Facebook Took Over My Life and Business and That’s Why I’m Walking Away

I remember when I was first invited to join Facebook. A friend of mine who was in Seminary at the time sent me the link. I didn’t pay much attention to it but eventually signed on.

I’d love a Mulligan on that.

For the last five years, my business and my life have revolved around Facebook. Be it ads, Mastermind Groups we managed for our products, sharing content… it’s been a regular part of my life. Which is a nice way to say it’s dominated my life.

Like most things it started out innocent enough but over time morphed into something I realized was more than just not good for me, it was destructive.

I’m certainly not the first online-centric entrepreneur to walk away from Facebook. Many of my reasons for leaving share many commonalities with others who have hit the cancel button on Facebook. I share my reasons here because I want to seriously challenge you to take a hard look at your own use of Facebook and to consider its place in your life.

Here’s why I’m leaving Facebook.

I’m Tired Of Filling My Head With Things I Don’t Care About

I’m a simple guy. I think of my brain kind of like a web browser. The more tabs I have open the worse my thinking, productivity, and creativity is. The fewer tabs open, the better. In the Facebook world, I’m constantly scrolling through post after post about things I could care less about.

I don’t care that your kid got straight A’s.

I don’t care about what you’re having for dinner.

I don’t care that you’re REALLY proud of your workout.

I don’t care that your side hustle is having a promotional sale for “today only” (only to repeat next week).

Try this on… Take a scan of the last 20 posts that showed up in your feed. How many of them really made an impact on your life in a significant way? The good money is the answer is none.

I have a real life of my own which was being more and more ignored because I was scrolling through everyone’s highlight reel. (more on that in a bit)

I decided to pay attention to the real things in my real life that actually matter to me.

I’m Tired Of Filling My Head With Information About Things I Can’t Change

There are many stories that are shared on social media that are designed to create strong reactions. News, politics, world events… Most of which I can do absolutely nothing about yet given enough time in my feed those things will occupy tabs in my brain and that’s not a good thing.

I want to work on what I can impact. My health, my relationship with my kids, my marriage, my business. I can work on those things. I can fix some of the things that need fixing. I have no interest commenting, sharing, and getting lit up on Facebook about things I can’t control. I’m not interested in hiding in righteous indignation about issue “X” one post at a time in a way of avoiding the actual life changing work that is waiting for me offline.

I’m Tired Of The Alternative Universe Highlight Reel

For the most part, I’ve found over the years that Facebook is a platform for folks to paint a picture that is largely untrue. Smiley, happy, pictures… all portraying that life is unicorns, rainbows, and pixie dust. To make matters worse, I’ve been in a world in the online business space where posting anything real, negative, or actually factual is discouraged. “Post about it when you’ve gotten through it” is a commonly shared piece of advice.

In other words, lie about your life and your business because the playing out of selling the dream and living the nightmare must go on.

I remember sharing pictures from stage at marketing events where I was recognized for recruiting and earnings all the while I was raiding my savings in the background just to pay the rent. That part didn’t show up in the picture.

I was tired of seeing it from others and I was tired of doing it myself. I have way too much of a conscious to lie about my life on good days or bad. Not talking about hard things isn’t somehow noble or positive. It’s incomplete. It’s lying by omission. It’s telling a story that isn’t accurate. For those of us with an audience, that’s dangerous ground. It’s a game of sleight of hand storytelling and one I have no interest in playing anymore.

I’m Tired Of Being An Approval Seeking Wimp

The only reason any of us post anything on Facebook is that we love the hit of seeing the red button light up that says someone liked what we said. We’re desperately seeking approval from other people and in doing we hide who we really are.

I see this all the time on my feed. The culture of selfies is a prime example. Think about it rationally for a minute.

I’m going to take a picture of myself, post it on Facebook, with the sole purpose of having people like it, so I can feel good about myself. And I’m going to keep doing it so I can keep feeling good. Which is all wrapped up in an even stronger delusion which is this; I’m so important, everyone wants to see me eating, working out, changing my hair color, or driving in my car. This self-centered madness is the norm on Facebook. It’s not cool or interesting. It’s irrational and destructive.

For the last five years (my most active in business on FB) I’ve all but hidden my personal views on a number of important issues to me. I did that simply because if my “fans” were to find out half of what I believe many would stop being fans pretty fast. And my notification seeking junkie ego couldn’t take that.

So I held back to get approval. And I got it. I have a large subscriber list that in turn follows me on Facebook. I could post about the grass growing and get engagement. But I’m being a total fraud because I’m posting with the clear intention of staying neutral so as to not rock the boat.

I know that Facebook is a very poor place to discuss any of these views of mine because people generally fill their feeds with only things they agree with. If you want to see some of the best examples of adults behaving badly, read some comment threads from people disagreeing on a particularly charged issue. Nothing gets accomplished other than looking bad.

Knowing this, Facebook is a not a good avenue for me to express my beliefs and have reasonable discussions about them. I also don’t need to neuter my own convictions simply because I want to keep getting more likes and have a fan club.

