Why I say NO to Social Media with Carly Burr

S3 Ep1 Episode Shownotes:

“The last thing I want is to lose connection with the people who matter most to me.” —Carly Burr

The social media pandemic has really taken over, hasn't it? 

It seems like everyone is constantly glued to their phones, scrolling endlessly through the highlight reels of everyone else's lives. It can be so easy to get caught up in the comparison trap and feel like we're just not measuring up. But you know what they say— comparison is the thief of joy!

Several years ago, Carly Burr made the bold decision to ditch social media altogether, and she hasn't looked back since! As a mom and business owner, Carly has found that living life offline has allowed her to cultivate deeper connections with her family and build a thriving business in a refreshingly authentic way. 

In this insightful conversation, Carly shares her journey of going offline, the benefits she and her family have experienced, the importance of building community and relationships through intentional, offline methods, and her upcoming projects aimed at helping others shift their perspective and prioritize meaningful offline connections. 

Connect with Heather:  

Website

Facebook 

Instagram

LinkedIn

Episode Highlights:

03:01 Living Offline 

10:35 The Biggest Problem

16:18 Are Massive Platforms Really Necessary?

21:35 The Power of Staying Grounded

25:42 How to Go Offline

32:17 Building Quality Connections

37:47 Beware Not to Send the Wrong Message

41:53 Social Media is Not the ONLY Tool 

Transcript

Heather Nelson: Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's Life Conversations With a Twist. I'm so excited for this conversation today. I actually just met Carly. We are mutually connected to Kesha. She's another podcaster, one of my favorites. And again, when I have a second to listen to a podcast, I turn her on because she's always so motivating and uplifting. She interviewed you, and you've been coaching and working with her. I would love to hear more about that as well. But your story is so cool, and it's something that I think everybody needs to hear because we're all struggling with this whole online social media space. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Carly Burr: Thanks for having me, Heather. I'm so excited to be here.

Heather Nelson: It's fun. So Carly is a podcaster too, and so we'll talk about that as well. So it's always fun to talk to another podcaster, because it's a little bit easier.

Carly Burr: It really does. You understand what this is like from the other side. We have some common ground.

Heather Nelson: Okay, so tell everyone a little bit about who you are, where you live, and a little bit into the inside of your life.

Carly Burr: I live in Utah. I am a mother of two little toddler girls. I have a three and a half year old, a half year old and a one and a half year old. I'm married to my high school sweetheart, which I like to always include because you don't hear that all the time. But it's actually hilarious. Because where I live, a couple of my neighbors I can see from my house are also high school sweethearts. We have this little high school sweetheart group in my neighborhood. It's kind of fun. But married to my high school sweetheart, living in Utah, podcasting, trying to help people the best that I can with navigating social media, life without it and all the things in between, and just trying to take life one day at a time. Really enjoy where I'm at when I'm there.

Heather Nelson: I'm so excited to even dive into this. There's just so much to talk about, but I know this topic and what you're doing is literally going to change people's lives. I'm not just saying on my podcast, but the movement you're making, and the direction you're going. I'm so excited to have you on and to be here, because I struggle with this topic as well. So let's dive in.

Carly Burr: Ready.

Heather Nelson: Tell us how you got to this point. So just a little backstory of listening to your podcast. Carly is not online. She's not on social media. And it's so funny. Because every time I go to interview someone, social media stocks them a little bit. Because you're like, okay, I just want to know a little bit more about you, and you have nothing. Literally, because she's not online.

Carly Burr: It makes it a little bit more difficult. It really does.

Heather Nelson: But I love this concept of being offline, being present and being more involved in taking it day by day, like you just mentioned. So how did you get here?

Carly Burr: I never intended on ending up offline when I first embarked on this journey. I guess you could say that I didn't think it'd be something that I did indefinitely. But I found myself this is in 2015 when this all started for me. I was in college at the time, and I was in my second year of college. I can't technically call it my second year, because I didn't have enough credit. Have enough credits. But my first year of college, I had moved locations three times within nine months because I would go to one place and I didn't like my experience there. I felt like I wasn't having the ultimate college experience that all my peers were having online, or even people that I knew in real life at the time. I was like, this just doesn't feel right. Let's move somewhere else and try over here. So I found myself in the summer of 2015 in southern Utah, three hours from where I live now. And it was a summer semester, so I was taking two classes. I moved there with my boyfriend, who's now my husband at the time. I was like, okay, I'm determined to figure out what my life should look like, because I feel so behind right now because all of my friends are on their career paths. They're knocking out college to get onto the path that they want to go on, and it just seemed like everybody had everything figured out online that I was consuming. I was really stuck in that comparison of feeling, oh, my gosh. I'm totally behind. I have no clue what I'm doing. It was like a feeling of insecurity because I'm going, why does everybody else have this and I don't? My college experience isn't as exciting as everybody else is. What is wrong with me? That is how I felt. 

