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- [00:00]
A
Okay, guys.
- [00:01]
B
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- [00:05]
A
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- [01:07]
C
This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine.
- [01:14]
B
And I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.
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C
And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.
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B
And it starts now.
- [01:29]
C
Okay, Nicole, last week we ended on a cliffhanger. Do you remember what it was?
- [01:34]
B
Yes. I've been dying to continue the conversation about posting your kids on the Internet.
- [01:40]
C
Yeah. So last week, in case anyone missed the episode, we really started talking about controlling our online identities. And it got deep and personal and you should go listen to it. And then we ran. Nicole asked me about whether or not I have a policy for posting my kids on the Internet. Like, what do we do? And that's when we realized that we were actually running out of time. Time to record for the recording session that we had. So we just decided to make it a separate episode. And here we are. Okay, so for context, for those who don't know, I have a 10 year old and I have a six year old, so that's 10 years worth of eight month old. You have an eight month old. So that's 10 years worth of, of me making decisions about posting my children on the Internet and, and, and less time for you. And in that time I shall say I have shared many, though not a million photos of my kids. My, my social media accounts are, are treated as professional accounts. So I'm not sharing them the way that just like a parent does. But every so often there will be a moment to just kind of pull back the curtain. Like, like my birthday. When, when it's my birthday I often post a photo of the family and me blowing out a candle or something. And sometimes my kid will do something funny and I'll post that. Sometimes I will write about my own experience of a situation. And here's the line that I've come to draw. When my kids are young enough that they don't care, I think it's okay to post a photo of them. I know that some parents think you shouldn't do that. I have friends who will put like emoji faces on top of their kids faces on the Internet. I just, I, the, the expectation of total privacy today is gone. I just think it's ridiculous to just believe that I could keep everything off of the Internet. So I, I don't really worry about that. But I don't share like private information about my kids or things that I think that they might be unhappy years later were shared on the Internet. So sometimes there is a situation like I remember writing a newsletter recently where I wanted to share a kind of decision making strategy that I have and the decision making strategy had come out of or the example that I used was me and my wife trying to figure out a situation with like my kids and their, and his, and his friends. It was like a situation with my kids and his friends. So I just, that, that is as much as I shared there's a situation with my kids and my, and his friends and my wife and I were talking about it and like that's how we got into. That's fine to me. Because every kid has situations with his friends. It doesn't really reveal anything about him. I don't feel like it violates his privacy, but I wouldn't share any more than that. And now it's like, let me tell.
- [04:23]
B
You, the tea at the playground.
- [04:25]
C
Absolutely not. Right? Absolutely not. Like nothing about their lives. But I will share something about my life. And if there's something that relates to my kids, I'll give you context only in so much as it's basically meaningless context or it's just so generic that it doesn't reveal anything. And now my 10 year old has, has now reached A point where he's made a decision for himself, which is that he basically doesn't like being photographed. He doesn't. He. Which is very annoying for family photos. Very annoying. But, but like, I definitely know I'm not gonna take a photo of him and put him online because he doesn't really want it. But my six year old, we were having, I took my six year old to, to brunch a couple weeks ago and he started sticking fries in his mouth like a walrus. And then he told me he was like, put this on the Internet. Say that I ate so many fries that I turned into a walrus. And I said, great. So I pulled it up and I made a little video and, and I put it online because it delighted him. And, and that's fine. Anyway, so at some point they're going to call their own shots. But in the meantime it's like, I think a photo of their face when they don't care or they're too young to care, it's okay. But not details about their lives.
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B
And at this point, if you were to post something about your 10 year old, would you let him look at it?
- [05:37]
C
Oh yeah, I'd ask, I'd ask for permission. Yes, I'd ask for permission. Mostly he won't grant it, but every once in a while he will if it's something really funny. Like I was throwing pillows at him on a bed and, and he ducked to duck, like dodge a pillow and then like lost balance and just went like head first backwards off of the bed. And I happened to be filming it. Not to put it on social media, but just because I, you know, we were, I was just filming it because sometimes the kids like to watch funny videos of themselves and it was really funny. And, and so we like looked at it. He was fine. We looked at it. We were like, it was really funny. And I think he might have said like, I bet this will get a lot of views on TikTok. And I was like, well, let's, let's find out if you're okay with it. And I did. And it did like, it did actually quite well on TikTok. So that was fine. But he was a part of that Interesting.
