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Embracing Your Identity as a Writer (Daily Writer Community Discussion) · The Daily Writer

0:09
SPEAKER_07: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Writer.
0:12
SPEAKER_07: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the core practices of a great writer.
0:17
SPEAKER_07: Creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
0:21
SPEAKER_07: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers, as well as teaching that helps us supply what we're learning.
0:30
SPEAKER_07: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
0:36
SPEAKER_07: If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you have heard me talk about the Daily Rider community before.
0:41
SPEAKER_07: This is a membership community that I've put together to help writers improve their habits and mindset.
0:47
SPEAKER_07: And in addition to all the other benefits of the Daily Writer community, one of the things that we have, and this is one of my favorite things, is a group call every single week.
0:56
SPEAKER_07: And on this episode, I'm sharing a recording of a call that we had a couple of months ago.
1:02
SPEAKER_07: And it features my special guest, Bee Evans, from the Tear Out the Tags podcast.
1:07
SPEAKER_07: Bee's platform and upcoming book, which is also called Tear Out the Tags.
1:11
SPEAKER_07: Those are focused on helping us remove the labels that are holding us back.
1:15
SPEAKER_07: So we had a fantastic and heartfelt conversation about embracing our identities as writers with a few members of our daily writer community.
1:23
SPEAKER_07: So this was really meaningful and impactful, and I think that you'll really enjoy it.
1:28
SPEAKER_07: So here is my conversation with our community and B.
1:31
SPEAKER_07: Evans about embracing your identity as a writer.
1:36
SPEAKER_07: I am absolutely thrilled that B.
1:38
SPEAKER_07: Evans, who is actually part of our community, is here to share with us as our guest expert for the month of March 2021.
1:45
SPEAKER_07: I'm sure you've read the bio that I've sent out over Facebook and over email.
1:49
SPEAKER_07: But for those who are listening to this later, let me just share for a couple seconds.
1:54
SPEAKER_07: Bee is the founder of Embolden Label and she's also the host of the Tear Out the Tax podcast, which should absolutely be part of your regular podcast listening.
2:03
SPEAKER_07: And because it's a daily show, that makes it even better because every day you're getting to hear B speak into your life as well as her guest, which is a really, really fun and inspiring experience.
2:14
SPEAKER_07: She is passionate about discovery connection and helping you redefine the tags that you are willing to wear and to take out the tags that are holding you back and also to ignite the dormant dreams in your life so you can move forward, excuse me, and make your mark.
2:33
SPEAKER_07: So we're here to talk about tags and labels that we put on ourselves as writers today.
2:37
SPEAKER_07: And B is an expert on this and has given it a lot of thought.
2:40
SPEAKER_07: So welcome, B.
2:41
SPEAKER_07: Glad to have you here.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: It's so funny.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: I do not wear the tag expert.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: So that's that makes me a little uncomfortable off the bat.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna peel that off just because I'm here to have a conversation with you guys.
2:53
SPEAKER_02: And um, and I what I really want you to gain from today, and I love this because you're writers, so you're totally gonna understand this.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: Words matter.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: The words we use in our daily lives matter, and the words we use to describe ourselves matter.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: And I wear, I don't wear the tag, I'm a writer.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: It's actually a tag that I'm working on attaching right now, being part of this amazing community.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: And I have tags like intimidation and um unqualified and uneducated that I'm wearing that are causing me to sort of hold on to that tag.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: I'm not a writer.
3:28
SPEAKER_02: So when I started this idea, or when I had this idea, and as you guys know, everything starts with an idea.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: I was a product of a life that had been handed to me.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: Like many of us are.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: We have a childhood full of a checklist of expectations that we had no say in.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: We didn't, we, you know, our parents weren't gonna ask us where we wanted to grow up or what size home we were gonna be in, or whether we wanted to like our siblings or not, right?
3:58
SPEAKER_02: We just had a life that was handed to us and we learned as we went.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: So what I really have realized is we pick up these labels as we navigate through life without even realizing that we're attaching something that may not belong to us.
4:13
SPEAKER_02: So I have, um, and Kent sort of segued perfectly into this.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: I wish I would have caught the whole conversation, but I grew up in an oil and gas family.
4:22
SPEAKER_02: So my father and mother started a service and supply company when I was a little kid, and we lived in Wyoming, country folks, small town.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: And then I moved to the big city of Phoenix, Arizona when I was about 10.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: And quite literally, that was just a part of my upbringing, a part of who I was.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: So you guys can about imagine I ended up in the oil and gas industry, female in a very male-dominant space.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, in my young 20s, I was an MBA cheerleader for the Phoenix Suns.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: So I would go from my day job being kind of, let's be real, uh, being dismissed, being treated like the only thing I was capable of doing was sitting in a back office pushing papers around.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: And that is how they saw it, a lot of the people that I worked with.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, I was sexually harassed many times through my career.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: I was very much a fish out of water, but didn't know it because it was all I knew.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: So at that same time, I would flip to my, you know, my other job, my my, I would call it my fun job.
5:26
SPEAKER_02: And I would put the hair and the makeup and and become a whole different branded person.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: And neither role fit who I was.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: And I really was inside screaming to be seen that whole time.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: So about two years ago, I got an opportunity to do executive coaching.
5:43
SPEAKER_02: And I felt like these two mentors came into my life and plucked me out of like these spaces that I believed were who was who I was.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: And they started investing in me and they started telling me I could do things.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: And the whole time that they were seeing me through this lens that I didn't own the glasses for, I would just tell myself, no, like this, I'm not good at this.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: This isn't who I am, I'm not qualified, I'm not educated.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm in all of the negative beliefs that I thought about myself.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: And in the meantime, I think we're having two conversations in our world.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: One is mental health related, and many of us have struggled with mental health issues.
6:25
SPEAKER_02: And the other is this limiting beliefs, right?
6:28
SPEAKER_02: Like, I can't do this because I'm big, or I can't do this because I'm small, I can't do this because I'm not smart, right?
6:37
SPEAKER_02: But in the middle of all of that, these two conversations are these words that we're not diving deep enough into, and we don't really understand what they mean in our lives.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: So I had an opportunity to do an executive coaching, it was really actually a training facilitation for the vice presidents of a huge corporation.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, like, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: The only thing I was told was the name of the company, which is very, very well known.
7:07
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, granted, you guys have to remember this wasn't my world.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: So I, you know, even though I knew it was big, I didn't know how big it was.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: So the only requirement was I needed a business suit.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: So I pieced together a business suit.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: I would not call it that now.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, it was like a$30 jacket from Express that was about 15 years old that completed my outfit.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay, which some of you may not be into fashion and you might be going, so what?
7:34
SPEAKER_02: But for me, I showed up that day and initially I felt ready.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: Initially I felt like I was on fire.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: I was getting an opportunity to like get outside of these roles that didn't do anything for me.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: And I put on that business suit and I felt great until I saw all the executives in all their very fancy business suits.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: And I got on the executive elevator, and suddenly all of those thoughts were like in my back pocket.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, they were in the back of my blazer jacket.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: So I was riding up the elevator and suddenly I start feeling a scratch on the back of my neck.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: And you guys know how this is when a tag is itchy and embroidered and uncomfortable, and it starts just kind of nagging at a part of your body.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: And that happened to me.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: And when that happened and that itch started to scratch, all of those negative thoughts just kept playing on a loop the entire day.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: So I quite literally felt like I was dodging my own bad self-talk.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, as I was trying to complete a seven-hour training with some of the most sophisticated executives in corporate America.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: And luckily I didn't fall flat on my face.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: But what I realized when I left that day was we are we are in a world that is literally inundated with labels.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: And we even use these labels to help us in our businesses and to help us in writing and to help us have successful blog posts.
