Unlimiting Yourself with Denise Hamilton

Published Dec 5, 2019, 4:03 PM

Ep. 14: Devi and 'Watch Her Work' CEO Denise Hamilton talk taking self imposed limits off of your life and capitalizing on opportunity -- Follow us on IG! - @DeviBrown

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Mm from grandmothers who whispered in their baby girl in two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the backs of diamond eyed school children who growing into hymnals recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments out of the windows of restored Alchemedo chariots to keep the warmth of their blood, be wise, be smart, being black, Opal Brown courts bloodstone and prayer. Be every form of jim se King told, scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife, wife told her daughter, and daughter told the ant. This is at the ancestors told me that you would come to give wisdom. Thousands. They said you would come. Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Dropping Gym's podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Brown. We are on episode fourteen. Oh my god, I say that every time, right, but it's still kind of blows me away, because keep in mind when I launched, it took me four years um to finally commit to doing this podcast. After I initially bought the equipment, had the vision, even had the name, and I just sat on it. And so now that I am like in the throes of it, and I'm reading all of the beautiful reviews that you guys take your very very personal, valuable time to write me and rate and all that. Um, yeah, I'm kind of like, hey, fourteen episodes, let's go. I'm right, So today's show. Um, one of my girlfriends, one of my dearest friends from my time in Houston. She and I bill this beautiful bond in Houston, and we were both kind of beginning to build businesses at the same time and kind of getting out of previous career trajectories at the same time. And she was in town here I'm based in l A for the weekend for this big summit that's happening. And so initially the plan was she landed at the crack of dawn and I was like, girl, just get in the ober, comes straight to my house. I'll have some coffee for you, we'll have breakfast. Quest will be chilling. Um. And then we sat down and you know, we're we're sipping our coffee, eating our eggs, and we start talking and I'm like, what are we doing? This conversation needs microphones, stat So that is what we are doing. And I'm so excited to share her with you because she is just such a dynamic, multitalented, multidimensional true boss. So my special guest today is my dear friend Denise Hamilton's who is the CEO of Watch, her work which is a learning platform for women to access tangible tools for career building. So right now on the website, she has over seven thousand videos of content of interviews with women who are excelling in a multitude of fields, being everything from engineering to entertainment to tech to education. So many different perspectives and different success stories of women of all shape, sizes, colors, ages. Content is available online and offline. She does some amazing workshopping events, does a lot of corporate consulting, and just this calendar year alone, and we are in right now November, the beginning of November, so not even a full calendar year. She has spoken in front of over a hundred and twenty five thousand people. Yeah, and I'm not just talking about on the Graham. I'm not saying she has that many followers. And so she's just tweeting and oh that's my audience, like no physical bodies filling seats. So without further do, welcome to my dearest one, Denise Hamilton's hey girl, Hey girl, I'm so happy you're here. I'm over the moon to be here. You are one of my favorite people to converse with in real life. Um you always have just such incredible perspective and jes your your depth of knowledge on so many subjects. It is so rare that I'm always like, oh, so let me say this to Let's take a second. Everybody, stop what you're doing and get a pen. I promise you get a pen, get a pad of paper nearby, because there's gonna be a lot of quotables. So we'll take a second. One, two, got it all right? So you know, Denise, there's so many There's truly so many directions I could take this conversation, but I would really like to start off with you by you sharing with me and the audience. What is watch her work? My favorite topic? So um I started watch your work to solve the problem. Um I had been an executive for over twenty five years, the only African American, the only woman, and so many different situations, and I became kind of a lightning rod from men tees. Everybody wanted to pick your brain? Can I take you to lunch? And I could add coffee eleven times a day? Right, because people have a need, right, there's a hunger for information. They want to know how to do things the right way. What what They don't want to zig when instead of zagging right, Like, they don't want to step in the same puddles I've already stepped in, And um, it was it was hard. Um, it was really hard. And I started talking with my peers and they were having the same problem. They didn't see their own kids and they just didn't have time. I was like, how do we get to be in charge of equality? We're struggling ourselves. So it occurred to me, Let's film this. Let's scale this. People are asking essentially the same questions. Let's film the content and organize it in such a way that they could access it when they need. What are some of the biggest questions I guess women are having in the workspace right now? Um, how do I get hurt in a meeting? How do I deal with um unequal power on a team? Um, how do I tell my boss I'm pregnant. How do I ask for a raise? How do I handle if they tell me no? Because we don't talk about that a lot. What do you do? I know what to do with my boss hits on me? What do I do if a client hits on me? Yeah? God and so. And what I really love about your platform specifically is the women who are offering a lot of this wisdom are from all walks of life. So these are veterans, right, or they are mid level or new right navigating more of a millennial work landscape. But it's women of all shapes, sizes, colors, and professions. Like you could be getting advice from an engineer, from someone in entertainment from someone you know it, maybe in veterinary medicine, all kinds of things, all of the things. And I think, what I think is so incredible about that and so important is we So you get a lot of good information on Instagram, right, But we have to stop letting random Instagram memes and quotes be the guiding post for our lives because most of the people that write these things do not have real experience in the things that they're sharing, but they know that these things are popular, so a lot of the advice is not good for you, especially when it comes to work. There is a lot of toxic advice that will keep you from being able to make good money and grow the way that you need to, especially because a lot of the people offering some of this stuff are not people that have real work life experience. They either are just great at motivating people naturally um or they just have freelancer online experience, but their understanding of truly excelling in the workspace is not there. Why because people that are really excelling in these workspaces do not have the time to create content for you online that is real and useful. Absolutely. I mean that's why we turned on the camera, right, because, um, you have theoretically what you think would work in that situation. I want to talk to people who actually have executed, who did this strategy and succeeded, or who did this strategy and failed, and maybe tell you, hey, hey, don't do this, don't step in that