So that summer, I mixed a couple classes and a lot of afternoon apps, and a lot of watching Netflix. I was on social media looking through, I followed a lot of bloggers. Because Utah is like a really big blogger Central. Especially in 2015, a lot of bloggers in Utah specifically were really getting big at that time. And so I was thinking, well, I'm going to the gym every day. People have always asked me all through high school, into college what I do for my workouts. People have always been curious. You should send us what you do. Tell us about what you do. So I'm going, maybe I should start a blog, because everyone else had blogs at this time. It looked like the right thing. People were exploding. So I said, maybe this could work for me too. So I had my boyfriend take pictures of me at the gym, and I bought a domain for my blog, and I even drafted a few posts. I was ready to launch this thing, and I understood fully that this would mean I was going to be spending more time on social media. But putting myself more out there, and I thought I was ready for that. So as I went to publish my very first post on my blog, I am a spiritual person. I believe in God, and I had this full body overwhelming feeling that this is not my path. Like, Carly, don't do this. Don't publish this first post. Not that anyone would have seen it anyway, because I hadn't done any background like, hey, I was writing a blog in the first place. But it was very clear to me that he was saying, this is not your path. 

And so initially, when I felt that, I was surprised. I was relieved. I was like, well, I don't have to put myself out there so much like I thought I might be needing to. All the judgment that I knew was gonna come from that. But I had honestly overlooked that because I was so just ready to feel on the right path towards something. So if this could have been the thing, even though it was gonna be uncomfortable whatever at this point, I just wanna feel like I'm moving somewhere. And so when I didn't hit publish, I sat there feeling relieved and then frustrated going, well, then what? What should I do then? Because I'm trying to figure this out. I had no problem taking new action. But I really thought this could be the thing for me. And the next impression that I had was to just create some space to just get still. And I knew exactly what that meant. I knew that I needed to in order to create space for me. That meant I needed to take some time away from social media, because it was just so noisy. I was just so consumed in that, in what everybody else was doing, in what I was being pressured to feel like I should be doing. Feel like I should be doing in 2015 when blogging is a group, blowing up like I could not even hear my own thoughts or what I truly wanted, or what God really wanted from me. So I'm grateful that I even had that intervention to stop me from doing that in the first place. That is how I got offline, and then I didn't intend to stay off. But what I found on the other side of that decision to create the space and to sit still for a while was too good for me, but I ended up not going back. And I haven't been back.

Heather Nelson: Are you on Twitter?

Carly Burr: I'm on YouTube. I always say I forget to address the elephant in the room because this is an ongoing conversation on YouTube. You say you're offline, but you are on YouTube. And yes, some people consider YouTube social media. But the way that it interacts, you're not following your friends on YouTube, you're not following your family. It's very rare that you really know the person that you're following on YouTube. And I use YouTube for a place to learn something like how to paint a wall and not make lines. You know what I mean? Some people use it in other ways, and it can be very addictive. I do always acknowledge that I never had that relationship with it. And the reason I decided to go there is because, as I was offline for a couple years, people started to ask me, Carly, what does it look like on the other side? How are you doing this? Why are you doing this? And so because people started to ask me, I'm going, well, maybe I could share this on YouTube because people are clearly curious, and maybe I can help someone else be inspired through my story and share that they are alone. And so that's why I took to YouTube. 

And honestly, this is kind of going off on a YouTube tangent now, but we'd probably get here eventually. I've always had a very good relationship with YouTube. Because from the day that I went there, I never was out to become a YouTuber. I was never following the numbers and trying to build this huge presence there. I was trying to just offer up support and also grow my email list. I would create little downloads that I could start growing email lists. I knew I wanted to do a business. I didn't know what kind of business at the time. So YouTube for me since it wasn't traditional social media and I could share a message, spread impact that way and grow an email list, it was just like the right fit for me. And it's been, honestly, a great experience with having that approach and that mindset going into.

Heather Nelson: I think it's different how you use it. You say that you post it to educate others. But if you're not spending the time consuming it, I feel like there's so much difference. It's different from just posting it and putting your message, your thoughts and in what you're doing out in the world versus somebody who's literally on it for hours and hours, like my whole entire family.