9:05
SPEAKER_02: We use tags and labels to categorize things.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: And it's human nature.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: Our brains actually have the need to categorize all of the things in our lives so that we can understand them.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: And the more we are inundated with content and the less time we have, the more we have, we have the need, the absolute need to categorize things quickly and move forward.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: And so, what I have found in my life is that a lot of my tags have been miscategorized and don't, in fact, belong to me for many reasons.
9:39
SPEAKER_02: So today we're gonna dive into some words, we're gonna have some good conversations, we're gonna go wherever this goes.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, Kent has already pre-warned me that you guys are the most engaging group that there is, and that we're probably gonna run out of time because we're so chatty.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: So I'm like so excited to get into this.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I'm gonna let Kent take it since I kind of gave you guys a quick rundown because I want to really get into the conversation.
10:06
SPEAKER_07: B, thank you so much.
10:08
SPEAKER_07: Uh wow, it is an amazing concept, and I'm glad that you have stepped down and really kind of put hands and feet on this whole idea of tags and labels.
10:20
SPEAKER_07: Because it's really made me, you've made me reconsider how I look at myself in many ways.
10:26
SPEAKER_07: And I'll give you an example.
10:28
SPEAKER_07: Uh, one way is that I I don't think of myself as a business person.
10:31
SPEAKER_07: I've always thought of myself as actually a pretty bad business person because I come from the education and the the nonprofit world, specifically church ministry.
10:43
SPEAKER_07: Two industries that are not really, when you work in those industries, they're not really business-y in the sense of you don't have to think really strategically about business things, you're not thinking about clients and uh invoices and budgets and those kinds of things.
10:59
SPEAKER_07: You're just thinking about content mostly.
11:01
SPEAKER_07: So I have embraced the tag of that I am a business person, and maybe I'm not too bad of a business person because you made me rethink that label.
11:10
SPEAKER_07: So I'm curious about everybody here.
11:12
SPEAKER_07: What are some labels or in fact, B, maybe I should this is maybe a good clarifying question.
11:19
SPEAKER_07: Is it better to use the word tag or label in relationship to what we're talking about?
11:23
SPEAKER_07: I perceive of them as the same thing, but is one term better than the other?
11:28
SPEAKER_02: They are the same thing.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: So I think many of us can relate to being labeled in our lives.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: If you went to high school, you've been labeled.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: So that to me is a word that really relates to being able to speak on it.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: I I personally feel like tags and hashtags have taken over our world.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: I think for me, I'd call them tags, but either one is the same thing, what's one and the same to me?
11:52
SPEAKER_02: Now it may be different for you, and I think that's great to make that distinction.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: The importance behind my message is we all have different definitions of every single word in the English language.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: And if I asked all of you, and we could do this if you'd like, but if I asked all of you to name five words that you think of when I say the word love, we would have very few people that had more than two things in common on that.
12:20
SPEAKER_02: Even love.
12:21
SPEAKER_02: As simple as we believe love is, it is not simple.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: It's very complex.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: Did that answer your question?
12:29
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah, it really does.
12:30
SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
12:31
SPEAKER_07: So, what are some I'm kind of asking us to be a little bit vulnerable here, if that's okay, and only do what you're comfortable with, but what are some tags that you have put on yourself as a person?
12:43
SPEAKER_07: Let me and I'll give you an example.
12:44
SPEAKER_07: Is many people they immediately say, I'm not a writer or I'm not an author.
12:50
SPEAKER_07: And that's something that I encounter a lot as I talk with people about books and writing and so forth.
12:55
SPEAKER_07: All of you are here in this writing group, so obviously we're all embracing that tag to some degree.
13:01
SPEAKER_07: But are there some things that you have said that you are not?
13:05
SPEAKER_07: Like I'm not a business person, or I'm not a creative, or I'm not productive.
13:09
SPEAKER_07: Are there some tags that you have put on yourself that are not so helpful?
13:15
SPEAKER_02: You're asking me, right?
13:16
SPEAKER_02: Or are you I'm asking the whole group.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
13:18
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, anybody.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: I'd love to hear this too.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm happy to start if you guys want me to just dive in vulnerable.
13:25
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and maybe that's maybe that's a good place to begin as well.
13:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, so my one of my biggest ones that I wore was just a pretty face.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: So I was the most awkward child you can imagine.
13:38
SPEAKER_02: I was a tomboy.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, I was not pretty at all.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't even cute.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: And when I was in eighth grade, I sat against a ceiling, like a little one of those little compact fans and chopped all of my hair off.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: So I went into high school with a mullet.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: Um, like quite literally, I was one of the most awkward kids on the planet.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, I started cheerleading, I started dancing, and I sort of learned how to be a little more girly.
14:03
SPEAKER_02: But underneath all of this, I was exposed to pornography at the age of six.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: So I quite literally learned what it was to be a woman and what it was to look like and what that meant for me, which really put me in a position in my life in my younger years, um, and even through my 20s and 30s, that I was just an object and that my value was how much a man would someday love me or give me attention or whatever else.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: But that tag that I'm just a pretty face, when I don't actually believe that about myself, because I don't see myself as pretty, because I'm always comparing myself to this impossible standard and this impossible sexualization.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: And I apologize if this is too much for your group, but I think it's valuable to share because for me, when I wear the tag I'm not a writer, it has more to do with the fact that people have treated me like I'm just a pretty face, and that underneath that is a lot of shame and a lot of hurt.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: So our tags, you know, I would come to you guys before I knew all of this about myself, and I would just tell you that I feel unworthy to be here.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: But the fact is that is a tag stack, that is a template of all of these other things that is underneath that.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: So, what Kent said about feeling like he was a bad business person, there's a lot more underneath that that needs to be uncovered and needs to be like sorted through.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: So if you are scared to go vulnerable, hopefully now you aren't, because that's about as vulnerable as I get.
15:42
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean, we appreciate that.
15:44
SPEAKER_07: We're just kind of putting it out there.
15:45
SPEAKER_07: And you know, this is this is real life stuff.
15:47
SPEAKER_07: And here's here's something that I often see with the writing community is that what I typically see is that books and writing and all this platform stuff and podcasts and whatever else, that it's it's divorced from the rest of our lives.
16:04
SPEAKER_07: And I don't think that it actually is.
16:06
SPEAKER_07: I think when when we tell ourselves messages like, well, I'm just I'm not a writer, or I'm not this, or I can never be successful, or I just never finish things, or I never get things done, or all these negative voices inside our heads, that's connected to the rest of our identity as well.
16:24
SPEAKER_07: So to me, this is all about what are you embracing as your identity, or what what positive tags are you putting on yourself, and what are the negative tags that people maybe have put on you?
16:35
SPEAKER_07: Like some of for some of you, you know, it's it's really cool that you're here because maybe somebody told you that you could never write a book.
16:43
SPEAKER_07: Maybe somebody told you one time, oh, so and so they're just not a writer, or they're not creative.
16:48
SPEAKER_07: And those those tags and those identity things really stick with you.
16:53
SPEAKER_07: So let's just open it up for some discussion.
16:55
SPEAKER_07: Um, what what are some things that in your life as a writer that are what are some tags that you have worked to remove or that you are working to remove?
17:06
SPEAKER_07: We're all working through stuff.
17:09
SPEAKER_08: I'm happy to talk.
17:10
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
17:12
SPEAKER_08: So Ken has heard me say before, and it may be uh probably come from a little bit different place, but uh Kent's heard me say before that uh labels are for pickled jars.
17:23
SPEAKER_08: Okay, so and I definitely hear what you're saying, and you know, I am new to the writing group, and uh but you know, it really wasn't too long until Kent and I, you know, got connected and I got in here where I completely dropped the idea that I'm not a writer because the fact is I write every day.
