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105: Permission to Be Awesome: Stop Editing Yourself to Earn Approval · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:48
  Samantha Pruitts: Hey, welcome back, superstars.
• 0:49
  Samantha Pruitts: Polly here and Sam Pruitt.
• 0:52
  Samantha Pruitts: What's up, beautiful humans?
• 0:53
  Samantha Pruitts: Well.
• 0:54
  Samantha Pruitts: This is Pruitt.
• 0:55
  Samantha Pruitts: Happy Christmas.
• 0:56
  Polly Mertens: Merry Christmas.
• 0:57
  Polly Mertens: Happy holidays.
• 1:01
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, this is going live on Christmas.
• 1:03
  Polly Mertens: So uh if you study that tradition or if that's a part of your life, we wish you're single best.
• 1:10
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:10
  Samantha Pruitts: And if it's not, and you're just having a holiday or a day off, or whatever you are celebrating, whatever your belief system is, we respect and we honor you.
• 1:18
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 1:19
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 1:19
  Polly Mertens: And we're going to get down to some yummy stuff today.
• 1:22
  Polly Mertens: We were like, well, in the spirit of gifting and all of that, we said, like, permission to be awesome, please, right?
• 1:29
  Polly Mertens: Unpacking your gifts.
• 1:30
  Polly Mertens: That was your idea.
• 1:31
  Polly Mertens: I love this.
• 1:32
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, what is the most important gift?
• 1:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Being the most important gift.
• 1:37
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 1:37
  Samantha Pruitts: Being yourself.
• 1:38
  Samantha Pruitts: Being authentically you.
• 1:40
  Samantha Pruitts: And in order to be authentically you and know your gifts, you need to know thyself, right?
• 1:46
  Samantha Pruitts: You can fully express yourself if you know your yourself.
• 1:49
  Samantha Pruitts: And so that's really what we want people to be thinking about today on Christmas, frankly, every day.
• 1:54
  Polly Mertens: Yes.
• 1:54
  Polly Mertens: Yes.
• 1:55
  Polly Mertens: So if you're listening to this not on Christmas, which is totally fine because it's you get permission 365 to be awesome in our world, right?
• 2:02
  Polly Mertens: Like, yes, please do that, right?
• 2:03
  Polly Mertens: And you know, one of the things we wanted to talk about before we dive into ways to unpack your gifts and looking at your gifts is like, holy smokes, there's a lot that we do when we're not sharing our gifts and not being authentic.
• 2:15
  Polly Mertens: And like, let's just call it like the cost of compromising and contorting and you know, just you know, being something that we're not, right?
• 2:24
  Polly Mertens: The inauthentic.
• 2:25
  Samantha Pruitts: So yeah, it's paying a price.
• 2:27
  Polly Mertens: You're paying a big price.
• 2:29
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 2:30
  Polly Mertens: Energy drain, you know, inauthenticity, just like like your, you know, your biggest energy drain isn't your job, isn't your kids, isn't your to-do list.
• 2:37
  Polly Mertens: It's not being you.
• 2:39
  Polly Mertens: Like pretending to be something that you're not.
• 2:42
  Polly Mertens: And you were just sharing before we went on air about this group of women who have another podcast, these doctors.
• 2:48
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, what did she say for her 50th birthday?
• 2:50
  Polly Mertens: She's like, I just started doing anything that I'm not.
• 2:53
  Polly Mertens: Stop doing anything that I'm not.
• 2:54
  Samantha Pruitts: Stopped doing anything that she wasn't, fully abandoning anything that didn't fully align with her authentic self.
• 3:02
  Samantha Pruitts: Hell oh.
• 3:03
  Samantha Pruitts: Double clicks.
• 3:04
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 3:04
  Samantha Pruitts: I called mine a little different.
• 3:06
  Samantha Pruitts: I called it the no fucks given after 50.
• 3:09
  Samantha Pruitts: But hers was a little more eloquently said.
• 3:11
  Samantha Pruitts: But it's the same concept of like this is who I am.
• 3:15
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm gonna embrace all of me, all my crazy imperfections, and all of the things and weird behaviors, and I'm just gonna be cool with it.
• 3:22
  Samantha Pruitts: And then I'm gonna try and double down on my genius, my gifts and strengths that I do have, so I can really be contributing in the second half, like having impact.
• 3:32
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I think, you know, oftentimes when I've coached people in the past, um, just giving this giving them the phrase, give yourself permission to blank whatever it is, right?
• 3:43
  Polly Mertens: Like, and we're calling this permission to be awesome.
• 3:45
  Polly Mertens: It's like we forget, like we take our own permission away.
• 3:49
  Polly Mertens: Like, like this way of being, these patterns of giving a fuck and pretending and compromising and stuff like guess what?
• 3:55
  Polly Mertens: We're making it up.
• 3:56
  Polly Mertens: We're making it up.
• 3:57
  Polly Mertens: Nobody is quote forcing or you know, we adapt these strategies, these like, oh, I need to be this way, right?
• 4:05
  Polly Mertens: And it's two main reasons it's to fit in and belong, right?
• 4:08
  Samantha Pruitts: So yes, it is.
• 4:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, we will point fingers at other people, and you know, I'm sure I have done this many, many times, like around how we were brought up and environments we're in, or bad relationships, or wherever, like, you know, they they don't let me be who I want to be, or they don't let me fully express, or they want me to be XYZ.
• 4:26
  Samantha Pruitts: And that can be what it feels like, right?
• 4:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Like it feels that way, like you're bumping up against things that you know you want to resist against.
• 4:38
  Samantha Pruitts: And when you're little, it's kind of hard to resist, and you're molded a lot easier and so forth.
• 4:43
  Samantha Pruitts: But then, like for myself as a young person, as a young adult, it was a massive, massive project for me to and a tremendous amount of money to resist against society and my parents and all of these things that really didn't feel good.
• 5:03
  Samantha Pruitts: I spent a lot of years resisting, and then ultimately ultimately that was not good for my mental and physical health.
• 5:09
  Samantha Pruitts: I learned the hard way through some paid some big prices around that, right?
• 5:12
  Samantha Pruitts: So that shouldn't be what your everyday life is looking like.
• 5:16
  Samantha Pruitts: But we can acknowledge for some people it it is.
• 5:19
  Samantha Pruitts: That's a real thing.
• 5:21
  Polly Mertens: Well, and I, you know, I'd love to say, like, I don't do this still, like, oh yeah, I put that aside when I was bulimic and I was all this people pleasing and perfectionism and all this stuff.
• 5:30
  Polly Mertens: It's like, it still shows up.
• 5:32
  Polly Mertens: It still shows up.
• 5:33
  Polly Mertens: So there's no, you know, holier than thou going on over here for sure.
• 5:37
  Polly Mertens: But like you, you know, you made a hard, hard no more, no fucks given, you know, after 50.
• 5:43
  Polly Mertens: And you're living it.
• 5:44
  Polly Mertens: I would say that, like knowing you and when we were preparing for this, I was like, Samantha, it's just basically how you're living right now.
• 5:50
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's like, you know, you know who you are, and you were just sharing about how like you were um, you know, meeting with somebody that we know and love, and they weren't recognizing or remembering how awesome they are.
