Latest / The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell / #41 - Resilience: 12 books in 12 months with Brittney Schering

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#41 - Resilience: 12 books in 12 months with Brittney Schering · The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell

0:02
SPEAKER_04: I was just trying to, you know, make ends meet.
0:05
SPEAKER_04: I wasn't trying to create this massive life-changing service that is what it grew to become, you know.
0:13
SPEAKER_04: But I knew if I didn't put something out there that would be for me, like with my name on it as my own work for myself, that I would lose myself in the work that I was doing for everyone else.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: What's up, y'all?
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Seeking Authenticity.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: My name is Flint Mitchell, and I get absolutely psyched by having conversations with authentic people that I admire about the things they value.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Their stories and perspectives don't just make me smile, laugh, and think.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: They inspire me to wake up earlier, listen better, focus, and work harder, and help make me a better version of myself.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: And it's my hope that sharing these conversations through this podcast might do the same thing for you.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Before I jump into this episode, I just want to quickly plug my book, Seeking Authenticity, Essays and Stories on Values and Travels, available on Amazon, with a quick review, the most recent one that was given to me.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: This is from Nick on March 3, 2022.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: I cannot stop recommending this book to my family and friends.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I found it to be extremely eye-opening and inspiring.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Whether you are at a crossroads in your life or exactly where you plan to be, this book is very thought-provoking and flawlessly captures the perspectives I needed to hear on various topics.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: If it were possible to rate it any higher, I would.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: How freaking cool is that?
1:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm really, really excited to be having these positive reviews coming in for my book.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: And if you leave one, let me know, I'll give you a shout-out in the podcast.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And now onto the conversation with Brittany Sharing, who is an editor, a creator, a traveler, a marketer, and a writer, with work published in The Lonely Planet, Forbes Travel Guide, Time Out, Culture Trip, International Living, and more.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: We talk about her path so far as a writer and a traveler.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Learning about her priorities, what works and what doesn't, cutting her teeth in New York and then off to California, and then developing the resilience to start to pursue the things that she really wants to do.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: To be able to start to say no and to feel when opportunities truly aren't right, which is a problem I know that we all face.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed listening back on this conversation.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of gems of wisdom in it.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: We cover a lot of different topics, and I really hope that you stick around to the end.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: I think it's worth it.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, without further ado, enjoy.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: All right.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Brittany, for coming onto the Seeking Authenticity Podcast.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate uh you spending some time with me.
3:02
SPEAKER_04: Thank you for having me, Flynn.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: So, for people just tuning in, the way that Britney and I met was Britney reached out to me after we had both had a piece of writing featured on the Skim, uh their newsletter, which was pretty, pretty cool having that exposure to such a large audience through a really cool, you know, well-founded uh organization like The Skim.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: It's it was it was brought me a lot of pride and it was clearly true for Britney as well.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: And so she reached out graciously and said hello, said said congratulations to me and uh immediately wanted to you know talk.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: So we spent 30 minutes talking over the phone and seemed like it would click for a podcast.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Um the first thing that I wanted to ask you about, and I kind of dove into your LinkedIn page a little bit just to see uh a little bit more than what we talked about as far as your experiences.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing that stuck out to me was that you have just a ton of experiences.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're you your LinkedIn is filled with like 35 or 40 different roles and uh projects, and it seems to be a uh something that has occurred because of your uh career as a writer.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: It seems like a lot of these things are writing projects or contracts with specific types of organizations, travel organizations, magazines, all these different kinds of groups.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: And I really wanted to know uh to start off with, how has your perspective shifted from when you came out of university to now as far as what a career in writing looks like?
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, did you imagine having all these different roles 10 years ago?
4:38
SPEAKER_04: Great question.
4:39
SPEAKER_04: Um, so it's interesting that you asked that because my career in writing actually started for me in high school.
4:48
SPEAKER_04: Um, I had a mentorship in my senior year of high school with a local Detroit newspaper.
4:55
SPEAKER_04: And throughout that time, I had 25 of the news articles that I wrote for them uh published.
5:03
SPEAKER_04: And then one of those was a front page feature.
5:07
SPEAKER_04: And that's where um that's where it kind of started for me, but also prior to that I worked for the school newspaper and stuff.
5:16
SPEAKER_04: So I was used to seeing my name in print already prior to that, even.
5:20
SPEAKER_04: But um yeah, it it started for me before I went away to school.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Did anyone else at that like in that time period in high school, did you have any friends that were having similar experiences or were you kind of like going on this path somewhat alone?
5:35
SPEAKER_04: No, honestly, it's very hard for me to find other people with similar experiences because mine is so weird.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: How do you define weird in this context?
5:46
SPEAKER_04: Uh weird in the way that I never really thought much of it, honestly.
5:51
SPEAKER_04: It was just always what I did, you know.
5:53
SPEAKER_04: Um, I've been compelled to write ever since I was very young, like five years old.
5:59
SPEAKER_04: I had crayons and I would write little stories and you know, share them with my family.
6:04
SPEAKER_04: And it just always felt really good to do that.
6:07
SPEAKER_04: So I never really thought of it as much more than just what I do.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: And so was that still true then when you were looking at when you were graduating?
6:17
SPEAKER_00: So you probably you clearly had five or six years already of um professional writing experience.
6:24
unknown: Yeah.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: What did it look like?
6:27
SPEAKER_00: What did a career in writing look like to you afterwards afterwards?
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Or was writing something that you felt was going to be a part of your career in a different sense?
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Like you have experience in marketing.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Was it just going to be a skill set within a marketing career?
