Latest / The Expert Method / How to Know What You’re Meant to Do
Transcript
- speaker-0: If you can't be who you were put on this earth to be, then you can't do the things you're supposed to do. If you understand who you are in the be, doing it wouldn't be so difficult. Absolute certainty that you're called to the thing. You were born for the thing. Today's guest is Latanya Flood. Latania is a life coach and author whose work is grounded in Christian faith and helping people get clear on who they are. In our conversation, we talk about why you first have to know who you are before you can know what you're meant to do, and how to separate your identity from the roles you occupy, past experiences, and other people's opinions that can shape how you see yourself. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now please enjoy my conversation with Latanya Flood. Latanya, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I don't think I told you, but fun fact, my youngest son has your name. nice. It's a good one. Ian, I've I've always liked my name. I think it's it's a beautiful name. Yeah, I love it. I love unique names. Like I like the there's more it's more memorable and Yeah, I mean it's rare that you I've met it I haven't met many other Ians. but I like it, it's also short. so it's easy to remember, I guess. I don't know. But yeah. amazing. Well Latanya, I'm excited for our conversation today. The first idea that I'd love to explore with you is this idea that a lot of us when we're asked the question of who you are, who are you, right? We answer by listing what we do or the roles that we play in our life. And your work seems to make a pretty important distinction between those roles and who we actually are. So what I'd love to start with is what is the difference between who you are and the roles that you play? Well, that's a heavy question, Ian. When I when I think about roles, I think about titles like CEOs, even mothers, entrepreneurs, life insurance agent. true story, I was assisting one of my mentors when she had a book sign in the other day and a lady came up and she wanted her name to be autographed, and it was my job to make sure I write everybody's name. Like everybody don't have an easy name like Ian. So I'm like, Can you spell that so that when I give it to my mentor, she knows how to copy it properly? And I'm just gonna make up this name. She was like, my name is Rebecca Silver. So I'm like, okay, Rebecca's that with two C Silver. And right when I was about to slide the book over, she was like, no, no, no. It's Pastor Rebecca Silver. And I and I looked at her and I was like, Your name? Your name is Pastor Rebecca Silver? And she was like, Yeah. And I was like, Okay. And at that moment I wanted to take her into a corner and be like, ma'am, that's not who you are. That's not your name. That's just a function. That's just the way You're supposed to serve and help people through that. That's not who you are. There's so much more to you than just a function. So when I look at titles, whether it's CEOs, whether you're the cleaner, those are just functions in the way we could show up in any given time and do certain things. But our identity is so much more rooted and deeper. And I'm a believer. I believe in God. So I believe that our foundations come from the Creator. So we just have a conversation with him and ask him who we who you are. And in short, I genuinely believe that we're all here to serve. We're servants. And if we look at life walking around who we are, how can we help? How can we serve? I think that this world would be so much more at ease, so much more at peace, because there'll be eliminate competition. We're just looking at a way to help and to help serve. Mm. Yeah. That sounds right. Like I feel like that really resonates and it rhymes with a lot of the previous conversations we've had here on the podcast. Like we had a few podcasts ago and it showed up in many of the different conversations that we've had. But we explore this idea of okay, if the incentive and what you optimize everything in your life for is dollars, right? Money. That really quickly takes you off course and separates you from alignment with who you are and just takes you to a place that doesn't lead to a lot of fulfillment or peace or you know, happiness. Right. But absolutely and then the metric like that we explore is like, okay, so then what should replace that incentive, right? What should in place like what you what should you optimize for if it's not making the most amount of money possible? And we found and we landed on. Optimizing for how you can serve the most people, how can you help the most people? Right. Because in doing that, it seems like if you ask yourself, how can I serve the most people? It's more likely to take you closer to what your unique gift is and what your unique contribution is to others. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And what and what was it like maybe two months ago? I was really struggling for myself. I've never been money driven, but as you know, we need money to survive on the things we need, let alone the things that we desire to have. So I was like asking, like, how could I separate, like take the idea of money just from me whatsoever? And what one of the things that I help that helped me beyond the idea of serving is planting. So every day I wake up and I'm like, I just wanna plant seeds. I want to sow seeds and whether I'm communicating here with you, whether I'm doing a TikTok, whether I'm sitting with a client, I look at everything. Even when I'm with my kids and with my husband, I'm just sowing seeds and I don't get to know how those seeds would grow and when they would grow and the type of return I would have. But if I'm just so focused on planting, planting, planting, And whether you believe in God, the universe or whatever, they all pretty much have the same generic distinction. Like if you plant, then you reap. So I