landline. Right. We want to glean experience from people that are experienced, and there's so much information. Everybody is a coach these days. Oh man, this is like a little bit I've been trying to find the way that I want to word this right because I want to honor everybody's path and I don't like currently in my life right now, I don't exist in a space of having a lot of judgment or harsh criticisms for people. I don't like talking about people at all, like at all, I don't like discussing people. But there is a space right now where because the landscape is so open up, opened up, which is phenomenal, right, Like there's so many different ways each of us can make money nowadays that have never existed before, Like thousands of careers that never existed before have popped up in the last couple of years. Um. But in that same space, there is a lot of people who have amassed social media followings that are giving advice that they don't really know works right, Like they're saying the right motivating things like you gotta you gotta walk in and know you're worth girl, or you gotta you gotta ask for what you're worth, You've gotta demand what you're worth. And the cold heart truth is right because all of these are are generalizations. Cold heart truth is you also have to factor in the temperament and the personality type of the people that you work with and the people that you're talking to, what their level of skill is and influences how they got to where they got right, what the structure the corporate culture is. But also if we could be honest and real right now, the majority of the people taking these Instagram memes and walking in these rooms with this as their motivator have not earned that seat. Right. So you're just saying I'm unhappy. I'm not feeling enough fulfilled here. Oh ship, I need more money because I got bills. Let people say what I'm worth and you don't even know if that's what you're worth. It's really toxic. Yeah, it's a crisis. And I don't use that word lightly. When I speak at event and maybe there's two thousand women, I'll have a hundred young women waiting to talk to me after I speak because they're lost. Um hashtagg you go girl, right, I love it. It's it's all the positive encouragement is great, but what we don't have is the layers down. We need more depth. We're super wide right now, but we need more up. And that's really why I tried to gather people from all walks of life, all expertise, all backgrounds, because you need to hear somebody who's really like you, but you also need to hear somebody that's totally different from me. Give you a perspective of how to approach a problem, because you know something that you said off Mike that we were talking about earlier, was there. There's also so many variables that are factored into everything, you know, especially based on how you look. You treated different, right, like are you a very attractive person? You're gonna be treated different at work? Are you an extrovert? Are you an introverting you? Fin? Are you? Are you petite? How hard is it to be heard in a meeting when you're five feet tall? That's a person. They have a whole different set of experiences than you and I have. Yeah, as we are. So how could you possibly get all of your advice from Chryl Samberg? Yeah, you know, like there's so many of yeas so when also and it's like much love to Ryl Samberg because she is bomb in many ways, but it's like, well, but how useful is that for my black ass? You know what I mean? Because it's also it's different, right, like what she is saying is amazing, but it's also you are a middle aged white woman who lives in Silicon Valley, and if I'm working at maybe perhaps like like a minority owned startup in Oregon or like, it's just different. It's just different, and we do have to wait in We don't need to silence her voice. Yeah, no, not at all. There's a whole spectrum of experiences and I want to hear from everybody of how they've handled different things and different challenges. And um, we don't really have a place for that. Um we are you know, there's definitely this concept of wanting milk instead of meat, and what I try to give people is meat. Um. We we've moved past the basic level. Let's talk about the real things you need to do to really succeed. Yeah, because you know what, like motivation without self awareness is useless, dangerous, it's dangerous. You're gonna play yourself over and over again. One of the most powerful things people respond to when I say in my presentations is we have to stay coachable. Right. We have gotten so empowered that we're not coachable anymore. Nobody could tell you anything, right, and so um at a friend who worked at a university and he got an administrative position very young. It's he's a black guy. It's him and seventy white guys. Amazing. He's twenty eight years old, really outstanding. He was insecure about his youth, so he decided he was going to grow a beard. Right, the beard was busted, scraggy. It was terrible. It was just awful. And an African American employee at the at the college took him to the side and said, bro, it's not working. So my friend is telling me this story. And I said, could a white guy have told you that? M would you have received that If a white guy had pulled you to the side and told you that, and he said no, I probably would have been offended. I would ascribed a whole bunch of other stuff to it. And y'all, that's dangerous. If people who are in positions of power can't share that power with us, can't help us if we're off track, can't give us feedback to help us grow. You're not going to be promoted. You're gonna work and work and move from job to job, but never excel. And you won't even know why because no one feels empowered to tell you the truth. Can I tell you that when you get upset, you crack your neck? Can I tell you that you're too loud? Can I tell you that, um, you're getting a reputation in office for a spreading gossip? Can I Can I really tell you the things that are stopping you. You can fix all of those things. All of those things are fixable. They're not fixable if you don't know. So, if you're not, if you're not open, nobody's gonna tell you. Because I hate to break it to you, nobody's ending up in hr for you. I'm not. I'm not gonna do it. Nobody's gonna risk their position, their authority. They're not gonna be in mess for you. So if I think, hey, Debbie, I see a lot of potential in her. I think she can really go far. She's really got to work on these three things. But if I tell you those three things, I think that's gonna blow back on me. I'm never gonna tell you those two things. So literally, I tell people in my UM seminars and in my sessions, if you have a sponsor, a mentor, and employer, a boss, somebody who has been sowing into you, and you have a good relationship with called them to day and say it has occurred to me that maybe I have not presented myself to you as being fully open to hearing any feedback that you have, and I want to let you know right now that this is a safe space. I want to hear everything that you have to say. If it's gonna make me better, I want to receive it. Whenever I tell him that, the next day I'll get seventy emails because they're like, oh my god, it worked. He gave me so much information. She told me some stuff I had never heard before, and now I feel like I can fix it. Right. We have to be open to growth, and we can't break down along racial lines, sexual lines. We've we've got to be open to hear even if it doesn't sound good. And I got to tell you it's hard in the hashtag you go girl era to hear stuff that doesn't sound good because I think to the way that things are spun and it's everything is put under this empowerment bubble. But a lot of people that are preaching this