Today I’m going to share one of the crappiest moments that I’ve had as a Facebook ad manager. It’s probably not going to be what you think at all, but it just really didn’t align with my values and my integrity. I do not want to make excuses or blame anyone or anything. It was entirely on me. However, it was influenced by who I was listening to.

At the time, there were some podcasts that I was listening to that made me feel quite toxic. So the attitude and atmosphere stirred something up within me. Whether that was my own issues that were doing it or whether it was because it didn’t align with who I am, where I come from, the person I want to be, and how I want to treat people. So listening to this podcast, having this influence in my head really stirred me to act in a way that I regretted immediately.

What had happened was I was working as a Facebook ads coach, and there was a client in a community that we were in who was doing a launch. We were helping run this launch, and I was going through and reviewing all the ad campaigns. Now there was someone else who was running the ads. So I went in, and I had a look at the ads and the targeting. Everything was not as you typically would have it. There were all the warm audiences in with the lookalikes, and it was just a hot mess and all over the place.

At this point, because of where I was at, I had built up this sort of anger and toxicity. So I got a screenshot of it and made it so nothing would identify that person. I posted it to my Facebook with “This is why I’m training ad managers because of this sort of rubbish that people are doing.”

You know that if you put something on social media, it’s out there for the world to see, and this person went to my newsfeed, and they saw it. Busted! Then grief, remorse, shame, all came on top of me. It was like, what the hell did I just do? That is not the person I want to be.

In another Online Confidential episode, I’ve talked about not throwing people under the bus because I’ve been thrown under the bus. But that was exactly what I had done to this other person. I felt so bad and shameful. I really wanted to go and crawl into a hole.

Then the apologies went out. I apologized to the people I was working with for any inconvenience that I caused them. I apologized to the client and their ad manager. I felt really awful, and for me, that was a real low point.

Even though other ad managers were commenting on my posts going, “Oh my gosh, that’s terrible.” It’s not the person that I wanted to be. I allowed myself to be influenced by all these podcasts, particularly this person I was listening to at the time.

From there, it was a big wake up call for me to go, “Is this the kind of person that I want to be? Do I want to go off in this direction? No, it certainly is not.” So even to this day, I’ll see this person in the newsfeed, or I’ll see the podcast around, and I just cannot listen to it.

I want you to be very aware of who you’re surrounding yourself with, who you’re listening to to help inspire and motivate you. Does it align with your values, whether it’s the values for you personally in your life? Is it the values that you want for your business?

Another example was when I was trying to figure out, do I want to build an agency or do I want to do more intimate work, building up this team of 12 that I had. Is this the kind of business I want where it’s more boutique, and I’m working with just a handful of people? Coming from my in-house stays working exclusively with the company, I knew the value that was there.

Listening to this agency training was not even aligning with the kind of business that I wanted to build. There are many people out there who are business coaches, so look at them, their lifestyle, and how they build a business.

I’ve got a few coaches where I’m a member of their membership community, and there are different things that I draw from each of them. For example, one of these coaches has built a business catering to the lifestyle they want to live. Then other business coaches are working all the time, and they’re just busy, busy, busy. So they’ll teach and say, this is a kind of business strategy, and this is what you need to do. And I go, is that in alignment with the actual business that I want?

I know how many hours you’re working, and you’ve got a team of 30 that’s helping you do all this. Is that the kind of business that I want, or do I want to model this other business where I have more of a lifestyle? I have less of a team; however, I can still have a very profitable business with this model.

So be very aware of who you’re hanging around and who you’re listening to with these podcasts. Ask yourself, are they speaking directly to me, are they speaking the words that align with you, your personality, and where you want to go?

I hope you found this valuable, and if it brings up anything for you, I’d love to hear from you. You can email us at success@socialcharlie.com. I’d love to have your feedback about this episode and if it’s helped you be aware of who you’re listening to and the direction you want to go in your life.