6:41
SPEAKER_04: No, so marketing came after writing for me, and it kind of came accidentally.
6:47
SPEAKER_04: Um, but the thing about writing for me, I always knew it was what I wanted to do, and everyone around me always discouraged it.
6:56
SPEAKER_04: And nothing, nothing motivates me more than when someone tells me you shouldn't or you can't do that.
7:03
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, oh yes, I can, I will watch me.
7:06
SPEAKER_04: And then I just take off.
7:08
SPEAKER_04: Like that is the fuel to my fire.
7:10
SPEAKER_04: So um, ever since I was very young, when I decided, you know, everyone's like, I want to be a doctor, I want to be a nurse, I want to be a normal job title insert here.
7:21
SPEAKER_04: I was like, oh, I want to be a writer.
7:22
SPEAKER_04: And they're like, oh my gosh, you shouldn't do that.
7:25
SPEAKER_04: That's not a smart career path to take.
7:28
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, okay, watch.
7:30
SPEAKER_04: Like, watch me do it.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: What kind of how did they project that kind of discouraging uh emotion onto you?
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Like, what kind of things did you hear when you were in college or about to graduate when you were telling people this is what I wanted to do?
7:45
SPEAKER_04: Interestingly, a lot of the writing professors that I had in college were the disgruntled writer who really wanted to make it big and did not.
7:56
SPEAKER_04: So they decided to be a professor instead.
8:00
SPEAKER_04: And they kind of projected that, you know, preconceived notion of failure onto the students.
8:06
SPEAKER_04: And it infuriated me because I was like, why am I paying so much money to have you teach me to let go of my dream?
8:15
SPEAKER_04: You're supposed to be doing the opposite, you know.
8:18
SPEAKER_04: So that just helped fuel that fire even more.
8:21
SPEAKER_04: When the person who was supposed to be, you know, supporting helping me hone my tool set is actually the person saying, Don't bother.
8:31
SPEAKER_04: Like that really stimulated my desire to make it happen.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: That's really fascinating.
8:39
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: And a bummer.
8:42
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it is, but it's reality.
8:44
SPEAKER_04: I mean, honestly, it's when I talk to other people who went to school for writing, that's not uncommon.
8:52
SPEAKER_04: A lot of people have that same experience.
8:55
SPEAKER_04: You know, there's a lot of head nods when I talk about that with other people who chose to take a route of writing.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: And I guess with that, were they still willing to point you in the right direction?
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Or then was it it sounds like it might have been a bit more on you to find the path?
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Were you just applying to any sort of magazine, or was there a specific type of writing you wanted to do?
9:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh what were your steps coming out of college to try to create a foundation outside of university and in as a writer, as a freelance writer, or whatever you were aiming to do?
9:33
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so even while I was in college, I had my heart set on getting out of Michigan, which is where I'm from.
9:41
SPEAKER_04: Um, I'm not a winter person.
9:44
SPEAKER_04: I love warm weather and I thrive in it.
9:46
SPEAKER_04: So I had my heart set on California.
9:49
SPEAKER_04: So I had already been um pursuing writing opportunities in California to get my name out there and to get bylines.
9:58
SPEAKER_04: So I was doing a lot of unpaid writing opportunities.
10:01
SPEAKER_04: And I still cringe when I think about how much of that work I did do, but it also didn't bother me at that time because it was the exposure that I needed and I knew that that would be the thing that gets me to the next opportunity.
10:15
SPEAKER_04: So I was willing to do whatever it took.
10:17
SPEAKER_04: Um, so by the time I got to my final year in college and was on my way to graduation, I had already established that traction for myself just by sheer will of I will do this.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:31
SPEAKER_04: So it was it was interesting because I didn't know that that was not normal.
10:36
SPEAKER_04: I thought everyone in these uh situations was doing the same thing that I was doing.
10:41
SPEAKER_04: I just thought that was what you do.
10:43
SPEAKER_04: Um I'm not sure why or where that came from, but it wasn't until my final year of college when I was in a class with other writers and we were doing our final project, and everyone was asking, you know, how did you get all these bylines already?
10:58
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, I just pitch myself to literally everyone.
11:02
SPEAKER_04: And I get denials all the time, but I don't worry about those.
11:05
SPEAKER_04: I just wait for the green lights and then I go with them.
11:08
SPEAKER_04: And people looked at me like I was crazy, and they're like, that doesn't bother you when someone says no.
11:13
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, no, how you can't get a yes without experiencing some no's.
11:19
SPEAKER_04: So you just kind of have to learn from it and keep going.
11:22
SPEAKER_04: And it never stopped me.
11:24
SPEAKER_04: And I think that's that was what kept me going, and I didn't even realize it at the time.
11:30
SPEAKER_04: It just was part of it for me.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: That's really cool that you took on the responsibility, uh, the responsibility of yourself and of the thing you wanted to do that early on.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people in university find themselves at the end of the experience without a lot of at the end of the academic experience without a lot of uh like professional-esque experiences or or or applications of the things that they're learning.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And to take that on yourself and just say, Well, I need this, this is how it's gonna go forward.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give it a shot, clearly gave you the momentum to continue going.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: That's really cool.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: I I'm I'm really impressed by that.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't know a lot of people that that sent that kind of stuff that early.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's really cool.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: So you'd already set up a foundation in in California.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Then did you just have enough momentum or projects going that you moved out there immediately?
12:30
SPEAKER_04: No.
12:32
SPEAKER_04: It actually went the complete opposite way.
12:35
SPEAKER_04: Um, that was my plan.
12:36
SPEAKER_04: I wanted to every winter, every time winter rolled around for me, all throughout the four years that I was in college.
