66: Moving Past the Haters to Get Your Message Out Into the World, with Ashley Renne

<p class="p1">“There's no point in being an activist and an advocate if nobody's receiving the message. ” This was an important realization Ashley Renne had as she began to pivot her career towards her newfound passion.<span class= "Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p class="p1">Ashley Renne is a professional content creator, keynote speaker, on-camera host, environmental activist, and vegan lifestyle advocate (and mother!) with certs in both "Plant-based Nutrition" and "Food & Sustainability" from Cornell. Her travels gave her different perspectives, which led her to start blogging about the places she visits. In this episode, Ashley goes over how she merges her environmental advocacy into her travel content while ignoring what the haters throw at her.</p> <p class="p1"><strong>Realization in Bali</strong></p> <p class="p1">It was a regular trip to Bali, Indonesia, when Ashley opened her eyes to the truth. She saw what pictures on the internet showed – fine sand, lush greenery, pristine beaches, coconut trees, and the calm waters of the tropics. There is one thing she did not anticipate, though: trash. The pollution problem was at its peak; her feet were literally stepping over piles of trash. Because of that experience, Ashley was awakened to the reality that caused climate change. It transformed her life and the trajectory of her career. As a result, Ashley started to get interested in sustainability and wrote an article about Bali exposing the ills brought by pollution. The downside was that her writing was not met with great reception. Ashley was dragged on the internet. She got scared of talking about environmentalism for some time, but she realized posting beautiful travel photos was not her thing. Ashley pushed on creating content about the topic with the hope of educating people and, ultimately, urge them to help save the environment.</p> <p class="p1"><strong>The Vegan Lifestyle</strong></p> <p class="p1">Ashley discovered veganism accidentally when a vegan influencer’s post showed up on her timeline