified to speak on, and I do know what I am qualified to speak on. And I also know what I'm not qualified to speak on. I mean, I would love to, I'm just trying to be the change that I would like to see reflected in the world. Right. Like we all just say, I don't know about how to fix cars.
[00:21:32] You know what I mean? I don't know how to engineer a rocket ship to the moon. I don't know. Um, why is it okay for us to say that, like, I don't expect you Laura to know how to engineer rocket ship to the moon. Like, I don't hold that against you. Right? Like, I don't think less of you because you don't know that.
[00:21:48] Um, I don't think less of you because you are not a nuclear submarine engineer. Like that's it that's. Right. Like, do you think less of me because I don't understand how to do [00:22:00] neurosurgery. No, you accept that. I know what I know. And you accept that. I don't know something's right. And that this is actually not even in my mind, not a hard concept.
[00:22:12] Laura McKowen: I know it's a product of people, a cultural moment where people are seen as complicit to problems of society. If they aren't speaking about them. And that, I think, is where it stems from. And then, and then the guilt or shame or fear of being a person who's not speaking about important things.
[00:22:30] Sharon McMahon: That's right.
[00:22:32] Why aren't you talking about it? Just to, just to use something. Uh, but no. Why aren't you talking about engineering, a rocket ship to the moon, right. You know, like what kind of, what kind of monster are you for not bringing that up? Do you know what I mean? And so instead of just saying, well, I don't care about rocket ships to the moon.
[00:22:51] I just think it's important to say I do care, but I'm not qualified to talk about rocket ships to the moon because I know nothing about engineers. [00:23:00] I can talk to you about the governmental implications of allocating tax money to space programs, but that's where my knowledge stops.
[00:23:09] Laura McKowen: Yeah. Our desires are at odds because if we do act like we know, and we have very strong, often aggravating views, we get a lot of eyeballs.
[00:23:21] Sharon McMahon: So a hundred percent and it make no mistake. People trade. On being divisive and making wild claims and saying things that rile people up there is a ton of money to be made a ton. And when I say trade, I mean, they make money, hand over fist at doing that. So often we think like, oh my gosh, so courageous, what a whistleblower, uh, you know, they, wow. What, what incentive do they have to, the incentive is often.
[00:23:56] Laura McKowen: Right. Right. And notoriety and eyeballs and attention. Yeah. So these disagreements, they drive us back into these echo chambers, where we tend to only encounter people who are like us, but it feels like your work is doing a lot to remind people of the value of a shared space.
[00:24:14] For me personally, it's one of the most heartening things in the world that people are so happy to be in your space. And it's clear, they don't all agree with each other on a lot of things. Uh, and also you're showing people how to behave in a shared space, which is excellent. What are the qualities of a healthy shared space?
[00:24:34] Sharon McMahon: I mean, absolutely the foundation of it has to be. A commitment to not dehumanizing. Other people must think that there's no, there's no shared space without that. Right. Without a commitment to not dehumanize people. Um, you have what's happening in Russia and Ukraine right now, right? Like where we have a dictator who was fine with just bombing a [00:25:00] hostile.
[00:25:01] Terminally ill children have to evacuate from that. That's what it looks like when we don't have a, have a commitment to, upholding each other's shared humanity, that you are a human of infinite worth. And so our. And so are our children, et cetera. So that is a non-negotiable in my mind that we're not going to get into, uh, begin stepping off the path onto that sort of dehumanization, which begins with things like name-calling.
[00:25:35] And it begins with things like, um, referring to, you know, those people or you guys, or all of you will, you know, communists or all of you, whatever, pick a, pick a name, you know, um, that's, those are really the first steps. And most of the time, I mean, this is true of almost all humans. People do not wake up one morning [00:26:00] and decide, well, today is the day I am a serial.
[00:26:04] Right. Like we don't, they don't wake up one morning and decide that, um, it, it comes about from a series of the often a long series of small incremental steps in a direction that they don't even realize they are headed until they turn around and realize it's too late. So to me, I would rather have these sort of like bright lines on either side of the runway.
