Latest / The Mami Collective / The Psychology of People Who Yuck Your Yum
Transcript
- Paulina: If you're a mom who needs just one night that's all about you, I need you at Mommy Name Easy, the Mommy Collective Summit on October 1st at the Mayfield in Chicago. We're talking incredible food and drinks, local vendors, live music, amazing raffles, inspiring conversations, and our signature panel featuring moms who are building careers, businesses, and lives they love. Plus, I'm excited to announce that Anna Belleval will be joining us as our surprise guest for a live conversation and audience Q<unk>A. Trust me, you don't want to miss this one. Grab your tickets now at theMommy Collective.com. I'll see you there. Welcome to the Mommy Collective. I'm Paulina Rowe, radio host, TV contributor, writer, and mom of one. This is where ambitious moms come to keep their identity intact while navigating motherhood. Here we talk about the real stuff: career, money, relationships, identity, and Everything that gets messy in between. You won't find sugarcoating or cliches. What you will find are unfiltered conversations, real resources, and proof that you don't have to lose yourself to be a good mom. The mommy collective is here to remind you you can be ambitious, you can take up space, and you can thrive in motherhood and in everything else that makes you you. Before we get into the episode, make sure you're following the mommy collective on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. And share this podcast with a mommy in your life who needs a little Inspiration or just a reminder that she's killing it. Also, don't forget to sign up for our newsletter and leave us a review so we can keep showing up and reach every ambitious mom out there doing big things. Let's get into it. What's going on? It's Paulina and thank you for tuning in to another episode of The Mommy Collective. I am always so damn grateful that you are here, okay? Because this community means so much to me, and I really do appreciate each and every one of you. So thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Today I gotta talk about something that happened to me, but it's not even about what happened to me. It's more about what I picked up from this experience, like what I learned and also what I think everybody needs to sort of hear from this experience and take away what you will, right? I always say take what you like, leave what you don't. But I feel like a lot of us could relate to this. And I wanna share a story that happened to me over this weekend. I was Shopping at IKEA. And I love IKEA. Like it's a good time. The showrooms and everything. My daughter was with me. And I was with my best friend and his boyfriend. And it's kind of like our thing. We'll go shopping, we'll go eat. And I gotta tell you what what happened, okay? It was such a tiny, tiny interaction. Maybe like I don't know, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, like small interaction, right? But to be honest, like I've kind of been thinking about it ever since. And Like I said, I was at IKEA with the Gigi and my friends, and then this lady came up to me, right? And she recognized me from the radio. And she was so beautiful. She was so pretty. She was so sweet. She spoke Polish to me because I'm half Polish and she spoke Polish to me. And that was like so sweet. Gigi said hi. It was so freaking cute. She was everything, right? And the cutest thing was like she was so genuinely excited. And That made me really excited because I love meeting you guys out in the wild. It's my favorite thing in the world. And she's a big fan, like a listener of the Fred show. She's like, I'm one of the 13, which is like our thing, right? We say, if you're a listener, you're one of the 13 listeners that we have. And she introduced me to her daughters and her friends and her friend's daughter, everything, right? We chatted, everything. It was the cutest thing ever. Then she asked me for a picture and I was like, ⁓ my God, like I would love nothing more. I really want to like take a photo with you. And like she was just so freaking sweet. And her friend, she asked her friend to take the photo. And her friend, while the girl that recognized me was talking to me, was like, so cute, so excited, this and that, right? It was like her moment. This other woman that she handed the phone to, that she introduced to me as one of her friends, looked at me and said, You know what's crazy? I don't know who you are. And like I laugh at stuff like that because first and foremost, please believe me when I say that does not offend me. I do not give a fuck. I Promise you, I will shit on myself all day long before anybody truly shits on me. Like you really can't. I'm telling you right now, you cannot hurt my feelings. It is very difficult to do that. So when she said that to me, I laughed and like my response is always like a stupid one. And I do it on purpose because like you wanna be like funny or silly, like I'll be funnier back, like that's just my thing. I'm working on it, whatever. And I looked at her and I was like, huh, me neither. Like I look What would say to that? I didn't really care, but what do you say to that? And here's the thing, so it did not offend me. It did not bother me. I work in media. Millions of people literally have no idea who I am. I know that I'm on the radio, but that doesn't mean anything. Like people do not know who I am. I promise you, they don't care who I am. And I don't care. That's normal. That's not