- [06:27]
B
And with the face thing. I also, before I had a daughter was like, I don't know why people are doing the, you know, photos from the back or the emoji thing. And we did an episode for money rehab. We can link it because it scared the bejesus out of me about safety online and like what was happening to Kids photos and, you know, parents who were putting so much detail in their birth announcement, like, you know, the date that they were born and their full name, including their middle name. Like, might as well put your Social Security number. And you know, how that was being used online or, like, the faces being used on adoption sites or, like, kiddie porn and all sorts of wild stuff. And it really got me thinking. And now, you know, my philosophy about it is that I don't show my daughter's face, and I. And I won't. My husband, he has a private account, and. And we've talked about it. I just feel so, so protective of her now that she's in the world. And she also has a clean slate. And we know my very complicated relationship with the Internet. Like, how cool is it to have a clean slate? Like, I don't want to mess up her slate. Like, I don't want to give her any complexes. Like, I certainly don't want to be, you know, the culprit of any additional trauma she might have. And so I have just taken the stance that it's unnecessary. And I do dissociate from my social media, too. Like, I call it, Morgan can attest, like, my account, the NL account, like, I am. It's not my account. It's like a business thing. And if it were up to me, I would be far away from social media. And so I look at it too, you know, and from the lens of, like, you know, money and kids and, you know, all that type of stuff that's on brand, you know, I will potentially talk about her or include her, but I feel so, so cautious and so, so protective.
- [08:42]
C
Yeah, I think that's everything.
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B
Face especially.
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C
Yeah, well, I think that's. That's great. And fine, I'm. And not that you were looking for validation for me on it, but, like, I. Here's. Here's how I feel about. What this reminds me of, is how I think about posting anything that could be even mildly controversial online, which is this. If I post anything mildly controversial, if I post a political opinion, the upside is extremely small and the downside is enormous. Right? Like. Like, to post something that would get people worked up is to have me gain almost nothing and have me potentially lose a lot. So why do it? And, like, that is a simple filter that I use for a lot of social media, for all social media, which is just, like, if I'm. Before I hit send, is there only upside here? And no downside. And so, you know, if I'm sharing a business tip, upside, no Downside. The upside is that it, it maintains my audience, it grows my brand. The downside is who's going to get upset by that? Nobody. So that's fine. But if I tilt into something where it feels like there is some downside, if there's downside, there's probably almost no upside. You're not going to gain anything by by posting that. And I feel like that is basically applying to photos of your kids too. If you just think of it from an upside down side thing, I think it makes a decision pretty clear.
- [10:09]
B
I love that filter. I think it's a really good litmus test. I kind of disagree with the, with certain areas of controversy being no upside. I do think the Internet, the contents.
- [10:23]
C
Yeah.
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B
Which we've talked about early on in this show that was previously called something else. Your disdain for the word content. Yes, but there's so much content.
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C
There is so much content. Absolutely.
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B
And I think that the stuff that's more whitewashed and veneered is less resonant. Like, I, I think sometimes the stuff that's safest doesn't often pop. And you know, if you're, if you're really taking a stand on something, you're reaching the people that love you the most, like, you're not going to be all things to all people or you're nothing to anyone. But like, if you take a stand, then I think that that upside is greater than just doing like a generic business tip, generally speaking.
- [11:10]
C
Yeah. Yeah. I guess it depends upon what we're, how we're defining what I said there with controversial or whatever. I mean, you certainly, it's, it's. If you're in the business of building a brand on social media, then it can be helpful to be, let's just say provocative or mildly provocative or like, say something in a way that's going to drive reaction. But. And I'm okay with articulating a point of view within the context that I'm well known for that maybe some people are going to disagree with. Like, that's fine. We can certainly have disagreements. What I'm saying, controversial. I guess what I'm saying is like things that would either genuinely upset someone or make them feel like I am a radically different person than they thought or that they want to be associated with. So. So, for example, like, every once in a while I'll just sort of use politics again, kind of vaguely. Like every once in a while I will. Somebody who I follow in the business world will like suddenly out of nowhere express a political opinion. And I just don't see the reason for that. Like it's just it. All it does is upset 50% of your audience and it gains you nothing. So I just don't know why you're doing that. There's no point to it as far as I'm concerned.
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B
But that's a really good other episode topic, by the way. I think I'm curious to, to double click on that because with so many people feeling like they need to put out a statement for every oh yeah, big news event and I don't know, I think, you know, it does piss off 50% of your people. But do the other 50% become like your die hard people? I don't know. This is a different episode.
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C
Yeah, different episode.
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B
Cliffhanger.