know that something's coming back. So that's what helped me get out of the idea of not just being money driven, but but not even concerning myself with the idea of money. I just focus on planting. Yeah. And I think, you know, that shows up in a lot of different places as well, right? Not Getting so focused on the outcome, right? Like what is gonna come from this. Just focus on what you can control, which is what you can give, right? The planting or the sowing of seeds. And then yeah, this also rhymes with the idea that Bob Berg shared on the podcast a couple months ago with his book, The Go Giver. Right. This idea that don't like enter every situation with an interaction with another person is like, How can I help this person? What can I give to this person? Not focusing on what can I get from this interaction. And paradoxically. When you focus on how you can give, how you can serve, how you can help, it will come back to you. Right. It just naturally will. yeah. So I think for me, and this is something that I've been open with, open about on the podcast, is this idea that I wasn't raised with religion. And I'm grateful for that because it allowed me the opportunity to kind of find this on my own and build my own relationship. And this is something that I've started to take more seriously, I guess, in my own way over the last couple of months, although You know, kinda fumbling around. I don't there's probably no right way to go about it, but I'm just I'm learning. So I'm curious to explore with you this idea is like you said that you ask God, right? You you ask God for the clarity, I guess. Or like like where how does God come into the equation in in helping you to identify and find who you really are? Who the best way I could do this is an example. let's say Apple is very popular and we have a huge Apple house. Everything's iPhone, Mac, that's just who we are. Go blue. So when you get an iPhone, if you have no idea what to do, you have to go back to Apple and be like, okay, how did you design it? How do I use this phone to the best of its ability? And we do that with a new stove. a new dishwasher, you have to go back to the maker of the thing to understand how to properly use it. Otherwise, you can use it incorrectly or you won't get as much out of it as it was designed. So if God is the creator that w if we believe that to be true, then if we want to know anything's about anything about ourselves, then that's who we communicate with. Like, hey So what we're doing here, like why am I here? What do you want me to do? How do you want how do you want me to show up this way? And kudos to you for even seeking outside of, you know, what you were taught or how you were raised to find something. So I I think when people look at prayer, they think it has to be like so strategic, like, I have to get on my knees or I have to be quiet or I have to go in a closet. It's like, Well, if you understand God, it says that he's omnipresent. That means he's everywhere. So you could be driving in your car and having a conversation. You could be sitting on the toilet and have a conversation. It's just about talking to him. It's is not spooky. he is mysterious because he might respond through a song on the radio. You could literally be in the car and be like, God, I don't know where to go today. And you turn on the radio and there might be some random song. You never heard and it was like going to the mall. And you're like, wait, you am I supposed to be going to the mall? So I just think that it's important to just go to the creator, the one who who made us and ask very specific questions. And the Bible says you have not because you ask not. So if you ask him, you will, he will give you the information that you're looking for. Might not be in the way you want to hear it. but he's going to respond. Yeah. Yeah. A few ideas that have really resonated with me in my early exploration or early building of my relationship with God or the universe, the creator, again, whatever it is that you want to call it. One is this idea that, you know, God, the universe is the entire universe is conspiring behind making you a success, right? Like the it's it's there, available, waiting for you to help you. But you do have to ask, right? Like God granted us free will because it was the greatest extension of his creative capacity, right? Why did God give us free will? Because it's the most creative expression. But because we have free will, God, the universe, isn't going to intervene unless we ask. Right. So we have to take that time, that intentional time to reach out, extend ourselves, reach out to God, right? Which is another idea that has really resonated with me is this idea that is articulated by all the poet prophets, like Jesus, Muhammad. Right, the the founders of all the modern religions all said a similar idea, which is the fact that God is within you, right? You find God within you. You can build your own relationship through God through yourself. You don't have to go through any other means God is available within you. So it's you intentionally reaching out. And you you you brought up the idea of asking very specific questions. So if I could ask like what are those specific questions that we should be reaching out and asking? Yeah. So just daily for me, I always ask God, like, what do you want me to do today? I think we see God as like He only responds to the big questions, but He cares about everything, even down to sometimes if you don't know what to wear and you're stressing, you could literally ask God, like, What do you want me to wear today? And believe it or not, like you could get like an instant flash or a memory of an outfit, or as soon as you walk in the closet, the hanger might fall and be like, that's the dress. Like that's it. You can ask him about every single thing, but to get to the deep root of your purpose, you could ask him to show you yourself the way that he sees you. For me, that was the