Welcome to the Small Steps Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Sue. I'm a nutritional therapy practitioner, blogger at Small Eats, author of Not at My Dask Lunch, designer, and avid learner. In my nutrition practice, I help you cut through the health and wellness noise to find what works for you.
This podcast is here to educate, inspire, and empower you to grow, try new things, and live a life you truly feel good about one small step at a time. Each episode has small steps that you can try and see how they work for you. You can find all the show notes, small steps, and other episodes at small-eats.com slash podcast. Remember, the materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only.
They are not to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Well, hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Small Steps Podcast. It is episode 91, and I am so glad that you are here.
This is part two in a five-part series of ways to do the work in air quotes around social justice and understanding the assistance of oppression that affect us all. I highly recommend if this is the first episode that you're listening to in the series that you go back and listen to actually episode 32 and 33 first, to understand the context, the liberatory approach that I learned from, and come from as well as other ways to do the work. And start with episode 90. It is the first part in the series, and it talks about where to begin, what the series exactly is about.
So go start with that one first. Important things to know is disclaimers. I am not a social justice educator. I have learned from a lot of amazing social justice educators directly and indirectly over the years, and they have helped me.
If you go to the show notes on the last podcast, I have all the people that I have worked with and learned from, and if they line with you, please consider learning from them and compensating them for their time. This series is about what I have learned as I've deepened my own social justice education, and what I would have done knowing what I know now about how to continue to make this part of your everyday life and to make it more sustainable. This series can provide you additional structures and steps on how to keep doing this work, but it is by no means a substitute for social justice and systemic oppression education. So this is not a substitute for signing up to learn anything in a specific course or any of the other amazing educational resources that are out there.
This is about how to structure doing the work to make sustainable long-term and to keep you going. Also, I want to say please check in with yourself as you listen to and work through things related to the series. Doing this work can bring up a lot of feelings, trauma, patterns, ancestral shit that you may not know and more. There will be a whole other episode specifically talking about this in the future.
Okay, so disclaimers and introductions and pre-shows and stuff all out of the way. This episode is all about gathering information. So why gathering information is so important is because there are so many things, as you start to do this work and this learning, that you just don't know. Or you learned a version of something and that wasn't actually what really happened.
Because White supremacy and the dominant culture presents its own narrative, its own spin, its own thing, and has suppressed a lot of history of what's actually happened in certain movements, in certain times with certain groups of people, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And a big part of doing the work, I mentioned this in the last podcast, is about learning stuff, learning concepts, ideology, important people, important movements, the actual history of things and what really happened. Not the narrative that we have all been taught in school, in mainstream media, in textbooks, et cetera, et cetera. So in order to do that, you've got to actually find that information and gather that stuff first.
So that's what this podcast is going to be focusing on, ways to gather information. Because if you listen to any other podcasts I've done before, whether it's episode 32 with Dr. T, or I did a whole podcast about medical studies and figuring out what information is real or not, or when information you want to listen to, we have so much information at our fingertips, which is great. But just because there's a lot of stuff available to us, doesn't always mean that that's the information that is aligned with our values, that is worth listening to, or that is not somehow shaped by oppression and another way to try and control a narrative that's not actually true.
So gathering information and learning how to gather information and apply our critical thinking is really important. Before we get into the small steps of the show, I want to say that it is really important, especially in this time where we have more increased awareness around social justice, racial justice, anti-blackness. There's a lot more information available. There are so many more lists and resources that have been put together that I found so easily now that when I first started doing my own research, wasn't as easy to find.
There are so many people across many mediums and platforms that are talking about this, sharing their own experiences, resources, considerations, lists, et cetera. And just because there are people assembling all of this stuff, talking about all these things, it's important to know that when we take on this work, it is our responsibility to take our learning into our own hands, especially when it comes to social justice. The more ownership and responsibility that you take, the more that you're gonna be invested in this work in the long term and the more that you can really start digging in. So if you hear about or read a term or someone's name or a concept and you don't know what that is and you're like, huh, what's that about?
