The Old Version of Me

I'm changing.

Not someone new.... but back into the same person I was before.

In this episode, I'm talking about coming back to myself—the version of me who is blunt, honest, bold, and not afraid to say what I think.

The same version of me that started this podcast years ago.

Because somewhere along the way.. I started to lose myself a little bit.

But rest assured... I am back!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh Lately I've been feeling really different. Not because my life magically changed overnight, but because I think I'm finally changing. Welcome to Freckles and Chaos. How is everybody this evening? I'm um stuffy. Thank you to the Kansas wind. Okay, so here's the weird part. Uh when you start changing, every everyone around you still expects the old version of you. The version that stayed quiet, the version that settled, the version that tolerated shit, and I don't think I'm her anymore. And when I talk about this, I'm not talking about one thing in particular. I'm talking about all of it. I'm talking about home life, work life, relationships. It doesn't fucking matter. All of it. Um so when I started my podcast originally, um one of my in my trailer, my very first trailer, I said, blunt I'm blunt and honest, both a curse and a gift. And I went by that when I had my first when I first started my podcast. So then there was a little break in there, and then I started again, and then there was a break because of the whole got swatted and you know got into the buying a house phase and then I got back into the podcast thing. So then I got on social media and I started making content for social media, which I enjoy doing. Um when I started excuse me, when I started social media, I was me, just not as um what is the word I want to use? Um Sailor-ish vocal. Um I didn't I said what I wanted to say, but I said it in a nice way, if that makes any sense. And I mean like it's been working. I've been building an audience. I'm not uh I'm not fake. I believe every word I speak. I truly I truly believe that the things that I say has or will help other women, and that's the goal. Uh but I've started uh I've gotten a little bolder lately with the social media, and it seems to be working out in my favor, which is a good thing. Because that feels like the real me. Not that I was not that I felt fake before, just more me versus I guess you could say the difference between me at home and me at work. So when I started social media, it was me at work and not the vulgar language and we can say not so bitchy. It's I haven't been bitchy, I just speak truth and some people like it and some people don't. Uh and then, you know, me at home is my podcast and how I talk like a sailor. Uh anyway, I don't know if I will lose followers for it. Um it's totally okay if I do. I don't want people to follow me if they don't like what I say. But as I lean into the more bolder part, I seem to gain followers. So that's a plus because you know, I started social media for the audience for my podcast, and it's leading it's leading to more things. Uh I will say this, it feels like it's taking forever to get anywhere on social media, and I know it's not an overnight thing. I'm gonna count. So for 11 weeks and two days, I've been posting content regularly. It started with three videos a day on all three platforms, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Um, then I moved it to four videos a day, and I've just added a fifth, I've just added a fifth one. So yeah, I went from three videos to four videos, and now I'm doing five videos a day, which doesn't take a whole lot of time. I don't make a video and edit it for an hour and then post it. I turn on my camera, I speak what I want to speak, and then I clean up the audio, add some subtitles, and fucking post it. I don't dick around with anything else. Um, but so this is something I've learned. So 11 weeks, um, when I started on TikTok, I had 52 followers. That was family and friends, that you know, when TikTok became a thing, apparently I made an account and I started, I mean, like, I didn't even know what to do when I got on there. It was all new to me. Um, anyways, I have a little over 300 followers right now on TikTok. I have 309 followers on Facebook, and I only have 150, 158 on Instagram, which is okay. So TikTok and Facebook seem to be neck and neck like their sisters fighting on who's gonna win the race, and then Instagram's like a distant fucking cousin that doesn't want to be around, which whatever, it's fine. I I don't um interact with people on Instagram as much as I do on the other two because people on Instagram don't comment on my shit, so when people don't comment, I can't respond. I could spend a little more time commenting on other videos on Instagram, but I haven't. Anyway, so I've gained a pretty good following on TikTok and Facebook, and some people hear 300 and they're like, Oh, you'll you only have 300 followers. That's not very much. Yaddy, yaddy, yaddy. Well, here's the deal: I feel like it's a good number. When I look at it in this aspect, I would rather have 300, we'll say dedicated, um, followers versus 8,000 random ass people that don't give a shit about my content. Like the people that follow my content, whatever I speak, whatever I'm saying, it's it's touching, it's hitting them in a way that they're like, oh shit, she just said what I've been thinking. Or, you know, oh, I need to share this with uh Susan down the fucking road because we were just having this conversation the other day. Whatever I sp whatever content I spew out, it's resonating with somebody, which is what the fucking goal is, right? So I would rather have that than a shit ton of followers. However, I would like to have, you know, I would like to have at least a thousand so I can get on TikTok shop and start making some money. Or, you know, even five thousand on TikTok because that gets you you can do um anything on TikTok shop. Like there's no I can't remember what it's called. I don't have the followers, so I don't fucking know, right? Anyways, it would be nice to um have those followers, but it's cool because I'm learning as I go. I speak the truth about life. When I started it, it was um choose you, do something for yourself before you do anything for anybody else. That was like the number one, and it did really great. And then it I added made by my mistakes because I fucking lived