Owning Your Unique Flava'

In this episode of the Soulfully You Podcast, Coach Chris Rodriguez explores the importance of embracing and showcasing your unique individuality in a world that often rewards imitation.

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• 00:00 Introduction: Embracing Uniqueness in a Conformist World
• 01:26 The Essence of Salsa and Hip Hop: Cultural Influences
• 03:27 Finding Your Unique Flavor: Style and Self-Expression
• 09:57 Understanding and Expressing Love: The Love Languages
• 14:55 Cultivating Your Vibe: Creating a Soulful Environment
• 18:42 Decision Making: Leveraging Your Intelligence Centers
• 24:10 Conclusion: Owning Your Unique Flava’

Transcript

0:05

Hey friend. Welcome to the Soulfully You Podcast with Coach Chris Rodriguez. I'm a movement and mindset coach, and I believe in a deeper way of living, a more soulful way of being. Join me each week for conversations about how to put a little more soul. Into our work, our relationships in our everyday lives. lately, it seems like everyone and everything is moving to become more of the same. We live in a time where the right now rewards don't favor the individuals who are unique. Rather, we reward and we praise the people who have the best imitation of the trends. But when you see somebody who truly embodies their uniqueness and owns their voice and their style, do you ever wonder where that comes from maybe when you see it, you wanna be that type of person yourself, but you might have some fear. Of the backlash that it'll cause. In today's episode, I'm gonna break down how to show up as your full, unique, self unashamed in any space. There's this clip I love that I've seen a few years ago. It's back in like the seventies and there's a salsa band performing on a stage in New York and the band leader. He starts breaking down what is salsa. Salsa is flavor and spice. Salsa is Latin. Soul salsa is. Remo rhythm. It started in Africa called La Oga, skin and Wood El Bongo, the basis of salsa, a cloudy. And now the heartbeat, the soul. He continues moving through all of the different regions that the music traveled through to eventually reached the United States As a Puerto Rican Jamaican, I love this clip because it speaks so much to my culture, but I'm also a kid that grew up in inner city, New Jersey, and we had another kind of music called Hip Hop that was influenced by Caribbean people coming to New York and New Jersey, and it was important. Every artist had their own unique, distinct style back in the eighties and nineties. What they called it was flavor. When I'm working with my clients and my teams, whether it's them finding how they show up individually or finding how they show up as an organization, sometimes I'm working with folks on branding and storytelling. I try to pull in this idea of flavor that I got from hip hop and teach it to them. So check it out. There was a sound in hip hop, that every artist had to have, and it had to be different. If you didn't see their face, if you heard their voice, you'd have to know distinctly who they were. Was their voice raspy? Was their voice high pitch? Was their flow quick or was it slow? And if your sound sounded like anybody else, you lost respect. It's actually the opposite of right now when you listen to music, when we've been trained to desire a similar sound and a similar tempo and a similar voice. Not only did your sound have to be unique, the things you were talking about had to be unique, your style. You had to have a signature style that looked different. Flavor FLA from Public Enemy. He would wear a big clock around his neck, crisscross, wear their clothes backwards, left eye had paint under her eye. Mc Hammer, when you see somebody wearing colorful parachute style pants, we say those are mc hammer pants. Slick. Rick wore an eye patch. Everybody had to have their own unique style. So how does that apply to you? How does that apply to your life? How does that apply to your work, your company, your business, the way you show up on your team? I don't want you to wear your clothes backwards or eye patch or do something weird with your voice to stand out. There are ways that we can embrace our unique flavor, be ourselves, be individuals. And stand out. So I'm going to give you some of the prompts that I give to my clients. We're gonna focus on four areas. Okay. The first area is gonna be your style. Literally what you wear, how you wear it, The second one, we don't think about this. Your love language, your flavor of how you give and receive love. The third one, your vibe. This is more your atmosphere, your aura, your presence in spaces, not just what you give off, but also what you desire the atmosphere to be around you. And lastly, the fourth aspect of finding your flavor is how you make decisions, your decision making process. So your style, You might not think this is important, but it is. Here's why. In this age of trends and fast fashion, you might show up in spaces and see somebody. You got that person in the office, that person in your family, that person in your friend group. Who always shows up wearing the right thing, the perfect thing, the most on-brand trend, the most expensive thing. And it might make you feel like, What's up with me? I don't dress like that. I think some of us fall into camps. There's one camp of, don't be so vain. It doesn't really matter, how much you spent on something, what name brands you're wearing, that's silly. Right? And