Go ahead to the internet and start searching. I think with the internet and the social media culture and all the things, it can be so easy to just ask someone rather than to head to the internet and start researching, which is hilarious because back in the day, we immediately had to go to a library, go to an encyclopedia, go to a world book, go to addiction, we had to find the information. And now that there's so much more information widely available, all of these skills that we had at one point, like we as an I'm saying this as a millennial, probably called an elder millennial, whatever the fuck that means, what we didn't have the internet as readily or the internet wasn't as robust as it is now, it didn't have quite as much access to as many things. A lot of us have learned in the past to go seek and find information.
And now that so much information is available, there can be a lack of initiative to go actually find the information yourself and rather just to ask someone that seems like they might know or someone has mentioned the term, to just ask them rather than to ask the internet. So I'm gonna encourage you to please, especially on social media, to please, please, please, look first, do some research, read and engage your own critical thinking skills. Again, we talked about this in episode 75, we're gonna talk about this a little bit here too, before asking someone, especially if you don't know them, how to find the answers to what you're looking for, whether it's like, oh, hey, I don't know what this term is, or I don't know who this person is or whatever, please consider going to the internet first, before asking a human being this question, especially if it is pretty straightforward and you don't know that person. If someone states their boundaries on social media, like they say they don't answer DMs, or they have a story to read first of how they would like to be interacted with, or if they've asked folks to search on the internet first, please respect those.
Even if they haven't clearly stated their own boundaries, I think it's helpful to get in the habit of searching before asking, even if it's a really quick question, because especially if this is someone that has a larger following, those quick questions are probably magnified by so many other people. And why am I saying this up front? Like, why am I just Google shit first? Because when we just ask immediately and we don't pause to be like, oh, what's that about?
And like, jump out of wherever we are, usually social media, and going into another window or whatever, and doing that, we put the onus of our own learning, we put that responsibility on someone else. And a lot of times that someone else has usually been someone who's doing a fair amount of free labor, maybe they have an intersection of targeted identities, or they get these same questions over and over and over again, which again, can, depending on who that person is, continue to reinforce an oppressive dynamic, which I know that's not what you intend to do, but sometimes that's what happens. So before asking someone, especially someone you don't know, like you're asking your friends, maybe you have an understanding, or like, especially if it's a stranger, that you have not hung out with in real life, or you are aware has more targeted identities than you do, take a breath before asking a question, pause and ask yourself some of these questions first. So what is the question that I want to ask?
What is the question? Is it about defining a term or concept? Is it asking for clarification on what they've said? Is it asking for a reference to what they're talking about?
Maybe they have posted a screenshot of a book, but you can't see what the name of that book is, or maybe it's an explanation of who a person is that they're referencing. So those all might lead to a different flow chart of like, should I ask a person this question or not? If you're on their website or you're on their social media, do they explain this somewhere else? Like, have they said, like, hey, go check out this post, or maybe one of their most recent posts have talked about this?
If you're on their website, can you do a quick search within their own website to see if they have explained this somehow and another post or something? Think about, is this the kind of question that you can ask a search engine instead of a person? So if you're asking about a term or a concept, if you're asking about, like, who is this person you're talking about, those might be questions that are better for a search engine than a person. If you're asking for clarification on what they've said, this is a great area depending on what they've talked about, but that's a question where it's like, you could ask this person, or you could maybe ask a search engine instead.
If it's like, if they screenshot of this book that you like, or you're like, oh, this is a really cool book, and they don't reference like what it is, or they're talking about something and you're like, hey, where did you get this information so that I can do some more research? If it's not really clear, if they didn't name, like, if they have a chart and there's no title to that chart, you're like, oh, hey, what's that? I'd like to do more research on it. Those could be things that might be easier to ask if they haven't already clearly said, those might be worth it.
That's up to your judgment as well, but I always like to consider like, can I run the Google search before asking someone a question? If I can't find the answer in a search engine, can I talk this over with someone that I know in real life? Rather than someone that I don't know. Like, if you're like, hey, I'm feeling really confused about this thing, maybe they said something that you're like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I understand.