it. And if if I can help somebody else that's um living it get through it a little faster, fucking why not? And then break the pattern, which is a bold punch in the chest kind of video, it's a little more bold, I guess, and um that's just talking about breaking any fucking pattern. It doesn't matter if it's generational, it doesn't matter if it's relationship, it doesn't matter if it's work. I mean, like all people resonate with shit different, and I've had all kinds of different people comment on my videos and all different ways. And then I have my evening choose you, which is um fucking take a minute for yourself. Bef you know, after the kids are in bed, before you go to bed, take a minute to yourself because I feel like everybody needs that. They really truly do. I've lived my entire life fucking exhausted because all I've done is work, work, work, take care of people. I mean, like, that's my job as a mother. Mark and I were talking the other night and he said, You don't have a fucking off button. You are go, go, go all the time. He said, if you do have an off button, I haven't found it yet. Well, I don't. He was like, Your body, so I was sick last week. I was sick. Oh my god, it wasn't my appendix, obviously, because I haven't had surgery and nothing has been nothing's been removed. But I was fucking sick. I don't know what it was. He just kept talking about you're exhausted. Your body is exhausted, your body's telling you to fucking stop. Like, I can't. Consistency is key. I have to keep going. He doesn't get it. I know what I have to do to get to where I want to be. So I fought through it. I mean, like, yes, I did rest. I napped quite a bit. I think last Tuesday I took the entire day. And aside from doing laundry, I did rest. I took a break from the mental part of it, learning new shit and thinking, and I I did relax. So that's plus. Um, what I wanted to talk about also is this. So with my content and people comment all the time, I get DMs, I get people that comment on my videos. TikTok automatically filters out comments if there are, I don't know, bad words. I can't remember everything that's listed. So you have to go to your settings and privacy, and you have to dig through there to get to a certain section to see if there's any tech or any messages there. There usually is. Um, so those DMs and comments on Facebook posts or even TikTok, but like Facebook, I can check notifications and I don't see anything about a comment anywhere. And then somebody will comment, somebody else will comment, so I will respond, and then it's it says something underneath like most relevant, blah blah blah. So then I go to click all comments, and then more comments pop up, like it just shows the most relevant. I don't think you can change it anywhere. I've looked, I I could be wrong, I it's a possibility, but anyway, so I get all these messages, and it's messages from the majority of them are men. There's been a couple women. Um, I was surprised. I don't know why I was surprised. I shouldn't let anything fucking shock me anymore, but sometimes it just does. I have men coming at me pissed off because of something I fucking said, which generally means, you know, oh hey, I'm an abusive piece of shit, or I don't agree with what you're saying because um I enjoy treating my women like shit. I want her to feel like she shrinks herself every day. I want her to put up with my bullshit and you know, all of it. So I usually read the comment and then I just delete it because that's a safe space. That's um for women. If women want to comment on my videos, I will respond if they have conversations amongst themselves in the comment section. That's fantastic too. I mean, like, that's what it's there for. So when some asshat comes in and leaves a fucking comment, I just go in and delete it. They usually don't come trolling back. So Saturday night at work, I had made it break the pattern video, which is a little more bold, uh punch in the chest kind of video. It speaks the truth, and some dickhead got on there and made some shitty comment. And I'm pretty sure he said he took the first line of my video and the last line of my video, but he put some shitty comment in the middle section, and I'm pretty sure it had to do with my weight because surprise, surprise, I'm a big girl, and apparently that's the only thing people can talk about when they want to try and put me down, which is fantastic if that's all they got, then so fucking be it. Anyways, at first I was pissed off because I was like, Oh, you clicked on his name, private account, and I was like, Oh, imagine that, you fucking coward. You want to talk shit, but you have no photo, your account is private, so nobody knows who the fuck you are, but you could just go trolling all over fucking social media, big tough guy, and then I laughed, you know. I was like, fuck you, it's whatever. So I deleted his comment. And as the evening went on, you know, like we finished up at work, we came home, Mark was out in the man cave, I was in the house, I did my evening choose you video, and I was sitting in there in the living room watching TV when I had the most brilliant idea. The most brilliant idea. So this is where video number five comes in. I have started I have I don't know what I haven't named it yet because all of my pillars have a name, right? I haven't named it yet, but I start every video with for the men offended by my videos, and then I say some direct comment and I wink at the end, you know, just to just to piss them off. And I will say this. Uh I don't I will delete every comment that they post on any of my other content, but this specific video, if they want to comment and show their stupid fucking ass, um, I'm gonna leave every single one of them. So I'm hoping that somebody does. I'm hoping that somebody does comment. Um so far on today, because I've only done yesterday and today were the two videos I've done so far, and um today's video got one comment, and it was a girl, and all she said was weird. I wanted to put, yeah, it it's uh really fucking weird that I have to make a video for the men offended by the shit that I say every single day. It is weird, isn't it? But I didn't. I just stuck with the same same feeling I had with that video. I just stayed with that same energy and I gave it I just commented back. Um, so yeah, that's that's the new um video I have added. So five videos a day I post to three different platforms, and it's really pretty easy, it's just I'm not even gonna say time consuming because it doesn't take very long. But between work and videos, I mean like it takes nothing, it takes two fucking minutes to step into a room and record a video and then post it. But I have to post it to each platform. You have to spend a little bit of time and comment on a couple videos when you're done because you don't want that platform to think you're a fucking robot or a fake account, and um it's all because of the algorithm, so it I guess I I guess it is kind of time consuming, I guess, which is fine. It's fine. I am just ready to be doing this and only this is what I want, but I can't because it's not paying the bills, so I guess that's where this all started, and I went on a fucking ramble, so I apologize. I did mention earlier it's been 11 weeks. 