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C
Yes. Yeah, serious. We'll do it again. I mean like my very quick answer to that without risking us going down this rabbit hole. So maybe I'll answer and then I'll bring it back to kids. My quick answer to that is that is that you might delight the other 50% of the audience, but that's not why they came to you in the first place. They came to you for some other topic. And so, and so like you'll turn off 50% and you'll, you'll delight the other 50% but you're not going to, you're not going to gain anything new or you're going to gain. If you keep going, if you keep suddenly posting about this political thing, you'll suddenly gain a totally different audience of people interested in politics who are now not interested in whatever you were talking about before. And now you've completely confused who you're speaking to. And again, what's the point? So, but I don't. To bring it back to kids. Like I do think that it's, I do think that it's really valuable for parents to be making this decision. I think that they should do it in consultation with their kids as soon as their kids are able to express an opinion. Maybe this will be provocative, this thing that I'm about to say. But like I tend not to put too much stock into worst case scenarios. So that thing, that stuff that you were describing about having this conversation and all these scary things. Totally that all is real. Terrible things happen to people. They do. But I feel like I cannot live my life operating to try to avoid very small percentages of terrible things like planes crash, but I still get on a plane. I'm just going to take that bet because it improves my life enough to be able to travel around. And that's Just kind of how I feel about it. Like mo mostly like there's a lot of my personal information on the Internet, I suppose goes, I shouldn't announce when my birthday is because then it tells people when my birthday is and they could use that. But like, I don't know, it's just the percentage chance of that coming back to bite me is too small for me to live my life around. Even though I, I'm not discounting that. These things really do happen.
- [15:00]
B
Yeah. I, I live my life on the other side of the spectrum, really marinating in the worst case scenarios and just living there. Yeah. That's a very healthy outlook for sure. I think as a parent now and I'm figuring out this parenting thing.
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C
Yeah.
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B
The. If there's any chance of a worst case scenario, then I just don't want to enable it. And I think that I've had. And you and I have different upbringings and senses of like worst case scenarios actually coming to fruition. And also, you know, some. You have some weirdos out there. I have some scary weirdos out there.
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C
You have more weirdos than I do. Yes.
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B
And so, you know, I, I just, if there's any chance of something bad, I am not about it. And it's just not worth it to me to put her face on the Internet or to put anything out there. The upside down side is, is a good frame lens to look at it. And it totally is downside.
- [16:09]
C
It is, it's totally more downside. I mean, you know, it's funny because as I think about it, you know, I think like, okay, well, I've shared photos of my kids on the Internet. There was not really that. There's not that much upside to it. I didn't need to. And knock on wood. Thankfully, there's thus far been no downside. But it is true that if you played it out, the, the upside is extremely limited. A couple people go, ooh, ah. And if there is a downside, it is gigantic. I guess if I totally lived this rule that I laid out, which I've mostly just applied more to like controversial opinions that I have to kids, then I would just keep my kids off the Internet too, which I mostly do. I mean, I don't do this very often, but I. Maybe once or twice a year I'll. I'll post something with the kids.
- [16:50]
B
Have I changed your opinion?
- [16:51]
C
Well, it's funny because what you really did is just reflect back to me the thing that I already articulated and then forced me to consider whether or not I was actually following my own rule. What you have done in this conversation is made me more aware of something that I wasn't being that intentional about. Like, I think a thing that I always want to do, which is not to say it is a bar that I always rise to, but a thing that I always want to do is to just do everything intentionally. Right.
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B
Like you do. I appreciate that, dude.
- [17:28]
C
I appreciate that. I try to be very intentional. Like, that is a. That is a. That is a ethos of mine. And I like, for what it's worth, I really like the word intentional because you can do the wrong thing. But. But, like that. But to be intentional isn't to try to be perfect, right? To be intentional is to, like, you try to do a thing and you're thoughtful and maybe it doesn't work out, and at least you were thoughtful about it. But to. To. To live, that is always to discover places where you were doing something that you just hadn't thought enough about. And so this gets me thinking a little bit more about whether or not, like, there's really any point to this. And, you know, does the world need my photos of my children? Probably not. I can just text it to you.
- [18:12]
B
Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Text me the latest photos.
- [18:15]
C
All right.
- [18:16]
B
Then I will put some emojis on their faces.
- [18:19]
C
Well, you get the emoji free version. Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason.
- [18:28]
A
Pfeiffer and me, Nicole Lapin.
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B
Our executive producer is Morgan Lavoy. Do you want some help? Email our helpline@helpwantedoneynewsnetwork.com for the chance to have some of your questions answered on the show. And follow us on Instagram, unnynews and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive content and to see our beautiful faces. Maybe a little dance?
- [18:48]
C
Oh, I didn't sign up for that.
- [18:49]
B
All right, well, talk to you soon.