• 6:01
  Polly Mertens: And you do this for me all the time.
• 6:02
  Polly Mertens: Like, hey, you over there, like, wait a minute, you're you know, like, you know, you see my sparkly side, you see my creative side, and you're like, uh, don't forget that's who you are, right?
• 6:11
  Polly Mertens: Don't forget, you know, because I still fall into it myself.
• 6:15
  Samantha Pruitts: So yeah, yeah, we want to surround ourselves with people like that.
• 6:18
  Samantha Pruitts: And we'll talk about that at the end.
• 6:20
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, how can people get this space curated for themselves?
• 6:24
  Samantha Pruitts: Right.
• 6:25
  Samantha Pruitts: And it can be a little bit of a messy problem, but it's emotionally dysregulating to not be yourself.
• 6:33
  Samantha Pruitts: It is energetically exhausting.
• 6:35
  Samantha Pruitts: It literally will raise cortisol and other stress hormones in the body and cause health impacts.
• 6:43
  Samantha Pruitts: It absolutely does.
• 6:45
  Samantha Pruitts: And I know people who are connected with themselves in this way understand, you know, how that feels and it's really uncomfortable in the body.
• 6:51
  Samantha Pruitts: So, depending on whatever stage you're at, we just want to bring about awareness once again today that you know you are the gift and you giving yourself permission, if you will, to just be authentically yourself moving into 2026 every damn day, no matter what it looks like, no matter how imperfect or messy or noisy or stinky or whatever.
• 7:13
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 7:13
  Samantha Pruitts: Just be cool with it, you know.
• 7:15
  Samantha Pruitts: We see you for who you are, and we want you to see yourself for who you are.
• 7:19
  Polly Mertens: You know, there's a phrase that I remember when I was a teenager.
• 7:21
  Polly Mertens: I haven't heard it in a long time, but I heard it this morning.
• 7:24
  Polly Mertens: I was listening to something in the gym, and I think it was Matthew McConaughey who was sharing about an experience.
• 7:29
  Polly Mertens: Somebody gave him some feedback, and they're like, you know, Matthew, you're really full of yourself.
• 7:33
  Polly Mertens: And he was like, you know, and at first that phrase, I don't know about you as a teenager, but that was like a a disc.
• 7:39
  Polly Mertens: You know, that was like a something wrong with you, you know, you're being too much or something like that, right?
• 7:44
  Samantha Pruitts: Arrogant, arrogant.
• 7:45
  Samantha Pruitts: My mother used the word pompous.
• 7:48
  Polly Mertens: That's so British.
• 7:49
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 7:51
  Polly Mertens: So so he was like, Well, who else would I be full of?
• 7:54
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'm sorry.
• 7:55
  Polly Mertens: Boom.
• 7:56
  Polly Mertens: He was like, I yeah, I'm full of myself, right?
• 8:00
  Polly Mertens: Like, I mean, hello, and like Beyoncé and Pink and all these women that I admire so much, they are so damn full of themselves.
• 8:09
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, get it, get it.
• 8:10
  Polly Mertens: It's like you, like you are so full of you.
• 8:13
  Polly Mertens: It's it's beautiful, extraordinary, right?
• 8:15
  Polly Mertens: So I would say, model that, right?
• 8:18
  Polly Mertens: So model that.
• 8:19
  Samantha Pruitts: And when you can do it, you give permission to others to do exactly the same, whether it's your children, your family, or whatever.
• 8:26
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, that can make a lot of people uncomfortable.
• 8:29
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay.
• 8:30
  Samantha Pruitts: I have seen that in my own life, but that's okay.
• 8:33
  Samantha Pruitts: Eventually, and I definitely see the benefits with my grandchildren and children, that they feel more liberated to be themselves with me.
• 8:40
  Samantha Pruitts: And that's exactly what I want.
• 8:41
  Samantha Pruitts: Those are the kind of relationships I want, and those kind of friends.
• 8:46
  Polly Mertens: Absolutely.
• 8:47
  Polly Mertens: Absolutely.
• 8:47
  Polly Mertens: So I would say let's be full of ourselves this year, right?
• 8:51
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 8:51
  Polly Mertens: Self-expressed, self-expressed, full self-expression.
• 8:54
  Polly Mertens: So let's talk about, you know, where did this come from?
• 8:57
  Polly Mertens: Like why what causes us to fall into these, you know, traps, patterns, you know, like not fully self-expressed.
• 9:05
  Polly Mertens: What are some of your traps and limiting beliefs?
• 9:08
  Samantha Pruitts: I mean, the most basic, you know, human instinct kind of stuff is like people just want to be safe.
• 9:14
  Samantha Pruitts: They want to belong, right?
• 9:16
  Samantha Pruitts: So we conform and contort and we do all these shape-shifting sort of things.
• 9:22
  Samantha Pruitts: And we do that out of survival instinct, you know, it's not don't be embarrassed or feel shamed about it, you know, or guilty.
• 9:29
  Samantha Pruitts: It just is part of being a human.
• 9:32
  Samantha Pruitts: But for most of us, we're no longer living in a jungle somewhere on the savannah, you know, trying to fight for our lives and survive.
• 9:41
  Samantha Pruitts: But that instinct is still kind of buried within us, isn't it?
• 9:44
  Polly Mertens: Well, I think it, you know, so bouncing baby girls and boys come out of the womb and they're just fully self-expressed, you know, pooping and screaming and yelling and they get love and stuff.
• 9:55
  Polly Mertens: And then things shift a little bit as they get older, you know, and well-meaning parents try to help them adapt to life after they're grown, you know, grown adults.
• 10:05
  Polly Mertens: So they teach them, train them, like, oh no, that's not okay.
• 10:07
  Polly Mertens: This is okay, that's not okay, right?
• 10:09
  Polly Mertens: Or parents just having a bad day, right?
• 10:11
  Polly Mertens: Or they've got their own emotional baggage misregulation and they take it out on their child, right?
• 10:17
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, what often happens as we go through childhood, nobody comes out unskay.
• 10:25
  Polly Mertens: There's wounds and trauma, little tees all over the place.
• 10:28
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 10:28
  Polly Mertens: But there was a moment where our moments, you know, depending on the childhood upbringing and the environment, where you felt crushed or hurt or angry or rejected, somebody talked over you, or like you talk about in your household, like children are to be seen, not heard, right?
• 10:47
  Polly Mertens: So it's like you had to stop your self-expression.
• 10:50
  Polly Mertens: There are moments, and if you, you know, in the work that I'm doing with my leadership program, we really look at the times where patterns that exist today, the communication style that you have, the way of expressing or not expressing or withholding, or all these ways of being that are survival instincts, like they are actually just created from little times in childhood where the little you just like had your something crushed or hurt, or you know, like sharing your gift or being fully expressed you didn't land well with somebody.
• 11:21
  Polly Mertens: And then you're like, oh, can't do it anymore.
• 11:23
  Polly Mertens: Can't be that way.
• 11:24
  Polly Mertens: It's it's it's not okay to be too much or too talkative or you know, too smart, or whatever you were being too bright, you know, too happy.