11, it's only been 11 weeks, but it feels like a fucking lifetime, but you know, for 11 weeks I've shown up every single day, and I have posted videos and I respond to comments, I do an episode every Monday night. Yeah, um, I'm not quitting my job tomorrow, obviously, but I'm done thinking small and I am going all in on myself. Um, my content, my workbook. I told y'all last week that I'm working on UGC, learning that. I'm gonna spend all day tomorrow doing that. Um, I also talked about how I was gonna start going live on Facebook at Facebook and TikTok. I have not done that because it's so hard to find time. By the time I get home from work, I don't know if people are still I mean I imagine there's trillion people in the world, but there's somebody that's awake when I have time to do a live and um might listen, but I would like it to be at a decent time, and I just haven't figured out that rhythm yet, so I'm still working on that. But yeah, every day I go to work, and every day I think, and I know Mark feels the exact same way. He's ready for a Monday through Friday job, so you know we have time to see our kids and our grandkids because we don't as a grandparent, my grandma was around all the time when I was when we were growing up. She would come, she didn't live in our town, but she would drive here and she would see us every weekend and she would get all the grandkids. She'd take us all to fucking lunch, or she'd take us out for a root beer float or ice cream, or she'd take us to the park. We would go stay with her for weeks at a time through the summer, and you know, so in my eyes, that's what grandmas are supposed to do. We're supposed to like my parents did it for my kids. My stepmom, her mom did it for my kids. I want to do it for my kids with my grandkids, and Mark feels the same way, and our current job makes that in fucking possible because our days off are Monday and Tuesday, and then people are at work on Mondays and Tuesdays, you know? Like it's I can't whine about it every fucking time I'm on here, but it just pisses me off every time I go to work. That's what I think about. So I am doing everything in my power to figure out a way to um quit my job. I mean, like, I know how much money I make in a day. The digital marketing program I made or I paid for, if I could sell, I can turn around and sell that program if I wanted to on social media. I that's not something I want to do because I already make my own content. I'm working on my brand and I want I'm building something for me. But if I wanted to, I could turn around and try and sell that program. I would just have to sell that program um once every couple of days to make the exact same amount of money as I do now. Isn't that fucking crazy? Oh man, that's something to think about. Just kidding. I can't. But yeah, next week is episode 10, and I want to talk about something I've been noticing and talk about the next because um episode 10 ends season three, and I will take a break and I will come back in a month, a month or two. I can't remember uh what I have down, but because it's getting busy at work, we didn't really have a fucking winter, it's just nice outside. So we're already getting busy, and the warmer it gets, the busier it's gonna get because it's a fucking golf course, so um sometimes we have to work on Mondays and Tuesdays. We just get super busy and because there's tournaments and events and blah blah blah blah blah. So next week, in next week's episode, I have some shit to talk about. Um, and I will announce then how long the break will be or when it'll start back up, when season four will start. I will say this that um our oldest grandson did start soccer practice. I told all my kids, I have told all the kids, all the girls with kiddos, that if the grandkids want to play sports, I will fucking pay for it. And I will pay for it until they get old enough that it's traveling sports. I'm not paying for that because that gets too fucking pricey. Um, I had to do it, so they'll have to do it. Let's just I know that uh sports can be expensive when you're young and you have little kids. I know that um everything is fucking expensive right now. So uh anyways, I paid for the oldest one to play soccer. He had his first soccer game last Saturday and well a couple days ago, and um it was a blast to watch. It was fun. First graders running around, it was cold, and when soccer was over, I asked I asked him if he had any interest in playing baseball because it was warmer. Everybody started laughing. I also had a conversation with him on the way to school today and I asked him again if he was gonna play baseball. And he said, I think I wanna take ninja classes and I said, I don't I don't think there's any ninja classes around here and was laughing and he said it's okay, I'll train myself and I said okay. So, um, ninja, it is. I would like to say anybody that listens to this podcast or follows me on social media, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate you greatly. I know that sometimes I probably sound fucking spacey or like I'm losing it, or I sit here and repeat myself. I could say something at the beginning and I'll say the same thing at the end because I fucking forget. And I don't it's you know, my age. I think it's a mix of my age and they call it perimenopause, but I already had a hysterectomy, so that would be menopause, right? Uh I'm not on hormones, but I think I should be. Oh, see, there's so much. Okay, anyways, if this episode has resonated, take what you need and leave the rest. I'll see you in the next one.