17:42
SPEAKER_08: Um so what has changed for me is being intentional about it.
17:47
SPEAKER_08: You know, I don't have a whole lot of internal dialogue that is fairly negative only because of some work I did with uh Byron Cady called The Work, where she simply uh goes down the path of simply it's important to ask yourself, do you actually know that's true?
18:05
SPEAKER_08: Whatever these voices are, you know.
18:07
SPEAKER_08: So um I'm not being I'm not being real uh transparent here, only because I'm trying to come up with some belief in my mind that I am not, but I'm not really finding anything right now.
18:22
SPEAKER_08: Except to except to say that um yeah, I'm a writer.
18:27
SPEAKER_08: There you go.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: I think John makes such an excellent point though, and I love the labels are for pick pickle jars.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have to use that and give you some details.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you know it's so interesting.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: We believe if we talk about this conversation and we say, my limiting beliefs, those are simply negative.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: But tags and labels are not all negative.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: We have many ways that we identify ourselves as positive.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: And like for me, I was somebody who I would move out of the way of a compliment because of the my own inner bully.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: But man, if somebody had something mean to say, even to somebody else, I would like jump in front of it like it belonged to me.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: So I was very much somebody who would shoulder shoulder that burden, um, almost like I was, you know, the hero trying to protect others, like they weren't strong enough to handle it.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, I wasn't either, but I was still willing to carry all of this.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: But I think it's really important that, you know, our identity and being authentic, which is a word I think many of us are probably a little sick of at this point, um, it matters because we need the good labels.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: We need the positives.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: We need to hear the people in our lives that say good things to us and that give us positive feedback and constructive feedback.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: Because some of the labels we wear, like I am not a very resilient person.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: And millennial, the tag millennial, you guys can all laugh.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: I know you want to.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, that tag really spurred a lot in me and was it made me unwilling to go anywhere that I needed to go that was beneath some of the millennial assumptions.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: Now, some of those are true for me.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: Like I am not a very resilient person.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: But now I can like I'm not ashamed of that.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: It's something I really get to work hard at and really gain tools in.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: And I really realized that I may not be resilient today, but if I work hard and I find the tools, I will become resilient.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: And there are some days I can be resilient and some days I can't.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, but John is that's really such a great point because labels aren't all bad.
20:39
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, well, actually, what I I do want to say about it, and I agree with you.
20:43
SPEAKER_08: So I kind of focus on the labels that I am or want to be, or that I realized about myself.
20:49
SPEAKER_08: So International Women's Day the other day, and I work with a lot of women.
20:52
SPEAKER_08: So I was on uh social media and stuff, and there's a couple of posts there, and there's something I know about myself that is a label that I really love, which is I find strength in gentility.
21:07
SPEAKER_08: As a man, I find strength in being gentle.
21:10
SPEAKER_08: And there is a, you know, for me, there's a strength there.
21:13
SPEAKER_08: So that's a label I am happy to wear.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: Hi, would you go a step deeper in that and tell me why is it a strength?
21:21
SPEAKER_02: What does it get you?
21:23
SPEAKER_08: It's largely working from the inside out, it's largely uh being aware of a balance between masculine and feminine.
21:33
SPEAKER_08: And uh having, you know, years ago, uh, you know, I was a musician and uh just really embracing that feminine part of myself in the terms of the creativity.
21:43
SPEAKER_08: And there is and for me to take it a step further is the the strength comes from in essentially the balance and the respect of others and the curiosity and the my ability and willing to walk.
22:00
SPEAKER_08: In another person's moccasins.
22:03
SPEAKER_06: I love that.
22:05
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, because I don't really understand how people just don't want to have a conversation with somebody that they don't agree with.
22:11
SPEAKER_08: Because I find such great value in uh having a conversation with anybody.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: I completely agree.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: Well I don't know if I'd love for some of you to weigh in on this too.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: How much can we get stuck in just the tag male-female?
22:29
SPEAKER_02: To John's point.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: Anybody else want to jump in?
22:35
SPEAKER_03: I would like to add uh to what John said.
22:37
SPEAKER_03: Um another thing this with the strength.
22:42
SPEAKER_03: I think it's strength is shown because you're not threatened by the feminine.
22:47
SPEAKER_03: You're not threatened by women.
22:49
SPEAKER_03: And to be able to be who you are and not be threatened is um not as common as we would like it to be, but I think that's part of it there.
22:59
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, if I was if I may, if if I was gonna feel threatened, I'd feel I'd feel more threatened from another man in a sense.
23:07
SPEAKER_08: Not all the time, but anybody else?
23:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna start calling on you guys.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: I I I wasn't necessarily uh thinking of a response to the question about exploring the you know male and and female, you know, identity or tags.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: But I was thinking as we began to talk about this, how much um the idea of naming um comes into this.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because naming is a big deal and in a lot of cultures and in our own lives, you know, we've been named by our parents, we've been named or tagged by many people growing up about maybe physical characteristics, uh, you know, many times derogatory, maybe by our you know, childhood friends or something.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: And uh and naming is a big deal.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: And I I get that from um there's a wonderful book, it's called uh To Be Told by uh Dan Allender.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: And he invites you to, he's kind of the whole idea is it's really he says, God invites you to co-author your future, and he's the idea is that you're co-writing your um your story with God.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: And he and he invites you to think about the names that you, you know, what are the names that you've been given through the years by all these various people, and the names that even you've given yourself.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And so you you find within that many of those tags, I think that these that you're mentioning.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: But um I I know for myself, um, he invites you later in this process.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: I actually went to a workshop for three days and and uh participated in this, and it wasn't all just about the naming uh thing, but it so I don't want to I'm I'm uh offend anybody by being overtly religious, but it's interesting because in one of the books from Scripture, um there's a letter that's being written uh from Jesus to a church, and he says uh he talks about how uh to everyone who's victorious, um, he's gonna give some hidden manna from heaven, and I will give to each one, each person who's an overcomer, a white stone, and on that stone will be engraved a new name that no one knows, except the one who receives it.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: And he invites you to the process of thinking about what is, what do you think that name is?
25:32
SPEAKER_00: And so you're invited to think about not just the tag that I've been given or the name I've been given by everyone around me or myself, but what is it that God thinks of me and what is it, what is the name that he would give me.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: And for me, I've actually found a great source of inspiration.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: I've I don't want to ever really share that name, but I I find great inspiration in what I've come to believe might be my name.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's some it's it's really almost an antithesis of the labels and the tags that I think I've had for myself.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Um someone of self-doubt and fear, and um and instead, um I believe that there's a calling there for me personally to to be someone of of great courage and and uh to step out and and do some amazing things when in fact everything in you is saying that, oh my goodness, right?
26:21
SPEAKER_00: If I I I think my personal, I love your vulnerability and sharing, Pete, because it it opened the door for all of us to be more honest.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, my goodness, the uh when we began to realize that uh, you know, what are the things that are holding us back, the names we've been given and those that kind of echoing in our head, right?
26:41
SPEAKER_00: It just uh it can hold us back from becoming who we've really been, you know, called to be and and who we really are.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, that's kind of took it in a different different path.
26:53
SPEAKER_03: But I uh I love that.
26:55
SPEAKER_03: And when you were talking about the names we've been given, that reminded me of um back when I was team teaching a sign language class, my um team, my my co-teacher was um a student who was deaf, and he named me.
27:09
SPEAKER_03: And so the tradition is only someone who's deaf or hard of hearing can give someone a name sign.
27:17
SPEAKER_03: So the sign that he gave me was teacher J.
27:22
SPEAKER_03: So that that was who I was to him, and that really stuck with me.