• 11:33
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, the worst is rejection, like feeling rejected.
• 11:37
  Samantha Pruitts: I've been rejected many times over the course of my lifetime.
• 11:40
  Samantha Pruitts: And I remember when I was a young person that that was the biggest sting, you know, whether it was by my peers or by my family or by society or whatever the environment was, but that's just like soul crushing.
• 11:51
  Samantha Pruitts: So then you start to go, okay, what can I do to fit in?
• 11:55
  Samantha Pruitts: You start to compromise, you start to adapt, right?
• 11:59
  Samantha Pruitts: And there's a lot of environments that we all can experience in different ways, all the way up till now, adults at all ages, where you go into a space, it could be home environment, work environment, or whatever, communities also, where you really, really want to belong there.
• 12:15
  Samantha Pruitts: You really want to feel like you are worthy to belong there.
• 12:20
  Samantha Pruitts: And so you will slowly, subtly, or very obviously contort yourself into ways, unauthentic ways, in order to fit in and be accepted.
• 12:32
  Samantha Pruitts: And, you know, society, unfortunately, can be really toxic in this way.
• 12:37
  Samantha Pruitts: Environments can be really toxic and really harmful.
• 12:40
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 12:40
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 12:41
  Polly Mertens: It's definitely, I think what you're pointing at that I see most is these this survival brain, you know, the need to belong, especially in a tribe, or, you know, right, is it's foundational.
• 12:52
  Polly Mertens: If I'm X X, you know, I'm outside the tribe, I could die, you know.
• 12:56
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 12:56
  Polly Mertens: So the brain's like, ah, don't be outside the tribe, right?
• 12:58
  Polly Mertens: And you know, I don't I don't, this is probably gonna come out sounding like judgment.
• 13:02
  Polly Mertens: So I'm just gonna like precursor, okay, Polly's opinion here.
• 13:05
  Polly Mertens: But like one of the things that I see the most um is when I notice trends in ways of dressing or hairstyles or people's home, like like a trend to me is like you're falling with the herd, you know, and suddenly it's like, oh, it's better to fit in and belong and wear whatever is, you know, like I noticed it with glasses, sunglasses, people wear like the trend on this year, and then oh, and then they're wearing different ones, or hairstyles, or whatever.
• 13:35
  Polly Mertens: And it's like if you I don't know, it's just like looking back into yourself and owning like like you it doesn't have to be on trend to be you, right?
• 13:45
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 13:46
  Samantha Pruitts: If you love something, you love something.
• 13:48
  Samantha Pruitts: If it speaks to you, it speaks to you.
• 13:50
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, really listening to that and then honoring it is freaking brave, courageous, ballsy.
• 14:00
  Polly Mertens: And I think in culture, we actually honor and appreciate people who are unique.
• 14:05
  Polly Mertens: Like I think of um, you know, that uh drag queen RuPaul.
• 14:09
  Polly Mertens: Like I saw this episode of Insider, well, hey, she's just like, I'm doing me, right?
• 14:14
  Polly Mertens: She he's doing, I'm doing me, and like over-the-top self-expression and beautiful and amazing and talented and gorgeous and fabulous.
• 14:22
  Polly Mertens: And I saw a episode where they did a kind of like an architectural digest behind the scenes in his home, you know, and it was marvelous.
• 14:30
  Polly Mertens: Like it was so unique, so not like gray walls, and I mean, like he was like, I love, you know, a good party.
• 14:37
  Polly Mertens: So he had like, you know, this dining room was just flamboyant and all that, you know.
• 14:41
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, what, what do you, what are your tastes and preferences?
• 14:45
  Polly Mertens: Make that your home, your living space, what you wear, what you look like and stuff.
• 14:50
  Samantha Pruitts: So yeah, you can definitely start there because it's a safer place to start.
• 14:54
  Samantha Pruitts: Right?
• 14:55
  Samantha Pruitts: Your safe spaces, your car, your home, your office or cubicle or whatever the thing is that you have, right?
• 15:03
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 15:03
  Samantha Pruitts: And what you want to wear and what you want to look like and all that kind of stuff.
• 15:08
  Samantha Pruitts: Start playing in places where you feel really safe.
• 15:10
  Samantha Pruitts: I've worked, um, and I'm sure you've done this with a bunch of your clients too, and coaching them in terms of their actual space.
• 15:17
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 15:18
  Samantha Pruitts: Home space or their office space, and what does it look and feel like?
• 15:22
  Samantha Pruitts: And is it authentically them?
• 15:24
  Samantha Pruitts: Is it reflecting them?
• 15:25
  Samantha Pruitts: Is it making them feel good?
• 15:27
  Samantha Pruitts: Is it making them feel creative?
• 15:28
  Samantha Pruitts: Like our spaces do really impact us greatly.
• 15:32
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Samantha Pruitts: Greatly.
• 15:33
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 15:33
  Polly Mertens: And I see this in business brands too.
• 15:36
  Polly Mertens: You know, there's, I don't know, sometimes I'll go on Canva for, you know, a design or this or that, what, you know, like templates for social media or templates for ebooks and things like that.
• 15:46
  Polly Mertens: And they're so, they're so in a particular zone.
• 15:49
  Polly Mertens: And then like our brand is so freaking colorful, you know, and it's like, there's not enough color in these templates.
• 15:54
  Polly Mertens: You know, I'm always like, let me throw some splash of you know, color and things.
• 15:58
  Polly Mertens: I might use their their font or something, but you and I are just like, no, we're not going to be held back by tan and beige.
• 16:04
  Polly Mertens: Like, I don't I don't think so.
• 16:05
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 16:06
  Polly Mertens: And so what is your brand?
• 16:08
  Polly Mertens: You know, what is your personal brand like?
• 16:10
  Polly Mertens: Is it flashy?
• 16:11
  Polly Mertens: Is it soft?
• 16:12
  Polly Mertens: Is it bold colors?
• 16:14
  Polly Mertens: You know, so we're really looking at that.
• 16:16
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, and I think one of the things I just want to say before we go into like, like I love the part about unpacking your gifts is like knowing when you're being inauthentic, right?
• 16:25
  Polly Mertens: Like that that detect the the the detection, right?
• 16:29
  Polly Mertens: Like I would say, you know, having been, you know, nine months now studying communication, I just wanted to insert that when you're withholding a communication, you're being you're probably being an authentic.
• 16:41
  Polly Mertens: You know, if there's something that you know you want to say, you wish you could say, can't if I say it to this person for whatever reason, right?
• 16:49
  Polly Mertens: If you're not withholding, if you're withholding a communication, you're probably being inauthentic and just that's a place to look.
• 16:55
  Samantha Pruitts: Right.
• 16:55
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 16:56
  Samantha Pruitts: And I would say if you're just second, third, or fourth guessing, you know, am I gonna go to this thing?
• 17:02
  Samantha Pruitts: What am I gonna wear?
• 17:03
  Samantha Pruitts: Is my hair right?
• 17:05
  Samantha Pruitts: Like all of the things, you know.
• 17:07
  Samantha Pruitts: All right, like if you're continuously like assessing if you're good enough to be dropping into this space, whatever the hell the space is.