12:43
SPEAKER_04: Um, I was in college at the on the west side of the state where the lake effect snow is obscene.
12:51
SPEAKER_04: It gets really, really crazy.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: And what is the lake effect?
12:54
SPEAKER_04: So with Lake Michigan right on the edge of Michigan where I was going to school in Grand Rapids, um, when it snows, it snows a lot heavier and a lot more um the impact is greater than what I was used to on the east side of the state where it wasn't so bad.
13:12
SPEAKER_04: So where we would get uh an inch of snow on the east side, it would be like a foot of snow on the west side, basically.
13:20
SPEAKER_04: And having not really been a fan of winter already, I was like an absolute not fan of winter at that point.
13:26
SPEAKER_04: So every time winter rolled around, I was like, you know what, forget it.
13:29
SPEAKER_04: I don't need this college education.
13:31
SPEAKER_04: I'm leaving.
13:33
SPEAKER_04: I would look up other writing programs anywhere else that had, you know, year-long sunshine and try to get myself out of there.
13:40
SPEAKER_04: But some for some reason, in some way, I made it through those four years and graduated.
13:47
SPEAKER_04: And my college roommate at the time um got an internship fresh out of college in New York City.
13:54
SPEAKER_04: And she was like, You you have to go with me.
13:57
SPEAKER_04: Like, what am I gonna do without you?
13:58
SPEAKER_04: We had lived all four years together at school.
14:01
SPEAKER_04: We went to high school together.
14:03
SPEAKER_04: Um, in high school, we weren't really close friends or anything at all.
14:07
SPEAKER_04: We were just acquaintances, but we grew to be really close, you know, like best friends in college.
14:12
SPEAKER_04: So I had no interest in going to New York, but I was like, okay, I'll apply for one internship.
14:19
SPEAKER_04: And if I get it, I'll come with you.
14:20
SPEAKER_04: And I got it.
14:22
SPEAKER_04: So we moved there together.
14:24
SPEAKER_04: She still lives there.
14:26
SPEAKER_04: Um, but yeah, my first move fresh out of college, like less than a month after graduating, was New York City.
14:32
SPEAKER_04: And I'm grateful for that because going to New York first and LA afterwards, I'm glad that it went that way and not the opposite.
14:41
SPEAKER_04: I think New York was a really good starting point for me.
14:44
SPEAKER_04: And then going to LA felt like cake compared to New York.
14:48
SPEAKER_04: Just because the competition was more no, not the competition, just the environment.
14:55
SPEAKER_04: Um, I learned what works for me really quickly by learning what doesn't.
15:01
SPEAKER_04: And being in that city, you know, you thrive in New York in such a way that it does not turn off and I don't turn off.
15:10
SPEAKER_04: So that part worked.
15:12
SPEAKER_04: But the part that didn't work for me was the concrete playground part of it.
15:17
SPEAKER_04: Um, I love nature and I thrive with greenery all around me.
15:23
SPEAKER_04: I need some water, I need to be able to walk barefoot and grass and not worry about, you know, stepping on a broken bottle.
15:31
SPEAKER_04: So every time I would come home to Michigan from New York, I'd literally take my shoes off and just stand in the grass.
15:38
SPEAKER_04: And my dad was like, What the heck is going on with you?
15:41
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, I literally can't do this there.
15:44
SPEAKER_04: Like, there's not enough uh nature around.
15:47
SPEAKER_04: So I knew that that wasn't the place for me.
15:50
SPEAKER_04: As much as I did love the experience of being there and you know, starting my career that way, which is monumental for a writer, I knew I had to get myself over to that west coast to continue what I wanted to pursue for myself.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: No, I I really appreciate that perspective of realizing it's a a realization of priorities and how certain priorities are just more than others, or or just more than you originally anticipated.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: So I I empathize greatly with that.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: I absolutely put effort into being in being geographically around things that I I really enjoy.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: I like to surf, I like to hike, and so though having those things near to me is it's it's less of a cherry on top.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: It's actually I've realize it's more of a very strong priority in my life.
16:45
SPEAKER_04: Um it feeds everything else.
16:47
SPEAKER_04: It's kind of like the environment that you're in kind of is a mirror to what's going on inside, I think, a lot of the times.
16:55
SPEAKER_04: And I think being in that area that helps you thrive makes everything thrive in a different way.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: And there's one aspect of that that can be tough is the realization that if that is a priority, it does mean that you're going to be potentially pushing away opportunities of other sorts, right?
17:17
SPEAKER_00: There are going to be these jobs in New York that you're not going to take because you don't want to be there.
17:21
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
17:21
SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
17:22
SPEAKER_04: And I've had that part of it too.
17:24
SPEAKER_04: And that's that's the give and take of it, you know, like not every opportunity is the right opportunity for me.
17:32
SPEAKER_04: But because I have a hard time saying no when someone's knocking at my door, like, hey, I have this great opportunity for you.
17:39
SPEAKER_04: It's bright and shiny and beautiful.
17:40
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, yeah, but it's not really what I'm looking for next.
17:44
SPEAKER_04: I'm learning how to say that nicely instead of just being the yes person all the time because they being the yes person definitely got me to where I'm at today.
17:55
SPEAKER_04: I don't regret that, but I also see the good and bad in it now, and I see how it might not be the best thing for me all the time.
