How to Scroll Intentionally Without the Guilt

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Social media has sneakily transformed from an outlet to escape the “real world,” to an all-consuming platform that’s become the baseline for comparison, especially for women. In this episode, Natalie Franke shares key takeaways from her new book to normalize the comparison game and show how to learn into connection instead.

Natalie Franke Hayes is an entrepreneur, mobilization marketer, community builder, and neuroscience nerd. As one of the Founders of the Rising Tide Society, the Head of Community at HoneyBook, and author of Built to Belong, she leads tens of thousands of creatives and small business owners while fostering a spirit of community over competition around the world.

Website // Instagram // Rising Tide Society // Honeybook (Get 20% off!) // Built to Belong

The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hi everyone it's Katrina and I'm very excited because today I'm here with the amazing Natalie Franke. If you do not know her, she is one of the founders of the Rising Tide Society which I think I've mentioned a million times because I keep having experts from the Rising Tide society on here. But she's also the head of community at HoneyBook and the author of "Built to Belong," and as someone who is one of the Rising Tide Tuesdays Together co-leaders, I'm especially excited to have you here. So thank you so much for coming on.

Natalie Franke: Thank you so much for having me, I'm so excited.

Katrina Widener: First, before we jump into anything, would you mind kind of introducing yourself to the listeners and what you get jazzed up about, what you're passionate about?

Natalie Franke: Absolutely. So I am all the things that you mentioned, but even before that I am a wife and a mom to a very, very rambunctious two year-old named Huey who I love and wife to Hugh his dad. Hence the name Hugh and Huey, just keeps going on and on, another story for another podcast. But, I am a wife and a mom, and I started my career as a wedding photographer and I built my business doing that and recognized just a deep sense of loneliness and a lack of true community in that industry back in 2015, right around when we started Rising Tide. And just, kind of went from being the small business owner, to creating communities for small business owners, to really understanding the power of community over competition and the mindset shifts that can enable us to live life so much more fully and deeply with others which is what I am passionate about.

I am passionate about truly, I say many things, but two big things: One, being a mama bear for my small businesses and my community and fighting for them endlessly in all things, and two, truly championing this mindset of community over competition, truly fighting for a world where we are, you know, supporting one another. Where we are fighting to raise the tide for all people. Where we are, you know, doing what we can in our communities to make them better to decrease unhealthy competition. To overcome things like comparison. To navigate our relationships with others from a place of empathy and with the desire to see everyone thrive as their best selves. And that yeah, that's what I wrote the book about and that's what keeps me going and keeps me pushing forward. So many of the things that I do is fighting for that world, not just for us, but for my children and for future generations.

Katrina Widener: I am just as much of a community person as you are, like it's literally, anybody who's listening to the podcast knows I talk about community all the time. It's what I've based my coaching around, only group coaching because it's so community-based. So like, I am here for literally everything you just said, because this concept of community over competition is just so important. And really you can see the change that it makes in people you can see when they feel supported, and when they have this group where they know that they can come to with their struggles and celebrate their wins and really just feel that comradery, it makes a huge difference. And when we get stuck in comparison, it's, "They're on their lane and I'm on my lane, and their desires are different from my desires, so why am I comparing them? Why am I comparing myself to other people? Why do we do that so often?" So I'm one of the people who has the early access to your book, which makes me so excited, cause I know that it's just going to be so aligned with everything I talk about.

One of the things that we're talking about today too, though, is this idea of comparison on social media and how Instagram and social media in general have really turned into almost this doom scrolling of bringing out your inner critic. Instead of leaning into this community over competition, almost like leaning into competition over community, which just hurts my heart.

Natalie Franke: No, I've seen that too, yeah.

Katrina Widener: So I just really want to start there and like, what has been your experience? How have you seen this really come up and how have you seen it be something that is affecting entrepreneurs especially and our relationships with the people around us?