27:28
SPEAKER_03: I was an ed major, it fit with everything that I thought about myself.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: Like I'm here to help and inform and you know, whatever way that I can.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I never questioned it.
27:38
SPEAKER_03: Like anytime I run into someone who's deaf now, I could change that.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: I could just fingerspell my name, I could, you know, whatever, but I introduce myself that way and then fingerspell my name so that they know what that J stands for.
27:50
SPEAKER_03: But that's still part of my identity in my mind.
27:54
SPEAKER_03: And when I was in New Mexico during my um summers between college years, I was named by a Navajo, I was named Blo Nazenda, which means always laughing, because I was always smiling and happy.
28:10
SPEAKER_03: And so those types of things, like I'm happy to keep those, and let's forget about the negative ones.
28:19
SPEAKER_04: That's so true.
28:20
SPEAKER_04: The negative ones are always harder, they're always, always harder.
28:24
SPEAKER_04: When we were when you guys were talking earlier, uh, when this first started, and B, you were sharing a little bit, and B and I have had a conversation um back when DW first started, um, and we talked about a lot of the labels that we have.
28:37
SPEAKER_04: And it's funny because my, you know, when my ex left and I was the single mother, that defined everything I did.
28:45
SPEAKER_04: It was like, oh no, I can't apply for this job because I'm a single mom.
28:48
SPEAKER_04: And I mean, what what how am I gonna do that?
28:50
SPEAKER_04: I've been home taking care of children for 13 years.
28:52
SPEAKER_04: I can't do that.
28:53
SPEAKER_04: Oh, you know, well, I'm just a single mom.
28:55
SPEAKER_04: So, and then when I met the wonderful man I'm married to, everyone was like, You're really lucky to find him.
29:01
SPEAKER_04: You're really like nobody was like, hey, he's lucky that you're awesome.
29:04
SPEAKER_04: Nobody did that.
29:05
SPEAKER_04: So those tags really defined me for a long, long time.
29:09
SPEAKER_04: And then even taking the jump from, you know, what I was doing before to just being a full-time writer, it was, you know, mind-blowing to me when I figured it out.
29:20
SPEAKER_04: But at first I was like, oh my goodness, I can't leave this job.
29:23
SPEAKER_04: I can't run a business.
29:24
SPEAKER_04: I can't, you know, how how am I gonna figure out how to do this?
29:27
SPEAKER_04: And when I left my last day, my boss was like, Oh, you're gonna be back.
29:30
SPEAKER_04: You're never gonna make it as a writer.
29:31
SPEAKER_04: And I would, I came home and I cried for hours because I just invested all this money in myself.
29:36
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, what am I doing?
29:38
SPEAKER_04: Oh my God.
29:38
SPEAKER_04: And my husband was like, Um, honey, you've been running this lady's business for three years.
29:44
SPEAKER_04: He's like, You've been running her entire company.
29:46
SPEAKER_04: What do you mean you can't run a business?
29:47
SPEAKER_04: He's like, You've been doing it.
29:48
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Oh, oh, okay, yeah, I can do this.
29:52
SPEAKER_04: It's fine.
29:53
SPEAKER_04: So it's so funny because you really do get stuck in those, those words, those, you know, labels that you're taught, that that little tiny box.
30:01
SPEAKER_04: And it's very scary to push that box wall down and step outside and be like, oh, you know, it was just a scary inside the box.
30:09
SPEAKER_04: It's just a scary outside the box, but in a completely freeing way.
30:13
SPEAKER_04: So I think that that's really interesting when we talk about labels, because as we're all sitting here sharing, there's good labels and then there's bad labels.
30:22
SPEAKER_04: And I guess the question that most of us have to ask ourselves is like you guys were saying, what label do we want to put on ourselves?
30:28
SPEAKER_04: What label am I comfortable in?
30:30
SPEAKER_04: What label do I want to be perceived as?
30:31
SPEAKER_04: What do I want to embody?
30:33
SPEAKER_04: That kind of thing.
30:34
SPEAKER_05: Well, MJ, I want to get the email of the guy who told you that you're gonna fail as a writer because I want to email him and be like, oh, I found the greatest writer if you ever need content.
30:42
SPEAKER_05: Her name is MJ.
30:43
SPEAKER_05: And she is like phenomenal.
30:45
SPEAKER_05: She's writing it.
30:46
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
30:47
SPEAKER_05: Just to like, just to throw it in his face.
30:49
SPEAKER_04: But I want to say about label.
30:50
SPEAKER_04: Because they came back around.
30:51
SPEAKER_04: I actually just ran into them.
30:52
SPEAKER_04: Uh, it's a husband and wife team.
30:54
SPEAKER_04: I just came, I just ran into them.
30:55
SPEAKER_04: They were like, hey, so would you like consider coming back and doing some writing for us?
30:59
SPEAKER_04: I was like, you know what?
31:00
SPEAKER_04: I'm really slammed right now.
31:02
SPEAKER_04: I gotta go eight months out on booking.
31:04
SPEAKER_04: Eight months from now, we'll circle around and review.
31:07
SPEAKER_04: Like, really?
31:08
SPEAKER_04: I was like, yeah, eight months.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
31:10
SPEAKER_07: My price has gone up significantly since that time.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: So you know, it's amazing too when someone says something like that to you.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: How much time do we spend actually attaching that label and like almost focusing on the wrong direction before removing it and realizing, oh my gosh, this was so easy.
31:28
SPEAKER_02: Like Kent is helping me right now with book development.
31:31
SPEAKER_02: You guys, I have built this up to be like it makes me want to cry because I I literally feel these feelings of like there's this massive cliff in front of me, and there's no way I can climb it.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: There's no way I can write a book.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: And then we have a conversation, and I'm like, oh, well, I've already written like two, you know, a third of it.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm okay.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm this isn't so scary.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: And everything is like that, you know.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm I want you guys to be really real with me right now because one of my favorite conversations to have is introvert extrovert.
32:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay, those two tags.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: So, how many of you have really big dreams for your books or really big goals for your clients' books?
32:13
SPEAKER_02: And you are limited by the tag shy or introvert.
32:19
SPEAKER_07: Used to be.
32:20
SPEAKER_05: It's really funny because anytime I go to an expo, I I'm an extrovert, but I attract introverts.
32:26
SPEAKER_05: And how it usually works is like it usually will be like another influencer, like at a gluten-free expo.
32:31
SPEAKER_05: And that the the introvert um influencer will actually hang around me and I'll talk to people and then she'll get to like hang like so.
32:39
SPEAKER_05: It works out really well because I I actually like hanging out with introverts because it makes me shut up.
32:45
SPEAKER_05: Like it makes me aware of like how much I talk.
32:48
SPEAKER_05: So it makes me more aware of like, hey, I need to let the other person speak and I need to be a listener.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: It's okay, Lynn, just hit the nail on the head, also.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: So when you are heavy on one side or the other, we judge the other, right?
33:01
SPEAKER_02: So I remember I'm super extroverted too.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: So Lynn, we are like soul sisters here.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: Um I remember anytime I met an introvert, I just felt like they didn't like me.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: I just instantly was like, God, they're so mean and they like they don't talk to me and whatever, right?
33:17
SPEAKER_02: Whatever the poor me feelings are.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: But what I realized is I'm a major me monster.
33:23
SPEAKER_02: I hate silence.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: So silence is something I've had to really sit with and be comfortable with, or else guess what I do to introverts?
