Are You Working Bravely?: What If You’re Not Stuck—You Just Outgrew Your Shoes?

In this episode of Lesley’s Lessons, I reflect on what it really means to grow past your current environment—and how that can feel more like suffocation than success if we don’t pay attention. I ask the question: are you working hard… or are you working bravely?

We talk about spiritual permission, emotional clutter, dreams that don’t fit into polite boxes, and the kind of audacity it takes to say “I deserve the life I want.”

I also open up about what inspired The Glow Guide and Stop Looking Back—two books written in moments where I had to pull myself up and out.

If you’ve ever felt like you were too much, too late, too stuck, or too unsure, this episode is for you.

Books Mentioned:

The Glow Guide — a colorful, affirmation-based mind shift
Stop Looking Back — for the ones who’ve left but still linger
Featured in this episode:

•  Working Bravely Hoodie  — for the dreamers showing up with grit and grace.

Transcript

 So I was washing some dishes and I don't know, like when I wash dishes, the water, it just comes to me. Something that I learned that I say to myself, wow, I need to share that because someone might need to hear this. And I was just thinking about life and where I am in life and reflecting. Reflecting about all the things I've done and created while almost living like a duplicitous life.

You know, this working entrepreneur stuff, you know, taking jobs that I'm overqualified for, for the flexibility so I could do what I want. What happens is you outgrow your, your environment. And sometimes some people cannot handle that very well. They don't know that's what's happening. Um, and it's like, you know, it's like your foot, your foot grew bigger than your shoes that you have right now.

And you don't realize like, wow, it's time to change your shoes, your foot, your foot grew, and that could be life as well. Um, this is a straight message for somebody who. Has done everything, has worked super hard and is frustrated because you know, you've worked smart, you've worked hard, you've worked tirelessly.

You have sacrificed and sacrificed in ways that you just haven't seen any return on your investment, any return on your, your future, things that you desire to come true. And it's just been. The same old stuff, and I just wanted to position this thought to you and ask you, are you working hard? Are you working smart?

But are you, are you working bravely?

You see, we we're always told to, to work hard, right? Believe in yourself and everything's gonna come true and stuff like that. But are you working bravely? Are you limiting yourself? Are you saying to yourself, well, I have a checklist and, and, and this is what I believe I'm supposed to do in order to get to where I wanna be.

This is the direction that I'm supposed to take in order for me to accomplish my goals. Is it brave? Are you, you know, in the back of the classroom, so to speak? Do you raise your hand and not not afraid if you're wrong because you wanna learn, or do you wait, you wait to see who goes next, who answers and see if they were right and you just quietly say, I knew that.

Or do you say, Hey, I, I, I knew that. Now you raise your hand because you see the brave person in school, in your classroom, and now you feel more comfortable positioning yourself as if you were, you were thinking the same thing. Are you living bravely? Are you loving bravely? Are you pursuing your dreams bravely?

Are you doing anything that makes you. Uncomfortable out of your comfort zone, and you have to try differently. To me, living bravely, it's not about being the loudest in the room or even aesthetically the loudest. It's about doing the thing that you've convinced yourself, you're not qualified to do, you're not good enough to do, you don't believe you can do it.

That's what you really wanna do, and that's what needs to get done. It's the things that you take for granted and convince yourself it, it won't work that way. That's for someone else, that no one's gonna give me a shot, no one's gonna reply. But what if they do? What if the love of your life is right across from you right now in that coffee shop or on the line in the supermarket, and they're just waiting for you to say hi.

What if you take that last $10 in your wallet and say, I'm gonna give $5 away because I believe there is a financial reward coming back to me.

I'm going to be kind to that stranger as if I know that person. If they sneeze, I'm gonna say, bless you. If there. Walking behind me, I'm gonna keep the door open for them because I'm invested in my karma. I understand that energy has to land somewhere. It goes somewhere, it flows somewhere, it returns somewhere.

What if you just tweaked how you saw things and just said. I'm not going to think about this. One more second. I'm just going to do it. I'm not gonna save it to draft anymore. I'm going to click send. I'm not gonna hang up the phone anymore. I'm gonna call, I'm gonna show my number. I'm going to leave the message.

I'm gonna put up the video.

I'm gonna hold their hand.