then on the other side is people who's like all about brands, all about the status of the labels and the clothes and how much it costs I'm not saying one's right or wrong. I want you to find what's there for you. So I find myself in the middle. I tend to like more utilitarian things. I am a corporate coach, so I'm going and I'm speaking to companies and teams and corporate spaces. I'm also a physical wellbeing coach, so I am teaching movement sessions. I also have a very wild son. Who I have to chase around all the time. when I'm choosing the things that I feel comfortable with, The clothes I'm wearing. They have to be a level of functionality. But I'm also someone who likes to look put together, who likes to have a sense of style and not just look like this corporate dude, I want to have a little style, a little swag, whatever that is. I want to have my flavor in the way I dress, so I find brands that help me accomplish that. When you're looking to find your unique flavor in the form of style, think about these two different scenarios. One, what is your I'm chilling. I'm going to the grocery store. your down look just like, Hey, I am down to earth. I'm chilling. I'm comfortable, but I still wanna look presentable. What is that casual look? And then on the opposite side of that, what is that elevated Look, I'm going out, I'm going out to drinks. Maybe at a elevated space, I'm going to a party. Maybe not like you know, a ball but just like, I want to throw it on a little bit, but I still want to be comfortable. in both those scenarios, the casual version of your style and the elevated version of your style, what are the colors, what are the materials? What are the cuts of clothes? What are the pieces of clothes, accessories, hats, earrings, necklaces, shoes that are gonna make you feel not just comfortable, but make you feel like you? So for me, I like to wear a nice jogger. Something that's comfortable, something that stretches. I have jeans, I got the suits, I got all that stuff. But my down look, my casual look and my elevator look usually involves joggers and a bomber. If I want to elevate it up, I'm throwing on a brim hat. Whether I'm elevated dressing up, you know, I'm switching the bomber out for a blazer, generally I'm still gonna wear some kind of Nike, some kind of Jordans, because I want to be comfortable in that space. I got piercings on my face. I got earrings, I got a nose ring. I got a few tattoos on my arms. Right, like these are for me accessories that I feel comfortable in myself going into a corporate space or going into a casual space wearing Another way to think about your style is if somebody was to draw a picture of you, or somebody created two avatars of you, what would one look like? What would the other look like? Let you think about that. For me, the colors I wear are the same colors for my brand. lots of shades of blues and greens. earth tone, some brown, some camel color. Kind of what the California coast looks like. That's gonna be the color palettes that I generally wear. Doesn't matter what brand I'm wearing, I'm gonna pick those colors because for me, Those are colors that make me feel good, and those are also colors that I feel like I look good in. So that's what I'm gonna do. Find whatever that is for you. Again, it's not vain to take some time to figure out your go-tos or how to feel good and feel put together, feel like you look good in the things you're wearing. And that don't always gotta mean you spending a lot of money. So find brands that work for you and your budget as well. Your love language. when we think about this, what we commonly know is the concept created by Dr. Gary Chapman, the Five Love Languages. This is a really helpful starting point. Here's what they are. If you need a refresher or if you never heard of them, words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts. Quality time and physical touch. Now, a lot of times when we think about this, we are thinking about this In the context of expressing these actions to other people, right a lot of times when we think about this concept, we think about it in the context of the love we like to receive. That's super important, but one part of finding your flavor is the love you like to give, and sometimes those two things aren't the same. a lot of times what I find so like folks like me who can encourage you and give you all this praise and tell you good things about yourself. I don't like to hear praise from myself. It makes me feel awkward when I hear people tell me How good I'm doing and all this stuff, and I'm not saying that's a good thing, but don't always assume for anybody else or for yourself that the way that you receive is the way that you give. It is important that we have, language around how to. Let people love us the way we need to be loved and language around loving ourselves the way we need to be loved. and. If you yourself don't have shared language specifically for the people who are gifted to you and your life of the ways that you like to express love, you are gonna feel like something in your life is missing. Yeah, because it's a need not just to receive love. It's a need to show love, to show affection to folks in our lives. over the years, me and my wife have had to have this conversation a lot. Because sometimes the conversation about the way you show love is important specifically to have with the people in your life who you are tasked with showing love to every day. Sometimes the