Natalie Franke: Well I think you really teed it off and you really kind of set the stage here for exactly what you're asking, which is where do I see it? I see it every single day and how we open our devices and we scroll, and we scroll, and we scroll. And I don't know if you remember or if anyone listening to this remembers, back when you had to hit next to go to the next page, right? Like back when you actually didn't have something to scroll. We have to remember -- and I promise there's a point to this -- we have to remember the time before the scroll, because the scroll was created with intention. The actual endless scroll that we talk about didn't always exist. It's an iteration of how this platform has evolved and there is purpose behind it. And that purpose is not to help us connect with others. That purpose is not to keep us socially connected to members in our community. That purpose is to increase our levels of consumption of content on the platform. To feed the pockets of those who built it. We have to remember that these platforms drive profit through advertising. And in order to drive profit through advertising, we have to consume more, and more, and more content to increase the number of ads that we're being exposed to so that these platforms can make a profit.

That is part of that intent behind what we always talk about. "Oh, the endless scroll of comparison." You remember that wasn't always a feature. That is something that has evolved just like many things on these platforms, to help keep them profitable. And why I'm raising that is because I believe fiercely that social media itself doesn't have to be the problem. I believe fiercely that we like to blame it with a big blanket statement of saying "Turn off your phone, unplug your device, and that will cure your comparison."

But as a friend of mine, Laylee, always likes to say, Laylee Emadi, she says, you know, comparison, doesn't go away when we put down our phones. Comparison doesn't go away when we take a break or a sabbatical. It doesn't mean those things aren't important. It doesn't mean those things can't have a tremendously positive impact, but it does mean that by disconnecting from social media or deciding that we're going to quit it altogether, we aren't actually making the best choice for our long-term success because in some ways we might just be treating the symptom, but not curing the disease. We might be giving our heart space to rest without identifying what's causing it to feel so burnt out, exhausted, and deeply, deeply isolated in the first place. They're not going in and identifying why our souls are so burnt out on the other side of this endless scroll. It simply removes the endless scroll without the understanding that we're going to be back on those phones to build our businesses, to share about our lives, to connect with people we care about when that break is over.

And so, you know, really evaluating how we're engaging with these platforms when we open them. How we are choosing first to consume and fall into becoming the user these platforms are hoping that we become. The scrolling, consuming, ad engaging consumer that they want us to be to drive profits. Instead of opening our phones with intention from the start to do one of two things. First to connect and or to create. And instead of opening the phone to consume, we actually open it with an intent of "I'm going to connect with people today. I'm going to connect with these five people in my community and my local market that I've been wanting to grow a relationship with." Or, "I'm going to open this app and I'm going to create something. I'm going to express my creativity. I'm going to share what I've been working on. I'm going to show up and I'm going to use it as an expressive way to communicate who I am and what I'm doing and what impact I'm making and who I'm serving and the business that I'm building." And doing those things first before enabling ourselves to just open that app and to deplete our mental wellbeing by scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling.

And in the book I reference a psychological study that was done that compared the difference between those who use social media primarily to consume content, with those who use social media primarily to connect. And as you can imagine, they both had very different mental health outcomes. Those who simply use social media to consume had more negative consequences to their mental health than those who use social media to connect and saw it as a way to actually build relationships, keep up with friendships, and grow their communities.

And I think, you know, the last 18 months, the last two years almost of our lives as we've navigated sort of a new version of digital and physical life integration, have also made it clear to us that there is such a beautiful realm of community waiting for us online if we're willing to approach it with that open mind and that mindset. I do also I will say in the book, I share the fact that this hasn't always been my view. I was someone that believed like internet friends cannot be real life friends. And I admit fiercely that I was wrong. And so I think the place to start, and the place to start moving forward even in our fight and our battle with comparison, is to analyze the behaviors that we are taking on day, after day, after day, when we're using these devices. And not putting all the blame on the platforms or not just saying, "I'm going to quit it. There's no point to it", but instead seeing the power that they have to connect us. The opportunity they give us to create relationships beyond geographical boundary, to make friends that we maybe never would have made otherwise. To dig deeper into community. To have access to support and education at our fingertips every minute of every day. And to do it with this intent of using these platforms to connect and using them to create.