33:32
SPEAKER_02: I make them more introverted because they're not gonna jump in and you know beat me down on what I'm saying.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: Excellent point, Lynn.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting because I'm an extrovert and I know I was feeling I kind of I had to leave the group for a little bit for some schedule reasons.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: And then as I started considering coming back, I thought, you know, I just want to be out.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: I want I've got to do life and not just write about it.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: And that's maybe that's just for those introverts, you know.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's really not me.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, here I am.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm discounting the writing side of it and thinking, well, that's not that's not who I am.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: I want to be, I want to be out there, I want to live life.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: I want to, you know, in the meantime, I don't want to sit in my room and just quiet, which I had been doing for about a month, and and I just needed to break out, I think.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting that that conflict about writing versus our introvert, extrovert decision.
34:24
SPEAKER_05: I think see, for well, for me anyway, there's certain times I'm more introverted, I guess, because like if it's not a space where I'm not an expert, I'm definitely more introverted because I'm learning.
34:34
SPEAKER_05: But um, in a space where like I either I'm leading a workshop or whatever, I'm definitely extrovert more extrovert because I definitely get more of my energy from like whoever is hanging around.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: I would love to hear from Jeffrey and Jim if you guys feel like jumping in.
34:52
SPEAKER_05: They're introverts, they're not gonna talk too much.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't know either of them.
34:57
SPEAKER_02: We are tearing out the tags today.
35:00
SPEAKER_04: Jeffrey, you go first.
35:01
SPEAKER_04: I'll sh I'll talk too much.
35:03
SPEAKER_04: So you go first, please, Jeffrey.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: Sure, I'll I'll go ahead and um then take the baton.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm Jeff, and I'll follow B's wonderful example with some personal examples of labeling myself.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: Um first, on a more academic note, um when I was in when I was in college, a sociology theory that really resonated with me was called labeling theory.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: It's always struck me as true about the world, is that people live down to their expectations live down to other people's expectations of them.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: If you have someone who has a reputation as a thief, it doesn't matter if they're really a thief, if nobody trusts them and thieves welcome them with open arms and they can't get any legitimate jobs, they're going to become a thief because the world's already shaped them that way.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: That's powerful.
35:43
SPEAKER_05: That's that's like the Eddie Murphy, the Eddie Murphy movie.
35:46
SPEAKER_05: I can't think it was back in the early 80s where they treated him like royalty and then he ended up acting like royalty.
35:52
SPEAKER_05: It's coming to America.
35:53
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: Which just has a sequel up right now.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: Kent has to be super proud of me, you guys.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't do any movie references ever.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: I just I'm wearing the tag winner for today.
36:07
SPEAKER_07: This isn't really a call unless we have a godfather reference in there somewhere.
36:11
SPEAKER_07: Jim and I always have a godfather reference.
36:14
SPEAKER_05: If you're treated like a person who is from the mafia, then you will become the mafia.
36:19
SPEAKER_06: That's true.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: So Jeffrey, Jeffrey makes an excellent point about the labeling theory, and it's uh it's used a lot in criminology because we tend to look at people like once they've done one thing wrong, they're gonna continue to do it over and over again.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: I just had a guest on my show, on my podcast named Dr.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: Cam, and her name is Cameron Caswell.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: She said, if you call your kid a liar because they've lied to you, they you are then looking for evidence to support that they are a liar.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, they will become a liar because we are labeling them.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: There's no way for them to buck that tag or remove it because you're gonna continue catching them lying versus look for reasons to see that they're telling the truth.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: Wow, exactly.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: It's self-fully prophesying.
37:09
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we used to do that a lot in teaching.
37:10
SPEAKER_05: They would tell us, like, you know, like kids would be like, oh, I'm I'm not a good student or I'm not whatever.
37:15
SPEAKER_05: I'm like, who told you that?
37:16
SPEAKER_05: And they're like, Well, I'm just not.
37:17
SPEAKER_05: I'm like, well, if you're telling yourself that, then you need to change what you're telling yourself because you are a good student.
37:23
SPEAKER_05: So you need to just like and you have to like literally brainwash your kids into thinking they're good students.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: If they think they're not a good student, they won't study because they think there's no point because they're not a good student, and then they're not a good student.
37:36
SPEAKER_07: You know, it's it's funny from a teaching perspective.
37:38
SPEAKER_07: So I think most of you know in my day job, I'm a college prof, and um, I've been doing that for a long time.
37:44
SPEAKER_07: It is so funny because sometimes I've been teaching long enough to where now I have students who will come up to me that I've had years ago.
37:52
SPEAKER_07: And I've had this happen multiple times where they will say, Oh, you did this one thing in this class, or one time you said this thing to me that really impacted me, or something.
38:00
SPEAKER_07: And I'm thinking, first of all, I barely remember your name.
38:03
SPEAKER_07: And second of all, I have no idea what you're even talking about.
38:08
SPEAKER_07: And I know in in a couple of instances, I'm like, I'm pretty sure I never said that.
38:13
SPEAKER_07: But if they think I said it, which inspired them and on some level, I'm like, that's awesome.
38:18
SPEAKER_07: But it's it's so funny because as kids, we remember what teachers like we give teachers this outsized importance in our lives.
38:27
SPEAKER_07: And if a teacher has labeled us as something good or bad, we retained that through our whole life and it's it's crazy.
38:35
SPEAKER_07: Like I remember one um one single instance in junior high when my junior high English teacher told me that she wanted me to dedicate my first book to her.
38:47
SPEAKER_07: And I remembered that literally for 30 years, and I was finally able to do that a few years ago.
38:52
SPEAKER_07: But like that stuff just sticks with us.
38:54
SPEAKER_07: It's it's crazy.
38:55
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
38:56
SPEAKER_03: When I was in second grade, um, I had developed extremely bad anxiety, um, especially uh surrounding any kind of failure.
39:05
SPEAKER_03: And my family demanded perfection, especially when it came to came to my schoolwork.
39:12
SPEAKER_03: So if I ever missed anything on anything, boy, it was a beating.
39:16
SPEAKER_03: And so we had this new concept in math, and the lady, you know, teacher hands out the worksheets, and I'm sitting there, I'm going over it and going like OCD level, going over it and going over it to make sure that I got everything right.
39:27
SPEAKER_03: And I turned in my paper, and as I was, so I'm already like nervous, shaking, and you know, I'm gonna get killed when I get home if I don't make a perfect paper here.
39:36
SPEAKER_03: And I get back to my desk, and just before I sat down, the teacher looks up and she um she said, Wow, you know you're bad at math if Philip finishes before you do.
39:46
SPEAKER_03: And Philip was um developmentally delayed.
39:51
SPEAKER_03: So he was the lowest IQ in the class and the slowest at everything.
39:55
SPEAKER_03: And so she called both of us out and shamed both of us in that.
39:59
SPEAKER_03: And you know, that was in the early 80s, and I still remember that, and I still cry every time I think about it.
40:06
SPEAKER_03: Teachers affect people deeply.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
40:10
SPEAKER_05: Which is one of the reasons why I have seen so many teachers, and I'm like, you need to retire or you need to not be teaching because teaching I I taught for 10 years, and teaching is not a job you should be in if you're gonna bring your personal crap into the classroom and take it out on kids.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: I firmly believe there are some teachers that were bullies as kids, and they're still bullies as adults teaching this lets them be a bully in a professional capacity.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, I believe partly true.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: As writers, maybe you can help me with this, because I don't have great words to use for this, but there are tag leavers and there are tag takers.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: And I do think that there are industries that attract tag leavers.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, I'm here to tell you that most of the leaders in this world who are making lots of money and doing really amazing things are tag leavers.
40:58
SPEAKER_02: They are people who not are not affected, they are not empathetic, they are not paying attention to what you are saying, they don't care, and it's not that they don't care because they're am I allowed to say assholes?
41:10
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, yeah, they're assholes.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
41:14
SPEAKER_02: Normally I don't cuss, but there's my one for today.