• 17:16
  Samantha Pruitts: That is a red freaking flag.
• 17:19
  Samantha Pruitts: I mean, I am obviously not a supermodel.
• 17:21
  Samantha Pruitts: I know this could be shocking to the audience at this point, okay.
• 17:25
  Samantha Pruitts: But I'm gonna be comfortable in my skin and I live kind of a busy, hectic, messy life.
• 17:32
  Samantha Pruitts: So I don't do a lot of thinking anymore.
• 17:34
  Samantha Pruitts: It doesn't mean that I don't take time to dress up and put on makeup and do my hair.
• 17:38
  Samantha Pruitts: Sure, I do, but it's not an everyday thing that I need to be concerned with that because it's a lot of energy that goes into that, right?
• 17:45
  Polly Mertens: But being authentically you, you know, and if it does make you feel good, like there's some people that just absolutely love it, love it, love it, love it.
• 17:52
  Polly Mertens: You know, our friend Tyler with the beautiful nails, she loves doing that and the makeup and her colorful hair.
• 17:57
  Polly Mertens: It's like, get it, totally get it.
• 18:00
  Samantha Pruitts: It makes her feel good in her skin, and that's exactly what we're talking about.
• 18:05
  Samantha Pruitts: It's her expression, yeah.
• 18:06
  Samantha Pruitts: Whatever feels good in your own skin, that is powerful.
• 18:11
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, that is your freaking superpower.
• 18:13
  Samantha Pruitts: If you can walk into a room, a space, a conversation, and be totally in your skin and totally locked and loaded with your own truth and gifts, boom.
• 18:23
  Samantha Pruitts: And this is what this podcast is about, by the way.
• 18:26
  Samantha Pruitts: What are your gifts?
• 18:27
  Samantha Pruitts: And are you tapped into them?
• 18:29
  Samantha Pruitts: Are you connected?
• 18:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Are you, you know, having awareness around what your gifts are?
• 18:33
  Samantha Pruitts: And then how can you deliver those into the world?
• 18:37
  Samantha Pruitts: First to yourself, give all up the love on yourself, but then start delivering it to the world.
• 18:42
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 18:42
  Polly Mertens: So how do we how do we discover them?
• 18:43
  Polly Mertens: Like, what are some of the ways that you have advice for, okay, well, I know I'm either being an authentic or I feel like, yeah, I'm fitting in, or like I'm 50 or 40 or whatever, and I want to stop pretending, right?
• 18:57
  Polly Mertens: Like I want to own who I am more.
• 18:59
  Polly Mertens: What what what are some ways that we can get kick this off?
• 19:02
  Polly Mertens: Get them started.
• 19:03
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, well, I start by calling it uh your genius.
• 19:07
  Samantha Pruitts: So basically tapping into your genius, those are your gifts.
• 19:10
  Samantha Pruitts: And that might make people really uncomfortable.
• 19:13
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, oh, I'm not smart, I'm not a genius.
• 19:15
  Samantha Pruitts: Again, it's all these like who decided what things mean and labels and all that kind of stuff.
• 19:20
  Samantha Pruitts: But if you really think about what in the heck is my genius?
• 19:23
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, what is my superpower?
• 19:25
  Samantha Pruitts: What is my thing?
• 19:26
  Samantha Pruitts: It can be very difficult to figure that out.
• 19:29
  Samantha Pruitts: And that's why I think a lot of times life is really messy.
• 19:32
  Samantha Pruitts: We have a lot of jobs, we have a lot of relationships, we move around a lot.
• 19:35
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, we do a lot of I hope that we do a lot of things in order to experience taking risks, trying new things, seeing what the outcome is, sometimes failing, sometimes you winning.
• 19:50
  Samantha Pruitts: All of it, all of that chaos called living a life is bringing us towards our genius.
• 19:58
  Samantha Pruitts: Because through that is like, you know, touch points and feedback loops.
• 20:02
  Polly Mertens: Mm-hmm.
• 20:03
  Polly Mertens: Mm-hmm.
• 20:03
  Polly Mertens: I was just thinking about the scenario.
• 20:06
  Polly Mertens: You know, you and I are independent, you know, self-employed, and you know, we work with people in their business, but we don't, you know, we don't have a J-O-B every day.
• 20:14
  Polly Mertens: And I think there's a lot inside of that scenario where you have colleagues and bosses and soup net to supervisor, whatever, where there's a lot of mask wearing too.
• 20:24
  Polly Mertens: You know, it just takes something to sometimes, depending on the environment, how fully self expressed you can or can't be, depending on an environment.
• 20:32
  Polly Mertens: So I think there's not limits to this, but there's things to be aware of, right?
• 20:38
  Polly Mertens: Like Definitely capitalize on your gifts and know what is customary or possible.
• 20:45
  Polly Mertens: You know, like just flat out saying anything you want to your boss, okay, you might have some limitations there, but but delivering your message and your authentic authenticity in the workplace is also important too.
• 20:58
  Samantha Pruitts: And I don't think of it so much as like I'm gonna go around and educate everybody on what a badass I am, and blah, blah, blah.
• 21:04
  Samantha Pruitts: Even though perhaps I've done that.
• 21:06
  Samantha Pruitts: And if I have, I greatly apologize.
• 21:09
  Samantha Pruitts: But like I do work in some spaces, I work in teams, I you know, I still I'm still in that way.
• 21:16
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm not totally like self-self-self-employed while I'm where I'm a solo uhpreneur, but um, I do still think it's so important when you show up to be on a team or be a leader or be whatever, whatever your role is, okay.
• 21:31
  Samantha Pruitts: I even the barista, like you know, these are my people, okay.
• 21:35
  Samantha Pruitts: I still think it's so important that they can be themselves.
• 21:39
  Samantha Pruitts: And what I would coach for myself and for others, irrelevant of their age and whatever, is like if you're working in a space where you can't fully express who you are, that is gonna really lead to limiting productivity.
• 21:56
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, I am not gonna be very damn good at this job, irrelevant of my experience in college education, all the things, I'm not gonna be very good.
• 22:04
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm surely not gonna be a high performer if I do not feel like you see me, you hear me, you respect me, you honor me.
• 22:11
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, I'm just not.
• 22:13
  Samantha Pruitts: And really, is that who we want to be working with or working for or working around?
• 22:18
  Samantha Pruitts: Hell no.
• 22:19
  Samantha Pruitts: I want to be around, you know, freak flying flag, all of you, all of you, and and the more energy you bring to the table because you are so fired up about like you feel safe here, you feel heard, respected, all of that, honored, you're gonna deliver the freaking goods.
• 22:35
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 22:35
  Samantha Pruitts: And if you're not, because you're struggling, then I'm gonna know about it, or my team's gonna know about it, or the leader's gonna know about it, whatever.
• 22:41
  Samantha Pruitts: And we're gonna solve to that together.
• 22:44
  Polly Mertens: I love that.
• 22:45
  Polly Mertens: So if you have, you know, any influence on the culture, whether it's you're a team member or you're the team leader or the owner or something like that, like setting the stage for people to be their most authentic self, you will get the most out of them, right?