hardest thing. Cause I look at my past, I look at my mistakes, I still look what my daily struggles, and the enemy would have me to believe that that's who I am. I'm the girl that, you know, got pregnant in high school, you know, I'm the girl who got fired from a job. I'm the girl who wrote a book once and nobody bought it. So If I'm looking at all of those things, I could easily slip into depression. But I'm like, no, that's not who I am. Those are some of the things that I went through, but that none of that defined me. None of that defines me. So it's just very important that we ask God to allow us to see ourselves through his lens. Hmm. And when you do that, when you ask God to show you yourself the way that he sees you. What do you see? So I'm reminded about when he created us, it said that he created us in his image, in his likeness, so that it makes you study the word and makes you understand more about him. He is a creator. Therefore, I am made to create. Throughout the day, these are the things that I should exhibit. These are the things that I should demonstrate. Every morning before my kids get out of the car, I ask them two questions after we pray. What are you gonna choose today? They say joy, yes. In the moment where you have a right to be upset because someone cut you off, or you have a right to be upset because one of your co-workers stole your idea and they're getting the credit, you have a right to be angry for various reasons, but if you want to be a reflection of who God is and that's who you are, you have to choose joy. And you always the second question is, what are you gonna show? You have to show the light. As you mentioned before, the Holy Spirit dwells within us. All we have to do is show that. So we are who God says we are, which is in his likeness and them, his characteristics and his image. And if you want to know more about who you are, we just have to study more about God. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you talked about the idea that, you know, the enemies are evil or whatever, right? Fear would want you to believe these Bad the lack of a better word, but these bad things about ourselves, right? The the opposite of the truth, right? Like if inherently we are made in God's image, right? Or we are expressions of love, right? We live like the I don't I and I'm I apologize. I'm using mostly the language from this book, a return to love, which was like you're fine. Yeah, the book that really kick started my intentional building of my relationship with this, yeah, this higher power. But like this book argues this idea that. The only thing that is real is love and everything else is an illusion. And miracles are just a change in perception, right? Like one of the greatest gifts that we have is that we it's not events or things that harm us. It's our reaction and interpretation of those events and things that happen. Absolutely. so the the book defines a miracle as a change in perception, right? And there's the fear-based thinking system that would have you to look at your past, look at, you know, having a kid in high school, look at writing a book that maybe wasn't received. Right. And then have like more fear based interpretations of those things that would, you know, just weigh on you and just bring you down. Yeah. Whereas there's like a miracle is a shift in that perception. So it sounds like that's something that you encourage both for yourself to to do is like you control the perception and how you interpret the things that happen in your life. So to be more, I guess, productive is to is to have that like choosing joy, right? And choosing a more love based perception of the things that happen in your life. Absolutely. Most definitely. And you know, I'm gonna throw my book out there. You pull up a book, I pull up the book. So I wrote this book a year ago called A Journal to Heal and Return to God's Truth and I found my light, now go find yours. I had no intention of writing a book. That was the furthest thing from my mind. Husband and I was out on date night and I ran across a fifth one of my best friends from elementary school. And my husband asked when we were leaving, like, how come you guys stop being friends? And I took a moment. I was like, because she tried to fight me. She wanted to fight me. So when I got home, I don't know. I just had all these thoughts that I I believe I suppressed. And I started writing my feelings about that day. Like we became best friends in third grade. And in fifth grade, her and a group of my other friends wanted to gang me. And the reasoning behind that, I was always that kid. I I didn't I wasn't I wasn't I didn't want to be ganged, but I wasn't scared. I just wanted to know why. So I went to her. I was like, why do you guys want to fight me? Like, what is that? And they said, Because you think you're all that. That moment literally defined the the following 30 years of my life. Because up until last year, I had no idea that I was fully showing up in every room based on that lie I believed. And in that moment, what I believed is if I'm myself. People will be offended. If I show up confident, it wouldn't look right to them. So they would want to harm me or not be my friends. So to remain likable, I always dimmed my light. When I was in classrooms, I knew answers. When I was on the job, in the house, even at church, when I knew a solution for something, I was never fully. I never fully gave myself permission to just be exactly who God called me to be because of the lie I believe was so crazy because we were we were nine. We were nine. It was just so it was something that misrepresented what they saw now as a coach, I understand. What they saw was this young girl with confidence and because of their insecurities, they turned it into a negative thing. But I wasn't able to perceive the information like that. So as a nine-year-old, that that's what stuck. And as I was writing my thoughts, like I was