41:18
SPEAKER_02: So well, it is true.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: And here's the thing is we are, I would say that I'm mostly in good company here with the fact that you are all empathetic people who care about people.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, that can become almost taxing of us because we are picking up tags that other people are leaving behind.
41:43
SPEAKER_02: So have you guys ever seen, and I I may be like, I'm the millennial that used to watch Nick at night.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: So the I Love Lucy episode where they're in the chocolate factory and they're they're like the chocolates are coming out as fast and they're wrapping them as fast as they can.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: At first, they're like managing it, right?
42:00
SPEAKER_02: And then eventually the chocolates are like spilling out and they're they're losing their minds.
42:05
SPEAKER_02: And then um Lucille Ball starts just like popping the chocolates in her mouth, and it's absolutely hilarious.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: But that's how I see the way that at least I went through life picking up labels.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: It's like I was stacked so full of labels that any dreams that I had were were so hidden underneath all of the junk that I had inside of me.
42:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, and I would venture to say that many of us have some dream that no one else knows about, that either a book idea, or maybe we want to write a song, or maybe we want to learn how to play an instrument, or maybe we want to travel to some wild country that our wife or spouse or husband doesn't have any you know desire to go to.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: Some dream that we think is so ridiculous it's not even worth saying.
42:53
SPEAKER_02: And we take that dream and we roll it up into a little scroll and we put it into the tips of our fingers and the ends of our toes, and then all of our crap gets stacked on top of it.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: And I like to say it like, imagine that your skin is like a t-shirt underneath all of you know this clean exterior, and I realize this isn't like a fancy t-shirt, but you know, it's clean, I look clean, but there's all these tags underneath this, right?
43:20
SPEAKER_02: There's all these tags that we're wearing inside, and if we flip that inside out, and normally if I had more time, I would attach tags to me as I go.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: But imagine like going to Walmart wearing this.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: Imagine going to Walmart wearing a tag that says porn addict, right?
43:40
SPEAKER_02: That's fun.
43:41
SPEAKER_02: Or how about uneducated or too shy to talk to the person at the front counter?
43:49
SPEAKER_02: Too scared, too fearful to share my dreams.
43:54
SPEAKER_02: My dream that only I know is shoved down in my fingers and toes.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: And so we're stuck.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: We're stuck behind this identity that is just bullcrap.
44:04
SPEAKER_02: It's absolute bullcrap.
44:08
SPEAKER_05: Well, I wanted to share one of the things I've been dealing with for the past, well, it's been more than three years, but more mostly dealing with for the past three years is that um I grew up in a very abusive household.
44:19
SPEAKER_05: So like you name the type of abuse.
44:21
SPEAKER_05: If I wasn't being abused, I was being neglected.
44:23
SPEAKER_05: And so that like, and then besides that, um, I was bullied for several years at school.
44:28
SPEAKER_05: So between like I literally between the age of zero and 18, I probably had two years where I wasn't either bullied or abused.
44:35
SPEAKER_05: And so there was a lot of tags I had to work myself out of.
44:39
SPEAKER_05: And one of the things that I really realized working through everything was that all of the tags I feel bad about are tags that someone else had said, like, hey, this is who you are.
44:51
SPEAKER_05: And I yeah, so I had to make a choice.
44:53
SPEAKER_05: Like to remove the tag, you have to make the choice to remove the tag.
44:57
SPEAKER_05: You had to make the choice to say, you know what, I'm gonna decide not to be this.
45:00
SPEAKER_05: So I had to decide not to be the victim.
45:02
SPEAKER_05: I had to decide like to have good self-confidence.
45:04
SPEAKER_05: I had to decide not to let someone else tell me like who I was or what to do.
45:09
SPEAKER_05: And it took a lot of work.
45:11
SPEAKER_05: Like it is not easy coming back from being a victim, especially when you're victimized so much as a kid.
45:17
SPEAKER_05: But um, that was one of the things I've been working on.
45:19
SPEAKER_05: And like, and then the more the more I realize, like, hey, I can take these tags off.
45:24
SPEAKER_05: I'm like, what about these other things?
45:26
SPEAKER_05: And so just like slowly peeling them off a little bit by a little bit, because you're not going to get all of them off at once.
45:32
SPEAKER_05: And the only reason, the only way you get a tag off is by working through that process of like whatever that feeling is guilt, shame, whatever.
45:40
SPEAKER_05: And once you've worked that through and then you've like said, okay, I'm deciding not to do this anymore, then you can remove that tag.
45:47
SPEAKER_05: But it is a process.
45:48
SPEAKER_03: Do you ever notice that some come back after you think they're gone?
45:52
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that happens sometimes because you you've had them so long and your brain is so used to telling you that same crappy negative story.
45:59
SPEAKER_05: It's so easy to fall back.
46:01
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
46:01
SPEAKER_05: So, like, that's totally true, Jennifer.
46:03
SPEAKER_05: Like, once you've actually gotten rid of it, sometimes it's like sitting in the back of your head, like tapping on your shoulder, and you have to be like, no, I'm gonna decide not to do that.
46:12
SPEAKER_02: Well, and here's the thing tags come from relationships and experiences.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: And as long as you're living, you have relationships and you have experiences.
46:21
SPEAKER_02: So there are people still in our lives today.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: And hopefully, if you've gotten all of these people out, congrats your freaking nations.
46:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, I am proud of you.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: But the truth is, most of us still have someone in our lives who tags us, who, and it may not even be a direct, right?
46:38
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's an implied, sometimes it's something somebody will say that triggers that tag, right?
46:45
SPEAKER_02: That just pings that tag, like Lynn is saying.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: And like my ex-husband used to tell me to grow up.
46:50
SPEAKER_02: So I was 10 years younger than him.
46:53
SPEAKER_02: He was a master's educated man, you know, much smarter than me.
46:59
SPEAKER_02: I made about three times as much money, but that did not matter because when he would tell me to grow up, I immediately was triggered.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm this dumb kid who doesn't know anything.
47:09
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, and at the end of the day, oftentimes it's projection from that person because they can't handle the actual genuine conversation that you're needing to have with them.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: But these tags are literally swirling around us, people, even complete strangers.
47:24
SPEAKER_02: So I say there are six things written on most tags.
47:28
SPEAKER_02: The first is brand, which is how somebody perceives us without even really giving us a chance to, you know, show up as anything different.
47:36
SPEAKER_02: It's external appearance.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: There's size, which is, you know, my capability is different because of how tall or short or fat or thin or whatever these horrible words we use to describe our our, you know, our overall size.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes our size can be our ideas and our thinking, right?
47:54
SPEAKER_02: Am I thinking small or am I thinking big?
47:57
SPEAKER_02: The third one is origin, and this is the checklist of expectations that we all grew up with.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: And every single one of us was made somewhere.
48:05
SPEAKER_02: I was made in Wyoming.
48:06
SPEAKER_02: Trust me, that checklist is very specific to the details of that childhood.
48:12
SPEAKER_02: Um, the fourth is material.
48:14
SPEAKER_02: This is the unique set of personality traits and core values that makes us completely different from anyone else in this world.
48:23
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know about you guys, but my entire life I was terrified, terrified to be an outsider.
48:29
SPEAKER_02: And I always was.
48:30
SPEAKER_02: I, no matter how hard I fit in, and sometimes I would try to fit in and go, I don't even like fitting in with you people.
48:37
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't want to be the same as you.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: But yet I was still so afraid of the outsider tag.
48:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, the fifth is care instructions.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: And this really, to Lynn's point and to um a couple other people that have said that they've gone through harsh childhood experiences.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: Like sometimes we have someone in our lives who taught us to have really poor care instructions for ourselves.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: And it's just a virtue of growing up in an environment where we weren't exemplified positive self-talk or positive relational conversation, um, and even positive experience.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: Like my mom wasn't allowed to be a cheerleader because cheerleaders were, you know, something.