18:05
SPEAKER_04: So I'm trying to like teach myself how to evaluate situations and um say no nicely when I really don't want to say yes.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a really hard thing to do, especially in that setting where you're, I guess maybe you know, I don't I don't have a perspective like I'm I haven't finished my career, so I can't say this written reflection, but the idea of wanting to grow and and progress and create more exposure, it's really hard to say no.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: I in the with that context, do you have any uh realizations or advice that you've given yourself or just things that you've found that work for identifying opportunities and how much they actually resonate with if you want to do them or not, or checklists that you go through in order to decide if you're gonna pursue an opportunity or not?
18:59
SPEAKER_04: No, not yet.
19:02
SPEAKER_04: Um, it is fairly new, like new as in I learned this the hard way last year by biting off way more than I should have just as a sheer result of a greater need for marketing help due to the pandemic.
19:18
SPEAKER_04: Um I had a lot of people reach out and need help last year.
19:23
SPEAKER_04: And because of the state that we're all in right now, I felt like it would be wrong to say no to people who needed help at the time that they needed the help.
19:35
SPEAKER_04: So I tried to serve everyone's needs that came to me.
19:39
SPEAKER_04: But by doing that, I put myself on my own back burner, which I do and I have done for as long as I know.
19:47
SPEAKER_04: You know, it's just kind of a character flaw, I guess you could say.
19:51
SPEAKER_04: So I got myself so worn down by doing that that I was like, okay, this obviously does not work.
19:57
SPEAKER_04: I know this, it's not news, but it's this level that I took it to last year.
20:04
SPEAKER_04: I can't do that anymore.
20:05
SPEAKER_04: Like, it's not worth it for me to risk my own health for uh trying to like save everyone else in their time of need as well.
20:15
SPEAKER_04: Like, I have to do the things that are good for me in the way that I know will serve me as much as they serve the person who I'm serving in that moment.
20:25
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I'm really trusting my intuition and you know, like the energy of the situation.
20:31
SPEAKER_04: So if I feel off about it and you know, something doesn't seem right, I listen to that instead of hushing it.
20:39
SPEAKER_04: Whereas before I used to just hush it, you know, like oh stop thinking like you.
20:46
SPEAKER_04: Yes, exactly.
20:48
SPEAKER_04: Let me just throw a few more limbs really quick and I've got this, no big deal.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: The act, it's it's almost amusing how difficult it is because it seems like it would be trivial, but it's so difficult to take the moment, like take the pause, take the breath after an opportunity arises and just ask a question to yourself saying, What what do I actually think about this?
21:09
SPEAKER_00: It's a really hard thing to do that before just going, yep, yeah, it definitely is.
21:15
SPEAKER_04: And what I learned also last year was a lot of the opportunities that I did say yes to felt really good at the time that I said yes.
21:23
SPEAKER_04: And then once I got into them, they weren't what they said they were, or they snowballed into something different, or there's something in um contractual freelance work called scope creep, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with, but you know, you sign on forly familiar with it.
21:42
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
21:43
SPEAKER_04: You sign on for something and you're like, hey, I can do this for you, no problem.
21:46
SPEAKER_04: And then they're like, oh, and also this, that, and the other thing.
21:50
SPEAKER_04: And it's like, ooh, that's not what we agreed to.
21:52
SPEAKER_04: You know, let's, you know, backpedal a little bit and re evaluate the situation.
21:58
SPEAKER_04: I'm better at speaking up.
22:00
SPEAKER_04: Sooner about that now, whereas before I would just take it and you know do what was asked of me, regardless of whether or not I had already agreed.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: I so this something that arises from this is really interesting to me, which is the idea of identifying the value that you bring to any given situation.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: And any sort of professional contract, like you're talking about, you define scopes of what they want, the payment plan, all those kind of things.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Something underlying that is the value that the person is receiving from you.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: And they are going to have some sort of number that is they associate with it.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: But the the aspect of identifying the number for yourself, even if it's not just financially, looking at the emotional or spiritual and financial toll of whatever any project is going to entail, is really quite difficult.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I would wonder if you have it's really kind of a hard question that I'm forming my mind, to be honest, but it's how do you identify the value?
23:06
SPEAKER_00: Is it really just your intuition?
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Is there are there any methods you have for identifying the value you associate with a project?
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not just about money, it's also gonna be about potentially the type of writing you're doing or the type of organization you're working for.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Are there any specific things that act as flags for identifying if the situation really is going to be valuable for you to participate in?
23:30
SPEAKER_04: Yes, but I try not to um make it more complicated than it needs to be.
23:38
SPEAKER_04: Um, I really wholeheartedly believe that the things that feel good are the things that I should pursue.
23:44
SPEAKER_04: And the things that come out of the gate with red flags and question marks are the things that I can just politely decline now.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:53
SPEAKER_04: It hasn't always been that way.
23:54
SPEAKER_04: I had to work my tail off to get to this point.
23:58
SPEAKER_04: So I don't recommend starting a career on that footing, but I do recommend trusting your gut in those situations.
24:07
SPEAKER_04: Um because, you know, for example, now if someone comes to me and they need help with something that feels really good to help, and then I find out the details that aren't necessarily in line with what I thought it was, I'm not as quick to pursue it.
24:26
SPEAKER_04: Whereas before I would be like, oh wow, that stinks.
24:29
SPEAKER_04: That's not what I thought I was getting myself into.
24:31
SPEAKER_04: But here we go anyway, because I said I would.
24:34
SPEAKER_04: Um those are the moments that I'm getting better at uh honing in on now.
24:40
SPEAKER_04: But I really try to keep it as simple as possible because I think I'm an overthinker.
24:47
SPEAKER_04: So if I give it too much thought, then I will what if myself down a rabbit hole of no end and I'll lose sleep about it.
