Today’s topic is one that has been on my heart for a while, and I’ve been talking about it on my stories with different things that have come up, but I wanted to dedicate a podcast to it. And it really starts back five years ago.
The “Rabbit Hole” Era During 2020 Lockdowns
So in 2020, when we were all locked down, many of us, especially if you’re listening to this podcast, would go down the rabbit hole of whatever it may be. You know, for I’m glad I went down the rabbit hole with the COVID vaccine and never got it. You know, maybe it was that. It was flat earth.
It was the celebrity world. Did we really land on the moon? You know? And because you were home doing nothing, you could get consumed by it. And looking back at that time, I definitely was consumed by it for a couple of reasons.
One, let’s be real. Some of it is kinda interesting and makes you think. Two, during that time, there were many of our accounts that were growing because people were interested in said topics and they wanted to learn more. Right?
From Social Media Success to Shadow Ban
During the 2020 lockdown, my direct sales business experienced unprecedented growth as I found my authentic voice on social media. As one of the few Beachbody coaches openly discussing controversial topics, I connected with a like-minded audience who felt seen and understood. My engagement soared, sales skyrocketed, and my team expanded rapidly.
However, this success came with significant challenges. By July 2021, Instagram had effectively shadow banned my account, drastically reducing my reach to mere dozens of viewers. Despite my husband’s concerns about potential social media consequences, I initially remained defiant, driven by the growing success of my business.
This experience taught me a crucial lesson about digital entrepreneurship: never build your business solely on borrowed land. It became clear that I needed to diversify my platforms by creating my own podcast and website with a custom domain. This realization ultimately led to the birth of the “If You Know You Know” podcast and my personal website.
But during that time, you know, I didn’t have children. And my focus was on these quote unquote controversial topics. And some of them were very dark and very heavy. And I feel as though it opened the door for the enemy to creep into my life with certain things.
You know, I would I would have awful nightmares about things. I was negative about a lot of things in my life. And then it was like I was given this gift by God to pull myself out of the rabbit hole and that was getting pregnant with my first daughter.
That’s my second daughter you hear in the background. Hey, hashtag mom life. Right? And so I really stopped talking about those things as vocally because I was seeing that if if I did talk about certain topics, the enemy was on guard.
For example, I’ll never forget, I was sharing testimonies about people who, like, were either products of their mom. I hate saying products, but they were products of their mom not getting an abortion or they had chosen not to have an abortion, like and I was sharing these testimonies of being pro life.
And all of a sudden, it’s like as soon as I did that, that’s when all of these awful accounts would be messaging me or, reporting my account. I’ll never forget. I got a message from someone, like, wishing ill upon me and my newborn.
It was it was brutal. I got shadow banned once again, and that was after my account was, like, getting back to being healthy again. And I was getting thousands of views in my stories. And then once again, boom, cut at the knees.
And so the reason why I’m talking about this is because, first of all, I know that from a business perspective, it’s very easy to hop on any kind of train.
Right? Whether it’s something that’s trending, like, right now, the thing that is trending on social is what’s something that’s called rage bait. So a rage bait post would be saying something super controversial that you know is gonna get people just livid.
Social Media Trends and Manipulation Tactics
There’s a former Beachbody coach. She did one about, she did like a cutesy reel of, like, her and her husband out in public, and they were kissy lovey dovey. And then she wrote something like, not caring about finding dating app emails in your husband’s email or something like something to that, you know, extent.
And it was a rage bait post, but people who don’t understand social media and don’t understand how marketing works, What they are doing or they were commenting like, oh my gosh, why would you post that?
Oh my gosh, he’s cheating on you. Like, all these things not knowing, like, they were playing into her game, into her algorithm. There are people who intentionally misspell things on their reels because they want someone to respond and say, hey, dummy.
You misused there and there or, you know, that’s not how you or they’ll intentionally mispronounce something too. Right? So it would be, my Beachbody team always used to tease me about this because I generally didn’t know because I don’t drink coffee.
But, like, there was a before they changed it to snickerdoodle, there was a Shakeology flavor called vanilla chai. Vanilla chai. Right? And I think I used to call it like vanilla chai. Is it chai or chai? To this day, I don’t even know. Right?
But that’s what someone would do as rage bait or chia seeds instead of chia seeds. Right? Like, they would intentionally mispronounce something so that you could correct them.
