33: How Social Media Is Affecting Your Growth and What to Do About It

Kate Powell (Kate for the People) exposes how social media is quietly overstimulating your brain, increasing your stress, and keeping you in a constant state of overwhelm. She shares how she built her platform by cutting through the noise and taking calm, direct action - proving that you don’t need to react louder, you need to think clearer. She also opens up about the experiences that shaped her voice and why speaking up, even when it’s uncomfortable, is the key to reclaiming your power.

Connect with Kate Powell:

instagram.com/kate_forthepeople

facebook.com/katefortheppl

kateforthepeople.substack.com

In This Episode:

• (00:20) Meet Kate and her approach to data + human behavior
• (05:55) How confusion keeps you in a freeze state
• (11:35) Why women struggle to show up authentically
• (17:00) Finding your voice and owning it
• (21:00) Letting go of shame and becoming unstoppable

Connect with Daffney:

The Game-Changer Consult → This 60 min deep dive offers you clarity and insight into what’s possible for your next 60 days. Leave this consult feeling full of possibility and with the energy of purpose!

liftprowellness.com

Instagram | YouTube | Merch

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

One of the biggest factors in our health and wellness is not just the food we're eating, but the things that we are consuming every single day. One of the things affecting most Americans and worldwide is our consumption of social media. And with me today is Kate Powell. You probably know her from Instagram, TikTok, and Substack as Kate for the People. She really is uncovering the things and maybe the algorithms that are keeping us stuck and not able to discern and make decisions for ourselves. And we know cardiovascular stress can all be part of a growing epidemic of disease response within our own body. Welcome to Don't Fing Shrink, the podcast, where we stop playing small and start showing up big. I'm your host, Daphne Allwine, and I'm here to cut through the noise, ditch the self-doubt, and get honest about what it takes to live and lead with unapologetic confidence. Each week you'll hear unfiltered conversations, powerful stories, and in real life strategies to help you take up space in your life, your work, and your world. So buckle up because shrinking is not an option here. Let's dive in. Hey Kate, how are you? Hi, I'm great. So I know you have your own story about how you went to school and statistics and analytics and data or even part of your world now. But how did you get started in all this?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

So, you know, interestingly, my degrees are not in stats and data per se, but I have always despised math, except for two classes, geometry and stats in college. That coursework was the only thing that spoke to me. And then, especially when I went on to get a master's in public administration, administration is really all about making decisions. And you can do it either by your feelings or you can do it only by facts, or what my therapist would call the wise mind. You can learn how to marry both. So when we say something is like data informed or data-driven, I do tend to lean towards the numbers, especially when we're talking about policy decisions, right? We need to make things on the generality, but I believe very strongly as well in not discounting the human experience. And so that was a very long way of saying, like, I got into kind of the career I got into, which is primarily arts administration, because I do have sort of this weird thing going on where I love creativity, I love daydreaming, I love imagination. And I could sit in a spreadsheet for hours and hours and hours and be happy about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Well, I think we also know now, and we we know this from science, that we don't have one dominant side of the brain. And it's not if you're a right side or a left side. We we know now in science, and please, you know, look this up and evaluate. But back when I was coming through school, back even in high school, you had to, you had to associate right brain, left brain. Were you artistic, were you mathematical, were you STEM? And we're learning that's not even a real thing. That's not actually how the brain functions or houses those skills and sets and integration. But I love that you said that, well, weird is not the right, it's integrated is the word you're looking for, because you were able to use this fine arts, creative, discerning is the word I want to use, right? Critical thinking, brain, and mirror that with the love of statistics and the love of humanity and people who are real stories and coming across and associating. So this is this is a full-body integration, right? In that sort of context. Do you remember your first post as Kate for the People?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Like, do you remember this sort of unfolding for you? So the first couple, I think, were just me playing around with TikTok. My first post that seemed to resonate, I was doing a congressional call. I'd been inspired by other creators who were calling Congress and recording themselves doing it. We had just sent 200 men to El Salvador to die, basically. And I was so devastated that whole week because another facet of me is that I'm half Japanese. And that history of our people in this country is a deep one, it's a painful one, it's complicated, it's also joyful, it's a lot of things. But I just remember I was like, how in the freaking world are we here again? So kind of like I took the ra, I raged, right? I took the rage. And then I went to the thing that I know, which is like, where's the money? And so when I learned that we were supposedly sending millions, up to like $14 million or something to Naeeb Bugele, the president of El Salvador, to take these 200 people from us to put them in prison. I was like, uh-this is what we're gonna do. I started calling down oversight committee, House Oversight Committee members and asking their offices. I'm like, I would like to know which line item in the budget is authorized for the president to spend this way. And the call that I recorded and posted that wit kind of like mini-viral and ended up being like, oh, maybe I like have an audience or something was the one to Marjorie Taylor Greene's office because the staff person, I think, their reaction was so like they were kind of taken aback, like they had a very human response. Yeah. They didn't know and was like, I'll need to ask the congresswoman. I was like, please do. I think what was funny about that call is like I wasn't yelling. I think it started to show people like there are ways that we can ask questions, and those questions breed more questions. And there have been countless examples over the last year of somebody writing a letter, making a phone call, doing a whatever, and it starts this whole chain reaction that leads to incredible things. We have power, we have agency, we need to use it collectively. But if we do push back as groups, as organized people, they don't have a choice except to at least respond.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