49:19
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not, it's not an appropriate word to use here, um, even though I'm dropping A-bombs like nobody's business.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: But but anyway, the sixth and final thing, it is where my tags lived and and still do really, is foreign language.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: So on every tag, there is there are care instructions written on in a foreign language.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: And foreign language to me is a conversation that is had that I attach a tag based on, and it has either nothing to do with me.
49:50
SPEAKER_02: It can be a complete stranger that says something to me, or it can be someone in my family or friendship circle, someone who I love who says something that really just isn't cool, right?
50:01
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's a total foreign language.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: It should be something that I don't even understand.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: Yet I take that tag and I say, okay, well, I must be this because I'm continuously being told this.
50:14
SPEAKER_02: So because I'm an extrovert, if a group of strangers are talking crap about somebody who has a quality that's like mine, I will attach a tag because of that, which seems insane, but I do it.
50:31
SPEAKER_02: So if you guys were to share with kind of where your tags live in those categories, does any does anyone want to share kind of if one of those pops out to you?
50:42
SPEAKER_02: We've had a couple of origin tags for sure.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll share one tag and one thing that helped me overcome it since I haven't talked as much as I probably should.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: Um I grew up like a lot of us, grew up in a really abusive, uh dysfunctional home, working class.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: My tag is that people like me don't succeed.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a writer.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a successful people like me work until they die.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: And I have that internal voice of my parents and extended family in the back of my head, always pulling back that way.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: The one thing that's helped me though with that to some extent, I'm still struggling with it, and with overcoming labeling theory and the challenges of other people's identities of us, is cognitive therapy.
51:22
SPEAKER_01: That we see the world around us and we choose, we see it through our own filters and choose how to see it.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: That so many of our tags are invisible to other people.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: They're tags that we carry on the inside for ourselves, but they don't actually see us that way.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: For example, just a hypothetical example.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm sitting in a library reading a book.
51:39
SPEAKER_01: Someone looks at me, they cat, they give a quick layer and they look away.
51:43
SPEAKER_01: Is that making too much noise?
51:45
SPEAKER_01: Do they know me?
51:46
SPEAKER_01: Have they heard something about me?
51:48
SPEAKER_01: Or did he bite his tongue and he happened to look up at that moment?
51:51
SPEAKER_01: We don't really know the answer, but we assume we know a lot more about the people around us than we think we do.
51:56
SPEAKER_01: And we often assume that we're being judged when we're not really being judged at all.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: And so in so many of our tags, we have the power to accept them or reject them, and we don't realize it because we think everyone sees them when they really don't.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
52:12
SPEAKER_02: And how many of us are guilty of making those assumptions about others as well?
52:17
SPEAKER_02: Because I can tell you one of the hardest things for me about removing some of my tags, and I still have I I this is something that like if someone figures out the answer to this, we need to have a conference call.
52:29
SPEAKER_02: Because you you just were so wired to believe we know how to categorize people, and we don't.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: We have no idea what makes somebody tick, no clue.
52:41
SPEAKER_07: What is it within each of us that has this desire to categorize people?
52:46
SPEAKER_05: Because our brain, our brain, our minds love to like like just figure figure things out and know like what we're getting into, because getting into the unknown is necessary for our brain.
52:57
SPEAKER_05: So we think like, oh, I know exactly what this person is doing and why.
53:02
SPEAKER_05: And you really don't.
53:03
SPEAKER_05: And one of the things I realize is as I work through the process of like processing all of the abuse I've been through, I actually see what I used to do in other people.
53:11
SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, oh my God, did I look like that when I did it?
53:14
SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I'm sure I did, but I didn't know because I was inside my box.
53:18
SPEAKER_05: And so um, your brain does not like to change, and your brain likes to know it likes to know certainty and it likes to know what's going on.
53:25
SPEAKER_05: And so changing is hard because your brain likes to sit, like to sit in that discomfort, even if it's bad for you, because your brain knows what to expect.
53:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
53:35
SPEAKER_04: I think there's like a fine line between thinking and overthinking, right?
53:39
SPEAKER_04: So our brains want to think through the process, but our brain doesn't know when it's overthinking in those situations, right?
53:46
SPEAKER_04: It's just trying to come up with a solution to make the situation easier or a solution to make the puzzle fit so that our brain can navigate it.
53:54
SPEAKER_04: So your brain just keeps going until you actually say, Hey, stop.
53:57
SPEAKER_04: Okay, now we're we're just spiraling out of control.
54:00
SPEAKER_04: Like we're just putting things into the universe that are not there right now.
54:02
SPEAKER_04: But I don't think a lot of people are taught how to filter that because it's just what your brain automatically does.
54:09
SPEAKER_04: You're thinking through the process of meeting that person, or thinking through the process of the interaction with that person, or you know, sizing up the situation.
54:19
SPEAKER_04: I think it's just, you know, part of it is very much a natural instinct to think through what's about to happen, but we don't have that filter that stops us from the overthinking part, which is where I think a lot of our own personal experiences or labels start to get projected into the situation.
54:37
SPEAKER_05: No, that's absolutely true.
54:39
SPEAKER_05: That's actually one of the things I had to work on was stopping my thought process, like being aware of it, first of all, and then literally like very consciously stopping my thought process and being like, What am I doing?
54:51
SPEAKER_05: Why am I thinking this?
54:52
SPEAKER_05: Like, is this coming from me or is this coming from the other person?
54:55
SPEAKER_05: Like, you really have to reflect on like what your brain is doing in order to change those habits.
55:00
SPEAKER_05: And it's hard.
55:00
SPEAKER_05: It is hard, it takes time and it takes a lot of practice.
55:03
SPEAKER_05: It's like riding a bike, right?
55:04
SPEAKER_05: You're not gonna get on your bike your first time and ride it.
55:07
SPEAKER_02: So we also we live in a statement-based culture, right?
55:12
SPEAKER_02: So, how many people are really navigating through life asking the right questions and really asking detailed questions?
55:18
SPEAKER_02: We tend to be in a very statement culture, and what that leaves us with is feeling criticized or feeling like we aren't smart enough, or feeling like we're not good enough, right?
55:29
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe even sometimes too much, like the tag too much comes up a lot in my work.
55:34
SPEAKER_02: Um, I have a lot of clients who, if they're assertive, they feel like they're being too much.
55:38
SPEAKER_02: And so they will, they'll peel back, you know, some of their ability to delegate or some of their ability to network because they're scared they're too much when really they're just being assertive going after what they want.
55:50
SPEAKER_02: But what I find so interesting about what Lynn is saying is that we we have this, like it's vulnerable, right?
56:00
SPEAKER_02: It's vulnerable to not know.
56:01
SPEAKER_02: It's vulnerable to not be the expert or to not understand what somebody's saying.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: And so we we will kind of just like cower down or or pretend or do whatever when really, if it was supported in our culture to be like, hey, I don't, I don't understand this, and I would love to understand this and start asking the right questions.
56:22
SPEAKER_02: You guys, I my entire life I've always been fascinated by people who live with external disabilities because I believe there are many of us who live with internal disabilities that we hide.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, and unfortunately, for people who have external disabilities, they can't hide it, they don't have a choice.
56:38
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so, you know, different diseases and disorders have always really interested me.
56:44
SPEAKER_02: But I'm very, I've always been very afraid to ask the wrong questions or to say something that's gonna make them attach a tag or have an insecurity or feel bad.
56:55
SPEAKER_02: And I've just recently made my first friend who has cerebral palsy truly has been the greatest gift of my entire life.