empowerment talk or listening to it are not also doing the self work necessary to embody what true authentic self empowerment is you know, like being empowered is just it's not going in an office and being a brat, you know, like it's not going in the office and demanding your way. It's knowing exactly who you are for real, being open to feedback, um, and just really having having some tact and having more of a sense of yourself and and not taking things personally. I see too many people taking everything so personally in the workspace, or they expect for their work to bring them all the joy that they're supposed to have in life. Yeah, you're supposed to have a life. Work is part of your Yeah, well, because so many people too. It's like when you don't know who you are, because that's also a process, especially to heading on what age you are. You know, we none of us come to this earth with it all together. Um. As you're starting to navigate who you are, what you stand for, what your identity is, the easiest way to do that is to attach it to your titles, to attach it to what you do for a living. So then you're teaching yourself that your only value exists within that box. So then when things aren't going your way within that box, you were having crisis, like you were really suffering inside, or you're taking things really personal, or your confidence is getting completely shattered. And I'll add to that, Entrepreneurship is great. I'm an entrepreneur, you're an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is awesome, but it's not for everyone, and we shame people because they're just you're oh, you're just in a corporate job. My god, if everybody leaves corporate, we won't have any black CEOs, we won't have any female CFOs, we won't like somebody's got to stay in corporate. We need people in every sector. But we are shaming people because they don't have side hustle, because they don't have a podcast, because they didn't write. I mean, yeah, I talk. I literally what you just said. I talk about all the time, like on this show, and when I do speaking, it's like, it sickens me how much comparative shaming is happening, and how there is this false narrative now that if if, if your life isn't done in a really grandiose way or in a way that elicits other people's jealousy or comparison on social media, then you don't matter or you're not doing anything important and that is bull shit. That is ridiculous. Um. I mean I think that we just have a skewed sense of what success. Yeah right, what does success look like? And through my work, what I've tried to do is give people to help them be grounded and give them a sense of like you're starting here and where you're starting is Okay. If I a rose bush and the first leaves pop up, I don't yell at it because it's not doesn't have roses on you. Yeah, it's not a long steam bouquet. Ye. Yeah. And when it grows further and it's just a bud um, I don't yell at it because it bloom hasn't bloomed yet. Like we have to let people be at the season that they are right and honor those seasons. And everybody wants to be cooked. And because the tools are so so cheap, now everybody can get a logo and get a website and get this because it's everybody can buy a course about something. It's like we have a whole it feels like a whole generation of people that are not cooked. Yeah, they're not fully they're not fully cooked. Yeah, or the or their microwave cooks, so the quality of food is lower. Yeah, it's it's not the same as an oven cook So how do you cultivate that that depth and get real? Right? And for me, the journey I've been on is unlearning is unlearning? So how much take? How do you? Um? But one of my favorite movies is Jurassic Park, And that is not what I expected you to say. That is very random. So really the first one, the first one, um, And there's a there's a line where he says, you know, the velociraptors are testing defenses and they remember they're testing for weaknesses. Um. And in a way, that's what we all need to be doing. We need to be testing all of these beliefs, all of these assumptions, all of these things that we think are truisms, are they true? Right? Right? I would love to sit here for a second, um and share some of my process, right because I think something you just said is something I think often. Um. This desire to not be seen at as at a starting point is really going to hinder the lives of so many young women, you know, and I get it. The risks are higher and the wrapping has changed, Like we're sharing ourselves in a way that we never have before on social in real time, you know. And so with that comes this sense that you don't ever want anyone to think that you're anything less than amazing and great and pop in. Right, But like when you dig inside deep in yourself, there is this not just peace, but there is just this sturdiness, this knowing nous, right, Like, I know I'm great, I'm amazing, but I don't have to tell everybody that, right because me knowing it is more than enough. And also I'm not moved by anyone's praise or criticism. Actually don't like when I'm places and people try to lesson themselves when they're with me, or when they try to pander to me too much about oh you're this and you're that amazing. If you do feel connected to me of anything you've ever heard me say or do, I recognize it, and I am grateful and I'm grateful for you sharing it with me. But also the only reason you think I'm so great is because you see some of yourself in me, which means you're great, which means that if you tap into that, you are everything already that you think I am. You know, so I I try to live in exist in a space where I am not moved by the criticism or by the praise. I am only moved by the dial of my own soul and my own spirit and the areas in which I know I'm being called to stretch, or the areas I'm being called to share or to be even more still you know. Um. But I think that that comparative place with social media, just with the amount of content and information that is going on, also with the amoun of new jobs there are. In the comparison there, it's really really difficult for most people to be in the present and to value, love and celebrate themselves for the position you're in. When I started in Turning, I was so proud to tell people I was an intern. I would say it from the top of my lung. Yeah, in turn at the radio station. To me, that was popping. If you meet a radio intern now, the first thing they're going to try to do is take away that label. And because they don't want people to judge where they're at or not think they're super important overnight, which doesn't happen for anyone. I worked in media for over ten years, close to fifteen years that's why I have the access that I have, That's why I have the relationships I have. So if you're in year one or two and you're comparing yourself to that, that would be an insane amount of suffering. You're causing yourself for no reason. You'll get there if you're supposed to be. We're at different places, you know. But so I think that that really, that part is really tough for people. And it's like that's also what keeps their pride levels so high that they can't actually grow and what they're doing or in their career. Absolutely and use the right word suffering. Um, and I see it. I see it firsthand. They won't start. Think of that. Think if we have of young women who won't start. They have a dream, they have a fire, they have a zeal for something, but they're afraid to start because if it can't start at a then I'm not going to start. I can't put the CEO in my bio the second I think of the idea for the business, then no. And it's so toxic because it cost us because if if you know, like I understand, if I want to play the piano, I've got to