Maybe ask someone that you know, is called in my work with Dr. Cheat Process Check, asking someone that you know that understands us, hey, can I have a process check? Can we talk about what this means? Maybe there are emotions that you're holding rather than like, I have a clarifying question.
If there's some emotion that you have, maybe you process that with someone that you know, rather than a person that you don't know that you follow on social media or that you follow on the internet somehow. I say all this because I really want to make sure that if this is a dynamic that's happening, that you're aware of it, because it is a dynamic that happens a lot on social media, and it's really important to continue to take responsibility for our own learning. It's important to be like, oh, okay, I don't know what this is, this is my responsibility to figure it out, because the more that you take ownership of this work, the more that you're going to be invested, be curious, ask questions, continue to increase your critical thinking muscles and gathering muscles, and again, take ownership and responsibility for your learning in this way. So I thought that that was an important thing to say ahead of how we gather information and how we can do that in this time.
And if you realize this is a thing that you do, know that that is okay, because that is not a personal feeling on you. This is a pattern that's been created largely across how we consume media and the different dynamics that have been created. So this is not just you, this is the bigger thing, and it may take time to adjust this behavior, and that's okay, that's completely okay, and please give yourself a lot of kindness and compassion. But I just want to say, as much as you can, as you are working to improve this, if this is something that you realize, oh, this is a thing that I do, how can you shift to pausing, asking yourself some questions, getting clear on what you're not sure about, and then figuring out, do I need to look at something on the internet?
Do I really need to ask that person a question, or do I need to contact someone that I know to process things with them? Important things to think about. So small steps for gathering information in this way. Again, use your suggestions, please go at works with you and understanding how you work, and I always offer you to try them to see if they work, but if you already know that they don't work, cool.
Take what you want, leave the rest. So the first one is an easier one. Like I said earlier, there are so many ways that we have so much more information that's been gathered, especially around these times, especially if you're interested in looking at your own anti-blackness or supporting black books. There are so many more articles and listicles and things out there of gathering ways that you can support or learn or understand, et cetera.
And depending on what websites or blogs or social media accounts, if all you may have already started seeing some of them, but I think it's important to start actually gathering them to read them or to use them as reference in the future. So because these lists usually have a lot of different resources, really quickly you can figure out how to gather a bunch of information to look to in the future. So if you're overwhelmed on where to start, I would definitely focus on using the focus that you've defined in the last episode about figuring out what exactly you're gonna start with. So figuring out what that is can help you start gathering those lists.
So for example, these are some lists that are out there a lot. Maybe you are looking for black-owned or people of color-owned or women of color-owned bookstores, and you want to search for those. Maybe you are looking for more anti-racist reading lists. Maybe you are looking for more social justice reading lists because there are a lot of different books out there that are all great, all cover slightly different things.
There are so many lists out there, and not all of them are the same. You can also look for reading lists for specific subjects. Maybe you're looking for LGBTQIA plus history. Maybe you're looking for fat oppressive history, or fat-phobic history, et cetera, et cetera.
Maybe you are looking for black person of color-owned, women of color-owned, or your own trans-owned businesses or products that you use, and you would prefer to support those folks over buying it from a big box store or buying it from other stores that aren't really supporting these folks. Maybe you want to find other organizations that focus on other people of color or other identities that you want to donate to or know of in the future. Maybe you want to work with them or volunteer for them, et cetera. There could also be plenty that people that you know personally or just on the internet are sharing stuff, so look and start gathering from there.
Also, if you already follow people on social media, their social justice teachers or educators, and they are sharing resources, definitely take advantage of the fact that they're sharing those resources and screenshot them or save them so that you can continue to gather that information as well. This is the next part that's the really big part of this whole thing. In addition to gathering information, it's really important to do your own research and your own due diligence. Like I said, the internet and media is fucking huge now, which is awesome and also it can be really overwhelming, misleading, confusing, without more context, things can take on a completely different meaning than intended.