And if there’s comments and then if people in the comments are talking to one another, that just boosts the algorithm even more. So spoiler alert, that is a marketing tool that you might have fallen victim to.
So a lot of us, and myself included, would hop on whatever bandwagon that was going on. But there were some people who really went, like, next level with it. And I think part of the problem with that is, A, a lot of these topics, the enemy doesn’t want revealed, and so he’s gonna punish you for it.
And then, B, because it’s dark behavior that just opens other opportunities for, you know, negative things to happen in your life. But also, it it tarnishes whatever truth there is to a story.
Some examples of rage-bait (and algorithmic tricks) that dominate today’s feeds:
- Emotional exploitation: Storytelling that’s geared less toward community and more toward manipulation.
- Provocative statements: Posting opinions that are designed to outrage or divide, knowing people will debate—thus boosting engagement.
- Intentional mistakes: Misspelling words, mispronunciations, or deliberately wrong information to trigger corrections and comments.
- Exploiting controversy: Using current trending scandals or personal stories to drive conversation, regardless of authenticity.
When Faith Gets Messy: People, Imperfection, and Unexpected Messengers
Like, we all know that there is corruption in Hollywood. You know, we we’ve heard all of the horror stories with, you know, the the kids who get started with Disney or, you know, how the mob essentially runs the music industry.
And there is a lot of truth to that. But there are people who go so extreme and they start criticizing every single person. They start looking for hand symbols or clothing or, oh, they put their their hand up this way or, oh, this one’s shape body shape is like this.
They must be a man and not a female. Like, all this stuff. And I’m not saying that that doesn’t happen.
Okay?
I’m not I’m not saying that because I do believe there’s truth to that. But when you act like every single person falls under that fold, it’s a little nutty. Right? And even if they are, my biggest thing is why can’t God be showing himself and working through people?
And one of the big, I guess, hot button topics lately has to do with Brandon Lake. Now full transparency, I am a Brandon Lake fan. I have seen him in concert. I am taking my family to go see him again, this fall.
The Power of Christian Music: Connecting Scripture Through Song
My daughter is, you know, obsessed with his songs. I think it’s so powerful because here’s a perfect example.
He has a song called That’s Who I Praise. And in the song, he says, gonna walk through the fire, won’t burn me though, God’s got my back, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. And when I was going through my daughter’s journal, you know, her bible journal, and there’s all, like, these little stories that are, you know, for for children.
Like, you know, they’re short little bible verses that make it easy for them to understand. She knew that story. And, like, I pointed to that. There was a image that first there was three men in the fire and then there were four, and then she pointed. She said, that’s Jesus.
And I said, you know, I’m telling her the story, and she hears Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and she’s like, oh, like in Brandon’s song. So she connected the dots. Now mind you, this was before she was three years old.
So the power of music is very, very strong and and the lyrics that are attached to it. And so right now, people are, like, up in arms, right, because they know what they know about the music industry, that it’s corrupt, that it’s evil, that people sell their souls, all the things that, yes, these things do happen. And they are throwing him in that camp.
Now look. I don’t know him personally.
I don’t know his family. I don’t I don’t know. Right? Like, I don’t know what I don’t know. I can only tell you what I do know. And what I do know is that his lyrics and his songs are changing people’s lives.
And for the people who are so upset that he was he was featured on American Idol for their Easter episode, he was on Jimmy Kimmel with Jelly Roll.
So his big song that really is getting him in the limelight is Hard Fought Hallelujah with Jelly Roll. And Jelly Roll is obviously a very big name in the country music scene.
And, you know, Jelly Roll himself has said on several podcasts, like, he’ll be the first to tell you that, like, he has a lot of demons that he’s been working through. He’s new to following Christ. He wants to learn more.
And the whole, like, reason that they got together on that song was they both felt called to contact one another. They didn’t know one another from Adam. And Jelly Roll hold like, he heard that song on TikTok. He was like, I gotta meet this guy. This song’s fantastic.
Like, I wanna sing this song with him. Like, this song is changing my life. And long story short, they do the song together, and now it’s taking off like you can’t believe.
I mean, they performed at, performed at Stagecoach, which is a big festival, out west. It’s like a it’s almost like a country version. There’s rock too, but a country version of Coachella. And, you know, people are all up in arms about it. Oh my gosh.