start, and I've got to practice, and I'm gonna get better and better and better, and it's gonna take practice every day. And I'm I'm not going to be a concert pianist overnight. Right, every thing is like that. We understand, but everything is like that. But we've created this space where people feel just perpetually inadequate. And I know if it's sustainable we go from here. It's not. But yeah, and and and I think that kind of ties into two. Like when we were talking about this nine to five shaming that happens, like, let's be clear, if the entire world were made up of entrepreneurs, this society is not sustainable, especially like think about right now, Like if you have your business and you need to scale your business, you need to be able to hire employees. But according to your theory, if someone has a nine to five and is an entrepreneur and their own boss, then their life sucks. So who's going to be your employees? You know, it's just But also outside of that, it's like when you when you're growing as yourself and you understand that you are valuable merely because you exist and that's enough, then you won't feel the need to try to elevate yourself above other people, and you also won't all the need to recoil if you don't think you're perceived as good as someone else. Um. Yeah, I think from for me when I think about kind of the mythology of our culture. Every we are a series of myths, right, That's what we are. Um. And we're at a stage in history where we've got to test every single myth is it true? Every single one, every single one of us has to test is it true. I'll give you a couple of examples. Um. Rapunzel, do you remember Rapunzel, super ridiculously long hair, stuck in the tower, trapped quote unquote trapped. She helped her mother get in and out of the tower for years, help the prince get in and out of the tower. Girl, it was your hair. Why didn't you help yourself get out of the tower? Like, why didn't you use your giftedness, your abilities, your uniqueness to help yourself? Right? So here's a subtle little message of use your gifts to help other people, not to help yourself. A little mermaid, you can have the man of your dreams. Oh you have to do is give up your voice. I mean, really, we play that far our children. Beauty and the Beast, Oh god, I know, I know it. Beauty and the Beast, my favorite dis the movie of all time. Remember how the movie starts, Bell is in the dungeon. The Beast put her father in the cold dungeon. Bell comes in and sacrifices herself to be his prisoner. So right, yeah, I mean, do I have the story? And then she wins him over right? I mean it's like Stockholm syndrome. He yells at her, he terrorizes her. She even runs out in the night in the night one of the in the movie because he scares her so badly. But does the message you true love will make a beast a prince and you should tolerate all of this bad behavior until he transforms. No, no, and he only transforms if you love him. If you love him. Oh girl, that's some toxic mess. And we really literally play that. We've all been raised on that, And I always want to tell people, like, we're at a point where so many of us have embodied that archetype of without even realizing, without realizing, we're co creating a new reality. And some of this stuff it just has to go. It just has to go. We have to look at it objectively, even if we love it. It's like vix vapor rub. They have been seven thousand reports that tell you it does not work. It isn't how many houses in America because people still believe you gotta cold put some vix on your chest. It doesn't work. But we love to hold onto and grasp our mythology. So my favorite myth that is giving me life right now is the college cheating scandal. It's giving me life. It's giving me life in my soul because one of the biggest myths in the world is if you go to the Ivy League, you're better. They're just better. Well, if of the school is legacy kids who just got in because their parents went there, how could it possibly be better. It's like, it's not possible for it to be better, right, But we we sustained those stories and those myths, and so now here we have this child college cheating scandal and it's cracking it wide open and we get to see, wait, maybe this isn't true. Maybe that young lady who um stepped over drugs, dodged um gangs, ended up graduating top of her class, but she went to University of Houston instead of Harvard. Maybe she's valuable too, Maybe she doesn't have great internships or great correctra extracurricular activities because she was working two jobs to pay for her younger siblings. You mean you can't use her in your company because she didn't go to Brown, because she didn't go to Princeton. Of course you can. So we're seeing what I think of as a great unlearning, a great cracking open of peeling the layers. Yeah, and just throwing away stuff that doesn't serve us. And one that I'm I'm personally struggling with as a black woman. You have to be twice as good. You have to jump twice as high, you have to be twice as Wait a minute, I'm enough. I don't even have to be twice of anything. What if I'm just enough? Just as I am. You take me or you leave me, but I am enough. Think of the message, and I get the intention of pushing you to strive and to work harder and to understand limitations. But I don't want to teach my daughter limitations. I don't want to tell her that she's not enough just being herself. Right. So, so my biggest challenge to people is to test your beliefs, think about what you think about, think about what you consume, feed yourself correctly. That's why I love the work that you do, because what you feed is what grows what you put into your psyche. I always say you have to protect your magic, right, and we don't protect our magic. We take all kinds of nonsense into our spirit. And they were surprised that we get nonsense out of it. And must be clear to like what magic is, right because a lot of people think that magic is that they're attractive, or that you know they have the latest this or the latest that, or their popular magic is self awareness. So magic is being so deeply in acceptance of yourself that you are unmovable, or as I like to say, you are unfatable, because no matter what is happening around you, you accept yourself and you're honest with yourself about who you are, and you're being of service on your terms. Like that to me is magic, you know absolutely, Because I think that we've gotten to a space where we have a short list of what's great. M So many things are great. Oh that's good. So many things are great. There's so many gifts that we overlook or we squander, you know, and I call it the Michael Jordan's principle. Right, the person that can dance wants to be able to sing the purple, that person that can see wants to be able to write the person we naturally covet other people's gifts. When you are in the fullness of yourself, you are crystal clear what your gifts are and what you bring to the world. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player in the world, wants to play baseball. That's just how we are as human nature. We want to push into something else. But if you learn how to find your gift and you own it and you share it unapologetically, unrestrictedly, just you're clear about what your magic is, who can stop you? Who can stop you? You know? Um, that's so beautiful. Like Martha Stewart is very interesting to me. Randomly. Martha Stewart got famous for organizing plates and having chickens and pick and paint colors. Stuff that was nothing. Really, people discarded it as nothing housework. Housework is nothing. She made a multi billion dollar industry off of plates and cupcakes. It recipes things that people thought of as nothing. Right, and so if you just work in your giftedness. I don't even know what. I don't even know where you can end up, especially now where there's people on YouTube that are doing some small, tiny, little niche of something, but everybody in the world that cares about that little niche of something, watches them, has found them. Yeah, and you know what I love about that? I think that also speaks to if your intention is only to elevate yourself above other people to serve your ego, or if your intention is only right to be like really popular or really I guess I keep coming back to, like this idea of you want to be compared or you want to be better than this, then that that is not what's standing in your purposes. That is not how you're really going to have what you just described, you know, like being in the fullness and the full authenticity of who you are. Like that's true success. If I have to wear a mask to do it, I don't want it. It's funny. I my stylist M one of my girlfriends that helps me put together outfits now that I've been doing a lot more speaking and a lot more on camera stuff, because if you leave me to my own devices, I am in a wife beater with some crystal necklaces and my Zara sweatpants and probably some fire Nikes. That's my day to day, right, But so she's been helping me plug together pieces. I'm someone that does not wear the clothes in their closets. I buy all the cute stuff, and then when it's time to get dressed, I'm like, no, let me just put on my cute little tea and tuck it into my jeans. Um. So, anyway, long story short is um. She she's phenomenal what she does. She has an artistic eye. But when she dresses me sometimes she pulls clothes for me that just really don't feel like me, or like it'll be like a six inch heeld right or you know, and she'll be like, but dev like pain is beauty, like commit to the moment, you know. And a lot of people are down with that. That's cool. I have flat feet. I don't like wearing heels at all, like that are like over four inches at most, right. But I especially know myself and the work that I'm doing right now at this moment in my life requires that I show up as such a full, authentic version of myself in all moments. So if I wear those six inch stiletto heels and this outfit that feels uncomfortable but looks killer in a picture for my from my grid for my Instagram, I can't be who I really am, right because I'm gonna be on that stage talking to people about real soul lessons, about states of higher consciousness, about the depths of myself with an openness and and authenticity that can allow them the freedom to be themselves. If for one second I am trying to speed through it because as my feet hurt or I'm uncomfortable or I can't move my body the way that I am, that I am limiting my purpose. So I know myself that well you know what I mean. So it's like me and her will kind of go at it sometimes and I'm like, I need you to understand. I get it, and I love what you're able to create for yourself and for other people that can own that space. But I also really know me, and I would rather be cute, becomfortable first. I have to feel like me to do the work that I'm doing in this moment in my life, you know, or in this time when it's more important to look good than to be good. Yeah, well, let's let's sit here, let's talk about this. I love social media, it's awesome, but it has become a cage. Masterpieces take time to create. Michael Angelo didn't do the Sustaine Chapel on television. I'm sure you had to make a lot of corrections, you had to fix a lot of stuff. This is the first time in history where the creative process happens in real time. Yeah, I worry how many Sistine Chapels are we going to get? Yeah? Yeah? And it really brings up so much self sabotage because of the pace of life in this moment, right, because you know, typically it's like when you think of this journey, we all have unpacking to do. Um, we all have trauma to work through. Some people's trauma is more severe than others, right, Some people's resilience is a little less than other people's, so their process is different. Um. But typically you're able to move at a certain pace where life unfolds for you in such a way that you're learning and more bite sized pieces, and you're you're putting yourself together in a way that maybe a little bit more comfortable. And right now, we really are in the Age of awakening, Like the frequency we're all operating on is happening so fast in every aspect, not just with this comparable Instagram world, or with career or with you know, how you're curating yourself, but really the lessons and the access we're of information that we're able to have to like soul lessons and healing lessons, is coming so fast that the work is happening fast, which means your level of discomfort and sometimes suffering is a lot deeper, you know. And so when you are rushing through life and all the other aspects and all the other facets, you were going to face more inner turmoil then you might have if you slow down, especially if what you're consuming is all milk, it's all basic, it's all surface surface, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to challenge yourself and seek out depth. And that's hard. Admittedly, that's hard. In our culture. It's so hard, and you know it's it's too It's just I don't know, I think so much of it really comes back to some themes we've already hit on, which is just focus on accepting yourself first, right, like a prayer that I share my meditations and I know I've said it on this show before, but if you really ask yourself every single day, for thirty days throughout the day, you got still and you said, God, please show me the truth of who I am, your life would be radically changed. When you look up in a month, your life would be radically changed to some people. You would change, You would change some major elements of your life. You would transform yourself. You would come into acceptance with yourself because the truth of who you are is that you possess both light and dark. The truth of who you are is that, yeah, you're a really good person, you know, on a soul level that's worthy of love and compassion. But also you probably got your ship with you and you've also probably been damaging in some aspects of your life. Right, But you're both, and you're still worth be and you're still enough, and you're still worth giving love to, you know. But we have to stand in the fullness of both those sides. None of us are perfect. If you're looking at me and my story and you're thinking I'm perfect, I will be the first to tell you I'm not. I face many challenges, I've gotten it wrong a lot of times, but at this moment in my life. Something I'm committed to is giving my best effort to myself in the world, whatever that looks like, from each day, and loving myself that I mean, I am in full acceptance of all the facets of who I am, you know, And that's the only way to be None of us will ever be perfect because we were brought to this earth as souls to experience humanity. The human condition is flawed, and I think it's really important who we emulate. Yeah, follow who we you know, That's that's what social media is, Right, it's follow culture. Who do you follow? Who are you listening to? Right? You can sit and listen to the You have access now to the deepest philosophers, the most amazing minds, the most incredible spiritual leaders. You can just get on YouTube. But is that what we watch? Yeah, you're watching these quick little potentially you know, quick little like motivating videos from someone whose story you don't know, that doesn't necessarily have experience on what they're talking about. I came in this environment to win. What does it take to do that? And why is my ego so fragile that what somebody who