24:55
SPEAKER_04: And it's just so unnecessary at that point that I'm just like, okay, clearly this isn't the right thing if I can't stop thinking about how to make it the right thing.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: I I mean that in itself is an extremely good answer, is this idea, and I think it's something that anyone can resonate with, which is this idea that when you're proposed with an opportunity, just take a breath and see if if is there any sort of negative pushback in your mind?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: And if there is, then you can you know ask a question or two, but use that red flag as instead of trying to prove to yourself why that might be right, yeah, ask yourself why it is actually like is it necessary for you to pursue this project?
25:37
SPEAKER_00: If there is pushback in your in your mind, there's probably a reason for it.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's worth saying no.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Just having that that idea come up in your head is probably enough to dissuade yourself from at least a couple of these potentially negative experiences.
25:52
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
25:53
SPEAKER_04: And they're always learning experiences at the end of the day, even the ones that I have said yes to, even though I knew in my head, like this is gonna suck, but here we go.
26:04
SPEAKER_04: Um, I've had a heck of a lot of that to know that you can still pull good out of those experiences too.
26:11
SPEAKER_04: And at the start of a writing career, you really don't have the legs or the leverage to be able to tell those people no.
26:19
SPEAKER_04: So it's kind of part of it.
26:22
SPEAKER_04: Like what I call it for myself is a necessary evil, but once that necessity is removed, then it's just plain evil and I'm not going to pursue those things, but I know that I don't have to anymore.
26:36
SPEAKER_04: And that's kind of where I'm at in my career, like newly right now.
26:41
SPEAKER_04: So it's kind of brand new for me.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Something I'd be curious if then over the course of this change in perspective of opportun how opportunities look to you, has your perspective of what success looks like in the form of writing, like for an article, what is has success in your mind over what an article looks like or how it finishes or the exposure it gets, has the six the view of success of your writing changed over the course of that time as well?
27:13
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I would definitely say so.
27:15
SPEAKER_04: Um as you know, as a writer, when you're starting out, any byline is great to add to your portfolio.
27:25
SPEAKER_04: But um as you grow into who you are as a writer and you develop, you know, a bit of a signature or an understanding where people know what to expect when they come to you for your writing, um, it gets a little more granular than that.
27:42
SPEAKER_04: And now I evaluate for different reasons than before.
27:47
SPEAKER_04: I would just say yes.
27:48
SPEAKER_04: Just if if my name goes on it, yes, I'll do it.
27:52
SPEAKER_04: And now it's more of how is this helping the person who will read it?
27:57
SPEAKER_04: You know, is there value here?
27:59
SPEAKER_04: What's the purpose for this article?
28:02
SPEAKER_04: Am I who am I helping and how are they helping the person?
28:05
SPEAKER_04: You know, yeah, those types of questions, like value-based questions, um matter more to me now, and they always have, to be honest with you, but I knew I I wasn't there yet to be able to let them matter as much as I wanted them to.
28:22
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, I'm 32 years old and I've been writing professionally since I was in high school.
28:28
SPEAKER_04: So, like half of my life basically now.
28:31
SPEAKER_04: So I feel like I've grown a little bit of confidence to where now I can put my foot down politely.
28:39
SPEAKER_04: And, you know, if a mental stop sign pops up in my head, I stop and think about it or just sit with it and let it tell me whatever I need to know about the situation, and then I listen to what my intuition tells me.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: So is this topic what drove you to, and I get I'll I didn't mention this before, but for the listeners who don't know, Brittany wrote 12 or published 12 books on Amazon last year.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: Is this topic what led you to that endeavor?
29:12
SPEAKER_00: Was it this idea that there was something you needed to do for yourself that was a uh like there's something maybe not going on in your professional life that was allowing you to express something personal, or there was just a feeling that you needed to push off on an adventure of your own that led you to that kind of project?
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Was there a moment of that kind of sensation that that that compelled you to take on the adventure of writing that many books?
29:41
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there was.
29:42
SPEAKER_04: It was kind of like not at the start though.
29:46
SPEAKER_04: Um I had originally, I don't really know what the moment was for me, but I had a moment of realization that I hadn't published an ebook personally yet, but knowing that it was a possibility that I just needed to learn how was what set me off.
30:04
SPEAKER_04: So I started with just wanting to do one, just to be able to do it and say that I had done it and figure out how.
30:12
SPEAKER_04: Um I know I have the writing part down fine, but the ability to publish something on my own in that way um would be brand new.
30:22
SPEAKER_04: So I wanted to do something brand new.
30:25
SPEAKER_04: I wanted to, you know, branch out a little bit from what I had been doing all along.
30:30
SPEAKER_04: So once I did that first one, it felt really good.
30:33
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, oh, that was way too easy.
30:36
SPEAKER_04: Like I can't stop here.
30:38
SPEAKER_04: I have to challenge myself.
30:40
SPEAKER_04: And that didn't even feel like a challenge.
30:42
SPEAKER_04: It just felt like a fun new learning experience.
30:45
SPEAKER_04: So I thought about how to make it harder on myself, but also to help myself give a little bit of my time and energy and effort back to me.
30:58
SPEAKER_04: Um, because at that time, you know, I had just started my own marketing service, Pivotal Insight.
31:04
SPEAKER_04: And the amount of work that came my way right after opening that gate was unbelievable.
31:11
SPEAKER_04: Like that was not, I was just trying to, you know, make ends meet.
31:15
SPEAKER_04: I wasn't trying to create this massive uh life-changing service that is what it grew to become, you know.
31:25
SPEAKER_04: But I knew if I didn't put something out there that would be for me, like with my name on it as my own work for myself, that I would lose myself in the work that I was doing for everyone else because that's just how I operate.