So while you're gathering or consuming information, it's important to dig a little bit deeper, to do your own research and due diligence on things so that you can see and understand what's the perspective that this thing is actually taking, and is it in alignment with how you want to learn? It's important as well to understand that you can read things to understand many other facets and viewpoints and sides and nuances without needing to 100% accept and then share that and to just understand, because there are so many different approaches to social justice, many experiences that targeted identities have don't always overlap and that's okay, and there's no one way to do this work, so it can feel confusing, so it's important to be able to understand these things and not accept everything as fact, just like with the whole episode 75 that I talked about, health studies and health information, we apply that same critical thinking here as well. So these are things to consider as they apply to the media that you're looking at when you're looking for resources and sources, just so that you know I'm probably most likely gonna say reading, if you're reading things, but this also applies to if you're watching any documentaries or movies or videos or listening to any podcasts or whatever. So it's important to know first, like what are you looking to get from this source, whatever that source is?
Because there are different things that you might ask or look at based on what that thing is, what that source is. So what are you looking to get from this resource? You can use resources in a lot of different ways, I feel like an English teacher right now, with the first and second very primary resources, all that stuff, but we use resources and sources to understand and get different things. You could be reading this to understand and live experience, that's different from your own.
You could be using this to find out definitions and systems and concepts, and those are different when you might ask would be different from learning about someone's lived experience. So there's going to be some different questions I'm going to ask you to consider, depending on what kind of information that you're reading. So if you're reading or consuming or whatever, if you're looking to understand more about someone's lived experience, and those experiences and those identities are different than the ones that you have, note when this was written, like what year was this written, what time was this written in, this will help give you some context on what was happening at the time, maybe this was written right after a really important period of time for that person's racial identity, sexual identity, etc., etc. So it's important to know what was happening in the context of the country and in the world at this time, so see what date it was in.
And there are some things that as I read them, sometimes it doesn't matter, it's helpful to know like this was written in the 70s, but sometimes things that you read, you're like, wow, this really still applies to right now, like this experience is still very at the forefront for people. So that's something to notice, but it's helpful to know when this was written. Notice any feelings that you have that come up as your reading. There could be a lot of feelings that come up depending on who this is, what identity is what they're talking about, etc.
So check in with those feelings and know that those feelings aren't bad. A lot of times what can happen is there can be this kind of cognitive dissonance that happens when you're reading about someone's experience, and their experience is completely different than yours and almost doesn't compute, especially if that experience can be experiencing a lot more oppression and potentially a lot of violence and injustice. You might be like, I'm sorry, what? That doesn't happen, that's not real, that doesn't happen in my life.
It's okay that their experience is different than yours. It does not mean that their experience is wrong or that your experience is wrong either. It can be helpful to remember that people have different experiences based on their different identities, the combinations of identities they have, their location, like North versus South, different countries, different states, different communities, etc. etc.
So embrace the hands here. Know that your lived experience and their experience can exist at the same time and be different because of oppression. So as you're reading this or watching this, see if you can spot the person's identities, if they don't clearly state them and have that in your mind as you read this. Have that awareness of like, I'm reading this, this is this person's identity's combination of so that you're aware and so that you keep that on the top of your mind.
Also depending on what exactly you're reading, if you're reading one person's story, or if you're reading about a group of people, whether that's an actual like, this group of 10 people did this thing, or you're reading about like the Chinese Americans in terms of Cisco or etc. etc. etc. How big that group is.
Know that this may not be the, in all in capitals, the experience of everyone who also shares these identities or this combination of identities. People in groups are not monoliths and we all experience slightly different things based on how all of our identities show up and come together also the period of time, the location, etc. So like, no, just because you've read one book or one article or a series of articles and that person's targeted identities have a similar story, like these certain Chinese people all had a similar experience. That doesn't mean that every single Chinese person has that same experience.
It's important to remember that because we all have different experiences. It's more to know that because we're not all monoliths. So in that vein, I would ask you to consider reading about different folks experiences with those identities or different intersections of that identity. Like a queer Chinese person in a different state or a different time period will have a much different experience than a straight Chinese person in the 1960s or 80s or whatever.