I’m Tired Of Missing My Life Because My Head Is Down In The Screen

“Dad, you and Mom always are on your phones.” This came from my seven-year-old.

Game over.

It was a stinging rebuke and she was right. Our kids know what’s up. They are not dumb. When she told us that, I began to think how in the world would I justify this if I actually tried to explain what I was checking.

“Well honey, someone got a new haircut and I’m reading a post about it. It’s more important to me right now than you are.”

Because friends understand this… if you’re checking your phone instead of playing with your kids. If you’re scrolling your feed instead of engaging with your spouse you’re saying one thing loud and clear, “You’re not interesting enough or important enough to get my attention right now.”

Our kids are watching. I want to make sure I’m modeling the best example I can for them.

My wife and I realized this strongly in the last year. We would be sitting on the couch, scrolling through business stuff mixed with personal and not engaging with each other. What in the world is that? As my friend Shawn Wilson discusses in his piece about his departure from Facebook, the division in marriage because of feed checking is akin to an on-call mistress that we run off to. Instead of being scandalous it’s the norm and not a good one.

I’m Tired Of Numbing My Problems

People go to Facebook constantly not only out of addiction but out a need… to escape. They don’t like how things are and it’s easier to numb than to deal with the problems. For me it was a lot easier to get 50 likes on a post than to do the deep work in my life and business.

I don’t want to do that anymore. The deep work is where the real magic is. I want to take on problems, embrace challenges, I don’t want to numb them. I need to feel them to fix them.

I’m Tired Of Not Being Able To Sit With Myself

Have you noticed how quickly you reach for your phone when there is a gap in activity? Your spouse pauses the movie to go to the bathroom. There’s a gap of a few minutes, you check your phone. Your waiting in line to pick up your kids, you check your phone.

I was doing this all the time and realized I couldn’t sit still and just think, breath, observe, relax.

We’ll say we’re stressed because we’re so busy. We’ll say our life is crazy. It’s really not true. It feels that way because we’ve packed all the spaces that life gives us to reset. We’re packing the spaces full of noise one feed scroll at a time.

I’m Tired Of Thousands Of Friends Who Are In Fact No Friends At All

I’ve written a bit about the difficulties of making great friends as an adult. It’s hard. Life, a family, work… there’s a lot more to it than simply striking up a conversation on the playground like my kids do.

But I want to try. I really want to develop meaningful relationships with others and it’s no mystery Facebook is not the place for that.

It’s a bit of a simple comparison but it works… I can think of 2 maybe 3 people out of my thousands of “friends” on Facebook that I could call if my world was falling apart.

The last thing Facebook does is foster connection. We’re more disconnected than ever and I don’t want that. I don’t want thousands of friends that I can’t count on. I want a few that I regularly speak to, break bread with, grow with, live life with in the good times and really ugly ones.

I’m Tired Of Pretending I Need It For My Business

My business doesn’t use Facebook at all now. It did once. But now, we hire from regular online job boards, we train and meet via applications and membership sites, we just don’t need Facebook for it.

Maybe your business absolutely needs Facebook to survive. I think if you really examine that you may find that’s not the case. In my situation, places like Medium and YouTube are much more beneficial for content creation. The notion that you can’t do business without Facebook is a fishing story we keep telling that is largely untrue. There are other ways.

I’m Tired Of Having No Privacy

What’s interesting is that I’m a very private person. Yet, I’ve documented huge pieces of my life online in the interest of “lifestyle marketing”. The reality is, it’s no one’s business. Shame on me for posting pictures of my kids and sacred moments for our family. I wouldn’t invite those thousands of Facebook “friends” over to our house for movie night or pizza time yet I’m posting pictures of my family for all of them to see of those precious private moments.

We’re whoring out our families and some of our most special moments for likes and engagement. There’s no other word for it, it’s wicked and we need to make it right.

Not to mention the obvious privacy issues with the platform itself. Facebook is free but nothing is really free. Data, behavior, everything is measured, optimized, and sold to advertisers. I can’t complain about a free platform doing that but I can opt out.

Considered Yourself Challenged

I could go on but the theme is simple… I want my life back. All the way back.

Many will read what I’ve shared and have strong reactions in the other direction. Defending the usage and attempting to make it all ok. I get it. Addicts talk that way. The more visceral your reaction is to the idea of quitting Facebook the more you need to do it.

So I challenge you to do walk away. Some may offer plans of downtime, detoxes, etc… I’ve done those but I always came back to the needle and ultimately so will you. I’m suggesting a radical change. A full on exit. I dare you. Because there is simply no way that you or I will return six months from now having deleted the Facebook noise and say, “My life isn’t any better now.”

Our lives will be better and I like that idea a lot. I think our lives are worth it.

Before You Go…

I’m building this business without Facebook and the results are fantastic. If you speak entrepreneur and would rather have a root canal then work in a cube, check this out…