• 22:57
  Samantha Pruitts: Because 100%.
• 22:59
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:59
  Polly Mertens: So 100%.
• 23:00
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, it's so how can they discover their genius?
• 23:03
  Samantha Pruitts: One of my um big tips in getting to this gifts, you know, what are my gifts is talk to people who know and love you, people who you respect, who respect you, and have honest conversations.
• 23:14
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, you know, you and I bounce stuff off all the time, and you know, we give each other that feedback.
• 23:18
  Samantha Pruitts: That's the kind of friendships you should have and be nurturing.
• 23:22
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, you want those people in your life, you want to be surrounded by those people.
• 23:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Maybe they're not in your family, maybe they're not in your coworker space.
• 23:30
  Samantha Pruitts: It might be a friend circle, but it could also be professional peers, it could be anything, right?
• 23:35
  Samantha Pruitts: But like people who really know you and you just ask the question what do you think I'm good at?
• 23:41
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, when I show really show up, like when I'm really my best, how do you see me?
• 23:45
  Samantha Pruitts: What does that look like?
• 23:46
  Samantha Pruitts: What does that sound like?
• 23:47
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:48
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, they're gonna tell you.
• 23:50
  Polly Mertens: What do you appreciate about me?
• 23:52
  Polly Mertens: What are the qualities you appreciate about me or you admire?
• 23:55
  Polly Mertens: You know, like what you know, yeah.
• 23:57
  Polly Mertens: I think that's a good way of identifying it.
• 24:00
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and surrounding yourself with those damn people, you know, they're not they don't have to be on a regular basis, they're not threatened by you, they're like they admire you, you know.
• 24:09
  Polly Mertens: I think one of the things is like if you were having your worst worst day, would people come out for you?
• 24:14
  Polly Mertens: Like those are the those are your people, you know, that's who we're talking about, is like people who, even when you're messy, even when you're, you know, you're not at your best.
• 24:23
  Polly Mertens: It's like they still see the best in you, right?
• 24:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Totally.
• 24:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 24:27
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 24:28
  Samantha Pruitts: What are some of your ideas about people uncovering their gifts and really discovering that for themselves if they're just not really don't have awareness around it or really can't seem to figure it out?
• 24:38
  Polly Mertens: Well, one thing we were doing in The Return to the Light, and I think I've done this in other is like, you know, and this is hard if you don't practice this, is like a journaling.
• 24:47
  Polly Mertens: You know, the question is like, what can I acknowledge myself for?
• 24:51
  Polly Mertens: You know, what do I want to be acknowledged for?
• 24:53
  Polly Mertens: And it's not like a doing, but like, like I'm a kind person, you know, I show up and I listen or I tell the truth, right?
• 25:02
  Polly Mertens: You know, whatever.
• 25:03
  Polly Mertens: Like, what are the qualities that you want to be acknowledged for, right?
• 25:06
  Polly Mertens: You know, I'm I'm reliable or loyal or whatever that the qualities are.
• 25:11
  Polly Mertens: But that's a good question, I think, to start to help you unpack it.
• 25:15
  Polly Mertens: It can take a little bit in the beginning to like be like, oh no, you know, not you know, because we got so much of this not wanting to look too big or too much or whatever, but like, hey, look, this is just you with you.
• 25:26
  Polly Mertens: And the other one you wanted me to talk a little bit about is um, as I've been studying the work of the Gene Keys.
• 25:32
  Samantha Pruitts: Yes, the Gene Keys.
• 25:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:35
  Samantha Pruitts: So cool.
• 25:37
  Polly Mertens: So Gene Keys is uh it's a body of work by a guy by the name of Richard Rudd.
• 25:41
  Polly Mertens: You can look it up, Jean G-E-N-E.
• 25:44
  Polly Mertens: Keys.
• 25:45
  Polly Mertens: Mm-hmm.
• 25:46
  Polly Mertens: So it's gene keys.com.
• 25:49
  Polly Mertens: You can get a free profile on there.
• 25:50
  Polly Mertens: And it's, you know, it's a little bit uh related to astrology slash the each ging.
• 25:57
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's got eastern and western and and mystical mixed in with it.
• 26:00
  Polly Mertens: So it's it's beautiful.
• 26:01
  Polly Mertens: Go check it out.
• 26:02
  Polly Mertens: Anyway, you get this profile, sort of like sometimes people say, like, oh, I'm a Sagittarius or I'm a Gemini or whatever.
• 26:08
  Polly Mertens: Like, okay, go ahead.
• 26:09
  Samantha Pruitts: Leo, Leo, you're all shocked.
• 26:13
  Polly Mertens: Just like a Leo dolly.
• 26:14
  Polly Mertens: So, like, okay, that can tell you some things.
• 26:19
  Polly Mertens: Well, the Jinkeys is quite specific, it's just for your birthday, you know.
• 26:22
  Polly Mertens: And if you've ever had a, you know, your birth chart, like people go, oh, I'm a Leo, and it's like super generic, right?
• 26:30
  Polly Mertens: Like generic qualities about Leos, right?
• 26:33
  Polly Mertens: We know X, Y, and Z.
• 26:34
  Polly Mertens: Well, when you have your birth chart done, it's like, where were the planets in what houses when you were born, and you know, and it tells you way bigger detail, more specific to you.
• 26:44
  Polly Mertens: And gene keys is a little bit like layered on top of that.
• 26:47
  Polly Mertens: And it's um things that have to do with like, what are you, what are your gifts or your purpose, or things that your is your work in this life?
• 26:55
  Polly Mertens: Like, what are you here to like get through, grow through, you might say, right?
• 26:59
  Polly Mertens: So, and each one, there are these keys, like um picture like a I can't remember how many keys there are in each one.
• 27:06
  Polly Mertens: Maybe there's like 12 or 15, something like that.
• 27:08
  Polly Mertens: Each person has unique ones and in different places.
• 27:12
  Polly Mertens: And so each key has he calls it um a shadow and a gift, right?
• 27:19
  Polly Mertens: So if you had a a tile, like um one of mine, the shadow side is compromised.
• 27:25
  Polly Mertens: So, like when I'm not at my best, I'm compromising something uh, you know, my my heart, if you will, right?
• 27:32
  Polly Mertens: So I like, oh sure, we'll do that because you know, like just giving in too much or compromising, you know, not being my truth, not speaking up for myself, like all these compromises, right?
• 27:43
  Polly Mertens: So the gift is when I'm using my competence, you know, and and each key has a different shadow and gift, if you will.
• 27:52
  Polly Mertens: So when I'm trusting myself and I believe in my competence and I believe in like what I say matters, I believe, you know, I'm not gonna compromise on my values, let's say, right?
• 28:03
  Polly Mertens: I live my life aligned with, yeah, I know what I need, right?
• 28:07
  Polly Mertens: Like my inner competence, if you will.
• 28:09
  Polly Mertens: So that's one thing.
• 28:10
  Polly Mertens: I find it, you know, super helpful.
• 28:12
  Polly Mertens: The shadows tend to be like low frequency where we're not, you know, at our best, if you will.