Carly Burr: Very different relationships in that form.

Heather Nelson: I know the importance of YouTube. If I'm looking for something, of course, I search for it. But I'm not a big YouTuber. I was caught up in Instagram.

Carly Burr: Yeah, that is the number one place that people get caught up in. I hear the major problem for everyone is Instagram. It's the biggest problem out there.

Heather Nelson: Well, now they have reels. And that was the thing. Everybody was like, I don't need to go to TikTok because I'm not on Tiktok either. But now I can do it. I can watch the same thing on reels. That's where I get sucked in. I have so much stuff I want to talk about. So you haven't been online since 2015? That's almost 10 years.

Carly Burr: I'm closing in on a decade. I can't even believe it.

Heather Nelson: So doing what you're doing right now educating people, obviously, this is a business. I don't know at what point you're doing where you make money doing it. But how do you get people to find you besides YouTube? What are you doing to get this message out to the world?

Carly Burr: Things like collaborating with people. And honestly, because I have a really tight knit community, I've always been very interested in the people who were curious about life offline. I genuinely want to know their story. I want to know how I can help them. And so because of that, I've cultivated this very tight knit community that people share about our community. Just this last week, I had an email come in from a girl sharing with me her infertility journey and account related to social media, and I was just supporting her. We've been emailing back and forth for a couple of weeks. And she's like, by the way, my cousin is so and so who's been in my community for like four years. And she's like, she's one who told me about this and about you. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. It's so cool to see the connections that come through word of mouth. So a lot of it is YouTube. People will go to YouTube. They'll find a video that I talk about living without social media. Something hits right for them, and they will go from there to my website. Plug into the community that way, or through my podcast. My podcast, surprisingly, I've only had it for just almost a year in September. But I always ask the question, people join the community, I say, how did you hear about us? Because they want to know where they're coming from. And it's almost to the point where it's 50/50, YouTube and podcast. So that's how it works. Those two things.

Heather Nelson: Both of those are very inspiring to me because I'm in this weird spot right now in my personal life journey, my career journey and my podcast journey. And this is where I'm getting stuck and hung up, especially with my podcast. And everyone's like, I love what I do. I love the women that I have on here. So many of these stories are life changing for other people. .But everyone's like, you need to get on YouTube. And so I'm like, oh, God. Or I'm feeling like I have to post a reel, or I need to make content. Everything becomes so overwhelming. And so it's inspiring to know that you're growing your community, and you're following, especially on podcasts, and just do little avenues.

Carly Burr: I say that it's like a diet plan. There's all these ways you can get in better shape or lose the 10 pounds that you've been hanging on to for a while. There's so many different ways to go about doing that work. It's not that it doesn't work, but there's also a way that you're gonna enjoy, that you're gonna feel that this is good for your lifestyle or good for you personally. Maybe you hate to run, but you'd be happier to change your diet. You know what I mean? There's always something else that you can do. So I think social media is the same. Even business. Promoting your business the same way because social media hasn't been here forever. And obviously, it's an incredibly powerful tool. It works for a lot of people, but it also doesn't work in certain ways for a lot of other people too. Specifically how it relates to how you feel about creating that type of content, how you feel doing it. Because at the end of the day, I'm like, why are we creating businesses? Why are we trying to make an impact? Why are we doing this? And it's to create more freedom to live, maybe more how we want to live. But if you're doing that in a way that's like sucking away your soul during the journey, and you're hating every single reel that you have to create because you feel like you have to because so and so said that's how you build your community, that's not worth it. In my opinion. 

It takes away the joy and the journey, which isn't the point. If everything ends tomorrow and you're like, dang it. I made it to that goal that I wanted. I didn't have that subscriber count. But you could say, oh, I had a really good time doing it in the way that I wanted to do it. That was a lot of fun, or that felt really good for me. Or they didn't feel good, dang it. I wish I could have done it differently. Or I've hated this journey. I've hated my business because I hate social media. There is always another way. I always say it might require you to be more patient, and be more creative. But after all, if we're on this entrepreneurial journey, aren't we creative? We are there to shake things up and to do things in our own way. Let's not lose sight of a true entrepreneur and what that means, because that's what it is. And sorry, I get off on a tangent here.