Like they're all going to have different experiences. So if you're looking to learn more about a group's like experiences, continue to find as many different resources as you can so that you can fully see different examples of how they lived and what people have experienced knowing that there is a lot more out there. If you are reading to understand different definitions, concepts, historical contexts or non-first-person accounts of lived experiences, maybe it's like you're reading a book about civil rights movement in a larger sense, etc. Consider these things as well.
And there are probably many more considerations for this and further previous thing, but these are just examples. And some of this will also overlap with the questions, probably overlap with the questions that I asked in episodes 75. So it's important to know who's making this, like look into who is making this media, like who's publishing this, whether it's a website or a publisher, like a book publisher or whomever. Do they already have a really established point of or a tilt or a leaning?
Does this site or this publisher have an established reputation or background already? That's important to know. Who funds this website or company? It's a privately owned, publicly traded, etc.
Who funds it? Who's on the board? If they have sponsored content, it's more applies for our websites or maybe podcasts. Who are those sponsors?
For example, LA Taco is a plug that I read sometimes and they used to partner with Goya and when the things happened with Goya and the president of Goya aligning with Trump, they pulled their Goya sponsorship. If they hadn't pulled their Goya sponsorship, I think some people would have really reconsidered reading and trusting that website. There are helpful things to know, like, is this a website that fully aligns with my values and will the content on this website reflect the values that I'm looking for and the social justice learning that I'm looking to and to understand? Like, are they actually here for this or are they just giving me a similar bit different version of all the dominant narratives that are out there?
You won't know unless you do some looking around. What are the paid ads on this website if it's a website? Also know that like, the ads could be Google targeted ads. So for example, this is like really technical stuff.
So say you went on a website to buy swimsuits and you notice that a bunch of your ads on different websites are swimsuits. So that's a retargeted ad. So there's a cookie on that website and it's like trying to show you over and over and over again all these swimsuits so that you go buy it. So some websites have those kind of ads, but some websites still have like it doesn't matter where you've looked or whatever.
We're still going to have ads for things that have nothing to do with your search history at all. Like maybe they have paid advertising with a really specific, I don't know, beer company or soft drink company. And so knowing who they've sold advertisement space to could be important, depends on what the site is. Is the point of view overall from that site in line with what you're looking for?
Like if you're looking for something on the non-dominant narrative, but you're going to a super mainstream website that might be a little bit more conservative, is that the best place for you to go to find articles about or information about what you're looking at? Or if you're looking up some more like quote academic things and you go to a school's website, you might do a little bit of research and realize that that university actually isn't reflective of the non-dominant experience. That might change how you receive that information that's on their website. If this is an article based like a news based website, what are the other articles like on this website, whether they're directly related to social justice or not?
Do they continue to highlight non-dominant narratives? Or is this like a one and done thing? Or because this feels gross to say, but I feel like you'll understand when I say this, this is very popular right now. So are they doing this just for some clicks and for some revenue because a lot of these websites make money off with clicks and ads?
So are they doing this just because it's popular right now? Or are they doing this because this is genuinely what they do? So that's more like if you're looking at a website and considerations and then we look at like who's making listening? Like who's writing the media?
Like if you're watching a documentary, who wrote it or who produced it? Do that person have identities that are relevant to what you're looking to learn? Are they relevant or not? Usually I'm a little bit wary.
If someone's writing about targeted identities but they themselves are targeted, I'm like, I'm going to look first, me personally, I'm going to look first for someone who wrote an article or something who wrote a book. Like I would prefer reading about Chinese American history from a Chinese American because there's so much more that they will understand than reading it from a non-Chinese American person. So that's something for me that's really important when I'm looking at that. Also, what does this person usually write about?
That might give you helpful context. Is this the first time that they've written an article related to social justice things or whatever you're specifically looking at? Or is this the first book that they've done? Are they an investigative journalist?