31:40
SPEAKER_04: Um it was kind of put there as a placeholder to gauge when I had hit that point of okay, gotta pump the brakes, you know, let go of some of this work because I know how I work and I don't I don't stop once I get going.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: I think that a lot of people can appreciate that point of view.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: A lot of a lot of people that I know get sucked into whatever projects they're doing and find that it takes it takes on a lot of their own energy and and life that they wanted to spend doing other things.
32:14
SPEAKER_04: Right.
32:14
SPEAKER_04: Yep, absolutely.
32:16
SPEAKER_04: And it's not new, like I said before, you know, that's always been my work ethic.
32:20
SPEAKER_04: And I talked to my dad about it the other day, and I was like, what is wrong with me?
32:24
SPEAKER_04: Like, why am I so like there is hard working and then there is like, what is this?
32:29
SPEAKER_04: Like, who did I get this from?
32:31
SPEAKER_04: And he said, he said, you know what?
32:33
SPEAKER_04: I don't know, but you've been like that since you were a kid.
32:35
SPEAKER_04: You used to like get a new coloring book and you had to finish the whole thing, and we knew you were crazy then.
32:41
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Oh, well, great.
32:42
SPEAKER_04: I'm glad that this has been a lifelong venture for me.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty funny, pretty funny reflection from your dad.
32:49
SPEAKER_04: I know, and I didn't even know that.
32:51
SPEAKER_04: I was like, really?
32:52
SPEAKER_04: It goes back that far?
32:53
SPEAKER_04: My goodness.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Then so you you challenged yourself, so it wasn't a challenge, and you needed it to be a challenge.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: So that's when this this larger writing project came about.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Why did you have any moments then during that year when you after you partook it where you were kind of questioning?
33:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it sounds like you had a lot going on outside of it's just you weren't just doing this.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: No, so what kept you going on it?
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Was it just the the the potential to finish a challenge that you set out for yourself?
33:27
SPEAKER_04: You know, I'm not really sure what it was.
33:30
SPEAKER_04: To be honest with you, I I haven't figured that out yet.
33:34
SPEAKER_04: There were definitely times that I was just like, oh my goodness, I don't know if I can do this, but the minute that I feel that way, I'm like, oh yes, I can.
33:43
SPEAKER_04: Here we go.
33:45
SPEAKER_04: If I have to stay up all night to finish this sixth book or whatever, you know, I will do that.
33:51
SPEAKER_04: So I just didn't give myself not doing it as an option.
33:56
SPEAKER_04: I knew it was a required thing for me to accomplish for myself.
34:03
SPEAKER_04: So not doing it just wasn't even an option for me.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, to me, it sounds like, and this it's not just your writing, it seems to be a piece of of you in general, which is this idea of resilience.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: The the book that I I I publish is on value systems.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm really curious about the way that people bring certain values into their life and which ones they prioritize, even if subconsciously.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: It seems like this idea of these ones are really tied together, but the idea of being responsible for yourself and the be idea of being mentally resilient, I consider both to be values within, you know, there's sub-values and hierarchies of all these things.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: It's not uh too cut and dry.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: But for you, it it appears that this idea of pushing forward through challenges or struggles or whatever life has thrown at you is something you take pride in.
34:59
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
35:00
SPEAKER_04: I've never looked at it in that way, but I guess so.
35:03
SPEAKER_04: I think it's just kind of been life as it is for me, honestly.
35:08
SPEAKER_04: Um I've always looked at a challenge as you know, fall seven times, stand up eight.
35:17
SPEAKER_04: Like if I'm still here, we're gonna keep this thing going.
35:20
SPEAKER_04: And I don't give up at all.
35:23
SPEAKER_04: Like giving up is not an option for me.
35:26
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes to a fault, though.
35:27
SPEAKER_04: Like sometimes you have to throw in the towel, and that's where I struggle.
35:33
SPEAKER_04: Um, I think it's like you said, resilience, but also this desire to be so strongly independent that I don't need to rely on anyone else, which is also problematic.
35:47
SPEAKER_04: And I don't recommend anyone trying to lead a life that way because you know, we all need each other at the end of the day.
35:55
SPEAKER_04: And and it's okay to be like, hey, you know what, I need a break, or you know, I can't do everything that that's okay, but I always try to make myself think that I can.
36:08
SPEAKER_04: And I don't know if that's like I almost want to call it a trauma response, and it might be, honestly, but I'm still kind of figuring that part out myself.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I would say that once again, there's a spectrum with all these things for sure.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: I would say that the the desire to be able to take care of yourself and be independent is an extremely positive one.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Everything has its drawbacks, right?
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Being too independent in the set in the context of pushing away other people, that could definitely see that as a negative, or or preventing yourself from allowing help.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: I could see that as a negative, um, because just because of the desire to be independent.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it is honestly, I would say a fairly fundamental value for people or desire to be independent to take care of themselves.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: I think that's actually one thing that leads to insecurity in a lot of people is the fear of not being able to take care of themselves.
37:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, definitely, I agree.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: So it it's and it's a hard question to ask, but the the the real curiosity here is more of a theoretical why to these values.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Is you talk about the pride of falling seven times and getting back up the eighth.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: What is like what do you get maybe personally, or is it for other people?
37:36
SPEAKER_00: What do you get by standing up that eighth time?
37:38
SPEAKER_00: What is it?
37:39
SPEAKER_00: Is it pride or is it just the satisfaction of knowing that you'll leave some sort of legacy or just the desire to finish a project?