hearing scriptures, God was freeing me from real in real time. Then next thing I know, I'm recalling information that happened throughout adulthood that I received as truth, lies. And then I started shaping myself based on those lies. It was that night was very freeing. I'm like, say what? This is not Okay. So then I heard the Holy Spirit whisper to me, he was like, this is gonna be a book. And Ian, you're good, you're I'm your sister. Ian, I was like, no, this is not a book because these are private thoughts. My mom doesn't even know some of these things that happened to me. Like was one of the chapter, well, chapter, the book is so small, one of the journal entries is about me being sexually assaulted. And I never share that with my mother. And I was like, and you want me to put this in a what? And a guy was like, This is ha this has nothing to do with you. You're freeing yourself. Well, I am freeing you in this moment. But anybody who read this book is gonna be un able to understand your story. And because I gave them a space, like a journal, they're gonna then be able to write their story next to mine and be freed in real time as I was. So yeah, man. Believing lies, perceiving information as truth that's not is so dangerous. Because it genuinely distracts you from fully being who you're called to be. And is my understanding, if you can't be who you were put on this earth to be, then you can't do the things you're supposed to do. And if you can't do those things, you will never have the things that you're supposed to have. Hmm. Absolutely. And that date night. accidental bump into that childhood friend sounds like one of those mysterious ways that God can show up in your life, right? And kind of just send you this signal and and then send you down this path to you know lead us to where we are today works in mysterious ways, right? and the idea about you pouring everything out, right? Digesting all of this. holding things up into the light and then saying, like, wow, that's ridiculous. Like this I this is something I just picked up when I was nine years old and it is propagated through thirty years of my life. But there's so many stories of that and there's a lot of that that I'm sure I still have to uncover for myself. But it makes me it reminds me of the idea that when you call God into your life, right, people expect that it's all going to be, you know, rose colored glasses, all like happy go love. Like, no, it's going to be very uncomfortable. Right. Like God is going to Expose you to all the situations where you turn away from, you know, love and like whatever. It's just it's gonna be very uncomfortable. And that sounds like exactly what happened for you, but now you're living on the other side of that through the transformation that has come from going through this process. So what got you through the sharing these things, right? Like that's extremely uncomfortable, I would imagine. You know, these things that were private, things that you never even told your mother, and you're just putting it out for the world to to see. Like what what gave you the courage to to do that? I would say faith and trust in God that if he knows all, then he knows something I don't know. That that would that would literally be my only answer. And the first thing I did after the book was published was well, the first thing before the book was published is I got a copy from my mother and I said, Please read this before the world does, please. And don't be mad at me. but yeah, just faith and trust that there's gonna be you know, in in this uncomfortableness that you speak of, there's gonna be moments that I'm not gonna understand. I'm not gonna get to know the outcome. I have no idea what's waiting me waiting on the other side, but if I say I believe in God and he asked me to do something, then it has to follow up with trust and faith. Like I don't I don't I don't get to know, so I guess it's yeah, it's just Straight faith and trust, man. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And the idea that you finished with earlier is this idea that okay, if you don't know who you were brought here to be, you can't do the things that you were brought here to do and then have the things that you were brought here to have. So obviously the first step in that is again finding who you were meant to be, which your book and your work largely revolves around helping people, helping people with is finding who you were brought here to be. So for everyone listening, obviously if you want the full experience, right, go check out Latanya's website. We'll have it linked in the description. Get her book also linked in description. But for anybody listening who maybe wants to do a little DIY kind of starter version of this, like once people realize and they understand, they recognize this thing that, you know, your roles aren't your identity, right? As that one example that you shared earlier, you're not a pastor, right? That's not who you are. Once you realize that your roles aren't your identity, How do you figure out who you actually are? Yeah. So one of the main things that I always recommend is understanding your spiritual gifts, what talents and abilities that God gave you. Some people don't know. It's interesting. Some people don't know a really quick way to do that is talk to five to seven people in your immediate circle. Like a one person would be like your best friend. a coworker, maybe someone at your church, a family member, and then maybe not a best friend, but just a friend, and ask them two questions. The first question would be if you were a part of a team, what role would you see me at doing in that team to accomplish you can you can make up the the actual accomplishment. Like if if we're a part of a committee trying to raise a hundred thousand dollars, what role do you see me? And then you have another the the second question would be give me five words to describe who I am from your