Brandon must be corrupt. You know, they’re gonna get him too. There are Facebook groups that I’m a part of that are, like, I guess you would call conspiracy theorist groups. And this one chick, she posted, like, I’m worried about Brandon.
And then, of course, like, all the other comments, like, start dropping in there. And they’re you know, Like, first of all, in my opinion, like, you’re worried about Brandon? Like, how entitled are you? Right?
Like, who do you think you are that you are going to you know, you’re worried about him as if, like, you know him and you’re so concerned? No. You just want to stir the pot and create conversation. And once again, it leads back to that engagement, right?
Like people love they’re they’re hyper fixated on being the first to talk about something or getting the most engagement or getting likes or having people in agreement with them.
Like, we’ve created this culture for ourselves. It’s it’s actually quite sick. And there was one gal who she commented on this post, and I was like, thank you for sharing your testimony because she commented that she saw Jelly Roll while he was filming American Idol in Hawaii.
So they did one of the episodes there. And she asked if she could pray for him and give him a word the lord gave her. And he graciously put his hand out, and she held his hand, and she prayed with him.
And she shared with him that she, you know, felt the lord speaking to her to tell him that he was going to be used on big platforms to talk about Jesus and that he’s gonna call on him more to worship. And she said, I told him the Lord wants him to be brave regardless of what the world says.
He is called to share the name of Jesus, and God will open the doors and set the stage. And then after that, he sang on American Idol, Jimmy Kimmel, and Stagecoach, as I said. And she was saying how stoked she is to see him out more on these platforms.
And to be honest, like, the song, Heart for Hallelujah, she said helped her in so many ways. Like, she just wanted that song shared with people. And she’s like, who’s to say what that song will do in someone’s life? And maybe the only ever time they’ll ever hear it is on Jimmy Kimmel. Right? Like, a secular show. And it’s a show that they enjoy.
They would never think to listen to Brandon Lake. They don’t even know who that is. And then, you know, I want you to remember a lot of people, and I know this from personal experience because I grew up in the Catholic church.
So for me, the first time that I went into a Christian church where, you know, the first twenty minutes is worship music, everyone’s so friendly when you walk in. Now I’m not a hugger. They’re, like, giving hugs. We’re glad you’re here. You know, all of the things.
And then to listen to the way that sermons are preached, and I’ll never forget the my very first service, like, God knew that I needed to hear that sermon. But still, it was very different. Like, I’m looking at everyone.
They have their hands in the air. And now, meanwhile, here I am years and years later, I’m, you know, I got baptized again. Like, I’m the gal that has her hands up. I’m the one that’s bringing my family to see Brandon Lake not once, but twice.
Like so you can change once you’re exposed to this hope, faith, love, light.
And the reason why I’m using those words is because that’s what Jesus is. But people who don’t know him, if they hear the word Jesus, because the way of the world and and how we are, the enemy doesn’t want people to know Jesus. Right? And so there’s a certain, there’s a certain image that is created and, you know, like Jesus freaks. Right? Like, oh, that that person’s a Jesus freak. And it makes it seem weird and uncomfortable.
And that’s why you need a Brandon Lake because he is going to open the doors to someone who thinks that way.
And I had my own personal experience with a friend who does not really particularly care for going to church, literally only went because their spouse wanted to go and kinda teases me here and there about, you know, I guess me being a quote unquote Jesus freak. Right? And we were together and we were listening to music.
I said, I’m controlling the music. And, yeah, in the beginning, I played like some country music, I played some Kendrick Lamar, and then I was like, alright, now I’m gonna have you listen to some church music.
And long story short, we ended up listening to Brandon, Elevation Church, some some other music for at least an hour together. And the response was, wow, that’s not what I thought it was gonna be. And I was like, well, what did you think it was gonna be?
And I’m laughing because, like, while I’ve been recording this, my daughter, the the the infant, who’s, like, wise beyond her years, she opened this book that my girls have where it’s all these little Jesus songs and, like, you know, Jesus loves the little children, like, stuff like that.
But that’s what the impression was. That’s what they thought the songs would sound like, not these gritty, heartfelt moments of when you’re down and out and who do you turn to but your lord and savior. And that is what that song, Hard Fought Hallelujah, is about, and that’s why it’s touching people’s lives.