doesn't have anything to do no bearing on my success or failure. He says something, and I'm off to the races. I work very hard to never allow anyone to weaponize my responses. I have to keep my cool. I fight fire with water. I try to stay so lazy or focus on what I'm trying to accomplish. And if you're aligned with that and you want to get down with that, great and if you don't, thank you so much, just stay over there. I do not feel like I have to fight every battle and convert every soul. I have been in some of the most hostile work environments. I've been the only black person, the only woman, the first black person, the first woman, so many times, and people underestimate you. Okay, that's that's part for the Cords, that's the gig, that's the game. I know that when I'm walking into that situation. If I wanted to be an all female environment, I would work in a hair salon. That's not what I chose. I chose. It's kind of like you're climbing um Everest and you don't bring a coat, like it's a harsh environment. Pack your coat here, complaining about the climb, and it's like you know where you were going you knew where you were going. And that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It doesn't mean it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean it's not wrong. It means it doesn't matter. You have a goal, focus on their goal and reach it, and don't let people who don't matter pull you off. Course. The little battles and the little engagements I see people get into, I'm just like, why why Yeah, like what what does it really serve your ego? I told him, he's not gonna talk to me like that. Okay, Okay, now you're angry black woman in office and not even that, like but so so so what more like that? Because especially if you because I think people's desire sometimes when they when they get into it with other people on a soul level, it's really a desire for them to change the way they're being treated or changed the way that someone is treating them or living their lives. Right, telling someone off, there might be a ten percent window there. Listen, I have my stories in my past, but it is nothing is going to change that person. So there there are other ways that you can pivot um if you want to see real change, but it has to be led by your soul by compassion and not by ego. Absolutely change only happens without ego. Real lasting change and energy is finite. Yeah, it's finite. I don't have the energy to raise all of these people in this environment who may not think I'm worthy of being here, right, I don't have to prove to you that I am. Gonna know I am. It's gonna take every drop of my energy to accomplish my goals. I don't have it to give you, and we just give it away. Fight fights that don't have to be fought. There are real fights. There are places where you need to stand up, there are places where you need to and you have to build your currency first, because are you trying to win? Are you trying to be heard? I don't want to just be heard. I want to affect change. Yeah, right, So what does it take to do that? And I think that, Um, there's so much advice. I mean to your example earlier of just you gotta go in there and tell him that he's gonna give you that raise because you deserve it, because you are that is not You have to learn how to operate in every environment and be careful who gives giving you advice about what you should do and how you should do it? Yeah, yeah, especially check the pedigrees, right, because not everybody should be able to speak life into your world. Would you share with me, especially because this episode is so career focused And when I tell you, guys, I really hope you take time to follow Denise because she is so powerful about so many subjects. Today only because we have a tight schedule, we're focusing on career, but she's a bar in so many aspects. Um. But this is definitely like the career episode. But so would you talk to Denise a little bit too? Investing in yourself in business? Because and I want to share with everybody a little bit of my own entrepreneurial story. Obviously, everyone who is maybe on this episode is familiar with the fact that I worked for many, many years in radio and broadcasting in some TV, and now I am fully a hundred percent in the wellness world. I might still reach back for a couple of gigs, but this is the space that I'm committed to for my life's work. Um. But I want to tell people I didn't just wake up and say I'm gonna quit my job and yeah, let me just start a business over here and it's all good. Like, Yeah, I'm getting a lot of beautiful opportunities I am so grateful for right now, and I'm able to still dabble in in something that fulfills me, like doing this podcast and using my skill set there. But I've I did a lot of work to be able to stand in this field and command a certain amount of money and get into the rooms that I'm in and be trusted by the women who trust me in doing this work. You know, I have spent thousands of dollars investing in myself to show up in the exact ways that I need to. I'm certified in many different things. I don't particularly like going to school. I don't particularly like sitting in class for twelve hours a day for three days in a row every month. I don't particularly like it, but I'm doing it because something I've realized is do I have my own story and testimony that can help people? Absolutely? Do. I have a huge life full of lots of multidimensional experiences and have I had a lot of success. Absolutely, But if I want to help people heal, just applying the ways I healed aren't going to be enough, right, because that's only going to get to a certain amount of people. So I also need to quit myself and tighten up on the areas that I don't know by heart already. So I've invested in myself over the last several years of doing lots different programs, doing lots of psychology training, is doing lots of spiritual work and retreats and all those things grow me as a person. But it also grows my ability to be of service to the people I want to serve. But I didn't just wake up and say listening to me because I know how to curate myself for you. I'm sharing with you stuff that I know works. And it's so tempting today, right, um, Because the truth of the matter is, when you have a goal, it's not really the difficulty of the path to the goal that stops us. It's the ease of the path to a lesser goal. I would say that one more time. That is good. It's not the difficulty, it's not the hurdles, it's not the challenges of getting to the goal. It's that the alternatives are so much easier. Why would I sit in class for twelve hours if I mean nobody's asking me to do that. I can just slap up a logo and say I got this and started. You know, nobody's asking me to learn these skills. They're always pushing me to develop myself and develop the skill set. They'll accept me however I present myself. That's tempting, man, And that's what it feels like the whole world is doing. It's tempting to take your your portion and instead of multiplying it, slap it on lunchbox and start selling it. Right, But you have to have a commitment to continued growth, even though there are such great alternatives. It's easy. So I could sit on panels all day long, right, I mean, I know you could do the thing. I'm invited to speak all over the world. Um, but there's some stuff that I want to accomplish in the world. There's something someone to build and they're not as quick and it's not as easy, and it's not as quite frankly, ego gratifying. It's when they call you know, like, um, you know I have a spot running on Lifetime TV right now. It was cool when Lifetime calls me and says, hey, we want you to be the coach on Project come back. Well doing you now? Right? It's validating and it's