• 28:17
  Polly Mertens: So it's a fun way to, you know, take a little glimpse into yourself.
• 28:22
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, but I think they're keys, right?
• 28:24
  Samantha Pruitts: You can literally think of a key like unlocking a door in order to better understand yourself and the world.
• 28:30
  Samantha Pruitts: And who doesn't want to better understand themselves?
• 28:32
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 28:32
  Samantha Pruitts: And what tripped me out, it was like it was uh time of birth, obviously date of birth, time, exact time of birth.
• 28:39
  Samantha Pruitts: I think also location, and I can't remember whatever the other things were that you put in.
• 28:43
  Samantha Pruitts: But uh it was pretty accurate and slightly shocking to me because I'm not the woo-woo on this team.
• 28:49
  Samantha Pruitts: You be the woo-woo.
• 28:51
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay.
• 28:52
  Samantha Pruitts: So I was like, what in the hell is she talking about over there, girl?
• 28:57
  Samantha Pruitts: But then when you did mine and read them to me, I literally had my mind blown.
• 29:02
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 29:02
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 29:02
  Polly Mertens: It was cool.
• 29:03
  Polly Mertens: It's cool.
• 29:04
  Polly Mertens: And what's fun about it, and you know, gene keys can be like a whole thing that you go into.
• 29:09
  Polly Mertens: You're like, you know, I mean, it can be a self-exploration, I would say, which I think is fascinating and wonderful.
• 29:17
  Polly Mertens: And some people do it for years, you know.
• 29:19
  Polly Mertens: So like you can pick a key that you're working on, let's say.
• 29:21
  Polly Mertens: So, like me for compromise.
• 29:23
  Polly Mertens: Like this summer, I was really present to the gift and the the shadow in the gift, right?
• 29:30
  Polly Mertens: So just noticing, you know, like it's like putting on the lens of what not to do.
• 29:35
  Polly Mertens: Like, where am I compromising in my life?
• 29:38
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so and what's what's the opposite?
• 29:40
  Polly Mertens: You know, what's what's the gift in this?
• 29:42
  Polly Mertens: What do I really want to do?
• 29:44
  Polly Mertens: What's in my heart, if you will?
• 29:45
  Polly Mertens: So it's just an opportunity if you pick one and then you can work on that for a week, a month, six months, whatever it takes.
• 29:52
  Polly Mertens: Um, and some I think I would say like depending on where you are in your life arc, you may have like figured that shit out.
• 29:59
  Polly Mertens: You know, like there's definitely some where I'm like, yeah, I figured that one out already.
• 30:03
  Polly Mertens: You know, like I didn't even quite know it.
• 30:05
  Polly Mertens: But when the I saw the jean keys, I was like, yep, I I've been working.
• 30:08
  Polly Mertens: Work worked through that one in my 30s, you know.
• 30:13
  Samantha Pruitts: So yeah.
• 30:14
  Samantha Pruitts: But if you're trying to really understand your gifts and the genius in the world, this can really help you professionally, it can help you with relationships.
• 30:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 30:22
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, it's it all comes down to the same thing, knowing thyself.
• 30:27
  Polly Mertens: Mm-hmm.
• 30:28
  Polly Mertens: And where, you know, if if you you know believe in what you find, if you discover, like, wow, I do tend to compromise.
• 30:34
  Polly Mertens: Okay, well, this is a great like reminder, like, oh, and and the antithesis of that, or like how to, I would tell you, just knowing, like having the lens on, like compromises one of my shadows.
• 30:46
  Polly Mertens: And the other one, you know, I've got two that are like, I would say they're they're more like they're ongoing for me, right?
• 30:52
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, which is doubt and confusion.
• 30:54
  Polly Mertens: And those are like they sometimes get tied in a little knot, and then they like uh I was like, Oh, I'm in confuse and I'm doubting, I'm confused, and I'm doubting, right?
• 31:02
  Polly Mertens: Bad little loop that I can go into, and I know the antithesis, so I can get curious and I can use my imagination and get myself out of those little grooves of old thinking, old patterns, if you will.
• 31:14
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, those are vortexes people fall into literally black holes, wah, spiraling, wee, you know.
• 31:22
  Polly Mertens: So it can be very enlighten, enlightening, you know, to go, oh crap, doubt is one of my keys, like, and it's part of my life's work.
• 31:29
  Polly Mertens: Guess what?
• 31:29
  Polly Mertens: It's probably gonna be something I'm working on for a long, long time.
• 31:33
  Polly Mertens: So the opposite is is curious, curiosity and truth.
• 31:37
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 31:38
  Samantha Pruitts: Rather than focusing on I'm doubting, I'm doubting, I'm doubting, I'm doubting.
• 31:41
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, well, let me obviously turn this around.
• 31:44
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 31:45
  Polly Mertens: Like, you know, so when I notice in my body the experience of doubt, right, or even thoughts of doubt, often I'll just like be in it and I'll be like, This why I feel so yucky because I'm so, you know, in the shadow, you know, I'm not in my energy, I'm not fully self-expressed.
• 32:01
  Polly Mertens: I'm over in this pattern that I've got that, you know, hey, there's another way.
• 32:06
  Polly Mertens: There's another way.
• 32:07
  Polly Mertens: And I can get curious and I can like find the truth in something.
• 32:10
  Polly Mertens: Like, what's my truth?
• 32:11
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 32:12
  Samantha Pruitts: So also expressing this like you are now and then talking to people about it.
• 32:18
  Samantha Pruitts: So I find this more when I'm coaching younger people who are in these really kind of pivotal places in their life in terms of like launching into school of choice or career of choice or relationship of choice or whatever, like big, you know, life pivot moments, is really getting them to express this out of themselves, right?
• 32:40
  Samantha Pruitts: These vortexes that they're stuck in, and just being able to give air to it and release it of its power, and then having somebody bear witness to that.
• 32:48
  Samantha Pruitts: So then I can pose questions or I can come counter to those thoughts as they're reprogramming these grooves, these deep grooves that are no longer serving them.
• 33:00
  Polly Mertens: And we probably each, I'm guessing, have, you know, one or two that are our familiar home, you know, the disempowered shadows, you might say.
• 33:07
  Polly Mertens: It's like, ah, the doubt and confusion.
• 33:10
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, those are old buddies, you know, that I'm happy to no longer be friends with, but they're they still show up.
• 33:16
  Polly Mertens: So it's like, you know, the practice of mindfulness and awareness of them now, you know, like just having them put in front of me and go, oh, confusion.
• 33:24
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, that's what's been going on here.
• 33:27
  Polly Mertens: That's why it feels like this.
• 33:28
  Polly Mertens: That's what, you know, so it helped me get more awareness about what I'm doing, you know.
• 33:33
  Polly Mertens: Whereas when it stretches out and like it's not every day that I feel that, I don't, you know, you can't maybe not be as aware of it, but when you recognize it, you go, oh, this is that pattern.
• 33:44
  Polly Mertens: Oh, okay.
• 33:45
  Polly Mertens: Nope.
• 33:45
  Polly Mertens: What what do I do instead?
• 33:47
  Polly Mertens: Like what doubt?
• 33:48
  Polly Mertens: Yep, good old friend of mine.