37:49
SPEAKER_04: Um that's a really good question.
37:52
SPEAKER_04: I think for me, it's like, well, I guess I should give you some backstory to falling for me.
38:00
SPEAKER_04: Um I was born with a knee problem called sublaxation of the patellas.
38:08
SPEAKER_04: And what that means is I didn't have cartilage around my knees the way that a normal person would growing up.
38:15
SPEAKER_04: So uh I wasn't able to like run and jump and play like normal kids would.
38:21
SPEAKER_04: I would try, but I would fall a lot.
38:24
SPEAKER_04: So like physically fall physically fall, and you know, falling became more painful when my knee popping out became my knee dislocating and someone having to straighten my leg out to put my knee back into place, you know.
38:40
SPEAKER_04: Wow, that's the foundation that I started on, just falling all over the place, you know, in ways that were really embarrassing and you know, traumatic for me.
38:51
SPEAKER_04: But then also when I was very young, I had a knee surgery that was supposed to fix it.
38:58
SPEAKER_04: And the surgery didn't fix it, it actually made it worse.
39:02
SPEAKER_04: So, yeah, so now you know I'm 32 and I still take the stairs one at a time.
39:09
SPEAKER_04: I still can't run or jump or you know, do those things.
39:14
SPEAKER_04: And I think my desire is to build myself up so much that I can finally heal that part of me.
39:23
SPEAKER_04: Like I think my biggest goal in life is to be able to run and jump and play like everyone else.
39:30
SPEAKER_04: So that's what I'm reaching for when I reach, and that's why I reach so wholeheartedly with everything.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: It sounds, I mean, I can't really imagine that emotion of being that age, not being able to participate in that way.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: But also the a big aspect of failure, and I'm not calling that a failure, but you know, the the large umbrella of it is the the embarrassment associated with or the swallowing the ego of having a moment like that where you need you're forced to have help from others.
40:08
SPEAKER_04: Yes, exactly.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: It's a really, really difficult thing to deal with, especially at a young age, let alone at probably any age.
40:16
SPEAKER_04: No, yeah.
40:17
SPEAKER_04: And it followed me, it still does my whole life, you know, like it's winter right now, and if it's icy outside, I am inside and I don't go out there because I know if I slip on the ice, I'm gonna be on my butt, you know.
40:30
SPEAKER_04: That's just the reality of it.
40:32
SPEAKER_04: And and I say it with a smile now, but it hasn't always been that way.
40:37
SPEAKER_04: It's definitely been the hardest thing.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I absolutely believe that.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: And it makes sense that that struggle and overcoming of that struggle or dealing with it has bled over into other aspects of your life and the way that you pursue work.
40:54
SPEAKER_04: Right.
40:56
SPEAKER_04: I think that's since I can't run physically, I run in every other way that I can.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like you run marathons in other ways.
41:04
unknown: Exactly.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any uh I mean from this experience, one thing that I think is a lot of people find true, especially maybe in the in the context of the pandemic of everyone kind of realizing maybe larger struggles of life or thinking about their larger, larger struggles of life, is this inherent truth that with struggles tend to come lessons uh or or advice or just other truths behind them.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any experiences or stories or lessons that have come out of this experience with your needs that have allowed you to attack them, maybe predict them coming or to overcome them, like things that have allowed you to be more resilient when when faced with problems as they come in life.
42:02
SPEAKER_04: You know, it's so funny that you ask that because something that I've learned to realize of myself is when big things happen, like the pandemic, that's where I shine.
42:15
SPEAKER_04: Like I am so good under pressure of a major obstacle that no one can see the end of.
42:21
SPEAKER_04: Like that unknown is my like, all right, here we go, like nose to the grindstone.
42:27
SPEAKER_04: But when it comes to small things like a paper cut or something so minute, like the other day I was putting uh dishes away and a glass flew out of the cupboard and like shattered everywhere.
42:38
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, oh my gosh, it's the end of the world.
42:41
SPEAKER_04: And it was so small in retrospect, you know, it's like the tiny things that get me, but the big things, I'm just like, well, can't freak out now because what good is that going to do?
42:52
SPEAKER_04: So might as well just, you know, figure it out and work work my way through it.
42:57
SPEAKER_04: So it's really weird.
42:58
SPEAKER_04: Like I'm flip-flopped in that way, whereas small things for normal people are like, oh, whatever, you know, put a band-aid on your paper cut, but that's funny.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: And is it just the sense of these larger problems that all you can do is what you're currently doing?
43:14
SPEAKER_00: Or like, or all you all you can do is work harder.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: There's just it's like maybe there's a sense, and I think this is true with the pandemic.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: People don't no one, no person can just go out right now and just go solve it.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, I'll just go outside and just cure this, it'll just be done.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: So it's this aspect of like you're playing your not sorry, playing your role, but it's you can't necessarily fix the problem at large.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: You can only have control over yeah, yeah, exactly.
43:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
43:40
SPEAKER_04: I think it's the impossibility of it that feels like home to me because I know impossibility so inherently due to you know my my own shortcomings that impossibility doesn't scare me, it kind of motivates me to shine brighter.
44:00
SPEAKER_04: or to give where giving is needed more than I normally do.