what stayed with me though. Like that's not the point of this episode. What stayed with me was, but why would you say that? Right? Why would you say that? But hear me out. It's not even about why would you say it to me? I'm not offended. None of that. There's a hundred other ways that she could have contributed to this conversation. Right? ⁓ nice to meet you. I don't listen to your show. What station are you in? I'm sorry, but that sounds awesome, right? My friend loves your show. Or she could have said nothing. Nothing is cool, right? But instead she chose, I don't know who you are. And I have no idea, like How close these two friends are, if they're besties, if they are friends who are back from like middle school and they just hang out here and there, they go to IKEA. I don't know that answer, but this interaction made me think of something that happens all the time. And that is people yucking someone else's yum. Truly. There's something so fascinating too about watching someone be just like so genuinely excited. And I'm not talking about that moment. That happened at IKEA between me and one of our amazing listeners. I'm talking about just people being excited, right? Because excitement truly is vulnerable. So think about kids, right? When your toddler shows you a drawing and they're, you know, asking if it's like literally museum quality, right? They're asking, you know, look at this, look at this. I drew this, mommy. What they're really asking you is, will you celebrate this moment with me? When your toddler or your kid hands you a painting of A stick figure, you know, with grass coming out of their head or whatever. They're literally asking you, will you celebrate this with me? And adults, from what I've noticed, are not any much different, right? We just hide it better because we're adults, we're fully grown, or so I think we are. We tell our friends about the new business, the new relationship, the new job, maybe a new workout routine we're doing, a dream that we have. Maybe they want to launch a podcast. Maybe you're about to book your dream vacation or buy your dream house. Maybe you are finally pregnant after trying, you know, or you're spontaneously pregnant. We're actually asking one question, right? When we're telling our friends this or we're telling someone in our life something cool, we're asking them essentially, can I borrow your excitement for a second? Like, can I just have you join me in this bubble of excitement? And some people truly cannot let another person stay excited. They can't. So you know exactly what I'm talking about, right? Someone goes, I got a new job. And then they go, ⁓ well, hopefully it pays enough. I'm starting a new business. And they go, Well, most businesses kind of fail. We booked the Disney trip. Why? It's so crowded. Or if somebody says, right, if I tell my friend, I'm writing a book, this person might go, Everybody writes books now. It's kind of like, can I literally have five minutes before you yuck my yums before you shit on everything? Because there's a difference between wisdom and then immediately pouring cold water on somebody's joy. And that is exactly what I think of when I think of this interaction at IKEA. This friend in particular wanted to yuck her yum and kind of bring her back down to earth. I kind of take it as she wanted to balance the playing field, right? There's a psychological term. Of when someone does that to you, and let's say like you know you're overexcited about something, something, something, and they're maybe uncomfortable or they're not really understanding it, they want to knock something down a notch to sort of level the playing field of like, hey, you're really excited about this, but I'm not, I don't really care about this. Instead of being a true friend and being like, Hey, that's awesome, you're excited, how cool. They want to shit on your excitement. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh. But I gotta I gotta be the one to say it. And especially when it comes to being a mom's mom, like I am, I gotta be the one to tell you that there are people like that exist. And I want you to be wary of those people. I want you to be so skeptical of those people in your life. Because as a mom, you already know we don't have time for bullshit. We don't have time for anything that doesn't make us better. So I'm just putting it out there. I think we confuse two. Honesty with emotional intelligence, right? Your friend does not need a clap for every single bad idea. I'm not saying that. Real friendship isn't blind support. So like please keep that in mind as well. Sometimes your friends absolutely should tell you, right? I don't think this is a healthy relationship, or I think you're moving too fast. I think you might need another opinion. That's okay. That's love, right? But timing matters. If I tell you that I just got engaged, don't start with divorce statistics. Like what? If I tell I landed my dream job, right? Don't tell me about layoffs. If I tell you that I have an idea, don't immediately tell me that it's not gonna work. I think as a friend, you celebrate first and then problem solve later. And I've been thinking a lot too when it comes to the mommy collective, right? One of the reasons that women and moms keep coming back here is because they leave saying something that I hear almost at every single dinner. I've never had women clap for me like this. And that breaks. My heart, why is that so rare? Why are so many women walking around expecting someone to minimize