• 33:49
  Polly Mertens: Not today, doubt, not today.
• 33:52
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 33:53
  Samantha Pruitts: So I really want to encourage people to add one more piece to this.
• 33:56
  Samantha Pruitts: And I just glided across it earlier, but it's taking some actual action and trying some things.
• 34:02
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, so again, people, you know, trying to navigate through life decisions and figure out a path.
• 34:09
  Samantha Pruitts: First of all, the path is always changing.
• 34:11
  Samantha Pruitts: I literally talked to somebody today who's in their late 50s and is having another career pivot, right?
• 34:16
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's like the story was, you know, I just can't ever seem to figure these things out.
• 34:21
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like starting all over again.
• 34:22
  Samantha Pruitts: It's no, no, it is not at all that that is what is happening.
• 34:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, that wasn't serving you, working for you, it wasn't the right fit.
• 34:29
  Samantha Pruitts: So now you get to go out, you get to go out and explore other opportunities, what might be possible.
• 34:36
  Samantha Pruitts: So it's really imperative that you do know what your gifts and talents are, you do know what your genius is.
• 34:41
  Samantha Pruitts: So as you put yourself out to the world, that's the signs you put up in the window instead of I'm for sale, it's like, hey, have you seen the genius over here?
• 34:50
  Samantha Pruitts: Let me tell you about some of my gifts, y'all.
• 34:52
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, you need to be really ready to show up to that because as you know, that's what you're gonna attract.
• 34:57
  Samantha Pruitts: But if you're not regularly like trying new things and being willing to experiment, you know, I'm probably almost guilty of overdoing this sometimes.
• 35:06
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, I'll try all kinds of things.
• 35:08
  Samantha Pruitts: And they can be quite ridiculous, by the way.
• 35:10
  Samantha Pruitts: But I'm like, well, I didn't like it, and so I'll be leaving now.
• 35:14
  Samantha Pruitts: Or I tried this, it didn't work, so I won't be doing that again.
• 35:17
  Samantha Pruitts: But I'd rather like have explored it and at least tried it to see.
• 35:22
  Samantha Pruitts: I learned something every time about myself, which is the most important thing, and of course, about others in the world, which is also a great education to be getting.
• 35:31
  Samantha Pruitts: Indeed.
• 35:32
  Samantha Pruitts: Oh, you're those kind of people.
• 35:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Copy.
• 35:35
  Samantha Pruitts: All right.
• 35:36
  Polly Mertens: I love it.
• 35:36
  Polly Mertens: I you know, oftentimes we, you know, putting that resume together is kind of what I'm picturing.
• 35:40
  Polly Mertens: You know, you put your resume together, like what are your what's a summary or what's your skills, or you know, things like that.
• 35:45
  Polly Mertens: It's like this is your personal resume, you know, like you're like you, like what makes you a little starlight, beautiful human being.
• 35:53
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 35:53
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 35:54
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 35:55
  Polly Mertens: Love it.
• 35:56
  Polly Mertens: So what are what so we've gone over, they can acknowledge themselves, celebrate yourself, and like stop overlooking and brushing aside what makes you you and give yourself permission to be awesome, right?
• 36:08
  Polly Mertens: Um, some of it could be, you know, needing to set boundaries, you know, some of this like ways of being, of um not living your authentic life, is like you're taking on too much.
• 36:19
  Polly Mertens: You're saying yes when you mean no, you're you know, like not holding a boundary for someone to, you know, insult you or hurt your feelings or something like that, right?
• 36:27
  Polly Mertens: So some of this might be some boundary setting that maybe needs to happen, right?
• 36:32
  Samantha Pruitts: And some of it might be that you just haven't tried enough things yet to know what your gifts are and what your genius is.
• 36:37
  Samantha Pruitts: It's we call it, we say unpacking gifts because it there's work to be done.
• 36:41
  Samantha Pruitts: Nobody's gonna deliver to you, right, the perfect life.
• 36:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 36:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Whose life is this anyway?
• 36:49
  Samantha Pruitts: Right.
• 36:49
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's actually it's work, but it's the most exciting work you'll ever get.
• 36:54
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's not something to run from.
• 36:57
  Polly Mertens: And I think too, you know, especially as you you age up, depending on where you are in you know, financial and family, and you know, things are quote, secure or whatnot, is like really leaning into what feels good to you, you know, like what comes easy for you?
• 37:13
  Polly Mertens: What do you enjoy doing most?
• 37:14
  Polly Mertens: What, you know, just that way of being, you know, like like you, like leading workshops, you know, or you know, like crushing it in the gym, you know, like there's things that just inherently are you get so much life out of them, right?
• 37:28
  Polly Mertens: So what do you feel most alive when you do it?
• 37:31
  Polly Mertens: What do you feel most ah, like you just have no limit, right?
• 37:35
  Polly Mertens: Or like you feel like a like a beautiful jacket that fits you perfect, or you know, shirt that fits you perfect.
• 37:40
  Polly Mertens: You're like, oh, this is totally me.
• 37:41
  Polly Mertens: I could wear this all day, you know, I could be this all day, right?
• 37:44
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 37:45
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's you teaching and guiding circles.
• 37:47
  Samantha Pruitts: It's the same thing.
• 37:47
  Samantha Pruitts: It's just your skin.
• 37:50
  Samantha Pruitts: It's the skin you wear, it's the gifts that you have, it's just who you are, right?
• 37:54
  Samantha Pruitts: So when you show up to those spaces, you feel freaking alive.
• 37:59
  Samantha Pruitts: You feel tapped in, dude.
• 38:01
  Polly Mertens: And I can tell you where I know I would just say, like, how do no one is not like one of the ones that I feel for myself is um like shopping?
• 38:11
  Polly Mertens: Like, oh, let's go shopping or grocery shopping.
• 38:13
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, can I just have somebody else do all that?
• 38:15
  Polly Mertens: Like, I know what I want.
• 38:16
  Polly Mertens: Here's it, here it is, go do that.
• 38:18
  Polly Mertens: Like the whole shopping thing, like I'm clearly not that person.
• 38:21
  Polly Mertens: You know, some people like love it, take me all day, you know, love to stroll the aisles and look.
• 38:25
  Polly Mertens: I'm like in and out.
• 38:27
  Polly Mertens: How you know, so that's not my genius zone.
• 38:29
  Polly Mertens: That's not no, but like, oh, and then you heard me when I was preparing the workbook for Return to the Light, right?
• 38:37
  Polly Mertens: Like this workbook.
• 38:37
  Polly Mertens: I was obsessed.
• 38:39
  Polly Mertens: The amount of hours that I spent, you were obsessed.
• 38:42
  Polly Mertens: Deck and piece of art.
• 38:44
  Polly Mertens: It it totally, you know, and I don't have a zillion opportunities that I put forth for myself to be that creator.
• 38:51
  Polly Mertens: That create, I mean, and I I didn't go to graphic design school, and I'm not, I don't have an Adobe Illustrator, so I'm not like skilled at that.