Brandon Lake’s Mainstream Success Shows God’s Work in Unexpected Places
The incredible success of Brandon Lake’s music demonstrates how faith-based art can reach far beyond traditional Christian audiences. His latest single “Daddy’s DNA” rocketed to #1 on Apple Music across all genres within just 24 hours of release. This remarkable achievement isn’t isolated – his collaboration “Hard Fought Hallelujah” with Jelly Roll sits at #5 on the same charts.
What we’re witnessing is a beautiful ripple effect: listeners discover these powerful songs, which leads them to explore more of Brandon’s music and ultimately, the message behind it. They’re not just connecting with Brandon as an artist – they’re connecting with his message of faith.
While some express concern about his mainstream appearances on shows like Jimmy Kimmel, I see it differently. Having worked in the music industry myself, I understand these concerns, but I firmly believe that God can work through any platform or person to spread His message. That’s exactly what we’re seeing with Brandon Lake’s rising influence.
And, you know, my personal feelings aside, you know, like, Brandon’s wife had to get off Instagram because she just couldn’t deal with the hate and and all like, she she just didn’t wanna deal with it. I respect her for that. You know?
She just thought there was way too much criticism, you know, because people, even Christians are like, you shouldn’t act this way, or you should be this way, or you shouldn’t have all these tattoos, or this or that.
And she’s like her his wife, Britney, was just like, I’m I’m done. Like, I’m not dealing with this anymore. Like, I have better things to do. You know, you’ll have some people who will be like, well, you know, he just bought a bigger property. He has a gold Rolex.
Listen, homie. Like, God bless him. You know, God doesn’t say you have to live in, you know, rags your whole life and he’s doing God’s work. He should be able to enjoy some of the fruits of his labor.
Quite frankly, he leaves his family. Right? He doesn’t get to live a normal life when he’s on tour. That takes a lot. He’s providing a job opportunity too, like, for all those people who are part of his tour.
Right? His bandmates, the sound people, the lighting people, all of that. Right?
And he’s spreading God’s word. And I just wish people would be more open to that concept. Because I know for my family, it took someone who, you know, really isn’t who you would call the the face of Christianity.
Joel Osteen, that’s what brought my husband to Christ. I’ll never forget. This was a a long time ago. It was before we were married.
So it was over nine years ago that we went to a conference. It was a Joel Osteen conference down in Fort Lauderdale, and there were a bunch of churches that also were there. So Joel Osteen was obviously the keynote speaker, but, my pastor was there as a part of our church, and there were other local South Florida churches over there.
They played worship music. Long story short, if you’ve ever been to a, you know, Christian service, you know at the end, they they call to you and say, like, if you would like to have a relationship with God, like, this prayer is for you, you know, and please stand up or raise your hand, whatever it may be.
And I’ll never forget looking over, you know, not know like, and he didn’t do it because I was looking. Like, I had my eyes closed and I just felt my husband rise. And I was like, thank you, God. Because I had been praying for that because he didn’t grow up in a home where faith was a focal point.
Like, my father-in-law straight up, like, we would go to church, and he wouldn’t go when they would come down to Florida for Christmas.
I mean, I think the only time my mother-in-law has ever been really in church is, like, when she does come with us, and that’s Christmas and then, like, once for Easter. So it just wasn’t something that he grew up in.
I mean, like I said, my parents both grew up Catholic, went to, you know, Catholic schools, even Catholic Jesuit colleges. But my parents, they they go to our church, now. And my dad always jokes that, like, if the Catholic church was more like the Christian church, then, you know, they probably wouldn’t have as many problems.
I say all this to say, let’s use testimonies like mine or that woman I shared with you who prayed with jelly roll.
Let’s continue to focus on those positive stories. I’m not saying to turn a blind eye and I believe you always should use discernment, but let’s continue to pray for artists like Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll to make an impact on the world.
And I really believe that they are. And let’s do more of that than trying to automatically think the worst in someone because that’s not gonna lead us down a great path. We need to think about how god is the most powerful and how he can do things that no one else can.
And I believe that is what he is doing with these artists and these songs. Anyway, thank you for tuning in and hearing my thoughts and perspective.
As always, I appreciate you.