cool to do all these great activities. And I know you do a lot of great stuff. I do a lot of great stuff, but never lose sight of your goal and never um, you're cheating the whole world if you don't sharpen your saw, if you don't harness yourself. I mean, think of athletes that shoot a million free throws just even though they're great and rebounds, they're great, they what am my week at? They still work on developing that skill because I cheat the world out of the fullness of my magic if I don't hold and sharpen and harness every gift that lies in me. And that might take money, it might take time, It might take um, it might take um subordinating yourself going into environment where you're an intern and they treat you like trash for a couple of years. It may take that to learn what you've got to learn to do the big thing that you want to do. So it's it's you know, I am so proud of you. I'm proud of you because you know, it's it's hard to do stuff you don't have to do. You don't have to do it. Nobody's you know, nobody's like standing over when you're ten years old and you know you got to go to school today and you've gotta do this, You've gotta clean your room. There's there's no mom now. Now it's all us choosing each and every day, like how we're going to operate in the world and who we're gonna be. And it's easy to just stay at three when everybody like three. Everybody loves your three. And I'm just watching you committed to go to ten and it's beautiful to thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that. Yeah, I think, and for each of us, we have whatever version that is. Like, it is like if I stayed at a three, I would I've kind of built my life celebrated at three. I would still go get invited to all of the things and do this and that and have a fun life if I stayed at three. But I know I can exist at a ten. I know I am a ten, I'm a twenty, I'm all these things right, and so you know, I don't know the I think for for everyone listening, what I really hope you take away is if you know that you have a calling on your life, if you know you're called to do something. Don't just settle for entry level mediocre. Don't just settle for the popularized bag right for the quick payday, Because life truly is a marathon. What are you building? I, at least hope my desire is that what I am building right now, with my head down and tunnel vision being kind of quiet in some aspects, is going to be what I am blessed to be able to do for the rest of my life. You know, take some money and invest in the process of creating something proprietary that will be yours, that has a quality that people can trust, and they'll come back for the second sale and the third and the fourth. You know. It's that oven mentality, it really is. It's if you what are you building? What is your end game? You know, hustle mentality. I was addicted to it for so long. I live my life in the grind for so long, and that you know, hashtag boss, bitch, girl boss, all of the things right, I lived and breathed it. I was a stress addict. But where was it really taking me and what was the what was the quality of my life going to be and look like and feel like? So take the time, you know, starting and I know you you completely stend alignment with this, with the building of watch your work. It's like I had to take on a lot of humility to start this new business. I had to learn a lot about myself. It It was not easy giving up some of the glitz and glamor of working in entertainment seven and what I had spent over a decade building there to start from scratch in a new world that I didn't have an audience in that world. You know, like if I put out if I put out a YouTube video with a rapper, I guarantee you it would go viral. All of my content went viral, or I would instantly within the first hour on said YouTube video have a hundred thousand views because I'm talking to a rapper about his music. Right when I first launched Karmel Bliss and I put a video on YouTube meditating five views, right a year later was only at a hundred because the world that I'm operating in is not as accessible for people. Not everybody is ready to do the work or learn the tools. But I knew that walking in and signing up, and that's the audience I want anyway, you know, so it's like even in, don't be afraid to do the hard work. Now identifize yourself, be a beginner. And that's that's the niece. I love that you said that, because that's what I surrender to. My ego fought it. Like the first year of becoming out entrepreneur, my ego fought it, and I was trying to stay one foot in this world, one foot in my old life, and I couldn't be clear on my vision being in that space. When I surrendered to the fact that I don't have to keep up any looks or appearances for anybody, I can be a beginner, and it's okay because I know this is my calling. And not only is it okay, it's what has to happen, because you cannot be great if you don't them through a journey. And then I look up three years later, I have a thriving business. We're in department stores, I have I'm booked out for the next year of speaking, I'm traveling every week, I'm writing my second book. And guess what if I didn't embrace being a beginner, I would have none of this right now. I would be stuck in the exact same spot suffering inside because I'm trying to keep two worlds together because I'm not fully committing to what my calling is. And the time, as I've said before, everybody listening, the time passes anyway. So I could have looked up three years later and had nothing to show for it, you know absolutely. I know when I started UM watch your work, there was there were so many stats thrown around, like black women get UM point Over the last ten years, black women have gotten point o o six percent of all VC funds, not even one half of one percent? Right, I can decide is that gonna define me? Am I not going to try this? Am I not going to put my toe in this water? Or I can say you never step in the same river twice, that tomorrow can be better than yesterday? Can I Can I step out onto a bridge that isn't yet built. Literally, That's what I'm doing. I'm walking out and they're building the bridge as we go along. Right. But if you if you don't approach the world with the optimism that you can start small and build, then what are you doing? I just don't know, Like that's the only way to approach it. You have to believe that it's worth investing the time to learn the skills. It's worth investing the time to master the information and the content. You have to believe that and go into the situation and you're gonna pivot, You're gonna have things you have to change, or you're gonna refine things. But diamonds are made overnight. We we all want diamonds that we don't want the pressure, and that's just not how it happens. Trust the calling on your life and do the work necessary to honor that calling. And I also want to talk a little bit about people who don't have a calling, yes, because there's a lot of people who are really struggling. Well they haven't identified their calling yet. Well, but calling is is misused and purpose is misused. Right. Not every calling or purpose has to be quantified by a career path. Absolutely, Yeah, So everybody has a calling, Like everybody's calling is to use your unique gifts to be of service. But for everyone it doesn't have to or just may not translate into everybody knowing who you are, or you having a big social media presence, or you having you know, billions of dollars, right, because that's not any of the things that God cares about he called. He cares that you honor the calling he put on your heart and whatever way you're able and in whatever way unfolds for you without that connection to ego about how you're being perceived or