What to do with our relentless urge to care
Five ways to advocate for change—especially when caring for our business feels like it’s competing with everything else we care about in the world right now.
The online business owners I’m connected with are some of the most fiercely empathetic, self-aware, and strategic thinkers I know.
From all over the world, we support one another with a rich plethora of perspectives and skills that serve far more than just marketing ourselves. We build living, breathing communities that are genuinely bettering lives —thousands of miles apart.
But collectively, we’ve all been processing a lot… along with the rapid changes in online marketing.
The longer I’ve been engaged with these incredible international relationships, the more I want to reiterate that 1) my country is not the center of the world, and 2) when our leaders act like that is the case, our politics have massive implications for other countries, while aggravating tensions within our own. (Which doesn’t make me un-patriotic. I care more now than ever about the well-being of our country, it’s people, and it’s relationships with the rest of the world.)
At this point, many of us feel we simply can’t not care about politics in our online platforms. Ongoing shocking events inevitably show up in the same spaces that we market our work and connect with each other.
When yet another shocking news story comes out and the whole landscape of our social media platforms shifts, we have a growing urge to do something with that care. It begs us to be honest about where we stand in all of it.
While at the same time, we feel torn—Because we also can’t not care about our businesses. It is difficult to hold both tensions at the same time. Since our care, energy, and attention feel like limited resources, it can feel selfish to market ourselves in the middle of societal suffering, even though the two are not mutually exclusive.
We often feel like walking contradictions, participating in capitalism in order to make a hard-earned living, while those sitting at the top continue to exploit the same system, unchecked.
Our deepest cares seem to be at odds.
The good news? We aren’t alone in figuring this out. We can collectively bring together our individual strengths to promote change, even though it might look different from person to person.
I hopped on a last-minute virtual meetup with nine other entrepreneurs over Zoom last Tuesday. We discussed the realities we’re all facing, opened up about the struggles in it, and shared ways we’re redirecting our energy for good.
From it, I compiled five main takeaways we can show care during this time:
Care by speaking out
Care by creating purposeful work
Care by personally researching & learning
Care by activating your community
Care by being a present participant
I’ll expand on each below! And even if you’re not a business owner, we’re here to remind you that your personal expression of care still counts.
1) Care by speaking out
If you’re drawn to using your voice and platform right now but unsure how, you might feel intimidated by the pressure to follow how you’ve seen others do it.
That awareness is actually a good indicator that you don’t just want to regurgitate what you see—you want to recognize your own voice in it.
Your voice is at it’s best when it’s from your own personal experiences, observations, and interactions with others. See where you can naturally draw connections from those things first.
For example, I’ve been feeling the urge to share more personal stories about my upbringing, why my views have changed over the years, and where there’s overlap with what I do in online entrepreneurship (which is why I started a Substack). For the longest time, I was worried about saying the wrong thing. I was afraid of backlash, and often still am. But eventually I was willing to accept that even with the most careful intentions, I might not say everything perfectly—and I am capable of course-correcting and taking accountability if needed.
Our desire to strive at it can hold us back from doing it altogether. But “it’s okay to be mediocre at it. We can exist in the baby steps.” (Thank you to
for those gems!)Another participant mentioned how getting involved in her community is exactly what enabled her to speak up more naturally online. She no longer feels stifled about what to say because she has real community experiences and insights to speak from. (I expanded more on this example in section 4 below.)
If you still can’t find the words, but want to start using your voice more, there is nothing wrong with simply saying, “I can’t find the words right now.” Or “I’m having a hard time vocalizing this.” It can start with a simple act of acknowledgement.
Whatever expression of care feels most honest to you right now, start there.
2) Care by creating purposeful work
We’re all inspired by artists and creative minds who use their work to say something bigger. They’ll see realities that aren’t being talked about enough, and they can’t go on with their lives without channeling that passion into a song, mural, film, book, musical, poem, post, etc.
Whatever the art form, artists deliver it in a way that could potentially make harsh realities more understandable and relatable to the masses.
For example, I recently watched a low-budget but very heart-warming documentary called ‘Searching for Sugar Man’. It’s about the humble musician Sixto Rodriguez, who’s music flopped in the US while he unknowingly became a legend in South Africa during Apartheid protests. His music explored themes of anti-establishment, his way of protesting inequality in his own city (Detroit, Michigan)—but it was a universal truth that resonated across the world.
Somehow, his banned record was smuggled into South Africa and became the soundtrack of a growing revolution. With the internet still so new, he wasn’t even aware of his fame there until he was located years later by persistent fans.
Art moves people in ways you might not even realize.
Aside from the obvious art forms, our businesses don’t have to be conventionally artistic to create relevant and purposeful work. Anything you’re interested in can help bring change and shift perspectives.
For example:
This birthing doula shares a beautiful metaphor to spark hope in those who feel like giving up when things get insanely tough.
This fitness coach speaks out about the necessity of disrupting the norm with protesting, like in MLK’s time, despite the backlash they faced back then.
