Sam Vander Wielen:
Hey, and welcome back to On Your Terms. I'm your host, Sam Vander Wielen. And welcome to the podcast or welcome back if you listen all the time. Thank you so much for being here.
I'm really excited to talk about a concept that I think about a lot in the online business space, social media, everything else about how we can't necessarily judge what we're supposed to do or can be doing or should be doing based on what everybody else is doing online. And I'm just really excited to dive into this really quickly with you because it's something I hear about and see a lot in our space.
Speaking of space, I just have to tell you that today is the first day that I'm recording On Your Terms in my new space that's completed, like totally done, basically. So, I've been recording in here the last couple of episodes, but I haven't had a lot of furniture in here, and it was super echoey. It was really bugging me. But I think that my fantastic sound people at my production company took care of it. So, I'm really excited today that I actually have, like, my couch and I have a corner chair. And I wanted this space to be open and airy and have lots of places to snuggle up. So, I am just so excited.
We've been working on this space. This space is being built at my house for over a year, so it's just incredible to finally be sitting in it. And it is literally exactly what I had in my head of what I wanted the space to look like. So, I'm just really excited and I wanted to share that with you. I'm sitting on my new comfy, cozy couch and have my mic propped up on my stomach. So, I'm just really excited to be chatting with you from this space.
So, one of the things that I see so often is that people see other people doing things online and they think that that makes it okay. So, I see it a lot in, obviously, the legal, financial, tax situation, even little things like business expenses, people are like, "Oh. Well, I saw that this person said it was a business expense," and, you know, think that that makes it okay. Or I also see when people, we know that something's not okay, but because other people are doing it, we think we can get away with it because other people are doing it. I kind of see both sides of the coin.
The thing that you have to remember is that you don't see people talking about and sharing when they get in trouble for things. So, for the people that you see sharing about - let's go with the business expenses example - "Oh, I wanted to go to Paris for the weekend, so I did, and I made it a business expense." That's not a business expense. And for every person that you see doing that, you have to remember that there's a person that you don't see who either is going to their accountant at the end of the year and being told like, "No. That's not a business expense" or, you know, gets audited by the IRS or some issue with their taxes or whatever. Nobody's going on social media and sharing about that.
So, we don't hear about the people who get in trouble or the times that things don't go well. Not even just getting in trouble, but I see people share on social media like, "You don't need a contract" or "You don't need to register your business until you get to be a certain size." We don't see people going on and sharing on social media being like, "Oh. Because I never registered my business, this thing happened to me" or, "Because I listened to somebody who said you don't need a contract and I never got a contract, then I had a client who stiffed me on a $10,000 payment." You just don't hear people talking about that.
So, we're not going to hear about it so we can't look for confirmation bias online and say I don't want to take the steps or make the effort to either legally form or button up my business, or take care of the financial side, or even some other part of running your own business. You don't want to do something that's maybe tedious and not that fun. And then, we look around for examples online to be like, "Oh, see. It is okay because so-and-so is doing that too." It doesn't mean anything, really, to see other people doing it.
It's also important for you to know that it's never a legal defense, let's say, you got in trouble for something, to be like, "Well, I did it because she did it. You know, I did it because they did it. I saw somebody else doing it online and I thought that was fine." They're going to say like, "Well, that's very nice for you, but that's just not how the world works."
Think about speeding. I always think this is the best metaphor. If you get pulled over, you say to the cop, "Well, there were people speeding by me all over the place." It doesn't matter. You were speeding. That's all that matters. There could have been somebody going down the highway five minutes earlier who was going twice as fast as you and the cop just wasn't there. It's your luck. Just a bad day, whatever. But you were still speeding. It's never a defense that other people were doing or not doing something.
So, how do we then shift from this place of maybe looking to what other people are doing for approval or some sort of confirmation that we do or don't need to do something?
I just think in general, in our businesses, it's always best when we just stay in our own lane, do your own thing, keep your eyes on your own paper. Whether it's legal or marketing or social media or anything else, focus on what you're doing in your business, what's objectively right or required of you if it's the legal and financial stuff, or what's objectively right for you if it comes to the marketing and social media stuff, what works for you, what works for your brand, your schedule, the way that you want to run your life. Not the way that other people are doing it.
What they're doing over there doesn't have anything to do with what you're doing over here. It shouldn't even have anything to do with your decision making. This is good - I'll put in quotes - "legal advice". It's not like legal-legal advice, but it's a tip, a legal tip, let alone business advice. Just eyes on your own paper. Keep your head down as much as possible.
People ask me all the time, especially given what I've gone through in my life, especially in the last four, five years, with losing both my parents and having brain surgery and all these things, they're always like, How are you able to do this? How are you able to do that? Or I've had people steal from me, copy me. All these things have happened behind the scenes.
And I honestly think that keeping my head down for a lot of it, just continuing to focus on what I'm doing and not what other people are doing has been so key to my "success," whatever that means to you. To me, it means freedom, and what abundance means to me, and just not having to - I don't know - not being really tied down to anyone or anything. I guess that's my definition of success and that's what I feel has contributed to it. It's just keeping my head down and keeping my eyes on my own paper.
So, I hope you enjoyed this quickie little episode and I can't wait to chat with you on Monday. If you liked this episode, please feel free to forward it to a friend, text the link. Leave a review really quickly or a rating wherever you listen to the podcast, it means so much to me. Thanks so much.
Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms Podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business, at samvanderwielen.com. And to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram, @samvanderwielen, and send me a DM to say hi.
Just remember that although I am a attorney, I am not your attorney and I am not offering you legal advice in today's episode. This episode and all of my episodes are informational and educational only. It is not a substitute for seeking out your own advice from your own lawyer. And please keep in mind that I can't offer you legal advice. I don't ever offer any legal services. But I think I offer some pretty good information.