[00:26:31] Like, keep it between these lines. Um, and between these lines, we can talk, but you're going to start heading off these lines. We're calling the fire department and the police and, you know, like big, bad things are gonna happen. Um, so those are, that's really the beginning. That's really the foundation in my mind of how to have shared space with each other.
[00:26:55] Laura McKowen: Have you found well, there's a lot of skill required to moderate and sort of nurture that kind of space. And not many people are reaching that high online. They're just not a, you are. How did you build those skills?
[00:27:09] Sharon McMahon: Absolutely in a high school classroom. One of the great pleasures of my life was working at a specific school that I worked at in suburban Washington, DC.
[00:27:27] And I'm still very good friends with so many of the people that, uh, worked there and continue to work there. And the place that I worked, the city that I worked in is one of the most diverse places in the country. And so often when people hear the word diversity, they just mean, or in their mind they think, oh, it's a large number of, um, minority groups, right.
[00:27:51] Or it's just mostly people who speak a certain language. When I say diversity, I mean, um, over 200 nationalities [00:28:00] are represented in the. Small region. Um, many of them are children of diplomats from other places in the world. Um, I mean like the diversity was truly remarkable. And I would argue, there are remarkably few places in the world that have that kind of an experience for both teachers and students who attend it.
[00:28:28] So when you have that incredible diversity of viewpoint, In a classroom and into school. Um, it's very eye-opening. I grew up in a very homogenous place in the world that I love, but a place that was overwhelmingly white and Protestant and, uh, you know, like many Americans had that experience. And I learned so much from, uh, realizing that it was my [00:29:00] job to create a positive educational environment for every student in that classroom. Um, regardless of if they literally arrived in America last week, or if their dad was in prison or if, uh, their uncle was the president of Afghanistan, which, you know, like that's a real thing. Or if, um, you know, they grew up at the single mom or whatever.
[00:29:28] Their life circumstances are: it was my job to create a positive educational environment for all of the students there. And so that is sort of a north star for me.
[00:29:39] Laura McKowen: Yeah, it shows, uh, and it's, it's remarkable. It's like something it's, it's very inspiring to me. Our news is mashed up with our entertainment and our social connections on our phone.
[00:29:50] Like it's all jammed in there and it keeps us so hooked to so much of what's coming through the phone, like jacks up our nervous system. Right. So we're just constantly hooked up into this fire hose. And we've developed this tendency to go from zero to apocalyptic in seconds. How does that reality, you've talked a little bit about it, but how does that reality play into the way you develop your current?
[00:30:16] Sharon McMahon: Well, I mean, when I brought up the animal situation, that is part of it. Another thing that I think is actually very important that I don't think it's frivolous, that I think is needed and necessary is an element of.
[00:30:32] And I actually really liked to laugh. I mostly laugh at myself, make fun of my own self, you know? And, um, my husband likes to tease me that I can just be sitting alone in the room, laughing at myself. You know what I mean? Like what are you doing in there? Like, just thinking about some funny, you know, like, you know, just, I don't know why, but that's just a very easy thing for me to do.
[00:30:58] I have a [00:31:00] very deep well of humor and voices and accents and facial expressions and things that are amusing to me, you know? Um, to me that is important. That is, that is important to me.
[00:31:15] Laura McKowen: There's this idea that, that we shouldn't be, we shouldn't have humor about serious things.
[00:31:22] Sharon McMahon: That's true.
[00:31:23] Absolutely. And I think there's a difference between making fun of things that are serious, um, and not taking yourself too seriously. Right. So I would never be like, wow, it's so funny that all of these Ukrainians homes have been bombed. Wow. Look at how funny that is. That's absurd and apparent to make fun of somebody else's misery.
[00:31:50] Um, but I did recently, I was talking about the news a number of weeks ago, I was putting on my makeup and somebody sent me a DM and was like, Ugh. [00:32:00] We're not going to have to watch you put your makeup on again, to me, that was just really
[00:32:07] Laura McKowen: Don't have to- click away.
[00:32:08] Sharon McMahon: That just struck me as funny or like that, where she literally was like, Ugh.