perspective. And then when you pull all that information together, because even if you don't know who you are, you can't stop being who you are. I h I hope that makes sense. Like you are who you are. Like when you God created you, he made no mistakes. Whether you accept in it, whether you are aware of it or not, it is showing. And the people around you could see it. You might not be able to put it have language to it yet. But once you talk to those people, be like, wow. You can see pull out the common theme, like, wow. And then do your best. Go to God and confirm those things. And then He will. He will. And when you go through that and you have a better understanding of who you really are, how do you know what then to do? so that that so how do I say this in short? Like I have a whole Ian, I have a whole 12 week program to figure out the do. But to be to be quick, I would ask the question, what annoys you or what's the word I always tell my what frustrates you the most? Is it something in politics? Is it something in healthcare? Is it something in education? Like every time this things happen, you just feel like Something inside of you is about the ball over. It's probably because you're called to change that particular pillar or mountain of influence. So then you figure out, okay, I know I'm a creator, I know I'm a builder, I know God asked me to reflect the light. And now I know like I do that through organizations and I can sing. And then, but what really bothers me is education. So then I gotta figure out there's I need to be operating the education mountain through singing and organization. You look for jobs within that field or if it doesn't exist, then create it. Hmm. Wow. Yeah, that immediately resonates with me with like there's a few things that I can recognize in myself that just frustrate and irritate me. But, you know, things like education, things like fixing the obviously broken political system that we have that is supposed to be built to, you know, bring the most qualified and leader to to the to the top, which is Seemingly failed to do that more often than than it has succeeded. But things like that just feel so big and daunting. Like what would you say to the person who maybe they go through this process, they go through experience? And I'm sure you've had this experience with some of your your students or your clients, right? Where they they feel called to go and work on a problem that feels so huge. Right. How do you like what do you say to that person? Well, see. That I love that question. Like it excites me. This is what I know I'm called to do, baby. Like I'm getting excited talking about it. So, first of all, Ian, if you understand who you are in the B, doing it wouldn't be so difficult. That's why the the majority of the beginning of my program is always making sure you understand who you are. So I have this one client. she's an artist, she's a painter. And when she first came to me, I don't wanna lie, I feel like The average painting was about forty five hundred to sixty five hundred dollars. But what once we ended our program and realized that with her, she's really called to do like installations, which easily starts at fifteen thousand, that's almost doubling what she was, you know, initially charging. Had we started there, there would have been a lot of hesitation, like, man, I'm just supposed to double my prices. It would have been so much questions and so much pushback. That's why it's so Important to the B comes first because if you're confident and you know who you are and who you're called to serve and your assignment, then when it's time to do the thing, it wouldn't feel so big because you'll know, this is what I was created for. This is nothing. Like none of that thing antagonized me. I'm not concerned. I'm not worried. If God called you to the political space and you're like, but this is a whole government, but you're called. Who cares? You know, like and if you believe in God, you know he's gonna make the room for you. That your name is probably already being talked about in those spaces that you haven't even arrived to. He already prepared it. He's just waiting for your yes to understand who you are and fully walk into obedience and what he calls you to do. And like I said, if the thing doesn't exist yet, then make it up. And when you I I I said just being wholly confident. That's the key to everything. And what I mean by that is absolute certainty that you're called to the thing. You were born for the thing. So it's okay to go into the room with your head high and you don't have to know all the information. You just need to know what you know. Mm-hmm. I hope that was helpful. Yeah. And know what you were called to do. Right. And know that you're gonna give it your best. Right. And you're gonna and recognize that when you start and when you begin walking on the path, you're not gonna know. Maybe steps two, three, four, five, ten, a hundred, right? But you know the first step. And then when you walk on the way, the way appears, right? As Rumi says, or, you know, and once you get started, once you start moving in that direction, once you have that conviction in what you were called here to do, and you start walking on that path, doors will open, things will start happening, and then you can walk on that path with the conviction and knowing that, you know, there is no force greater than God or the universe, right? Like if I have this clarity on the maker, what they brought me here to do. There is no force that can get in the way that is that is more powerful than God or the universe on this. So there's no there's nothing to fear, right? There's nothing to fear in that journey. So wow, very powerful. Thank you for that. I would say maybe my next question, and I want to be respectful of your time here. the when you begin that journey. And we talked about this idea before we started recording of like, you know, going to a new place, meeting all new