On his foodie account, this dad draws metaphorical parallels using cooking—Like the comparison of assembling ingredients to our first-amendment right to assemble.
Speaking of food, this multi-faceted content creator @morganlynzi also creates a lot of recipe-driven content with storytelling voiceovers addressing current realities. I also loved this post with the message, “we are the media”
This film commentary creator reminds us that no good movies side with tyranny. They always side with the oppressed “despite insurmountable odds.”
These are just a few hand-picked examples from people who post about all kinds of other things, with politics mentioned when relevant.
And even if you aren’t making a direct political statement, keep creating. Continuing to pursue purposeful, creative work in my business feels feels like a form of rebellion against the system that is actively giving us every reason not to.
“Art is audacity, and art is resistance.” (Another gold nugget from our meetup, thanks to
!)3) Care by personally researching & learning
If you’re not ready to put something out into the world, maybe this gets to be a time for inner personal reflection. Maybe you’re new to activism in general, and you just need time to formulate your thoughts first.
Simply trying the inner work of being honest with yourself, asking good questions, and doing thoughtful research for personal development is extremely productive and necessary too.
These small acts of personal learning will nurture your sense of clarity and build courage. All it takes is one person demonstrating this to encourage another person to do it too.
A couple of resources for further learning shared in our meetup included:
the book called ‘The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself’ which can help with the skill of rhetoric, when navigating political dialogue across differing perspectives (thanks Ally from @detalledesign for this recommendation!)
the Social Change Ecosystem Map by
, which is a framework that can help you figure out where your role is in societal change. (Thank you @hey.rachael for sharing this resource with the group!)
Even if no one sees these efforts of learning, researching, and inner work, it absolutely counts towards our collective movement towards change!
4) Care by activating your community
Sometimes we over-estimate what community involvement can look like. We assume that community gatherings need to be these huge displays of resistance, like assembling for protests. But in reality, it could be as simple as a Thread about something relevant to your area that unexpectedly goes viral.
This literally happened with one of the participants in our meetup. Kelly Schmidt posted this Thread in March about her experience at a local town hall and got a massive spike of engagement on it. She responded to that engagement with a Google Interest Form to gather ideas on ways they can take action together locally.
One of the initiatives they ended up doing together was a local sign-making event, where they gathered supplies and created free signs for local protestors. Kelly continues to stay in touch with this local group of people, still brainstorming ways to encourage local activism.
Since these local initiatives unfolded so organically, Kelly has naturally felt more motivated to talk about what she advocates for on her business social media accounts.
In other words, involvement in initiatives outside of business led to becoming more organically vocal about politics in her business.
Another participant, Maddy Aucoin, reminded us that community care doesn’t even have to be directly related to what’s going on in the news. Such as: creating relationships with neighbors, running errands for friends, using the library, volunteering for political candidates who will stand against injustices, etc.
She’s also been exploring a fund within her business to donate to mutual aid:
Then there’s virtual community activation—Like the meetup I hosted out of the blue last week. I had never done this before, and wasn’t even sure if I felt qualified to carry conversations like this. But I got over that imposter syndrome and trusted that others would contribute thoughtful insights.
It wasn’t about what I had to say—it was about what the collective was feeling and doing with those feelings.
And this wasn’t just a me thing! If you want to host your own virtual “vent sesh”, all I did was ask if anyone on Threads was interested, picked a time that worked for a few of us, and shared the calendar link around. I prepped a few conversation prompts before the call, but then allowed the conversation to be whatever it needed to be.
5) Care by being a present participant
An underestimated way to show care is by simply being an engaged participant in the existing content and initiatives out there. If you’re not currently in a circle where these opportunities naturally come up, it may just require some research upfront. But this relieves the pressure you may feel about having to lead something if you don’t currently have the bandwidth for it.
If simply being a present participant to other people’s communities and initiatives is all you’ve got in you right now, that’s still enough.
Your presence and engagement also seriously encourages the people who are choosing to lead initiatives, speak out, and share their work. It reinforces the collective sense of care and keeps the momentum moving forward.
For those leading, you can encourage more participation by prompting actions, like “Can you share your experience with me?” and “if you feel the same way, feel free to respond here!”
(Thank you Ally from @detalledesign for this recommendation, the perfect way to wrap this conversation!)
Which brings me to my final remarks…
Which of these five ways to care resonate with you most?
Comment below—or if you have any other ideas for how we can individually express care, I’d love to hear about it!
To the people who showed up to our meetup last week, thank you a million times over for making this Substack article possible. I may host more of these pop-up vent sessions in the future!
It’s truly amazing to be a part of this online entrepreneur community of incredibly caring, intelligent people.
Your care continues to give me hope. 🫶
Reading this made me feel hopeful, encouraged, and inspired. There's so many things we can do and a lot of different ways to make an impact. Thank you, Kristina!
So well written Kristina! Going to sit with all these gems for awhile. 💗