Mind Where You Dig

Sometimes, well-intended efforts to inspire with the stories of your life can have unintended consequences, both for yourself and your audience

I’m not fond of subterranean spaces. Caves, crevasses, whatever the classification, I prefer to be within the reach of sunlight. I once watched a mini-documentary about a man who was trapped while exploring a cave system a few miles from his home, and after multiple failed rescue attempts, he died in a tight crawlspace where his body could not be reached. It gave me nightmares. But I digress.

Mining accidents are particularly bleak instances of workplace disasters. Every now and then you get something uplifting, like the miners rescued from the Copiapó mine in 2010, but most of the time, the stories are those of casualties after a flooding, a tunnel collapse, or an explosion, the latter occurring when miners to breach large pockets of toxic or flammable gases which then ignites. The Earth is home to many useful treasures for mankind, but the deeper you go, the greater the danger in retrieving them.

So with that bleak backdrop, I now turn your attention to the tragic story of Dave Hollis, the former Disney executive who passed away in early 2023. Jaded by his work, Hollis followed after his wife’s example, branding himself as an influencer who used social media to create wellness and lifestyle self-help content. In reading the story about his life and the events leading up to his passing, I was struck by this paragraph:

“He shared his personal struggles with alcohol and his insecurities and built a following of nearly half a million people. Together, he and Rachel mined their everyday lives—issues they had as a couple, intimate moments with their four children—to churn out podcasts, memoirs, coaching sessions, merchandise and more [italics added].”

Did you catch the use of the word… mined? If you want to be an influencer, you need content to post. If you want to post content, you need to create it, and I imagine that for many, digging into your own life can make for an easy starting point. But in my opinion, not all content is post-worthy. Not every detail of your life requires immortality on the internet. And sometimes, well-intended efforts to inspire with the stories of your life can have unintended consequences, both for yourself and your audience. Safe to say, there is a lesson of caution relevant to both miners and aspiring online influencers alike. Mind where you dig.

Before I go further, I want it known that I’m not a curmudgeon complaining about new fangled technologies. I believe that social media is a tool that offers tremendous benefit for mankind. I like to hear passive updates from friends and family. There is so much worthwhile to share in exercise tips, recipes, DYI tutorials, social commentary, humor, or exposure to niche jobs and fields (like the 'Texas Bee Lady', for example). At the same time, we can all acknowledge that misuse or abuse of any tool brings undesirable consequences; scams, spreading false information, online bullying, or the mounting evidence of the link between aggravated mental health and unfettered online activity. Regarding this latter topic’s wide-spread implications, I encourage you all to read this piece by Jonathan Haidt.

Now, back into the mine.

Each of us will have experiences that are personally instructive, sometimes through pain, sometimes through struggle. While I hope these moments are edifying, we should remember that not every experience is worthy of or translatable into online content. It’s just an axiom of human communication — we are heavily limited in our ability to share what we feel. What you experience and what you try to communicate do not always align.

A simple example to this is the story of the CEO who posted a selfie of himself crying on LinkedIn. In the summer of 2022, Braden Wallake uploaded the photo and explained the cause of the distress that brought him to tears. To summarize, Braden had just fired several employees from his company, and in an effort to present a humanized perspective of a boss who makes hard decisions but still cares for his employees, he posted the photo. The post went viral, with thousands of people applauding, criticizing, or mocking Braden. I don’t doubt Braden’s sincerity with this post, but I do think it was foolish to share. He likely experienced a moment of humble instruction as he was trapped between his genuine care for his employees and duty to keep his business operating; a tragic scenario of firing a few employees or losing them all. But the act of putting this all online (with a selfie, no less) makes it indistinguishable from shallow attention-seeking.

Had another employee sneaked and posted the photo without Braden’s knowledge, or if he’d simply written a post about principles of making difficult decisions, it would not have been interpreted that way. Humans are programmed to seek validation, and surely that was in the back of Braden’s mind when he shared this, despite the good intentions. The lessons we learn are hard and lonely sometimes. But loneliness is a feature of leadership, and no amount of selfies will change that.

Another unwise practice in the mine can be efforts to capture raw, candid emotion, or worse, attempts to create “artificially candid” moments. I’ve seen this practice most common among influencers who are parents. The worst example I saw was a mother and her 8-year old son, with the son learning that his dog had a serious, potentially fatal illness. As they sat in their car, the son was heartbroken, in tears, despairing at the thought of his dog dying. The mother took this opportunity to set up her phone and record their interaction. She acted like a Hollywood director, coldly coaching her son on how to cry more dramatically, to face the camera, and say certain lines (all of this she forgot to edit out before uploading the video). During this boy’s very real, very tender heartache, what he needed was his mother’s real love and undivided attention. A quiet, truly candid moment together. Instead, he was taught how to take real emotion and manipulate others.