Like this is one of many things that they've looked at? Or is this a part of a greater body of work and related? Like what's their job? Like what's their background in this?
Is this their specialty? Is this what they focus in? Or is this like a thing that they start to focus more in? Or is this the first time that they've talked about this, etc?
Understanding who is the person that you're reading or learning from? They have a larger body of work and might be helpful to know and do a little bit of research on that person to know has their stance evolved or changed over time. So if you're looking at someone who maybe has published a lot of books throughout their life and their opinion changed, maybe there's something on a website or somewhere on the internet that's saying like, yeah, so they wrote this book at this time and they moved away from thinking about that. So it's important to know as you're reading that, to remember that they have changed their position based on like, these are a lot of questions I understand.
They don't apply to everything and it's important to think about when you're looking for things to really be like, yes, this is in fact something that I feel like I can really trust and understand and read. This doesn't just apply to things around social justice. It also does apply around nutrition, other wellness things, stuff like that, which we talked all about in episode 75. See if they have any biases, biases aren't bad.
It's just like it just it does affect what they're telling you. So see if any biases are present. Do they already have a clear position on something already or do they clearly state that they have a clear social justice philosophy or focus? Like are they anti-racist and that's like what they do?
Are they more of a liberatory approach? Are they focused on within social justice like pro-Blackness or dismantling anti-Blackness? Are they focused on D&I work, which is diversity inclusion work or diversity equity and inclusion work? Within those philosophies there are different ways of looking at things.
So what they're going to tell you might be slightly different. Important things to know. When was this written? Again, like I mentioned with the first person accounts, having the context, especially if you're reading something slightly more recently, things have changed.
Like anything that's written like pre-Corona and pre-George Floyd and pre-Briana Taylor and like there are different things. There are different considerations. So could things have changed and developed for when this was first written or first released? This could affect the context of the information depending on what that is.
Is this information you're reading about in a specific context or for a specific group? Like are you thinking about historical things? Are you reading about a certain group of folks, whether that's based on their identities or based on like what work they do? Is this around certain periods of time?
It might be helpful to know just to see because sometimes information or the things that you learn might really only apply to that specific group of people or be like yes, this thing based on this time based on the situation is more relevant to hear and not everything may apply outside of that context. So maybe we're thinking about when these people are talking or writing, do they have contemporary colleagues or frequent collaborators that they talk about or reference a lot? Who are those folks? What are their stances and identities and approaches?
Like do they align with what you're looking for or not or somewhere in between? You definitely might not be able to or need to find all the answers to all these above considerations and that's totally okay. It depends on like what you're reading, what you're consuming, how long it is, what it is. But having these questions in mind and doing a little bit of digging and not just accepting what you read as fact is really helpful and knowing that it totally might feel overwhelming.
And this is a critical skill muscle that takes time and practice to figure out your discernment and your critical thinking skills and that's okay. The more that you continue to also learn about social justice and systems of oppression, like as you do that education work concurrently, as you practice these critical thinking skills, it will start to be a little bit easier the more that you have more language understanding and the more that you can be able to look at read and interpret things slightly differently or read between the lines. And that takes time and that's totally okay. Also, like I said earlier, it's great to also process this with other people that you know who are doing this work to get their perspective, to get their thoughts, maybe they're pointing out things that you didn't notice or realize helpful to have other people to talk to.
So you gathered all this information, you have been doing some additional research and doing due diligence about the things that you are gathering. It's also really important on a logistics note to save it. Save that information that you're reading and gathering. It takes a lot of fucking time and work to find this stuff.
So save it so that you can refer to it in the future, whether that's just because there's a concept that you remember that you want to make sure that you've got clarified or you want to share this with other people, it totally doesn't have to be overly complicated or overly organized if you're not that kind of person. You can literally put it anywhere if you want to start a Google Doc or a Word document, if you want to make a spreadsheet, if you're a spreadsheet person, if you just want to copy and paste links on your notes app or have a running list of books you want to read, if you have Evernote as an app, you can do that, you can write it on email draft, you can go old school and have a pen and paper and write it all down. If you're more like I like things more organized, you can create categories so that you know like this is a resource for restaurants, I might want to frequent in the future or take out from or this is like specifically things about dealing with anti-blackness or these are specifically things about learning about this particular group in this particular period of time. Also, it might be helpful to write out the whole article or book name with the link so that you don't have to keep opening every single link if you're going back to it for something.