Heather Nelson: No, I love it. And you said something that spoke to me. And so what I believe in business, and this is what I teach my clients. It's all about connections. It's all about building relationships. It's about connecting to people in your community to grow your community. And I think about my business, not my podcast, but my business itself. It's called The Connection Hive, because I believe in the connection, and I just had this aha moment. Every single client that I've had has come from a connection. Has come from somebody referring, has not come from someone on social media.

Carly Burr: I love that you just had that. Because this is the thing. You almost get so seduced, or you just get your own voice, or what's even happening in your business get so deluded because we feel like we have to have this massive presence on social media because that's what everyone tells us we have to do. And these people who are telling us that they have these massive platforms, so we're going, obviously, this has worked for them without taking into consideration that they've been doing this. How many years longer prior to us, and things have changed. I know they understand that, and they'll talk to the changes that happen. But still, someone who's starting right now doesn't have this platform that you built when things were not the way that they are. It's very different. And so you have to remember, like you said, I've had so many people say that to me. They go, where I even get my clients isn't actually even through there? That's an epiphany, and it's true. If we pay attention to where it actually comes from, whether it's another number of followers on your Instagram page, does that even translate into a client? Where do they actually come from? And where can we spend more time doing that? So if it's through the connections, how can we build more of those in person connections, or get more of those referrals instead of spending so much more time on social media when that's not even where it's translating for you? So I love that you had that.

Heather Nelson: It's interesting too. The other podcaster that I listened to is Jenna Kutcher. She was just talking, she's so big on email. I love her email building, email newsletters and things like that. And I actually just sent out my first one last week, because the other thing now that I'm trying to focus on is growing that and growing the email. And you had touched on that. You can grow your business, you can grow your community through email, which is old school, way before social media. That's how people got business, and you just shifted my perspective a lot.

Carly Burr: I love the email because it really does with community, that's how my community started. Now I have a separate platform that's not on social media, that's not my email list where my people can gather, talk and support each other. But that just started earlier this year.

Heather Nelson: I'm in a networking group, and we use that platform and I love it. We were a network, and our businesses, we promote it there. And I love that.

Carly Burr: Yes, it's so great. I'm glad you're getting into email, because I love it. I feel like it's such a great way to really connect with your audience and really get to know them. I will have names top up and I'm like, I know exactly who this is. I'm so excited to hear from you. It's how I've done it. That's how I've built and engaged a community. It all started with email, and still, that's the foundation to it.

Heather Nelson: I want to talk a little bit about social media. I think of influencers, and there's one that stands out in my head. She's a local one, and you see them putting all this content out. And then if they say one thing that somebody does not agree with, whether it's political or about anything, people are upset about it. Flurry of mean messages come back out, or people posting rude things about them. How that damages your ego or your self esteem, and then you see them so upset about people's comments. .It's like, why would you put yourself in that position just to bring you down? It's all about building confidence and making you feel good in your life. Why would you want to feel shitty because of one thing that you believe in, or one thing that you do, or one story you went to?

Carly Burr: It's actually insane how people can say things, and there's no consequence for it too. You can just speak your mind online, and there's no consequence. You would never say that to someone's face. Unfortunately, influencers are targets for that, but they're choosing to put themselves out there in that way. And that's just a cost that I guess you choose to pay. Someone just asked me about this the other day. They were asking about, or they were talking to me about a specific influencer that they had followed, and how she had posted something that really turned a lot of people off. People were highly upset about it and they're going, how do they either separate themselves from this? It would be so damaging to any person who's receiving this amount of backlash on something. And I also feel like there can sometimes be a disconnect. Sometimes, when influencers get to a certain level and they have a large enough following that there's almost the disconnect from this world that they live in influencing versus where the consumer is sometimes gets a little too separated. And so they'll say something that really pisses these people off because they're like, that's totally relatable. And then it's like, why do you follow them in the first place? But that's another thing. Because, okay, when someone will take the time to comment something negative, something rude or destructive to somebody else, what type of person is that? Because that is the energy and time you're taking out of your day. And this is something that I actually just dropped an email to for a friend that I just met a few weeks ago. She was asking me, I was at Powerhouse Women, the conference in Arizona.

Heather Nelson: I wanted to go to that.