people, right? Like social circles and the people that you surround yourself with the relationships that you have, when you start to become a different person, those existing relationships that you built when you were, you know, the other version of yourself can really start to deteriorate and people can start to kind of think of you differently. So how do you how do you handle, how do you manage that? Like when you in your journey of becoming a different person, becoming who you were brought here to be at the cost of maybe the relationships that you had before, how do you, how do you manage that? Man, I wish I can remember what I'm thinking about, but all I can see right now is a tree. I don't know if it's a story or a poem. You know that saying that some people in your life are leaves. Does that sound familiar? Some people are meant to be branches. man, it's it's so old. I wish I could I gotta send it to you. But that's what I'm being reminded of in this moment. And in short, it just means that All relationships are not meant to last with you forever. Some are just there for seasons. That's where they talk about the leaves. Like they're gonna be time where those leaves just fall, and you have to be okay with that. Some some people are here. well, everything is a season. We just don't know how long. It could be a year, a month, 10 years, 20 years, or forever. So we just have to be okay with that. And as you change, your circle should change. As you grow. And Christ, your circle should continue to expand because you're not who you were. And you have to surround yourself with people that that knows more than you that could help serve you and around the people that you're called to serve. So if you've been walking out of alignment for God knows how long, and then as soon as you get on alignment, if you think you're gonna stay the same, then you're totally missing it because we're not called just to Be and do and have for the sake of be doing and having. We're called to serve the kingdom and to expand and to help people. Whatever assignment you have is for others. So you're gonna be called into those spaces. And of course, it's natural. When you're talking to this person more often, you're gonna be more closer with that person. No love loss to your friends. And then there's gonna be things that you probably was participating in, like, for example. I was never a big drinker, but I was a social drinker. But then I stopped drinking like two years ago. So some of the people that I, you know, perhaps social drank with before, they might not invite me to spaces because they're gonna be like, time is boring now. She doesn't drink. And that's okay. That that's okay. You you're gonna stop doing things because you wanna be more responsible with your calling. So your your circle is gonna change. And it's okay. You'll find new. New new people. Right. Yeah, and it can be scary. and I'm at least for me, in my experience, and I'm sure this comes from a place of you know, similar to what you found when you did that reflection on yourself of this idea that you had carried from when you were nine years old, right? There's a these things that you believe, these ideas that you pick up, you know, when you get kicked out of the lunch table, you know, in in third grade or something. You're like, I never want to get kicked out of the lunch table again, right? you know, not that that I mean, that is a story from my experience, but that I'll have to dig into more. But so it can be hard to kinda like sacrifice or not sacrifice, but just kind of say no and turn away from those relationships because you and I think maybe when you start to walk on this journey, just the way that I'm interpreting it, you start to find things in yourself and in this journey, and you find things in yourself like your self sufficient in the things that maybe I would have found in other people, right? Like validation. Like you know, whatever. Right. Like you start to find those things within yourself as opposed to in others. Is that Yes. Something that you see? That's most definitely. that was a pe I call it people pleasing or received needing validation for other people. That was a a huge struggle for me. And and even one of those people were my husband. when I wrote my first book, my husband looked at it and he he said, yeah, I'm there for you. He probably He's not gonna kill me. Can't believe you shared that story. But he was like, just because you're an author doesn't mean you're a writer. And that stuck with me because I love him so much. So for him to say that and to be fair, my husband is not rude. He was just being honest. he could he have said it in a different way, perhaps. But it forced me to become a better writer. So maybe he said what he needed to say, you know, for me to be. To be better. But then I started everything that I did, I sought after his validation. Because I'm like, do you like this one? I'm starting a new program. Do you like this one? So after the whole me finding my light now and I'm helping people find it yours, I noticed not that I could care less, I don't know how else to say this, but whether my husband likes what I'm doing or not. Doesn't really matter to me anymore because I know what God asked me to do and I'm going to do it to the best of my abilities the way that He's given it to me. And any moment if that changes, then I'm gonna be flexible enough to change, but I'm not leaning on anybody else for that. So yes, validation and people pleasing. Yeah, those things you don't need them. Yeah. Yeah. And just to ask a personal question, the well, 'cause I 'cause I wanna know. not that Every other question wasn't the same reason. But people pleasing is definitely something that I recognize in myself. So how did you evolve past that point of seeking validation in other other people, people pleasing to find that validation within yourself? my gosh. A simple answer. And I literally just went through this with my client last week. So the God I believe in is the one that's the same as Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And according to the Bible that I read. That if we put anything above God, then it's a form of idolizing. So whenever I choose to believe something about myself that is not what God says about me, whenever I choose to do something outside of what I believe is God's will based on someone else, I am idolizing them. I'm putting them ahead of what he the power that he is. I don't want to be in that situation. I don't ever want to be like, I'm serving you and not God. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I believe in heaven and hell. And I'm telling you right now, I am not going to hell because I'm saying I want to please you instead of please God. That's just where I stand. So it's easy for me now to d have those boundaries and be completely okay with it. Yeah. And there's definitely a nuance, right? A balance to the idea and there's a difference between, you know, pleasing someone to the sake of like through the the guise of idolizing them versus serving them, right? And and doing something to help right and being in service of someone. How would you this is a challenging question, but like how would like what would you say the difference is, right? What would you say the difference of like, you know, going above and beyond, like just doing everything you can to make this person happy, right? Pleasing them through that idl like that idolistic or idolization of that individual. And just seeking that validation from someone by just doing everything you can to, you know, keep them happy and and make them like you. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So the easiest answer would be when before I move or respond to their request, I have to talk to God about it. I know it sounds crazy, but that's this literally the simplest thing. Like, is this a God thing or a good thing? 'Cause I think we get confused. Sometimes we want to do good. But did God ask us to do that? Did he call us to do that? And it would this be serving them or handicapping them? is this me trying to show up and be the hero? Or is this me allowing the Holy Spirit to use me? You know, you just have to keep asking yourself these questions until you can become familiar with it, then you probably won't have to ask as often. I'm not saying that we should never get to a point in our lives where we just self sufficient. We should never do that. But you might be able to recognize it faster if this is a good thing or a god thing. So I would just be like, ask the questions to make sure that the intention behind it, what's the intention? Do you want to give this money to help this person so that your name can be on the program? So that people can see it? Like, is that God? But now if you give because of God and in a result of that your name goes on the program, that's different. But if you're doing it for the sake of being seen, you being seen, then you're not you're not doing it for the right reason. So you shouldn't do it. Yeah. And I think that's it right there. It's the intention, right? What is your intention behind it? And I think your intuition, your gut, right, however, wherever you think those kinds of ideas and that that voice comes from will tell you and and you'll know what your intention is. Latanya. Thank you so much for the time. I have one final question for you. But before we get to that, how can people find you? my my website is just my name, Latanyarenaflood.com. Amazing. Yeah, we'll have the link in the description. So if anything that we've talked about here today resonates with you and you wanna speak directly with Latanya, is I was lucky enough to do so today. Go check out her website. You'll find the links to her books and everything there. So Link in the description, go check that out. Alatanya, my final question for you is a recurring question that I ask every guest. If you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds with one message to the world, what would it say and why? You are more than enough. Mm. People need to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. You are more than enough. Latanya, thank you for the time today. Thank you. Thank you for listening. My main takeaway from my conversation with Latanya is that if I want to get clearer on what it is that I'm meant to do, right? This is something that I've been opening myself up to a bit more and trying to not let these expectations and like I don't know, just trying to differentiate between what I pick up from others and the people I really admire. And I guess like the expectations, like the arbitrary expectations that I've put on myself and and like what I actually want to do and like what I'm really meant to do. But in order to really find that, Latanya made it clear that we first need to understand who, like the who aspect. So Instead of spending all of my time just like banging my head against the wall, really trying to find the what, it starts with the who I am. And then when I have clarity on who I am, without again the roles, like I'm still trying to figure out exactly to describe who I am without just using roles based language the entire time. But starting with that will make it pretty clear what it is that I'm meant to do. If you want to get connected with Latania Flood, you can find her links in the description of this episode. You can also find her book, I Found My Light, Now Go Find Yours, through her website. And if you're an author or a coach and you want to make it easier for your audience to engage with your ideas and get results, I'll put a free resource in the description of this episode. It'll show you how to build out execution infrastructure that make it easier for your clients to apply the ideas that you teach them, apply your work to their own situation and get better results. Thank you all for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.