As much as it is, is what you're what you're explaining to people, is a lot of that fear, a lot of what people are consuming and feeling in their bodies. And I'm sure you were in the same spot at some point, was this helplessness, right? Because you embody helplessness, the stress, the compounding. And then, of course, we're we're reading more and more headlines every day. And where's the empowerment? Where is the opportunity for you to say, I'm not gonna absorb this anymore? And this is where I'm gonna ground myself in this. So I think that's really interesting. We've we've talked to a few other people that you probably know in that same arena who have basically said, I pick one thing, I focus my energy in one direction. Because in psychology, in mindset, in in all sorts of sciences in this regards, we know that if you are confused, if you are distracted, if you are uncomfortable, you render yourself ineffective. And that's that could be for just about anything. So when anybody's talking about a powerful mindset, when anybody's talking about investing your actual energy, your body, your discernment, choosing that one thing, choosing that thing that you are skilled at that is your that is your gift. And we know your gift is data, right? You know your gift is coming from a place of analytics. If someone's in a space where they are feeling overwhelmed and fearful in their body, and as we're learning, this is actually has a long-term effect on people's health if you have to live in that constant state of adrenaline. So I love that you found your empowerment. You found your, you found your power pose, right? In this audience. Have you always been a menace?

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Yeah. It's it's actually part of your identity, right? It is from a very like young age, being like, that's not right. I know that's wrong, and I will find a way to fix it. I have some early childhood personal experiences that were very painful, and I don't, I don't wish that they had happened, but I can look at them and and show and see that what they taught me was to just be very vocal, even as like a very small kid. Yeah. There, this is gonna be a little personal, but like I, you know, my biological father, um, I was forced to have a visit with him. I, you know, because that's what he wanted or whatever. So I went to this visit and he was giving us like money and presents and whatever. But I mean, there's a reason that I wasn't with him, right? And I was very careful what those reasons were. So I was not confused. And so we have all these things coming, and I just was like, right now I'm missing a math test, and that math is math class is really hard for me. And I'm really frustrated that I have to sit here and do this with you trying to just buy my love and I'm not gonna love you because you give me money or whatever, and now I'm gonna suffer in school because of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

What a profound little human being you were. How discerning of you. Because I, you know, I always love to say in these contexts, especially when we do mindset and things like that, education and intelligence are not the same thing. Right. I think intelligence, awareness, discernment is a type of intelligence that either you glean with wisdom from conditioning that you received, or somehow it's innate to some people. And I'm assuming for you, it might have been partially innate. Is it at an early age you saw an opportunity to engage and affect people with fact, with data, with this is actually affecting me, my body, and my life negatively. Were you always encouraged to like speak out? Were you always encouraged to have that voice? Or was this something you've had to push past?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