way that you feel affirmed and validated in showing love is not the way that they feel seen and valued in receiving love. The thing that seems easy to me, the thing that seems natural to me is not always the way that she wants to be appreciated and valued. And sometimes it's the things that I loathe doing the most that she finds the most value in when I do it. So I've had to. Really, really work on that and still have to work on that When somebody in your life says, Hey. I know you do all this stuff to show me that you love me, but I actually feel valued when you do this. That stuff takes practice. That stuff takes work. That stuff takes building, like literally building new neural pathways, new muscle memory around making that a habit. So here's some helpful practices and prompts for you. First to ask yourself one. what's my love language? Both giving and receiving. Two, what's my partner or the people who are the closest to me, whether it's my kids, whether it's my business partner, my colleague, my mom, you know, whoever. What are their love languages, both giving and receiving? Have you had a conversation with those people around those love languages? And if not, how can you schedule some time to say, Hey, look, I think this is you, but I'm, I'm just double checking because I want to love you better. I wanna show up better for you. So how can we make sure that we showing up in the ways that each of us need for each other? And then for your own like personal expression of showing love to other folks, how can you flex those muscles often once a week. if you are a person that likes to cook like myself, like I love cooking as a way of saying, I love you to people. How can I put myself in situations where I express that to the people in my life? Maybe it's, Hey, I'm inviting people over. We, we cook out, I wanna make you a meal. Maybe it's once a week, planning a dinner for the family. Find that. And then the last one with this is really explore the love that you express to other people. How can you embody that love to yourself? Right? So if I feel taken care of love, seen by receiving gifts, what can I treat myself to? If I feel seen by words of affirmation, what are the affirmations that I can say for myself? Your vibe. Similar to the love languages, we wanna look at the ways we wanna feel, but also the expressions and the energy that we give. So when we're talking about vibe, there are certain. Places, feelings, emotions. There are places that make you feel good and you want that feeling that you get from those places and those spaces to be with you everywhere you go. You can check out my episode on how to create a soulful environment where I break down some of these elements, right? this idea of vibe, it goes hand in hand, identifying the spaces you need to cultivate in your life, but there's also emotions, feelings, and energy that you want to feel in your world. there are ways you want your relationships to make you feel. There are ways you want to feel when you're by yourself. When you're thinking about your vibe, what we're gonna do is we're gonna start with ourselves, understanding that what we cultivate in the deepest parts of ourselves, and the practices that we have, those start to pour out into our community. So the vibe that you create within yourself and for yourself when you go places, you take that atmosphere other places. So think about it, knowing that what you cultivate for you is gonna affect everybody in your life. So. when you take the elements from all the favorite places that you've been, what are those colors, textures? Artifacts, smells, the things you like to see. when you explore those things, what are the feelings that they give you? Is it joy? Is it rest? Is it peace? Is it motivation or inspiration? Whatever that is. Identify the feeling it gives you, and then figure out the ways that you can bring those elements and those feelings into your world today. I can't go to the beach every day, But I want to feel the calm that I feel When I'm sitting and watching the waves crash. What physical practices can I do to cultivate that? Well, I can breathe. I can take a deep breath in through my nose and breathe out. I can regulate my breathing to help me regulate my nervous system. or maybe you're somebody that likes the. Motivation that you feel when you go to a church service or when you go to hear somebody speak at a conference or when you go to watch a inspirational movie, What are ways that you can cultivate that motivation, that inspiration in your own life? Maybe it's you listening to some affirmations. Maybe it's you watching a clip from a favorite scene from a movie that inspires you. Maybe it's a playlist of music that you listen to to get the day going. Eminem, lose yourself, or you know, that whole get yourself hyped. As you start to make this list of the ways you want to feel, the things you want to cultivate in your environment, the vibe you want to experience within yourself. Think about the people in your life specifically by name, who need to experience and feel those waves that you're trying to cultivate for yourself. Is there somebody at work that's a little bit too high strung and they need to relax? Well, maybe you can be the calm. Is there a person in your life who kind of always dumps on themselves and they need a little affirmation and encouragement and motivation to see themselves in a better way? Feed yourself and let that atmosphere permeate every other