[Transcript starts at 0:40]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite online business podcast. If you are tuning in, listening or watching on the day that it drops, it is Monday, June 22nd. Everything just flying by.
Before I get into the episode, before I forget, quick announcement and then we'll get right into the main topic. Main topic is joy as an opportunity. But the quick announcement is I put out feelers the other day about a new offer, a 12-month offer, 12 months of support to hold you accountable and help you stay consistent with content creation.
Content creation like what? Social media, email, podcast and my guy Matt was like, what about YouTube? Yeah, that too. Anything that's content creation, holding you accountable and helping you to actually get shit done. That is as structured as my ideas went because you all know I say talking about wait to create the thing, assess demand and make sure people have raised their hand and say, I'm interested, I want this thing and then you can, we're building it.
And I did a story on Instagram and people were like, yeah, I'd be interested in this. So I put it out to my email list as well and they were interested. So if you are interested, can't forget about you fine folks.
If you are interested, we're going to drop the link for the interest list and you can sign up there. Thank you, Jojo. Thank you, Courtney.
Again, I have not fleshed it all out yet and my plan is actually in specific what I do. It's actually to have the folks that are on the interest list help me build it. So I'm going to send out a form.
It'll probably honestly, full transparency, you'll probably already be sent out by the time that this episode drops. But maybe I'll put an automation and that one goes out when people sign up for the list. But my plan is to have people help me build it out.
I want to know what their biggest hangups are, what they think would be the most helpful. And then I'll build it, fully build it from there. So I don't have really any specifics around or any logistics around anything.
You'll see when you go to the interest list page, there's nothing on it besides, you know, put your name on here. You folks know I'm all about transparency when I, when I typically make interest lists or wait lists, I have all the information on it because I know the information. I don't know the information yet.
I haven't, I haven't put it, I haven't built it yet. So this is just a way to get on the list. And this means you, there's no, no requirement or no obligation to register by being on the list.
It's just guarantees that you won't miss out when I do launch it because you'll be getting the email. So we will drop that in the show notes and you can check that out. Other updates before we talk about the main topic, if you've been following me on the Instagrams, the shed.
I have been in the shed in the backyard, fixing that thing. If you're not what I'm short, if you're not sure what I'm talking about, head on Instagram. I made a story highlight of it.
It's called shed shenanigans, but I'm having fun with it. And honestly, I wish I could just do that. Like, so if anyone watching this, listening to this wants to just fund that lifestyle for me, where I learn how to fix things as I'm fixing them and also share on Instagram, let me know.
All right, let's, let's talk. But it's been good. I should be able to finish it.
Hopefully this weekend, hopefully by the time this episode drops, it'll actually be done. But that shed is made out of paper mache. I don't know what they were thinking building it, but we'll see.
Next announcement. I leave for Gstaad. We leave for Gstaad in less than two weeks.
So by the time the next episode comes out, that will actually be our travel day. So the 29th, that will be our travel day, which is dope. And I'll talk about that more on the next episode.
So I'll say that. But so without, without further ado, looking at the notes here, let's hop on into the main topic for today, which is joy as an opportunity. And this episode, this topic was inspired by my very good homie, the one and only Rachel Strickland.
Y'all know I have the biggest love for her. She's been on the show. Just the biggest, biggest love for her.
So she Voxer'd me. If you're not using Voxer with your friends, you should. Voxer is just a voice and text message platform.
I use it with my clients, but I also use it with my friends, mainly because it allows for longer messages to be sent. Joe and I be on Voxer all the time and I call them our podcasts. And I'm like, Joe, this is too short.
15 minutes. Give it to me. But it also allows you to listen to them in like one, two, three, four X time, you know, speed.
So I love it. But she Voxed me with a podcast topic that was basically what do I do regarding work when there is a lot of grief and or sadness or hard times in my life? And I love this question, this talking point, this prompt, because one, she's the best. And also because it provided me with an opportunity to put words to something that I have felt and experienced and lived for a long time.
And the reality is I have not had very much grief or sadness or tough times or hard times in my life. Yes, I am a minority. I'm going to use air quotes here in many ways because like I am black, but I'm a brown person.
That's a global majority there. But, you know, in many ways, you know, considered a minority, largely when we just view it in the context of traditional white America. But I'm female, I'm gay, I'm black, I'm Puerto Rican.
And we definitely didn't grow up with money. So I was not afforded the privileges that come along with being in the opposite group of what I just laid out. But my mom loves me so much.
She's my biggest supporter. My family is wonderful. We text like every day, including my grandma.
I'm really good at the things that society values, you know, conventional intelligence, sports. I'm very, very able bodied. I have skinny privilege.
I have, you know, you see my face, I have relatively symmetrical features. I'm black, but I'm not dark. So my baseline has not been one of tremendous struggle, despite, you know, what some of the outside may assume.
And in addition, I've just been really fortunate to have really good things around me, and really good people around me. And yes, I could dig into it and look to find my personal contributions towards that good fortune. But the most important thing to acknowledge is simply the positive environment and experiences that I have been privy to, and the good timing, right? Rock Tape, I was there for the golden years of that business.
I've still talked to Allison, I'm still talking to her today. They're absolutely for the golden years. Instagram, I was there for the golden years as well.
I experienced online business when COVID hit. I was, excuse me, I was experienced in online business when COVID hit. But I was also going to say there's CrossFit.
I hit at that golden time. Just all of the things, really privy to that was really good timing. You know, I grew up in the 90s.
I have experienced a lot of really good things. And I have been part of a lot of really good things at the right time. And overall, I just have not had very much grief or sadness or loss.