It's funny. I I yes, yes, because my my mother is also a menace. And so I did learn. But also, I mean, I'm sure raising a menace like that is also very difficult. And so there were plenty of tension moments where it was like, can you just not take this to 100? Maybe this time. That's part of gaining wisdom too, right? Because if if you do throttle to 100 every single time you perceive that something is unjust, maybe you do react proportionally, or maybe you kind of overreact. And so I am certainly not immune from overreacting, and I've had to work really, really hard on, you know, holding, being able to hold that uncomfortable feeling long enough to actually use the discernment you're talking about. And sometimes it's hard being a social media creator because it's literally designed for you to be able to pick up your phone, scream into it, hit post, and a bunch of people see it. And the algo loves it, and people like, you know, the scrolling loves it. And I have to be so freaking intentional about don't do that all of the time. There are times where I sometimes am like, you know what, I've had one too many of these, and I know where I stand on it. But I do, again, getting back to like the ability to use both the human, the humanizing and the data together. I think it's helpful every once in a while to be like, yeah, I'm still a person. And it is discouraging to me to see that. It is certainly discouraging to people who don't have that muscle memory, right? You alluded to me being a menace from like birth. I kind of walked out of the womb being one and obviously had to develop skills and whatnot to actually be an effective one. But even that gets to me, seeing it over and over again. So I can't imagine for people who are like, it's so difficult for me to even call my senator. There's, I think, a little bit of protectiveness as well in it, which is very much part of my personality. Very protective of things and people that I care about. We need, we need all parts of your personality.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Just to be clear, I think it's one of those things. Well, I'm glad we're talking about this, is because we think that we need to show up on social media as the same robot every single time. I don't think that that works. I don't think that you're actually gleaning any sort of momentum if you are showing up in the same static talking head pose, having the same copy, whatever you're reading at that point. I go out of my way to not write copy. I go out of my way because I want to show up as a human being. My question to you when you are doing this, because I think this is a spot where some people still feel really fearful, showing up authentically as themselves. And you and I talked about this, that like it feels raw sometimes. It feels raw to have an emotion. It's part of our conditioning as women is that if we show emotion, we've lost all credibility, blah, blah, blah. But there's power in emotion. And more importantly, there's power in story. Yeah. Because story is actually what bonds us and helps us see each other for who we actually are. Is there a story that sort of like connected you to some of this?

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Yeah. So honestly, just clicked into place a few minutes ago as you were describing it, how I have always been this way. And yet there's so much I've had to learn in order to be this way effectively to grow into a wise version of that. Because I do think that we all can walk out of the womb with a lot of raw whatever, a raw talent, a raw attribute or whatnot that I think is great, you know. Energy. Yeah. Yeah, energy, diamond in the rough type thing. And then it has to be dealt with. And there was a period in my life that unfortunately intersected with a very unhealthy relationship with a pastor. I'm an ex-evangelical. And it was a time in my life where I was very much trying, as I as I mentioned, to kind of tone it down, right? And and by tone it down, what I was really looking for was to not blow up things that were good in my nuclear reactions against things that I, again, I perceived as threats, as that I perceived as unjust or whatever. At the same time, being unfortunately connected to a person who ultimately was when on look back was trying to hurt me from the beginning, even though it was, it seemed like a healthy, helpful relationship. And it really like, I can't describe how painful this experience was as far as having to learn how to not silence myself, how to have discernment, while at the same time me finally speaking out about what was happening was punished. What did not result in a happily ever after, it did not result in justice, it still hasn't resulted in justice. And I don't think there ever will be. I had to kind of come to a point where I eventually figured out that there probably never would be. And like when you have basically no extrinsic motivation, no extrinsic reward for the lesson you're you need to learn at that moment, which is like discern, do the right thing, and accept whatever comes after that. It's a shitty lesson to learn. Oh it's lonely, it's lonely. It's called it in so lonely. I I lost, like, when I tell you the entirety of like my social support was wrapped up in this particular church, I thought I'd lost everything.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

But I I can look back now, honestly. And this is again after years of there were years of denying that I was like it was anything. I remember the first time my psychologist said the word trauma to me, and I was like, well, I've never had trauma, so I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

We can't, we can't let that happen. Exactly. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

But that's something that happens to strong women. You mentioned earlier. I think for women in particular, this is it is really hard to admit that you've been had, that someone was capable of hurting you, because you're like, no, I am, I am smart. I have resources, right? I'm not like a helpless little and this is really was a defining moment of me thinking that shrinking and being more demure and not saying what it was was me becoming a better person. And certainly that was being reinforced by the abuser, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

And then the only way out was for me to actually do what I knew, which was to be a menace, which was to just say what it was, even though everyone who heard it was like, I don't believe you, you're a liar, and all sorts of other horrific things. Like liar was like the least insulting part about all of that. It was oh yeah, your Jezebel, you're uh and things that I just can't even repeat. And I think what that did eventually, it was a years, years, years long healing, painful process. And I will probably be processing it until I die. But the but the bulk of it now is that I've I have this thing. I'm like making a sphere right now, if you're listening and you don't see the video. I'm making like a little ball. And it's like this is like the seat of my voice or whatnot. And again, I don't think I have it correct. I think I will always be, we're always developing, we're always learning, we make mistakes, we're human and all that kind of thing. But it is like a weapon, the ability to look at something and be like, I don't care if this results in a terrible consequence for me.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