[00:32:15] And so then I spent the rest of the time talking about the news while exaggeratingly putting on my makeup extremely slowly, like next. You know what I mean? Like just like put on some blush, you know what I mean? To me? Yeah. I'm not making fun of the misfortune of anybody. I'm not, I'm not dehumanizing anybody.
[00:32:40] It's just, I was laughing at the idea that somebody was like, Ugh, You know what I mean? Fine. Fine. Now we'll just do an extra slow then. Cause you don't want me to, here we go. Like so off. So humorous, part of it.
[00:32:56] Laura McKowen: Absolutely, humor breaks down our defenses though. It's like, we, we know we need it, [00:33:00] but we're so, we're so afraid.
[00:33:03] We're so afraid of doing it wrong and talking wrong and speaking wrong. What do you say about that? The fear of, of speaking wrong, saying something wrong, messing up. I mean, that's, I think where so much of this comes from wanting to be sure and wanting to present ashore is this fear of messing up.
[00:33:28] Sharon McMahon: I think it's important that we acknowledge that. You will. And it's what you do with it afterwards that, uh, indicates your, the level of your character. Um, and I think it actually, that's something that I try to teach explicitly that when somebody says I was wrong, that that should actually be celebrated.
[00:33:55] That we should not be like, oh my gosh, what a there's so inapt, what are [00:34:00] they even doing over there? Actually, when somebody says I was wrong, I've changed my mind. I used to think this. And now I think this here are the reasons why I, I have, uh, you know, change course midstream. We should all be like, thank you.
[00:34:17] Thank you for carefully considering the facts and the sooner you can stop being wrong, the sooner you can start being right. I would rather have somebody admit they're wrong and start being right then persist in their wrongness. Right? Like there's no virtue in persisting in your wrongness. Right?
[00:34:40] Laura McKowen: Yeah, people have one thing you commented on. One of my favorite videos of yours is that people have gotten addicted to this outrage and confused it with doing something actually meaningful. And what do you have to say about that?
[00:34:56] Sharon McMahon: I think it is something that [00:35:00] is, we have. Come to the realization that it might feel good to us to be like, you will not believe what Bob said today.
[00:35:11] And post it post the main VT. Bob is the worst. You know what I mean? Like, it feels good for about 10 seconds to post about how Bob is the worst. And then your friends are like, yeah, He is the worst. And then you can click the right and then write 42 question marks. Totally. Oh my God. You know what I mean?
[00:35:32] Like we get addicted to that feedback loop of, um, you saying something and then all of your friends coming in and agreeing with you and then you feel vindicated and you feel like, yep. Bob is the worst. I was right. See how right I am. Um, that is something that we're very. We're very into right now as a society is the outreach posting.
[00:35:53] But when we realize that what we're doing is actually [00:36:00] making the problem worse. We think that we're doing something to improve the situation, but in reality, we're worsening the situation because not only does, uh, posting Bob as the worst. Not changing anything about books. It then creates a ton of negative feelings about you about Bob arguing in the comments.
[00:36:30] So not only does it not solve the problem, it actually throws gasoline onto the fire. We're actually making the problem worse with all of our outrage posting. So if Bob actually is the worst and I'm just making up the name, Bob, sorry, I'm sorry, Bob. Um, Bob is actually the worst then. What are you going to do about it?
[00:36:53] Right. Cause guess what? Outreach posting Bob is worst on Instagram is, is actually just making Bob worse.
[00:37:02] Laura McKowen: Right?
[00:37:06] Sharon McMahon: That's right.
[00:37:07] Laura McKowen: Yeah. Yeah. It sure is enticing. I mean, I've fallen into it. You, you, I've seen you on your channel, on your car, in the comments. People have come with that energy. How do you manage it? What do you think about that? Cause you don't, I haven't seen cases, where you've ever shot back at people, clapped back on.
[00:37:29] But you do have a way of saying that's not, that's not what we're doing here. You can take that elsewhere. How do you? It's very teachery, uh, without being judgemental or anything. It's like a fascinating ninja art. How do you think about people that come in with that energy and how you direct that?