their excitement? Like, truly, and maybe because they've experienced it over and over and over again. And I always think about this, to be honest, like truthfully, right? Watch who celebrates your wins. Be so alert when it comes to that, right? Not because your friends have to throw a parade every time something good happens to you, even though that'd be so sweet and so cool. It's not even that. But it's because genuine excitement is so hard to fake. So some people hear your success and then they immediately will compare, right? Others hear your success and imagine what's possible for themselves. And those are two different, completely different people. One shrinks the room, the other expands the room. And I have friends who send paragraphs when something good happens to me. If I tell them some good news, not because they're obligated, right? But because they actually feel that genuine joy. And I really, really do try to be that friend too to other people. I really do. Because life is already so hard, right? Being a mom is already so hard. And the world critiques us all the time. The internet gets us right. The inner critic in us works overtime. So why would I become another voice reminding you of everything that could go wrong before I even celebrated what actually went right? I also think we need to protect our excitement because not everyone deserves front row access to your dreams. I'm gonna be so real. Sometimes we tell the wrong people too early. We're all guilty of that. And the idea is still fragile, right? The confidence is still growing. And then that one sarcastic comment, the eye roll, the are you sure? Or my personal favorite is, ⁓ I could never do that, right? That kills something that could actually be so beautiful. And there are seasons where your dream needs greenhouse people who water it, not people who evaluate it. Later? Absolutely. Absolutely, right? Invite smart people to. Poke holes, invite mentors, advisors, invite accountability. But in the beginning, sometimes you just need your girls or you need somebody to say, I love this, I'm proud of you, right? Let's figure it out. And here's the question, too, that I've kind of been asking myself a little bit, but am I the person who celebrates first or do I critique first? Cause honestly, I have done both, right? If I'm gonna be so honest. I know that I have. And there have been moments where somebody shared exciting news with me. And then my brain immediately went to logistics, which doesn't happen a lot, but it can, right? I have questions, concerns, problems. And maybe that's not what they needed at that moment. I think they just needed somebody to clap for them. I think they just needed me specifically to be excited with them in that moment, truly, right? So no, this episode really isn't about the woman at IKEA. It's not. About her, it's you know, to me, it's deeper than that. She probably forgot that interaction literally five minutes later, like way past her thought, right? It reminded me of something that I never want to forget. And that is again, be so careful who you share your excitement with, right? And then more importantly, be the kind person who protects other people's excitement. Be the person that's excited with them. Your kids are watching, right? Your friends are watching. Your coworkers are watching. Your community is watching. So I want us to become the women who clap first, right? And then who ask questions second. The questions can come. No one's saying you can't ask questions and make sure that your friends are doing, you know, things in the correct order or how they're supposed to be doing things right. Cause of course we're genuinely always concerned for our friends and want to make sure that they are doing things. The way that they're supposed to be doing. We know our friends more than anyone else. Like we believe in them, right? We want to leave people feeling bigger and not smaller, right? And this episode, when you think of somebody, low key send it to them, right? Maybe you're thanking them for always being your biggest cheerleader. Or maybe, no shade, no tea, you're reminding yourself to become one. And like I said, I'm guilty of it too. I completely understand. Because there have been moments where I know that I haven't clapped for somebody when they needed it the most, or I wasn't genuinely excited when my friends were maybe telling me about something that I have no idea about, or they were excited in the moment. Maybe they saw their favorite influencer out in the wild, whatever it was. I know that I haven't been that friend, right? But at the end of the day, I know that I am my friend's biggest cheerleaders. And I'm gonna do my damn best to make sure that I show that to them. I show you guys that. Each and every episode, each and every newsletter, at each event that we do that you guys show up to. Like I want you to know that I am one of your biggest cheerleaders. So thank you for tuning in. I love you so much. And please don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, send it to a friend. Maybe they want to subscribe too. And also don't forget too that we have our annual summit coming up October 1st, 2026 in Chicago. You don't want to miss that those tickets are selling, which is amazing and exciting. And I want you in the room with us. It's going to be an amazing night to celebrate all of our wins. So head over to themommycollective.com for them. And of course, follow us on social. And we will talk to you soon. I love you, mean it.