When this experience happened, actually, the I called my mom, you know, as one does. And my mom said, just do the next right thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

What do I do next? And that's what you're illustrating. You're like, I'm lost. Because you are speaking to a population of people who are in fun. Like they are frozen in fear. And I think that's the clear-cut message in all this is that you say, I know you're scared. I know that you feel completely deeply emotionally bonded to what we're saying and what we're trying to. And here is the next right thing. Here is the way for you to put that energy into a practical, discerning step, next step forward. I think that no matter what that hurdle is or that mountain is in front of your life right now, the next right thing, the next repetition, the next choice is everything in that moment. It's not about future you problems. It literally is about what is the next thing? I love that you you deliver it so directly. I know sometimes I know you were saying you're like, maybe it's too much, it's too often, whatever. And that's conditioning from the outside telling you that is not your body telling you that, right? That is not your body being honest with you, body keeping the score, right? Your body is telling you that you hit the gas pedal because that is your passion. That is exactly what you need to be focusing on. So please don't fucking shrink. Sorry to throw that back in there. But no, it's like when you're listening to your body and you are following your energy, you are following your passion, it's the outside world telling you to shrink. It is the outside world telling you that you're too much, you're too loud. And those suppressions that we keep taking in and we keep agreeing to or keep scrolling through, right? Because we're too afraid to act, is what's causing inflammation, disease, stress, not able to sleep, not that that's a tactic. That is an actual tactic to make you sick. I could talk for hours about, you know, very parallel experiences, but it comes down to this is a generation of women who were put in situations. We went from analog to digital, and we were literally put in situations that were unfair, unjust, unsupported. And we often in our stories were abandoned when we chose justice, when we chose ourselves, when we chose the right energy. And this is why I had to do this conversation with you. This is why I loved your content. I love that you show up the way you do, is because in your content, not only are you saying, I'm not gonna shrink, I don't care who abandons me, I don't care who agrees or doesn't agree, I'm not gonna shrink. I'm gonna show you not how not to shrink. And here's your next right thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I hope anyone who sees what I put out or listens to this conversation, I hope they realize that when I'm being super like, you just need to freaking do it right now. I don't mean that in a like, I don't care if you feel that weight and that smothering and and all of that, because that's we are in an abusive relationship with our country right now and with, you know, and people are probably in abusive relationships of all kinds. And it's feature not a bug. It is that is how it's designed to do that. And social media can be absolutely used to do that. And what I'm hoping to do is use social media to be like, snap, mm-hmm, get out now. It's a too long. Because it unfortunately, I can tell you from experience, when you're when you're that in it, there aren't a lot of gentle ways to get you out of it. That is kind of the only way. And then there's healing and there's holding and and compassion and all that kind of thing. But I do think my specialty is to be like, mm-mm, mm-mm, nope. Look at look at me. Yep, get get out now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

You're the you're the trauma doc, right? You're the one who's like, I'm gonna get you through this. And then there's somebody else's specialty is to be hold your hand and move you through. I have to tell you, like, there is one piece of advice that I was given. And I will say it's from a client or from someone who is like very well known. And one piece of advice they offered in this is therapy, this is physical, this is all things health and mental. But shame is something that once you no longer commit to, when you no longer are afraid of shame, if you no longer embody shame from something outside of you, they can't stop you. No matter what your goal is, if they can't manipulate you with shame, abandonment, all those things that go with it, you're unstoppable. Yeah. Kate, you're amazing. Thank you so much for one, not fucking shrinking. Thanks for having this conversation with me because lighting the way and making it easier for people to snap out of that fear cycle, that that abandonment, that fear that they're feeling, not just in their body, in their mind. These sort of things, you are lighting the way and creating an opportunity for people to see themselves forward, do the next right thing, and actually embody a full, healthy life. Is there a place people can find you, follow you, and spend some time with your content?

SPEAKER_00 22:19

So I am Kate underscore for the people on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. And then I am Kate for the People, no underscore on Substack. Feel free to follow me wherever. I am very good at looking at my direct messages for the most part. So feel free to reach out by message if you want to connect about something, if you want advice on something. You're so generous.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

You're so awesome with your time. If you know somebody who needs this pep talk, if you know somebody who could really benefit from stepping into their power, letting go of that shame, and really showing up for who they are, send that friend this episode. We'll talk to you next week.