[00:37:50] Sharon McMahon: Well, a few things. One is that I have a setting turned on, on Instagram, uh, where you cannot do drive-by comments. So basically, if you are not following me, you cannot [00:38:00] participate in the comments. And some people don't like that. And 100% of people who don't like that are people who want to do drive-by commenting, you know like they want to just spray and drive away. So, um, that's one thing is that I limit the amount of interaction by asking people basically like if you're not willing to commit to following and being part of this community, then you don't get to leave main comments. Um, secondly, I've been, you know, this is an, this is a teacher ninja trick is that if you can gain the cooperation, the vast majority of your students, they will do all the police work for you.
[00:38:43] You basically have to do almost nothing. Um, the other students will be like, we don't do that here. The other students will be like, And the community that's right. And very often in a classroom, it's actually [00:39:00] far more effective for a student to be like, we don't do that here than it is for the teacher to be like, listen, hurry up, man.
[00:39:09] Totally sit down. You know what I mean? Um, so if you, if you learn how to create that positive learning environment for all of your students, um, where they feel well. And like, this is a safe place for them. They will do a lot of that themselves. Um, and then my third line of defense is to. Make the decision that I don't argue with strangers on the internet, that is not my highest calling or my highest purpose or where I will make the biggest difference in the world.
[00:39:40] Amen. And I also don't argue with robots. I have done, you have to understand that a lot of negative comments left online are left by trolls and robots. And by trolls, I don't just mean like a person who disagrees with you. I mean, a person who actually lives in another country and gets paid to do these things, right.
[00:39:56] Um, I'm not, I don't argue with robots. That's [00:40:00] also. Not what I'm spending. My one wild and precious life doing, arguing with robots. That's
[00:40:12] not what I'm here for. Um, so sometimes I've, I've said this to my students before that sometimes you have to look at somebody sitting in their giant vat of raw. And just be like, well, that is your decision. You know what I made, I cannot, you know, go ahead and do that. Um, and then there are just some comments that are so disrespectful.
[00:40:37] They have to be deleted right there just to, uh, because it's not a safe learning environment and it is, it's just gasoline on the gasoline, on the fire. It's not serving anybody. It's meant to be, um, it's meant to be inflammatory and it does not move the conversation forward. And. That's my multi-pronged approach to dealing with the comment section.
[00:41:00] Laura McKowen: I love it. I think because it's, you know, we're not just living in a comment section. This is like everyday life people do behave differently online, but this is so I know this is going to be so helpful for people, whether they're online or not. So, to conclude what's your dream for them, let's just talk about Instagram.
[00:41:17] What's your dream for this channel and the impact you want to have in this part of your life?
[00:41:22] Sharon McMahon: I really love this sort of governor to ethic that I've been working on building for, you know, a little over a year now, um, where people will then take that same energy, those same beliefs, those same, um, morals and use them elsewhere in the world, right? Like it's not just about patting myself on the back and being like, yeah, you've listened to that one time. I said that, um, it's about actually hiding those little seeds in your heart and allowing them to grow, uh, and then spreading them to other people. So [00:42:00] that is really, um, if you want to create change, you have to start with yourself and cause that's really the only thing you can connect with.
[00:42:09] And so I'm constantly asking myself, how can I serve in this way? How can I serve this community? How can I serve this issue, this topic, this cause and so I would just love to see other people continue to pick up that torch and run with it, uh, and to see those seeds get planted in other people.
[00:42:32] Laura McKowen: I think it's, I think it's working, you've been hugely inspiring to me truly.
[00:42:37] And there are very, very few spaces on the internet where I feel like that. Uh, and you want to have them, so thank you. Thank you, Lord. On behalf of me and everyone that I know in my community is very excited to hear you and have you here. And, um, I appreciate you a lot.
[00:42:53] Sharon McMahon: That's so kind, thank you so much.
[00:43:03] Laura McKowen: You're welcome. Alright, thank you so much for being with us today. If you want more TMST head on over to TMSTpod.com and become a member. Members get access to the full uncut versions of these conversations, previews of upcoming guests, invites to join me for members only events and access to our members only community where I hang out a lot. We decided from the beginning to make this an independent project, we don't have sponsors and we don't run ads.
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