57:02
SPEAKER_02: Like getting to just have conversation with him and just learn and just understand and hear what it's like and hear what he deals with, and hear how normal he is and how handsome he is and how gifted he is and how brilliant, like all of these things.
57:19
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm so grateful that we are the type of people we are and that we can see people for deeper tags and the beautiful, amazing things that they have because the tag levers are going through life and they're not seeing all the detail, they're not seeing this beautiful narrative that's being written about each individual person.
57:39
SPEAKER_02: And that makes you all so gifted and so special and so successful in what you're doing.
57:46
SPEAKER_02: And it also, just so you know, makes you more susceptible to attaching tags.
57:51
SPEAKER_02: But you guys, I know we're kind of getting, we're like right at the end here.
57:55
SPEAKER_02: I want to share one more thing with you.
57:57
SPEAKER_02: And really, there are two things that I believe help me remove tags on a regular basis.
58:04
SPEAKER_02: I don't personally find success by just thinking the thoughts.
58:08
SPEAKER_02: That's just not my style.
58:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm very visual.
58:11
SPEAKER_02: So the first that I do on a regular basis, if I can, is write the word and the definition down on a sticky note or a piece of paper.
58:21
SPEAKER_02: It is super, super important that if something pops up for you like unworthy, that is not it.
58:27
SPEAKER_02: That's not the tag.
58:28
SPEAKER_02: So you gotta go to where that feeling is coming from.
58:33
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes that takes just a few minutes of self-reflection and you know, asking yourself, like, why did what that person said really affect me this deeply?
58:42
SPEAKER_02: Because it could have something to do with your childhood.
58:44
SPEAKER_02: It could have something to do with stubbing your toe the day before.
58:49
SPEAKER_02: I um I quickly, sorry, I know we're out of town time, but I go by the name B.
58:55
SPEAKER_02: B feels good to me.
58:56
SPEAKER_02: I had friends in high high school who called me B.
58:59
SPEAKER_02: I hate the name Britney.
59:00
SPEAKER_02: Brittany is a name that I was always compared to Britney Spears.
59:04
SPEAKER_02: I was always one of three Britney's in every class.
59:07
SPEAKER_02: I loathe the name Brittany.
59:10
SPEAKER_02: Well, my name is Brittany.
59:12
SPEAKER_02: I go by B.
59:13
SPEAKER_02: My entire family still calls me Britney.
59:15
SPEAKER_02: So last weekend I spent the weekend with my family, and of course, everyone I met, they introduced me to as Brittany.
59:21
SPEAKER_02: And I jumped on a Monday conference call and I was so frazzled, I referred to myself as Brittany.
59:28
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, it did not feel good.
59:31
SPEAKER_02: And it, you know, like it took me a solid day of trying to figure out what in the world was wrong with me before I realized, like, I have to ask my family to stop calling me the name that they gave me.
59:43
SPEAKER_02: How awkward, you know.
59:45
SPEAKER_02: But but it's it's really getting to the root of what's going on and figuring out what exactly the word is that needs to be written on the paper.
59:53
SPEAKER_02: And then you wear it for a little while until you decide, I don't want to wear this tag.
59:59
SPEAKER_02: This tag is doesn't belong to me.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_02: And then you rip it, you shred it, you burn it, whatever you need to do.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_02: I keep mine in a jar that has a tornado in it because I'm an overthinker and that serves me to see all the crap that I pull off of myself.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: But if you want, you can throw them away.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: You can, you know, donate them to whatever you want.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_02: The second thing that you can do if you're out and about and a situation happens like happened to MJ, and somebody says something to you that's just like inappropriate and not okay.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to let it land on you.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_02: So many of us, you know, I told you I was the person that would jump in front of a negative.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_02: But even for those of us who aren't like that, we will almost be shocked that someone said something to us and it'll just land on us.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_02: And so what I've learned, and I'm a dancer, so you guys can put your own flair into this, but I do the lean and look.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: So if someone says something to me, I don't like it, I lean and I watch it hit the wall behind me.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_02: And I imagine whatever that is, because sometimes that person doesn't even know that they're being hurtful, right?
1:01:06
SPEAKER_02: Because they haven't lived the life that we've lived.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: So I take that like shatter like glass, like they're throwing a glass ball at me, and I just watch it shatter on the wall behind me.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_02: And then I tell myself that wasn't meant for me.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_02: And I just did a little move, let it fly by me.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_02: So those are my two, my two um tools, tricks, whatever you want to call them, to just help avoid some of those things from landing on me.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_07: This has been an absolute blast.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_07: Wow.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_07: This conversation could go on for hours.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_07: And the cool thing is that it can go on for hours.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_07: I feel like I'm doing a podcast episode here.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_07: It can go on for hours when you check out Bee's Tear Out the Tags podcast.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_07: Now I've got my podcaster voice going.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_07: I'm wearing the podcaster tag at this moment.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: Good.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: I know.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for the plug.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_07: But seriously, her seriously her show is really, really good.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_07: I love it.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_07: And you can look forward to Bee's upcoming book uh in a few months.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_07: Is that fair to say?
1:02:05
SPEAKER_07: Is it okay to let the cat out of the bag with that?
1:02:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it will make me continue to attach the tag.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm a writer, so I can hang out with all you amazing people.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_07: Absolutely.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_07: Well, this has been an absolute blast.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_07: And um, wow, a lot to unpack here, a lot to think about.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_07: Um, thank you all for showing up to this, by the way.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_07: This is probably the biggest call we've had, um, I think.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_07: So I appreciate y'all taking time to do this.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_07: I know it's during lunch and it's kind of a busy season for a lot of you, but and that this it means a lot that you would show up to these calls and engage and participate.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_07: And I hope that you feel this is valuable.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_07: Um, I've gotten a ton of value out of this, and B, I appreciate you taking time to do this.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_07: So thanks.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you guys, I I'm just beginning my journey and all of this.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_02: So any feedback that you'd like to send me, I'd love to hear from you guys.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, anything I can do differently or better.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm always I'm always an interested ear.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_02: And then anything I'm doing well, I also would appreciate, you know, just so I can continue to serve people like you and come and and do some amazing work.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_02: So I'd love to hear from you.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_07: Hey, I hope you enjoyed that conversation.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_07: My challenge to you is simply to embrace your identity as a writer.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_07: As you heard us talk about in this episode, we all struggle with imposter syndrome.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_07: We all struggle with uh it doesn't matter how what you've achieved or uh what kind of success that you perceive that you've had or other people perceive that you've had, we all struggle with with feeling like sometimes we're just not cutting it, and sometimes we do feel like impostors.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_07: So my challenge to you is no matter how much that you have achieved, maybe you've written lots of books.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_07: Maybe you have uh a very successful podcast or a company or something like that.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_07: Maybe you've never written anything.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_07: No matter where you are on that spectrum, I challenge you to continue embracing who you are as a writer because the absolute truth is that your words have the power to change the world.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_07: They really truly do.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_07: If you look at all of culture, if you look at all of written history, things happen whenever writers take action.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_07: Nothing happens in our culture without a writer being behind it.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_07: Screenplays, laws, speeches, TV shows, comic books, uh books, YouTube videos, those are all crafted and created by people who are who are creating content.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_07: Much of that is created by writers as well.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_07: So embrace your identity as a writer.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_07: Don't be afraid to put your stuff out there and make a difference in people's lives.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_07: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_07: If you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you know that one of the four practices of a great writer is creativity.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_07: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_07: And that's where writing prompts come in.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_07: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_07: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_07: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_07: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_07: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
1:05:16
SPEAKER_07: You can check it out at dailyriderlife.comslash writing prompt.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_07: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.