Of course, we can blame the Kardashians just as much as we can blame social media for shameless attempts to capitalize on dramatic moments. Intense emotions serve an important function, and can be a valuable source of human connection, but not like this. Not as cheap derivatives for entertainment. A knee-jerk reaction to record every one of those moments just means you’re not fully present.

Here’s a personal example. Two years ago, I was at Disneyland with my then 2-year-old daughter. I had the day off, but my wife did not, so she surprised us with a park reservation for a solo daddy-daughter day. It was the first time we’d done so — a relevant detail for later. While in a busy line outside the gate for the Haunted Mansion, I looked down for 10 seconds to reply to a text message, and when I looked up, my daughter was gone. Not running away, not at a distance. Gone. Nowhere in sight. I immediately jumped out of the line and searched the few possible places she could be out of sight. No luck. My mind reeled out scenarios as I searched. Was she hiding? Did she jump inside the popcorn cart? How fast could she move in 20 seconds? Had someone abducted her? I said a prayer to God, and in an instant had an idea. Ask for help! Fingers to the mouth, I whistled as loud as I could to the crowd back in line. With everyone’s attention, I gave a brief description of my daughter, and pleaded with fear and authority, “Please, help me find her.” Half the group jumped the line and started searching. Not five minutes later, a woman spotted her, just a hundred feet away from us in the stroller parking section, down the stairs on the other side of the main walk. My daughter had been dancing in and out of the stroller line, not a care in the world.

Would I have found her, if in that moment of alarm I decided to fire up a livestream? What up guys, its the public health dad comin’ atchya *flashes peace sign*. You’re never going to believe what happened. I can’t find my daughter!

What would you make of my character or concern for my child, if I showed any interest in broadcasting those primal emotions? I’d presume you’d be disgusted with me, and deservedly so. A child lost, possibly in danger, and a father walking around talking to his phone? My most selfish thought during that ordeal was the stupidity I felt at losing my daughter on our first solo outing to the park. It doesn’t really matter what the scenario is, or the emotion fomented from it — intense anger, danger, sorrow — there will be moments where human connection is needed, and pulling out your phone will not better the situation, except in instances of personal safety or journalists and civil servants doing their jobs.

And finally we circle back over to Dave Hollis, to an incident that occurred in the year before his death. Early one morning, Hollis started a livestream, drinking his coffee, talking to his viewers, and reading excerpts from his recently published book. Apparently, sales of his book were low, much to the disappointment of Hollis. While the livestream started off pleasant enough, it soon went a different direction as he began to lambast his followers for the low sales, stating that anyone who didn’t buy it should simply stop following him. But it got worse. At some point, his 4-year-old daughter poked her head out the sliding glass door and asked her father if he’d come inside and make her mickey mouse pancakes. After a brief reassurance to her, he continued with his livestream. Over the course of an hour and 20 minutes, this incredibly patient child interceded several more times, asking her dad for pancakes, and every time he brushed her off to keep pitching his book. Her final request on the video was answered with Hollis telling her to, “Get a life,” in what sounded to me like a horribly tone-deaf attempt at humor.

This livestream resulted in a major fallout of viewer backlash, so much so that Hollis recorded and posted an apology video, and several months later checked into rehab for substance abuse. At the time of his admission he wrote, “I am feeling completely broken from the pressure of this strange public life.” The entire situation is intensely sad, as whatever Hollis wanted so desperately from his online life, he was not getting. And what he actually needed, he ignored.

If that story produces any singular lesson for any of us about the perils of mining our lives online content, it would be that whenever you’re no longer able to discern between gold, and rocks that simply glitter, it is time to pack up your pickaxe and exit the mine. Your little child, wanting to spend time with you, wanting your help with something — gold. Berating strangers online to buy your boring book — not gold. No amount of likes, or shares, or uplifting replies are worth being so dismissive of your children. I know that Hollis’s story of self-destruction is extreme, but I can’t help but wonder how often I’ve brushed off my child or wife because I was writing a dumb post, or trying to record something funny.

If your aim is to go into the mine in search of treasure, wear some safety equipment, and keep your wits about you. Carry a memory of the things that matter most, and perhaps carry this line from J.R.R. Tolkien as you go exploring:

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

I repeat my earlier disclaimer; social media is a wonderful tool that can help us accomplish much good. Whether or not you use social media as a casual or more invested enterprise, we would all be wise to remember that not all greatness is popular or postable. Grandeur is easily, often overlooked. The value of a life is not brought to bear by risky excavations into every pocket of its experience, but by what you build with others.

A life that is enmeshed within your community will endure longer than your most viral post. The most valuable treasures you will ever bring to bear are not going to be found in the depths, but aboveground with others. In the sunlight.