Katrina Widener: I love that you talked about the create, consume, and connect. Because I can even tell with myself anecdotally, when I go on social media and I am connecting with people, I love it. Right? It's my favorite part of social media. Even if it's like I'm doing questions and polls and my stories and interacting with people that way, or I'm reacting to people's stories and having conversations on their pages. It's when I love being on social media, when I love being on Instagram. And then when I catch myself in that doom scroll or in this constant consumption -- normally it's Reels that gets me. Like I'll just sit and watch, and watch, and watch right before I go to bed or right when I get up in the morning. It's normally the worst time too for my brain. But I can tell I like being on the app less. I don't like how I'm spending my time. I don't like how I'm feeling when I'm on it. For me it's this feeling of just like scatteredness. Like over consumption of just things and energy in general.

And using it instead to connect with people is so powerful and it creates this foundation and baseline of safety within the app and of safety within other people. Because I have so many internet friends that I've never met in real life, or I've met in real life one time or whatever that looked like, and yet we still talk regularly, we talk all the time. And it is possible to really create a connection with somebody who you've never met in real life beforehand, but that requires a certain level of bravery and of courage to be able to have those kinds of connections. So I was wondering if maybe you would talk a little bit to the person who's kind of like, "Okay, that feels great, but responding to someone's story and starting connection? That feels so hard, that feels so scary."

Natalie Franke: Yes. Look I've been there. I think it's twofold for me. I think of it one, as taking the first step can be really scary, but then I also think being your true self on social media and in these relationships can also be really scary. So let's talk about both.

First, if you're someone that is nodding your head with us. And you're like, "Yes, I agree. I need that in my life. I am tired of comparing and putting people on pedestals and not really, really connecting and getting into life with them." Then what I want you to do is start with one. This is something I've talked about with our Rising Tide leaders in terms of how we grow community, but community and relationships, they all start one at a time. So one conversation at a time. One moment of outreach at a time. One relationship at a time you name it, it starts with one. So my best advice would be start with one. Start with finding someone that you do feel like you would connect with, or you have a desire to get to know better. Start with responding to one thing.

So like you mentioned Instagram story, you could do a swipe up on a story and respond. A little bit of additional advice? Look for points of connection. Look for places where there's overlap between you and this person. So that could be an interest that you both have that could be something in your background that you both have. Grew up in the same town, experienced the same thing, have a love of the same kind of world experience. Like you name it if you see a point of connect, it's one of the fastest ways to build trust with another human is simply to see a place where you and that person overlap, intersect, and start a conversation about it. Open the door. And it doesn't have to be big and monumental, it can be tiny. I'll give you an example.

Last fall I had a pumpkin that I refused to throw away. And I love this pumpkin. I thought this pumpkin was so beautiful. So I kept it on our front stoop until it was kind of gross and really needed to be disposed of. And I really didn't have the heart to throw it away. There was something about it that I was like, "I don't know. I just, I can't get rid of it." So my husband took the pumpkin, threw it in the far corner of our tiny little yard, and thought maybe the birds and the squirrels can munch on the seeds all winter. And it'll be like a nice treat for them. Fast forward to August where we suddenly notice there is a giant pumpkin vine growing out of the back corner of our yard that has taken over a tree. We live in the city. It is taken over about a quarter of our yard in the corner. And I started sharing about it on social media. And this is what I mean by just simple intersections. The number of people who've reached out to me, who've said, "Oh my goodness, I grew a pumpkin last year. Oh my gosh. Here's my best advice for getting this to actually give you a pumpkin and not just be a vine that takes over your yard." Someone told me, "Hey, buy a pair of overalls. You're officially an accidental pumpkin farmer." And the whole conversation that's now unfolded from that is one that I feel so connected to these people. Like they're reaching out and we have this similar point of connection that is pumpkins. So you name it. It doesn't have to be complex. It can be, "I love cats. You love cats. I have a pumpkin. I had a pumpkin growing up in my backyard that we did one year and here's what I learned." It can be the simplest of things, but start with one conversation, one relationship at a time and grow from there.