44:04
SPEAKER_04: And that's how I propel myself into the next thing.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: It's and it seems in my head there's this theme and it all has kind of followed along for this conversation that's all kind of followed along this idea of resilience.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: But I think that the ties in really interesting because this I this idea of realizing that some problems are just too large to face and you have to take control of the things that you have control over, I think is actually also tied into how we started this conversation in the sense of when you were facing life out of university or facing a career in writing, it wasn't necessarily that you were trying to take over the writing space or that with this idea or this idea of trying to figure out exactly what was right.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: You made this comment about it was more it was almost more helpful to find out the things that weren't right the things that were wrong that you were continuing to go forward.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's really this idea of pursuing whatever is in front of you with maybe the best possible attitude or the hardest work ethic that you have at that moment.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: Right.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: And that that is really a central characteristic of resilience is is trying to identify the things that are too big or the things that aren't right and just finding the ones that are and pursuing those, you know, kind of full throttle.
45:30
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, definitely.
45:31
SPEAKER_04: I think it has a lot to do with like where your heart is in the situation and also the intention that you bring to the table.
45:40
SPEAKER_04: I think there's a little bit of a new negative connotation that is being attached to the word resilience now because people are just flat out tired of having to have resilience.
45:55
SPEAKER_04: And I think that's interesting, but I also think it's kind of sad because when I look back at my own life story, you know, the resilience of past things that I've had to work through made new situations a lot easier to navigate for me.
46:14
SPEAKER_04: Because when I look back and I'm like, well I made it through that.
46:17
SPEAKER_04: So what is this compared to that?
46:19
SPEAKER_04: You know, and really when you think about it from a big picture perspective, what is this but the other side of that?
46:26
SPEAKER_04: You know, like nothing and everything are two sides of the same coin.
46:30
SPEAKER_04: So that's kind of how I approach everything now.
46:34
SPEAKER_04: And it helps me remove myself from it because at the end of the day it's not about me, but my life is, you know, like my life belongs to me.
46:45
SPEAKER_04: And I prioritize or I have for so long prioritized how I can help everyone else before how I can help myself.
46:55
SPEAKER_04: And now I'm starting to include myself in that pool of people who I care so deeply for and try.
47:03
SPEAKER_04: And I'm talking about complete strangers like not even just not even only the people close to me, but any person who needs help in my line of sight, I will do what it takes to help.
47:13
SPEAKER_04: But now I'm also including myself in that situation because I think that's where we take control of our own life and make it reflect that which we want to leave behind.
47:26
SPEAKER_04: When you said the word legacy, that's kind of what I thought of earlier too you know what we leave behind isn't so much what we do but how and why like you said the why um just leaving a good example of how to navigate tough stuff.
47:42
SPEAKER_04: I think we need more of that right now and knowing that that's okay because life is full of tough stuff.
47:48
SPEAKER_04: I mean pandemic or otherwise there's going to be obstacles along the way and it's learning how to navigate those without losing your head about it.
47:58
SPEAKER_04: That's what gets you through.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: So yeah there are two main things that I I hear in that the first being the fulfillment gained from difficult projects and from different difficult environments, which is remembering that this idea of resilience isn't just the aspect of like trying to become a punching bag.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: It's it's also knowing that at the end of a project you're at the end of a period of time that was difficult.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: That there is a sense of fulfillment and purpose that we derive from achievement exactly.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: And the second thing which I think you were touching on but was this or I'll add to what you were saying which is adding yourself into the the group of people that you're helping I think people can appreciate that when you do I think sometimes we think that we have to help other people because that's how we derive that's how we can create value.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: But when you add yourself into the mix of people that you are helping even sometimes if you're just helping yourself yeah you can create just as much value for other people being a part of the situation doesn't prevent or preclude value from being created in it.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: Just being a better version of yourself if it means taking care of yourself, being a more joyful or grateful person.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: You might be creating an environment that's just as helpful as you being pissed off and just like trying to help them.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: You know?
49:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah your energy can speak for itself a lot of the time so I like that I think that's a really cool place to to wrap up there are a lot of uh interesting topics at the end dealing with purpose legacy resilience um looking back over this conversation I would wonder just one last question if there's any one message uh or lesson that you would want listeners to take away from it oh okay um I think I've been preaching this for the past year really and it's you know listen to the voice inside that tells you what feels good and pursue that no matter what um find time throughout the day carve it out you know I don't think we really got to touch on the no social media aspect but oh yeah part of my writing career having fallen into the world of marketing resulted in an overwhelm of social media use for the purpose of work and I noticed that what used to feel good doesn't anymore in that way.
50:37
SPEAKER_04: And for a long time it did you know I was on it for well over a decade and I'm glad for that because I got to document my journey and that's really cool.
50:47
SPEAKER_04: But now it feels different and the different isn't a good one.
50:50
SPEAKER_04: So I had to tell myself to listen to that more than I had been and turn it off and see what happens when I do that.
50:59
SPEAKER_04: And because that was the thing that scared me most that's how I knew I had to do it.
51:04
SPEAKER_04: So listen to the fear.
51:05
SPEAKER_04: Fear isn't always a bad thing.
51:07
SPEAKER_04: It sometimes leads you to the next thing that you need the most so that's what I would leave as my final words.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: I love that the fear being one of those positive flags to help you decide what the unknown isn't bad.
51:21
SPEAKER_04: It's actually really good.
51:22
SPEAKER_04: It's a blank canvas so throw your paint at it love it.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming on the podcast.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me Flint this was really nice if you liked this episode of Seeking Authenticity that's freaking awesome all I want to ask of you the listener in return for the time and effort I put into making it is that you take a deep breath.
51:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean really breathe.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: Breathe so that it stretches out your shoulders and your back and your chest and pushes out your stomach no more of these shallow bullshit breaths they're barely keeping you alive my friend and after you exhale go out and soak up today.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: Because in the end your actions and the way they interact with the world and the people around you right now are all you have in this life.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: So be authentic with them.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: Peace it