My grandfather passed when I was young, PT, living in New York City. And I'm pretty sure that he had had ALS, it took him pretty quickly. And I miss him.
And I carry him with me every day, especially when I'm fixing things. If you follow the stories, you'll see at one point, I said, like, my grandfather always taught me, you overbuild it, you overbuild it. And so that was probably the only real big loss or sadness that I have.
And I think that it came at a time, you know, I'm living in New York City, had to make ends meet. And I'm working a super busy PT job, seeing 20 plus people a day. And it just kind of forced me to process it as just like, keep going.
Like there was no, that was it, just like keep doing the things. So when Rachel asked me the question, like, what do I do work wise with times of grief and sadness and loss? And I was my immediate reaction, maybe my immediate response was, maybe my immediate answer was, I haven't led a life of significant grief or sadness. And I can say with full certainty, that that allows me to show up the way that I do.
The joy that I have been so fortunate to experience is, in my opinion, an opportunity to show up with positivity. It's an opportunity to see the best in situations. It's an opportunity to take chances on myself and go after things.
Because historically, the things worked out, I have the data to prove it and generate more joy. I was not happy in New York City. By the end, I was unhappy, but I was in New York City.
It's great. You know, it's parks. But by the end, I was not a happy person.
But I took a chance and I was like, I'm going to move to California. I had the joy behind me. I had the list of the data points to be like, try it.
You'll be okay. And everyone supported me. This joy that I've had and been so fortunate to experience so much of, it was an opportunity, is an opportunity to share that joy in whatever way sharing that joy looked like.
And I invite you to do the same. I think that having that abundance of joy is an opportunity to put that energy out into the world. I put out the energy that you want to see more of.
So every Canadian Thanksgiving, I don't even know what Canadian Thanksgiving is anymore, but every Canadian Thanksgiving, I used to share a quote on Instagram. And I stumbled upon on that quote back when Instagram was good. I don't remember who or how, but the quote said, when you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.
And I think I started sharing it because I did those daily maturisms. But that's largely what today's episode is getting at. If you're like me, even if you're not, but if you're like me and you find yourself with joy to spare, share it.
On the flip side, because I do have thoughts about action items or an action item when there is grief and sadness. And I speak to that from after the 2024 election, I had big grief and big sadness, and I continue to have big grief and big sadness around that. We are living through late stage capitalism.
This administration has emboldened the worst people and the worst in people. And social media just zaps it into our eyes 24-7. So my response was to step back.
I stepped back from things. And again, I realize that is a privileged position. I'm being fortunate to be able to do so.
And I have talked about this in previous episodes, tapped into savings, absolutely. But I was like, I can't show up. I don't want to fucking be on Instagram.
I'm not going to force myself to do this. I stopped doing a lot of things. And probably the biggest of those things was posting.
I kept emailing. I kept the podcast going because those things did feel good for me. The podcast felt the most good.
Emailing was tough at times, but the podcast felt the most good. But social media didn't feel good. So I stopped promoting my stuff and selling things and running things.
It didn't feel good, so I stopped. One of the greatest faults of this country is that you are not allowed to stop. You can't.
It is a feature. It is not a bug. It is a feature of extractive capitalism.
You can't make more if you're doing less unless you're the CEO. You cannot make more. You can't make more.
The company cannot make more if you as the worker are doing less. People don't get time to stop and grieve. They don't get time to be sad.
They don't get time to sit with things. They don't get time to be with their kids after they have them. They don't get time to process things.
And yes, again, it is by design. COVID gave us a glimpse of what it felt like to be able to stop. And I think about those things and I think about that time a lot.
It gave us the great pause and it gave people time to stop and think about things and feel things and sit with things and process things. And then the world opened back up and everyone went back to exactly how it was before, despite so many folks telling me they didn't want that shit to come back. I have records.
I have receipts. I sent out a Google form. I said, what do you not want to come back? I started a Facebook group called the Rearview Mirror.
It's like, what do you want to leave behind you? And people had to come back. But I get it. It's tough.
Things keep moving. You got to make money. The world keeps turning.
It's global capitalism. We have a lot of buffer. There's a lot of wealth in this country.
That's part of what I have so much grief about is that we have so much wealth and resources and intelligence and there's so much struggle and suffering. I hate that. But because there's so much wealth, there's this big buffer of things getting really bad before they actually have to change.
So it's a little bit off tangent, but all of that that I was just riffing on, all of this that I was just saying, all that to say, if you are experiencing a period of sadness or grief, if it is possible, and I hope that it is possible, prioritize experiencing that sadness and that grief and being able to sit with it. I realize that some form of work may be helpful for you to process things and be able to process things. So I didn't just give you a blanket statement of stop working because I was still doing work through it.
But as it relates to this podcast, we're an online business podcast or a podcast about online business. When shit is bad, stop working in whatever way you're able to stop working. That is the permission that you do not need to do that.
And then bringing it back to the beginning episode, on the flip side, if you are living that super fortunate life, and it doesn't need to be about the oppression Olympics of like, oh, well, someone could have it worse. I'm not here for a comparison. If you look in the mirror and you're like, y'all, man, I have a really good and you're not like gaslighting yourself.
If you live in that super fortunate life, you don't have much grief, you don't have much sadness, you got an abundance of joy, consider that your joy is an opportunity and go and share it with the world. All right. I'm looking down, looking at the outline.
That is all for today. Don't forget about that interest list for the accountability offer that I'm cooking up. The link will be in the show notes if you want to add your name.
As always, my friends, endlessly, endlessly, one more time, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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