Carly Burr: It was really fun. And I met this girl who I actually met in Florida earlier this year. Anyways, we reconnected and she was asking me, I know you do YouTube. And she said, I'm doing YouTube. I'm almost gonna get off because of the comments. She's like, it is so bad for my mental health, so how do you do it? She's like, how do you separate from that? And I have to be honest. Honestly, I don't get a whole lot of negative feedback on my YouTube channel. People will comment things about my appearance. People will say things about the irony and what it is that I'm doing. And I'm drafting this to her right now, because I just have been thinking about it. I'm like, what can I say to help her understand how I navigate this because I would never consider myself like a large scale or even small scale influencer. I'm just spreading a message online on YouTube. And so I told her, the reason I think that doesn't bother me is because I, first of all, I'm so grounded in what I'm doing without the approval or the validation of anybody else. I'm very spiritual, I'm very religious. And so I'm like, God has very much placed this upon my heart. 

And so for the people who need to hear it, the people who this is for, they will hopefully receive this. And people that it isn't for, they can hopefully just go the other way. And then the people who are going to take the time to comment about my appearance or to comment about the irony and what I'm doing, obviously, it's not for them. But to take the time to do that too. Try to tear somebody else down. That's not someone I'm willing to waste my energy and time on because it's not worth it. They don't deserve that. Those types of people, they should not be given the time of day. I know that it can be hard. It can be easy to just say that and not actually fully feel that, but I really do feel that because it's a total perspective shift. And it's such a low point. Clearly, they're probably doing something in their life, and they need to try to take that out on somebody else. And it just happens to be the person who's putting themselves out there. But I don't know how I got there.

Heather Nelson: I just want to be like, who gives a F what people think about you? At the end of the day, you live your life. You should focus on yourself, your business, your family and all the people that matter to you. Who really cares?

Carly Burr: Who really cares? If their life must not be going very well, or they might? I don't know, I need something else to distract them from what we all do at times. Does it impact your life if I said something that really pissed you off, or I wore a shirt that you don't agree with? Does that really impact your life directly? Like you said, no, it doesn't. And so it just gets crazy. The online space can be crazy.

Heather Nelson: And it's really crazy right now with all the political stuff going on. I have a question for you, and one thing that I'm struggling with personally, I think I'm in a space that I cannot completely go offline. I think I'm in a space where I need to shift my perspectives and put more energy around things that are going to move me forward, like YouTube, my podcast or email list, things like that. I use social media a lot because a little background on what I've done in my career is I was a client relations manager. My job is to make those connections with people to build trust, to build these relationships for their business or for the business that I work for. I really do believe in that part of why I was on social media. I was following my clients so I could know what they were doing, and that they went on vacation, that they had three kids. I believe that it really does kind of seal the deal and build trust. You're like, oh, she actually pays attention. But I do need to limit it. So what advice do you give somebody who knows that they can't completely get offline? Because I think there'll be people like, how do I do a little less of it? What do you say for that person that's in that boat?

Carly Burr: So this is actually a lot of people in my community too. Not everybody is completely offline or has even the desire to go completely offline. It's more finding out the way that it works for you. And so for people who are trying to just scale back, like you said. Spend less time in that space. Honestly, it can be as simple as having it in your calendar. When are you going to be there? And redefining how often you really need to be there and being honest about that, because it becomes something that is just so easy to access at any point in time. We just end up going there without any real intention. But if we can re-frame and reset the relationship with social media to be something that is with the utmost intention as much as you would schedule something in your calendar to like, on Wednesdays at 11:30 is when I respond to emails until 12:30. And that is the time that I do that, and then I am done with email. And onto the next thing, putting social media in that space not letting it be something that can just come when it wants to, or when you want it to. But you're choosing, you're in charge, and you know exactly why you're going there and for how much time, and then you can move on afterwards. And sometimes, that doesn't even work for people. Because for some people, it really genuinely is an addiction. And so it's hard to just turn it on and off, because you can still get sucked in for hours. 

But doing things like setting a timer to remind yourself, I'm on for this period of time, and then the timer goes off, and that's your redirection moment to turn to something else or to get off. But really understanding why you're going to use social media that you were very clear. You think it's very important for keeping up with people so that you can build these types of deeper relationships in that way through clients so you know what's going on in their life, and then do you need to check in on that person every single day? Not really. Hopefully, they're not updating every single day. I'm not sure what's going on online right now, but I know some people do that maybe a couple times a week, or once a week, or once every two depending on the person. All you really need to do is scroll back through and see the update from the person. Or if there's someone specific, you can even look them up directly and see if they're done any updates, and then cut out the rest of the unnecessary noise in the meantime. Because a lot of people will say, I don't want to be on social media personally. But for business, I would love to be on social media for certain reasons, but not too much. 