I'm gonna raise my hand. I'm gonna own my shit and say, yep, that's just where I'm at. And not apologize for it. What if you just lived boldly and bravely? What if the thing that you just told yourself, there's just no way. In a thousand ways, it won't work. How could it work? I have no proof. You just said, you know what?

I don't need proof. I feel good enough right now to fire it off. Where would you be? What if you just said, you know what? I dare to imagine the life I desire. Work towards it right now. I'm going to look at the furniture I want. I'm gonna look at the home that I want, the location that I want. I'm gonna look at the clothes, the size that I want.

I'm going to look and imagine or reimagine the type of love that I want, the relationship that I want, how I want to be seen and show up in this world.

Dare. Dare to be that person right now. Dare to give yourself permission to leave the past in the past. Trust that it will work out. Believe that you have more than enough to make it happen right now.

I wrote the Glow Guide, and then I have another one. Stop looking back these two books and, and they're, they're really fun reads because I wanted to design something. The glow guide, like when you open it up, it's just robust colors. It's like a combination of affirmations and mantras just for your mindset to help you release because.

I remember when I was just in the, I was just in a dark space, and as a writer, we have to just, and especially a transformative writer, um, I constantly just have to do this, this check-in and update. Not that I need to change every day, but it's just good, good for the soul. You know, you just feel when you're off and you want to be on, you want to be.

Your best self and the glow guide, it really just helps you to just pluck the things that need plucking out of you, pulling them up to the forefront and believing that you're not alone and helping you with that edge, that you need to just take the leap and stop looking back. It's self-explanatory. I mean, it really is something that, um.

We take for granted. How many times do you get together with your friends and you talk about a relationship or a situation or just someone from your past that it was just toxic and we, we just talk about it. We just talk about the person. We talk about the situation, that era where things were bad. Why we talking about this?

I came out of it by the grace of God, I don't wanna go back. And then it could just be you and your mindset. There are just certain things that you've learned that you've said to yourself. I just, I can't get rid of. It. Isn't this life, don't I just get rid of this when something miraculous happens? No, you, you choose to get rid of it.

You choose to put a period at the end of that sentence, you choose to turn the page in that chapter. End the book midway and start anew. You have the authority to do so.

I know sometimes you hear this positive talk and you're like, okay, this sounds great. I'm just gonna do it right. I got my cape on and I'm just gonna take over the world. And then all of a sudden there's murmurs of people unintentionally. You know, some of the time they just start to make you doubt again.

Then you go back to your rhythm because it's not easy to change. It takes consistency. You ask this person's opinion and that person's opinion, and now you have this bowl of opinions, and now you're confused. You don't know what to do. You try with all your might, and then you find yourself circling back to where you started and wondering what could have been.

I'm here to tell you, you don't have to do that. This is an illusion. You don't have to worry about or wonder what could have been. You are here in the present and you have the authority, the spiritual authority to do it. Right now,

no one has the power to keep you frozen in time or to tell you your value. Or to limit you on your capabilities. If you have dreams and they may be wild to someone else, that doesn't mean your dreams are not valid. If you wanna get another degree or move somewhere, own property, or maybe rent or quit your job or start a business after a divorce, or what have you date someone much younger, what have you, guard it.

Let it grow. Seal the deal and come out like a million bucks. This is your time, but it's gonna take more than you processing and always thinking about it and turning it into real action and doing something that you never did before and with a good attitude. That is key. You can take risks and and say, well, I did that and nothing happened.

Did you have a good attitude? Did you say to yourself, well, I did it. I expect results within 24, 48 hours because if you know me, that's a big deal. Well, good for you, but it doesn't go like that. It has nothing to do with who you think you are or, or your qualifications in life. It's, it's about consistency.

Do you know how hard it is to have faith? Do you know how spiritually gangster you have to be to believe in yourself? When life constantly shows you, or it looks like it's showing you, you're going the wrong way, you're going to fail. It's not gonna work. This is scary. They're calling you on the phones.

You don't have the collateral, the money, what are you going to do? It's only looking worse. Do you know how much faith it takes to bypass that? To keep going. When everything that you see in front of you is spelling out, you're going the wrong way. What does your inner green light say? Because that's what it's gonna take.

It's up to you to flip that switch and say, I see it. I hear it, I believe it. I know I can achieve it and do it.

You don't have to know everything Sometimes all you have to do is just agree that there's no time like the present.