• 38:58
  Polly Mertens: But seeing like things come to light, like I made, oh my god, I made uh three pages of these little Pinterest style pictures with little quotes in them, and I custom made the little image and stuff because I just felt like these little love notes to you know the women in the circle, and it just was lighting me up.
• 39:14
  Polly Mertens: I'm all I gotta do more.
• 39:16
  Polly Mertens: I'm all may not do one of these on the, you know, all that's an example of your genius.
• 39:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 39:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Right?
• 39:21
  Samantha Pruitts: There it is, right there, just like that.
• 39:23
  Polly Mertens: Something you just lose track of time doing, right?
• 39:25
  Polly Mertens: Or you could just be like, Yeah, I don't need to eat because I'm just gonna do this for the next 24 hours or something, right?
• 39:31
  Samantha Pruitts: Absolutely.
• 39:31
  Samantha Pruitts: Everybody has this and they have multiples of these, right?
• 39:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Again, it's about them giving themselves permission to experiment and explore them, and then shine a light on them and put them into action.
• 39:42
  Samantha Pruitts: And you don't really need anybody else's permission.
• 39:44
  Samantha Pruitts: And really, we're giving you permission.
• 39:46
  Samantha Pruitts: You don't even need to give it to yourself.
• 39:47
  Samantha Pruitts: You should just start doing the damn thing.
• 39:49
  Polly Mertens: Yes.
• 39:49
  Samantha Pruitts: Permission granted.
• 39:50
  Polly Mertens: Ding, go do it, go for it.
• 39:51
  Polly Mertens: The world needs this.
• 39:52
  Polly Mertens: Yes, find the things that light you up.
• 39:55
  Polly Mertens: You get lost doing, you could do it all day.
• 39:58
  Polly Mertens: Um, you feel most at home being, sharing, you know, expressing whatever it is.
• 40:04
  Polly Mertens: That that's those are some checks.
• 40:06
  Polly Mertens: Like, oh yeah, I love, you know, like me baking, it's not baking.
• 40:10
  Polly Mertens: No, don't love doing that all the time.
• 40:13
  Samantha Pruitts: Tell me.
• 40:14
  Polly Mertens: You hiking, uh-huh, being outside.
• 40:15
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, uh-huh.
• 40:16
  Polly Mertens: Going, you know, letting people in.
• 40:17
  Samantha Pruitts: Hanging out in groups of people that are like talking about mental and physical health.
• 40:22
  Samantha Pruitts: I just hang out there all day long.
• 40:24
  Samantha Pruitts: All day long, all day long, and I can just go from group to group to group.
• 40:28
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm literally like talking, current counseling the person in line for coffee the other day.
• 40:33
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm sure they're like unsolicited advice from a random stranger.
• 40:36
  Samantha Pruitts: Got it.
• 40:37
  Samantha Pruitts: But it was a friend of Of a friend, and he asked me a question about my back surgery, but then he very quickly went into what do you think about CrossFit?
• 40:45
  Samantha Pruitts: What do you think?
• 40:46
  Samantha Pruitts: And I was like, How much time do you got?
• 40:48
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, yeah, two minutes in this line.
• 40:50
  Samantha Pruitts: Are you ready?
• 40:51
  Samantha Pruitts: Get your notepad.
• 40:52
  Samantha Pruitts: Are you ready?
• 40:53
  Samantha Pruitts: And he's like this 25-year-old young guy, and he was just like, Holy shit! Literally, I just lit a fire under this guy.
• 41:00
  Samantha Pruitts: I can't turn that off.
• 41:02
  Samantha Pruitts: That is just I want to be of service in that way, and it's just who I am in the world.
• 41:08
  Samantha Pruitts: And there's no me pretending I am not that person anymore.
• 41:11
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay.
• 41:12
  Samantha Pruitts: The old me would have been like, is he gonna think I'm weird?
• 41:14
  Samantha Pruitts: And is this embarrassing?
• 41:15
  Samantha Pruitts: And is everyone else listening?
• 41:17
  Samantha Pruitts: Because they all think I'm weird.
• 41:18
  Samantha Pruitts: And then, like, even that happens a lot, and other people will start coming into the conversation because they're eavesdropping.
• 41:23
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, oh, I heard you talk about crossword, oh, I heard you talk about Iron Man or whatever, you know, and they'll be like, Oh totally.
• 41:31
  Polly Mertens: And you with the Wikipedia, like you are just like a suck all the information in possible.
• 41:36
  Polly Mertens: I'm a colander, I've decided like a sieve.
• 41:38
  Polly Mertens: It's all just coming in for those for those moments when a barista asks you just for that little information, you're like for that.
• 41:45
  Polly Mertens: I mean, here's AI, here's the Samantha AI version.
• 41:47
  Polly Mertens: Here, you know, so and that's how you know it's like it just feels like like you lit up, like you just lean forward into I I can't wait to give you that, do that for you, step into that.
• 41:59
  Polly Mertens: So I love this topic.
• 42:01
  Polly Mertens: This was really fun.
• 42:03
  Samantha Pruitts: It was fun, and it's Christmas Day, so just to close for people, you know, the uh prior episode about how not to get fluffy and stressed out during the holidays.
• 42:13
  Samantha Pruitts: You might want to listen to that today, also if you missed that episode because you're like all up in it right now.
• 42:19
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, and we want you to feel good, yeah, for sure.
• 42:23
  Polly Mertens: Speaking of feeling good, what do we want to remind our beautiful humans as we close out?
• 42:27
  Samantha Pruitts: Oh, I want to do this today.
• 42:29
  Polly Mertens: Oh, and if you're not seeing the visual, it says, be awesome today.
• 42:33
  Samantha Pruitts: Yes.
• 42:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Because how your life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 42:37
  Samantha Pruitts: Can you believe I got this big jumbo sign?
• 42:39
  Samantha Pruitts: Where did that was that like at the dollar store?
• 42:41
  Samantha Pruitts: If we only don't have one of those.
• 42:43
  Samantha Pruitts: Now in my office, I know.
• 42:45
  Samantha Pruitts: I think we should have them made with our logo.
• 42:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Where did it go?
• 42:47
  Samantha Pruitts: Just you know, we're just gonna go put up road signs all over.
• 42:50
  Samantha Pruitts: Like neck under a stop sign, we're gonna put this instead.
• 42:53
  Polly Mertens: Or the walking sign.
• 42:54
  Polly Mertens: Yep.
• 42:54
  Polly Mertens: Bing, yep, there we go.
• 42:56
  Polly Mertens: Be awesome today.
• 42:57
  Polly Mertens: Yep.
• 42:57
  Polly Mertens: All y'all.
• 42:58
  Samantha Pruitts: What do you want to remind people?
• 43:00
  Polly Mertens: Yes.
• 43:00
  Polly Mertens: Well, I was about to say how your life feels is more important.
• 43:03
  Polly Mertens: Which it is.
• 43:05
  Polly Mertens: How your life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 43:07
  Polly Mertens: And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
• 43:11
  Samantha Pruitts: Good job, lady.
• 43:12
  Samantha Pruitts: I'll see you next week, huh?
• 43:13
  Samantha Pruitts: Happy holiday later, people.
• 43:15
  Samantha Pruitts: Merry Christmas.