And so if you can learn to separate the two, or to really be disciplined with yourself, or to find support around this, which the community is very much. Find people who are also trying to do this too because it can feel kind of isolating being like, why do I feel like I have to step back from social media when everybody else seems to be upping their presence online? Am I too sensitive? What is going on here? And now, most people are struggling with it. It's just something that we don't talk about. And because I talk so much about it, I hear so much about it. I'm like, let's have this conversation because most people struggle. I maybe had one person in the six years that I've been talking about this. One person says that they love social media. Most people will say, I could really benefit from taking a step back, or I really hate that I have to be on social media. Or, oh, it's always negative. It's always negative 99.999% of the time. And so that's enough to tell you that most people are struggling. We just don't talk about it enough.

Heather Nelson: I think for me, it's like eliminating the five minutes you have while you're standing in line at the grocery store. I was very guilty of this. I was waiting in line at the car wash today, and I did a quick story, but I was telling the world this is what I was doing today. It's those moments that I'm like, if I'm stopped at a stop sign, do I really, like why? It's an addiction. You're like, I have to know, what's the next thing. But I love that you said cutting it into time, setting time. I feel like I usually do it. First thing in the morning, I kind of push my time to get up and go to the gym. One thing that I have eliminated in my life, I'm not a big TV person. That's one thing that I've kind of cut out. I always fall asleep. I try so hard, and then I fall asleep. Or I love watching a football game or something. But yes, my husband is constantly putting on the news. And I'm like, I don't want to know what's going on in the world. I know there's a lot of crappy things going on right now, and I probably should know because I have children. But I really don't care. It just interrupts what we're doing.

Carly Burr: It disrupts the peace. If I hear about this, I'm stressed out. I'm thrown off course for the day. I just don't need that.

Heather Nelson: Do you watch TV?

Carly Burr: No. Okay, during sports season like football season upcoming, my husband will turn on a game. And I do enjoy sport, then I'll watch it in the background. But honestly at this season, especially being in starting a business, I'm like, I just can't. I'm not to the point, I guess, where I can just relax. But I have a hard time watching TV and watching series. Especially because when we first got married, we just watched on Netflix and chill. That was the newlywed life, which was great for that period of time. But now between the kids, I'm like, okay, when the kids go down and I finally have time to do what I want to do. Do I really want to watch TV? No. I have other things I really want to do. I really want to learn. That's just the season of life right now for me. But it's easy to get sucked into a series and need to watch the next, need to watch next, and you lose sleep.

Heather Nelson: 2:00 o'clock in the morning, why am I still awake right now? How has your relationship changed? Well, it has changed because you were married when you were on social media at one point. But talk about your relationship with your husband and your family because you aren't online, because that is my thing right now. Lile, I look up and every single person in my household is on a phone consuming whatever they're consuming, and that is one thing that I need to start putting kibosh on. Especially my husband. We're laying in bed, and we're both scrolling, sending each other videos back. I'm like, how do we've lost so much being together. I agree with how your relationship is without it.

Carly Burr: The number one thing for my life, personally, that I value more than anything is the quality of the connections in my life, and specifically with my immediate family like my husband and my children. Because again, at the end of the day, what really matters, and it's so easy to get so casual about the little things and habits, the little phone that just slips in here and there. But the impact that that actually has, especially over time, is huge. And so not being on social media has allowed for me to sit down on the couch with my husband. And instead of being semi irritated with him, but he's scrolling through, looking at somebody else that's not me that doesn't exist. And so it allows for conversation, and not conversation about something we had seen online earlier that day. I know most of my friends are on social media, and so I know the dynamic between the relationships. 

It's not everybody, but it changes the conversation to things that are more meaningful and more in depth. And for me, it's allowed for full transparency and full like, if there's an issue, I'm not gonna be upset about it and maybe distract myself with my phone or with social media and wondering about somebody else's relationship online because I'm dissatisfied with my moment. It's really like, okay, let's get to the root of this, and let's just take care of this now because we don't really have that easy buffer in between. And it doesn't drive an unnecessary wedge in relationships, because no relationship is perfect. It's hard to maintain that connection, especially with kids. 

And so with my children, I feel like it's almost made it easier for me. I have a smartphone, and even though I don't have social media, it can be easy to pick up my phone so I leave it in the other room because I really don't want my kids to see me on my phone. I really am very, very conscious about that because I want them to not lose the creativity and the simple joy in childhood because we didn't have that growing up. My daughter, even with the TV, she would love to watch tv all day. And I'm like, honey, we don't watch TV all day because God has blessed you with this beautiful, healthy mind, and this beautiful, healthy body. And we are going to get creative. We're going to use our bodies. We're going to move. It's fun to watch a show and be entertained for a bit. I love that for you, but not for as long as all day long. And so that's the thing. My children honestly help me. They help me because I want to be an example for them, and I want to set the tone for what things are going to be like in our family. We don't sit around on our phones not to say anything negative about anybody who does. But that's just not what we do in our house because we are here to connect with each other and to have conversations, and to be upset and talk through the things that are upsetting us. 