So yeah, that's important to have sometimes, especially if you're like talking with other people and you're like, oh yeah, I read this article once and then you might spend like 20 minutes fighting this article again. You know, it might be helpful. Also, share this information. Another way to make this information gathering and this document, whatever it forms, it takes to make it useful or make it quote worth the time and hair quotes, share this information, share this information with people in your life and your spheres, especially if you're doing this with a group of folks like in the last episode, like if you're better doing this in a community.
Also, see if you can leverage those other people and see if you can gather all this information and then share with each other. So maybe if one person wants to look at this one area, one other person looks at another area and then you all swap information and then you read all that stuff together. Maybe afterwards, you talk about what you've learned or what stuck out to you. Again, like I've said, processing with other people can really be helpful.
I can really make this work faster and deeper and further. I don't know if that last thing makes sense, but you know what I'm talking about. If you don't have a group of folks that you're doing this with, maybe you again, like I said in the last episode, have a smaller group or one person that you want to share this stuff with, ask their permission and let them know like, hey, I want to share this information with you. Are you open?
Like, don't just start like, I mean, unless that's effective in the group of people that you have, like you gauge the group of people that you're going to share this information with. If they're open to that, maybe you do just random be like, hey, I read this thing. Let me know what you think. But if that's not how your group of people works, like tell them, hey, I've been doing all this stuff and I want to share this article with you and I want to talk to you about it.
Like, are you open to that? So that's something to consider as well. Also, this is not a small stuff for the show, but I just want to just say a reminder, like you gathered all this information and maybe you've shared it, you've spent all this time gathering it, but also like read it, watch it, listen to it, figure out a time to do that. So if you haven't in the last episode, like set general times or schedule, consider that as well because gathering the information takes work and takes time and also reading the work takes time.
Like reading all the things that you've gathered or watching them that takes time. So don't just stay in gathering mode. Like, you are eventually going to have to also start reading, learning, processing all these things as well. These are many steps and that is okay.
So small steps to gathering the information, consider researching listicles or other articles that gather a bunch of resources to find where to start or to find more things. If you're overwhelmed, I want to say focus your search based on what you've uncovered in the last episode, like what you specifically want to work on. Do your research and do diligence on the things that you're looking for. Say this information in a place or form that works for you.
If you're doing this with other folks, see if you can gather and share things or share things that you already learned or read and other resources to help each other and also find a time to actually ingest all this information. So consider what steps you want to take this week and see which ones you want to do. Also, if it's not this week, like consider what steps you want to take from here and see when you want to do them. As always, you don't have to do all these steps.
And if some of them don't resonate with you or don't apply to you, that's okay. Also, please give yourself a lot of kindness and compassion as you work through this. If you find gathering information really overwhelming or if you find doing the due diligence overwhelming, that's okay. It is okay.
You can also, especially if you're doing this other people, you can maybe if you're not like the gathering person, maybe someone in your group of folks gathers the information and then you all spend time reading it, or maybe you're better skilled at doing something else. That will be helpful. And so figuring out how you can continue to do this. It is still helpful to do your own research, but if doing large amounts of research is overwhelming, consider how you can make that less overwhelming and doable for you.
So that is it for this week. Next week, we're going to have another episode talking about other considerations. So let me know what you thought about this podcast. If anything was helpful, if you have any questions, and I'll be back next week.
So remember, you can do this one small step at a time. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Small Step Podcast. Please take a minute to subscribe, take the latest episodes, and updates on the show. If you love this episode, please rate and review it so it can be seen by other people and get higher in those rankings.
And if you think this would resonate with someone else, please share it with them and let them know about it. And as always, until next week, you can do it one small step at a time.