Why it’s Okay to Not Agree with Everyone or Sugarcoat Things with Annie Bowles
I’m joined this week by the host of the News Du Jour podcast & founder of Sugarfree Media, Annie Bowles. She started Sugarfree Media with the intention of speaking her truth and not sugarcoating things anymore. With a career history in politics, Annie noticed a lack of reliable information and news geared towards young women, and has since made it her purpose to fill that hole. We chat about what it means to be “Sugarfree,” how to start finding and consuming the facts, instead of the BS, and how we can start to speak our own truths.
Who is Annie Bowles?
Annie Bowles is the founder of Sugarfree Media and host of the News Du Jour podcast. Fun fact, she goes by her nickname Annie, and Tiffany is her full name. She graduated from American University in Washington, DC after interning in both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill. Coming home to the heartland, she grappled with the need to pull women into the political landscape as well as the lack of reliable news and news geared towards young women. She made it her mission to help fill those needs and has never looked back.
The Calling to be “Sugarfree”
Sugarfree Media was born out of a bunch of random things, says Annie. She had had the idea a long time ago, while she was in a long-distance relationship during her last year in college. She would “go to the newsstand at the airport to grab a magazine. But I found myself wanting to buy like 10 because I was like I care about health. And I also care about celebrity gossip. But I also need a newspaper, because I need to know about the news. And so that's where the idea really came from is like I wanted to create a print magazine that would cover all of those topics that are relevant to the modern woman and what she cares about. And respect the fact that she wants to stay informed.” But naturally, life happened, and she started “big girl jobs” but the idea stayed alive.
She just needed a “little push. Life events eventually gave me that push when I developed a stomach condition that I really couldn't be at an office sitting up at a desk all day. It was conflicting a lot with work. And I ended up moving up to Oklahoma where I'm actually from, to move in with my now-husband, and I decided you know what, I'll just start this as a personal blog. And if it makes sense as a concept, if women are drawn to it, and it works, I'll run with it.” And since, it has blossomed and become what it is today. Sugarfree media stands for not “sugarcoating anything. And just being your real self, and sort of just cutting out the BS and getting to the point. I definitely think anyone who knows me knows that that's what I'm about. I don't like to beat around the bush. And that's where the name came from.”
Getting to the point of being able to say “I don't have to agree with you, and I'm okay with that. I don't have to sugarcoat to make you feel more comfortable,” doesn’t just come naturally. For Annie, it was a lot “of different components. But I think I could feel myself doing it a lot.” While she was attending school in DC, she was surrounded by a lot of “know it alls and egos. It was a lot of intimidation like everybody had their guard up. It really turned me off to politics because I was like, I don't want to compete. I don't want to play this game. And so I was finding myself always like, again, sugarcoating it and kind of just making it nice, so that I wasn't offending anyone.” But after she graduated and was working in retail, she realized she “had a lot of knowledge. And I didn't need to sugarcoat my opinion, and I could just state it.”
Obviously, there’s a common ground between stating your opinion and being sassy or rude, but once you’re able to find that and start practicing that freedom of expressing yourself, you’ll find yourself doing it more naturally. Women, in Annie’s experience, have been “very cautious to not offend anyone and they always want to downplay what they know. And I wanted to help combat that and give them the tools to know more.” That’s where her podcast, News Du Jour, comes into play a lot, she reports on “topics that I didn't know much about beforehand, and I had to do all the research, but I kind of am here to do the legwork for the audience so that they can stay better informed with me and to not be in a space of judgment.”
Facts Over B.S.
For Annie, it’s super important to report on the facts, rather than leaning one way or another in her opinion. She often has people comment to ask if her podcast is left- or right-leaning, but she doesn’t answer because “I've just noticed how language can be so tilted, like, you know, a word can basically be the same two words, and then they lean in one way and someone else would lean it the other way. I read things on all sides of the aisle, I watch things on all sides of the aisle so that I feel like I'm getting a broad picture of what's going on.” Sure, for journalists and creators, it’s impossible to “fully detach” from bias, but it’s important to pay attention to the facts and to both sides of the story, “you want to understand where both sides are coming from. So it's still important to read things that are biased, in my opinion, but my job as a journalist, in my opinion, is to get to the bottom of what are the facts and report those and kind of try to leave the slant out of it in either direction as much as I can.”
The world right now is so heated in so many directions that it can be difficult to even find the stone-cold facts. Annie wanted her podcast to be a space to be about consuming the news, she says “sometimes things get emotional, but like they don't get like heated.” These days, we don’t have the time to find the solid sources of information and news, we don’t have “the emotional capacity to take on all of that and try and figure out for yourself what's the facts. So we're just trying to cut through that BS and get right to the facts and give you those.”
Becoming More of Ourselves
No one is perfect, even Annie knows this, but she says what’s really important is making the decision today to start “nicely, not apologizing for yourself, but in a friendly tone. I'm going to take this one step. I'm going to do it one time and see what happens, almost like an experiment. Just what happens when you lay it out there.” For Annie, being able to do this for herself has improved her life immensely, because the people around her actually know how she feels. Things liker her communication with her husband has improved, “just being able to say what's on your heart or your mind. And never do it when you're angry, or full of emotion. But do it when you're calm, and you've thought it through, what you want to say, and just lay there and see what happens just one time. And then digest that, like, you can take a break from it if you need to, and then just try and do it again, and just take those baby steps.”
Once you start taking those baby steps, you realize that the consequences aren’t that drastic, the world won’t fall apart, especially “especially if you do it with kindness and with empathy.” It’s so important to express your feelings and opinions instead of holding it all in, that’s not healthy. Taking that first step is definitely “the hardest, but you will build confidence over time. And you'll just feel so much lighter and healthier getting it out there.” We aren’t pretending that it’s easy, because honestly, it isn’t. But putting your truth out there, saying your piece, and being able to have an open discussion about that is a beautiful thing and has become “really rare today.”
To listen to the full conversation click the links beneath the main photo to listen on your favorite platform!
Affirmation
I embrace who I am and know not everyone will agree with me. I allow myself to show up fully and say the truth with kindness.
Links From the Show
Follow Annie on Instagram @sugarfreemedia.co.
Check out Annie’s Podcast News Du Jour.
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