That very much has been the dynamic in my family, and one that I'm very, very conscious and dedicated to forming as my kids grow because I want a super connected family. The last thing I want is to lose connection with the people who matter most to me, which is people who live in this house. I can't control what anybody else is doing out there in the world. It's out of my control. But I can control what happens in this home and the connection that we are fostering together, and it's been everything for the peace in my home, and the connection that I have with my husband and with my kids. And I wouldn't trade it because I have so many conversations with friends who I love dearly who struggle with social media, and it really does drive a wedge in their relationship and with their kids. They know that, but they still have a hard time doing anything about it. And so it goes back to addiction. 

And honestly, I've had enough of these conversations that what it really seems to be is addiction under the surface, and everyone hates to hear that because no one wants to think that they're addicted. But it really helps to know how to tackle the situation when you see it for what it is. That's about what you're saying, what is great about social media for my family? It's everything. It's the connection, it's the peace, it's the presence that I have here in my home and with my family because I don't want to miss the things that matter that are happening right before my eyes every single day.

Heather Nelson: Sometimes, it's just like taking somebody to say that to be like, oh, shit. We'll need to clean it up. And I think for me, there is a meme or a video thing that, I think it's an image of a child coming up to you, and they're constantly on their phone. And I've said this to my husband multiple times, our son, I have a three year old as well. He acts up when we're both on our phone because we're not paying attention to him. That's when he acts up. All he wants is your attention. All these children want is your attention. I'm not saying that I'm perfect in this at all, but I'm trying to be more aware of it when it's happening because I'm like, I need to put it away. Like. Now I'm at a place in my business where I'm not doing events, so I'm not constantly like, oh, my god, do I have to check my email? I don't need to check my email. My clients can wait till Monday. Nothing is like life or death. Just put it away. And when you have a moment when your child's taking a nap, or they're in bed, or you're not in front of them, then you can check it. But I'm trying to be so much better at that.

Carly Burr: And you know what Heather, that is so admirable because the awareness of it in the first place, so many people don't even have. And so pat yourself on the back. First of all, having that awareness being, okay, I want to do something about this because that's where it starts. And until you have that, you're not going to do anything about it. But that's great. I'm proud of you for having that realization and that awareness, because not a lot of people do have that. It's interesting, because with kids and devices a few weeks ago, and I'm very mindful of this when I'm out because I'm curious. I talk about this in my podcast. I like to share things that I'm observing so people can either see themselves in the scenario or get inspired to see it from a different perspective. 

I was at the park with my family, and my kids were going down the slide. There was a couple sitting next to us, and her kids were playing around my kids. They're going down the slide and they're like, mom, mom, watch me. I'm going down the side. And she was, I don't know what social media, but I knew she's on social media because she turned to her husband. She's like, did you see that, whoever her neighbor Amber, did you see that they got a trampoline in their backyard? She's like, look, they got a tramp in their backyard. And the fact that your neighbor got a trampoline in their backyard is more important to you at this moment than your child who's proud of themselves for going down the side or wants your attention so bad for them going down the side. It just becomes so casual, and we are losing the moments that actually matter. And so the message that's being sent to our children or to the people who we love in our life, non verbally, is that this is more important that this is what matters to me.

Heather Nelson: It's gonna be so interesting to see our generation of children to be older and how they interact. We have our baby boomers who are exiting, and then we have us that are coming in and shaking up the world. I feel like we're all creatives, and we all have business and have these movements. And then we have the next generation that's going to come in. We're already seeing it in the workplace about the entitlement of people on their phones, comparing mental health, all these things. I'm so worried about our children's generation on what that's going to look like socially.