And I also think for anyone who's hesitant, for anyone who feels unsure or maybe has been wronged in the past -- I talk a little bit about this in the book -- who maybe has experienced rejection in relationships in the past, or had relationships that were difficult in the past. This is why the one-to-one approach is so important. It's not about diving in with someone and going right to the deep end. It's about wading a little bit into the shallow end, ensuring that there's safety in that relationship. That you feel like this is a relationship you want to continue growing and nurturing. And doing that. And one, by one, by one, growing and nurturing that relationship until you get to the deep end. And doing it in a way that's at your pace. Not feeling pressured to dive off the vulnerability diving board. And I think that's so important, and that's one side of it.

And then quickly, just for the other part, if you're feeling also unsure of how to show up as yourself, my advice is exactly the same. You know I think from a very young age, we are taught the art of fitting in. We are taught how we are "supposed to be" and I wish you could see me giving the world's biggest quotations to this. And in the book I dive into it in more detail as well. We're taught that fitting in is the path to belonging and it's complete opposite. You know, if you're somebody that's saying, "I also want to be me in these relationships. I don't want to have to be somebody else. I don't want to have to change who I am."

Good. Because the truest relationships, the path to belonging, the way we fight back against this culture that tells us who to be and how to be -- all of the things that so many of us struggle with in different ways, depending on who we are and what we've walked through -- is to start showing up one step at a time as who you truly are. To stop trying to fit in and instead stepping forward as your authentic self. And I'll tell you something about this: It doesn't happen overnight. Whenever we see somebody out there who is living in their best reality, who is fully themselves, who is the boldest most brazen version of them. That didn't just happen overnight. It didn't. I've never met anyone that said, "I just woke up this way. Overnight I'm suddenly able to be my fullest self." It is a battle from the very beginning. And so when we take those steps to be more ourselves, to be more vulnerable, to be transparent. It's not about jumping off the diving board right into the deep end. It's about taking it step, by step, by step. Not only do then we have the ability in our relationships, in our community, and our digital connections, in our businesses, with our clients to be who we are. But we also give permission for others to do the same. We start to increase that empowering feeling of "Well if they can do it so can I. If he can do it so can I. If she can do it so can I." And so on, and so on, and so on.

And so I encourage you to think about this in bite-sized chunks. To take one step at a time, one engagement, one point of connection at a time. And the same with getting the courage to continue showing up as your true self and to fight back against this social media world that we can get trapped in, where it doesn't feel authentic. It doesn't feel real. It's curated from start to finish. And to know where you can do that, to know where you can start to have, that movement. And how you share who you are, how you show up transparently and oftentimes vulnerably.

Katrina Widener: I really appreciate that you talked about the concept of just showing up as you are, showing up who you are. I've learned myself that when I share like the most real stories, like I've shared stories on my Instagram beforehand that people are like, "Why would you tell anyone that?" For instance we had a cat pee on something that I then picked up with my hand. And they're like, "Why would you share that? Like, that's gross!" And I'm like, yeah, but how many people out there own cats or own animals and have had something like that happened they were just like, "Oh my God, me too. Or I can't believe that happened to you, or this is terrible."

I joke all the time that people on my social media love my cat more than they love me. They come for the Teddy content. They do not come for the Katrina content. And the thing is, is that being able to, like you're saying, share these aspects of you even if they feel so small, every single time you do it, it gets a little bit easier. Every single time you do it, it feels a little bit more like, "Oh yeah, I'm just naturally showing my life. I'm just naturally showing the things that other people also go through." Like when we think about for instance comedians, when we love comedians, when they make us laugh so much that like our gut hurts. It's normally because they're talking about those things that happen to every single person that most people don't talk about, right? When we're able to do that ourselves, whether it is something funny, or whether it's me being able to say like, "Hey, 2020 was a really difficult year and I'm going to show up on Instagram and not pretend that it wasn't. Not pretend that it didn't hurt my business or hurt my mental health." And being able to be really honest and vulnerable.