relationship. Your decision making process, we're all different in the ways we problem solve and the ways we come to our conclusions. sometimes the people in your life, they want you to problem solve. They want you to come up with solutions the same exact way they do. And when it comes to decision making, it's not a one size fits all approach. Something that's helpful for me to categorize the ways that people make decisions is finding out which intelligence center. People are making their choices from, and when I say intelligence centers, I think in the Western world we put a high value on intellectual intelligence and head knowledge. But historically and traditionally. Making just a intellectual decision was not the only way our ancestors made choices. There are other intelligence centers so you can make an analytics based decision, lots of information, a head-based decision, but you can also make a body based decision. Some people make decisions off of gut feelings, and for a long time. People looked at that as quack science and discredited, But scientists who study the brain and gut connection, what they found was that there was a true link between what we call our gut decisions because our central nervous system. Goes from the stem of our brain, it goes through our body and it ends in our guts. Those neuroscientists, they call our gut our second brain. Tied to primitive survival. Around figuring out what they can eat that was safe or that will kill them. So smelling spoiled food or smelling something that was eroded and getting a feeling of disgust and that helped them to know like, okay, I don't want to eat that. And that as we have these feelings of disgust within ourselves in certain situations, that's tied back to that primitive, that primal part of us, if you're a person that makes decisions, gut-based decisions, don't let somebody discount that and say, that's not that. That's not real. So you can make a head-based decision, you can make a gut-based decision, you can make a heart-based decision. This is one that people tend to belittle the most. don't be so emotional. Don't make emotional decisions. What I don't want us to do is to make a hierarchy of this is head centered approaches or body centered approaches or heart-centered approaches. That one's better than the other. Society has made these binaries where it's like, there's either or, but you can have a integrated approach. You can get information. You can be connected within your body. You could be connected within your emotions and use all of those intelligence centers to make good. Decisions, even though, I push for this integrated approach, generally we do lean towards one more than the other. For me, when I'm making decisions, body then head. I know some people that they need data and information. it helps'em find meaning. It helps'em find a path. I know my wife. She likes to do some research, find out what's the best plan, and then. Find out another plan and find out another one and keep paring it down until she finds the absolute best one. And even when she's made a decision, maybe she'll go back. She ends up getting the best outcomes, head centered approach to decision making for her. so the prompts to ask yourself about your decision making process. Well, where do you make decisions from? Head, heart, or body, right? If you lean towards one more than the other, how can you. Always make sure that that is a way that you're setting yourself up to minimize anxiety. to minimize fear. To minimize stress in making decisions. So if I know that I'm body first and making decisions, well, maybe before I make a decision, I should do some practices to relax my body. If I know that making decisions from a head centered approach is the way that will mitigate fear and anxiety, then maybe they should spend some time a day, a week just doing research. Read and reviews, getting whatever information, making a spreadsheet, getting into a place where they can visualize it so that they can make those positive decisions. if you're somebody who is more heart-centered in your approach to making decision makings, maybe take some time checking in When two options are placed in front of you, ask yourself how they make you feel, why they make you feel that way. Check in with the emotions of fear and joy, and find out where they're pointing you to. when we take all of these elements of owning our style, of recognizing our unique love language, of understanding, and cultivating the vibe that we wanna create and owning. Our unique individual process of making decisions. This is how when people see you out in the world, they see you as somebody that's not a carbon copy of everyone else. They see you as somebody who advocates for what you need. Who is thoughtful about what you do and ultimately has the capacity to show up well for them. Owning your unique flavor is a way of taking ownership of your life, and it's a model for others to do the same for themselves. Thank you for listening to the Soulfully You Podcast with Coach Chris Rodriguez. If you like the show, help others find me by subscribing and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to connect with me on Instagram at Coach underscore Chris Rodriguez. For more episodes along with all of my coaching programs, visit me@www.coach chris rodriguez.com. Special thanks to my team behind the scenes music by Dan Smith. And remember, whatever you do, wherever you find yourself today, make sure you put some soul in it.