Carly Burr: It is terrifying, and it's interesting because there are all these statistics out there around devices and children, or social media and children or adolescents. And rightfully, we should be surveying and paying attention to these things. But I also feel the emphasis is shocking compared to the amount of information out there on children and adolescents, on adults and devices, and on social media. There's not even enough to like to compare the two. And so I'm going, hold up. Just because we've turned 18 doesn't mean that we're exempt from the damaging effects of these things, right? I'm like, oh, we're 18, so you don't have to worry about you anymore. No. It still is a problem, and it can still cause problems. Because if we, the adults who are in charge of the children, in charge of the adolescents, we first have to know our stuff. We first have to have it together because that's ultimately what they're gonna learn from. Hopefully, where they're gonna learn from is from our behavior. And of course, as they grow, they can take relief from what we taught them. But at least we can know what we're doing is making an impact on them for the better or for the worse. So anyways, yes, just because we turn 18, we adults still need to have these conversations. We need to survey and get to know this even more for the adults, because it's so important for the children at the end of the day that their parents can understand and start doing things differently to help them ultimately, and help themselves.

Heather Nelson: I love that so much. I think one of the takeaways I hear from your podcast is, how do you become a multi million dollar business by not being on social media? That movement, I think, would be so freaking cool to be like, I just grew this massive business without being on social media.

Carly Burr: Yes, and people are doing it. And that's the thing that we don't realize. There are avenues. Again, social media is an incredibly powerful tool, but it isn't the only tool. It's not the only way. And I think it's the comfortable way where it's like, okay, this is kind of laid out for me. And this is how I can do this. I'm not gonna say that social media is easy, but it's laid out there. This is what you can do versus, how can I be creative? How can I go maybe against the norm? Maybe that could even be beneficial for me in some ways because I am doing things a little bit differently, and that's going to be the approach that I take towards it. And also speak to business so SEO for certain things can also be something that can be utilized through adding a blog to your website. I have a person in my community who lives in South Africa, and she gets a lot of her business through her blog from three years ago. She still updates the blog, but not frequently. She's like, it's a post that I had made three years ago, and it's getting a lot of traction right now because something SEO wise is trending at this time. And so people are finding her through her blog. So there's things like that. That's another way that isn't social media, but that's one also.

Heather Nelson: Before social media, how are they even happening? Obviously, it can be done. But we get so sucked into what's new, shiny, fun and pretty, and where everyone's at. Just come back to the basics. And again, that's my thing. Get back to the connections. Get back to the relationships. Go to a networking event. Meet people organically that way. Email them after, connect with them. Grab a cup of coffee. You don't always have to engage with them on social media.

Carly Burr: Amen.

Heather Nelson: God, there's so much to talk about, but I love all of these that we've touched on. I want to know what's next for you? What's on the horizon for you? How can people get involved in this?

Carly Burr: I am actually coming out with my first book next month. I don't even have an exact date, which is kind of crazy. I'm that close, so I don't have an exact date yet. Beginning of October, it's when it's going to be released. And I'm really excited about it because I think this is gonna be the best way to have this type of impact with just getting people to explore and to become aware of the role social media plays in their life. And the book is called the Social Media Shift. It's all about shifting the perspective, shifting the behaviors around how we're viewing and how we're interacting with social media. So I'm really excited about that. And I'm also launching my brand. It's called Offline Worldwide, and it's just spreading the message visually for the people in my community to actually wear something that you put on, and you can be proud of prioritizing the connections in your life offline instead of online. Anyways, I'm excited about those two things. The biggest thing is my book. Honestly, I'm so excited about the book, and I'm excited for the movement and the impact that I'm trying my very best to have. And that I've been able to help so many people up to this point, and I'm just getting started. It's really exciting. It's a really exciting place for me.

Heather Nelson: Even to think that this movement could really shift things in the mental health in space. I wrote down comparisons. I wanted to revisit how social media can affect your mental health. Maybe you can come on again when you talk about that. That is another thing, especially for the younger generation. But how cool would it be that this movement and all the work that you're doing is, that changing point, that pitiful moment to change mental health for people.

Carly Burr: I'm glad that you see that too. Yes, it's always affirming to me. But other people see it too because I'm like, I promise that I'm not crazy. This is a thing, and this is really important. I'm really grateful for people like you who are willing to allow me to share with your community. I am so grateful, so thank you so much for this opportunity.

Heather Nelson: I see so many good things happening for you. I love the message. I love what you're doing so thank you for taking my email, because that's how I reached out to her. I didn't reach out on social media. I went to her website, found her email, and I emailed her like the old school way. But I'm so excited to see what happens and where you take this. I am a huge supporter. Thank you for just shifting my mindset a little bit. I definitely have a lot of takeaways from this, and then I'll put in the show notes how to find you, how they can listen to you, how they can get involved in the movement so thank you

Carly Burr: Thank you so much, Heather. This has been great.