It does exactly what you're saying. It allows people to step up and feel that themselves, and provide that connection. That's where those true and honest relationships are built, is on this idea of, "Hey, I see something in you that I see in myself. And it makes me feel safe." That's really what it is. And that's oftentimes too, which I know that you mentioned before we even hopped on this podcast, of where that comparison comes from. When we're not sharing this much. When we're not sharing like the realness, the vulnerability. If somebody else isn't sharing that, that's when we start comparing ourselves to them because they're not sharing the real part, they're only sharing the highlights. And then you feel like, "Oh well, I have cat pee to deal with and I bet she never does."

Natalie Franke: No, that's huge. That's absolutely huge. And you're right. There's a line in there in the book, it says human beings are not highlight reels. And yet how many times have we heard the phrase highlight reel in the context of media? Right? And so there's such a huge issue with all of us and how we engage with these platforms, where we are comparing our mess to their miracles. We're comparing their successes to our real life. We're comparing our cat pee to their vacation, right? You know, that's kind of what starts to happen.

And look, I also believe that prior to having so much access to one another, because that's really, we live in a world where we have access to what everyone is doing at any given time on any platform. Prior to that comparison still existed. I just believe fiercely that it didn't exist at this degree. We weren't consuming the lives of other people more than we were living our own.

And we've now hit a point where we've started to do that. And that's an uncomfortable thing to say, but you're absolutely right. We've gotten to this place where I will pick up my phone and y'all I speak about this not from a place of, "I have solved it." I wrote a book about some of this because I struggle with it. Not because I'm the victor on top of the mountain saying "I did it, I overcame it." No, I'm, I'm the humble student saying, "Hey, this is what I'm learning. And this is what's changing me for the better. And I want to make sure you have access to this too."

But I do the same thing. I will sometimes see things that people are going through. I talked about this a little last year during my second battle with infertility, trying to have a second child and how it felt to constantly be showing up to my doctor's appointments. This is literally what would happen. I'd be sitting in the waiting room at Shady Grove Fertility waiting to get an ultrasound, waiting to see if my medication was working, and I would open my phone with my headphones on and there would be a pregnancy announcement at the top of my Facebook page. And I bring this up because I think this is what we often forget. We forget that the person who's posting that announcement is experiencing a moment of joy that deserves to be celebrated. And even in my place and that moment, that space where I'll be real with you, I was struggling. I was in the mess of it. I had multiple failed rounds to get to this point. Years of waiting until I would even be treated. And I share about all of this in different ways so if you're someone that's going through this as a side note, DM me night or day 24/ 7, I'm here for you. Whether it's waiting for a diagnosis or going through fertility treatment or on the other side of it, like whatever it is, just know I'm an open book and here for you.

But you know, I'm sitting in that waiting room and I opened my phone and here it is. It just felt like every time I opened my phone, it was a pregnancy announcement, or a friend sharing a gorgeous photo of their beautiful baby. And this is not something that's new to 2020 and my life, it's been years, and years, and years of this. But I share this because I think that it can be easy to assume that human beings are highlight reels. It can be easy to see that photo and think, "Oh great for her, but terrible for me. Great that it was so easy for them, but not so easy for me." And the truth is it isn't easy for anyone. The truth is that behind that pregnancy announcement could be years of heartache, loss, struggle, fears, anxiety, love, and hope for this new life that can't be summed up in a tiny caption, in a single photo with a letter port. Behind that photo is so much more depth and humanness, right? And if we approach it with just "Ugh. Eye roll, unfollow. I can't engage." Then again it's treating the symptom and not curing the disease. Again, it's me sitting there and discounting the joy of someone else's life because of the pain of my own.