treated. Yeah. Yeah, I just started working with a group in a in Texas that their focus is young people nineteen who have opted out? What does that mean? They have They're they're living in their parents basement, they're playing video games all day. They've checked out. They they're not looking for jobs. And the percentage of the people that are in that situation in the US is steadily growing. And I think it's because of a couple of things. First, this comparison thing that we're talking about, what is an honorable job? What's a good job? Right? If it's not paying six figures and I can't buy lambo, it's not a good job. Am I willing to start at the beginning and work my way up? Well, No, I need to be a VP of a blah blah blah. If I can't do it at this level, I just won't do it at all. And then there's a I think that and I'm seeing it a lot in the young women that wait to talk to me after I speak. Uh, they're kind of lost where they They really don't know what they want to do because they get so many images. It's so much pressure that they don't really And what I challenged them to do is to quiet themselves. Turned down the noise. Here your own voice. Two of the people we think of of of greatest scientists of our time, Einstein and Srisie Newton. Einstein theory of relativity, Srisie Newton gravity. Both of them did it in chill time. Hm Einstein was under employed, he was a patent clerk. He was way underemployed. He did all of his theories and letters to his friends and his free time. Sir Isaac Newton was sequestered because of the plague, so he was bored. Oh let me do this theory of gravity. When was the last time you were bored? When was the last time things were quiet so that you could hear the voice of of what is supposed to happen in your life and what's next. We have a portion of our young people, specifically, that are so deluged with other people's senses of who they're supposed to be that they can't find themselves. So the challenge that. And the encouragement I would give to that group that might be listening right now is turn it off, turn it down, step away, put it down, find some quiet, find some softer voices. Right there are voices that get Let let somebody run. She rack is crazy, do something everybody knows about it, right, But find some softer voices that aren't as loud. But feed your spirit, and feed you deeply. Because we can't afford to waste genius, we can't afford to squander a generation. And I don't want anybody to feel lost. I don't think there's a worse feeling than really not having any idea what your next step is because you don't feel passionate about anything, because society around you demeans what you feel passionate about, or what you care about, or what you like. It's not cool to tell your friends that you want to be an accountant. Nobody right, Nobody wants to say that I really like numbers. I'm good numbers. That's corny. You should be you know what I'm saying. Like, you have to quiet that noise. You have to silence it and stop stop over filling your time, over booking yourself and stop over stimulating your consuming. Stop And it's hard. That's so. It's easy to say that it is so. It takes work. It takes work. But I believe that you have to build new neural pathways. You have to shift things. You have to do things that are new and fresh, and turn things off and turn some things on, you know, and shake it up, because, um, there's a lot of people who didn't get their purpose until they were forty fifty six, seventy. They didn't find it. It's the quest. Yeah, it's not. It's not a race. It's not a race. It's not and you should enjoy it. You should be exploring things. That's how you're gonna find it. It's not coming to your house. Yeah, that's how you're gonna find it. You have to kick the tires on other experiences. You have to talk to different people, you have to go different places. That's how you're gonna find a purpose. Caring what people think. You have to stop caring what people think, the praise and the criticism. You have to find that authentic voice inside that leads you and that lets you know you're in the right place and that you matter. And I hate to break it to you. Sometimes those people are the people that love you the most. There's no greater there's no smaller cage in the cage of the people that love you. Yeah right, no smaller cage homeostasis. They are trying to keep a normal and it's like, I'm not. I don't want to be normal. I want to be abnormal. I want to be extraordinary. And sometimes the people that love you, you know, because in in the they want to protect you, they want to keep you safe. But you're not built to be safe. You're built to do incredible, amazing, unbelievable things if you let yourself. I my heart hurts that I have to wrap the show up. But part of being a working new mom Um, I got a few quest dinner right now, So it just is um, Denise, I absolutely adore you. I we didn't get the chance to unpack this on the show, but Denise and I originally met because we were both brought on to speak on a panel many years ago that was put together by the Route and by Toyota, and we met on that panel and we were both really into what each other had to say, and at the end of the panel, both of us were cornered in opposite corners of the room with lines that went outside. Um, you know, if people just trying to deepen their understanding of some of the things that we said. And so she and I connected, We exchanged numbers, then we started hanging, we started bouncing ideas off each other, we started co working together. You know. Um, we were very much organically brought together and then grew our friendship. And I just you're a treasure. I just adore you. I stand for all the things that you do. You guys have to go on the Instagram, watch her work at watch her work TV and at official dam and watch her work dot com. Um has some really phenomenal content. And I'm really I really really want to stress this to you. It's not just the kind of site that permeates the market right now of like career motivation and and hashtag boss babe and you know all of those things. Like the site is very, very intensive, and it has so many different categories for all types of things you could be running into in the workplace, and the content is just absolutely invaluable. It's over seven thousand videos, that's thousands of women of all walks of life from obscure careers to mainstream careers sharing their hard earned wisdom um that you can really pull from. So definitely, like, if you're looking to expand in any capacity, in any career field that you're in, look for areas that you can invest in yourself free and monetarily. Look for the real meat and don't just sit in the surface level stuff. It will not take you where you really want to go, and it will not take you to a lifestyle that is sustainable for the rest of your life. So I I love you, Denise, Thank you so much for coming on the show girl. I loved every minute of it. Catch you guys next time. Peace, big thank you for listening to this episode of the Dropping Gyms podcast. This show is executive produced by Adrian Scott and me Debbie Brown. Our theme music was created by producer Day one and the poem that you heard at the beginning of the show, well that was created especially for us by award winning poet and I'mbieca for If you have a quick moment right now, please hit subscribe on the show and if you like what you heard, take it a step further and give us a five star rating. Until next time you connect with me on I G at Debbie Brown or my website debbie brown dot com. Be blessed, M.

Deeply Well with Devi Brown

Deeply Well Where higher consciousness meets the complexity of being human. Hosted by Well-Being Ma 
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