And I'm telling you having walked through it, I understand when sometimes we need to create distance. But I also understand that there is so much redemption to be had when we can look at other people's lives not through the lens of that simple highlight reel moment, but see the humans behind it. See the struggles that they've walked through to get there. See the fights that they're fighting, the battles they're waging, and acknowledge it and love them for it all the same. Because I expect that grace for myself as well. I want people when I have my moments of joy, when we got to announce our pregnancy to know, "Hey, this was our story. This is how we got there. I'm not going to hide it because I fought for this little life that's currently kicking me during this podcast interview. And I will fight to protect this little life every single day that I'm on this earth. And it didn't just happen in 140 characters in a one little blurb photo that I can share. It was years and years and years of fighting for this." And that might be my lived experience, but I promise you, people have lived experiences that we will never begin to fathom on the other side of the screen. And that many of us will never have to experience, and they would never want us to have to experience.

And it transcends these little snippets of our lives. The person building a business that just quit their full-time job, maybe had parents that never supported them in the pursuit of becoming who they wanted to be. The person who's getting married, who finally found their partner they're going to spend the rest of their life with, perhaps had to endure relationships that were incredibly difficult, painful, and unhealthy for them for years to get to a place where either they were able to find the person they wanted to be with, or they felt confident enough being themselves in the relationship to break free of something that was dangerous to them. I think we have to remember that behind these highlight reels are human beings. And if we can keep our gaze on that, we can stay focused on that, then I think it also does a lot to help heal our hearts when it comes to this war with comparison.

Katrina Widener: I love everything that you shared so much, and thank you so much for being willing to be vulnerable and share this with everyone. Because this is where the change happens, guys. Like this is where these connections are made and where we start to break down these ideas of other people that we have in our heads. It's really by being able to be brave enough to say that, "This is the shit that I carry. And I understand that you carry shit too, and I can honor it with you," and also with yourself. There's a big part of both being able to say like, "I recognize and can honor what I'm going through, but I can recognize and honor what you're going through too," and letting that inform one another, letting that break down these walls and these barriers to really feeling that connection and really feeling that community.

So thank you so much for sharing. I wish that we could keep talking for ever and ever because this has been such an amazing conversation, but unfortunately we have to wrap things up. I want to first and foremost say everybody remember that Natalie has her book coming out. It's called Built to Belong. Everything that she does is amazing, so you should go and pre-order your copy. I also want to invite you Natalie to share how someone can follow you after this, how they can find you and if there's anything else you'd like to offer them.

Natalie Franke: Yes, absolutely. Best place to connect with me truly is on the internet wherever you like to spend time. But for me, that happens to be Instagram for the most part, as we're talking about it in this conversation. So feel free to connect with you there @nataliefranke. And as I mentioned, I use this platform to connect and to create. So if you want to shoot me a DM, I will answer it. If you want to share what this conversation sparked for you, or what you're going through or if there's any point of connection when you're listening to us talk and you're like, "Oh, I also have a pumpkin that spread out into my backyard." Great. Send me a DM let's chat.

Another great place to connect would be through Rising Tide. And I have to give a shout out to Rising Tide. If you are a small business owner or creative entrepreneur and you want to get connected to a great community, I can't recommend our community enough. And our leaders enough. They are extraordinary. Our leaders, our co-leaders, our moderators, everybody who makes Rising Tide what it is. It's just the greatest. So highly recommend @risingtidesociety on Instagram, or head over to www.honeybook.com/risingtide. And you can find your local group on our map.

And then, definitely check out the book. If you end up pre-ordering the book before August 24th, I've got a load of freebies for you. So I've got a ton of stuff to send your way, immediate access to chapter one before that copy is even in your hands. That includes audio as well, if you're an audio book listener, it is available in audio book form. But you get that chapter one immediately dropped to you when you pre-ordered the book and fill out the form over on www.nataliefrank.com/book and that has all the details that you need. You get like a little pre-order package with all this fun free stuff. So I highly recommend if you're going to order it, pre-order it, and that way you get access to all the goodies.

Katrina Widener: Yeah! Thank you so much Natalie for coming on. I really, really appreciate it.

Natalie Franke: Thank you so much for having me.