Own Your Power Advocate and Achieve

Kandice Whitaker and Michael Clark discuss strategies for building confidence and self-advocacy. Michael emphasizes creating a "brag bank" to document achievements and focusing on small wins. He advises against self-doubt and fear of failure, suggesting that past failures can be valuable lessons. Kandice shares her experience of transitioning from opera to entrepreneurship and highlights the importance of leveraging past experiences. They stress the need for setting goals, visualizing success, and practicing assertiveness in both professional and personal settings. Michael also encourages embracing unique strengths and taking proactive steps to achieve desired outcomes.

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Transcript

0:00  
Kandice, welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour Podcast, where each week we'll help you navigate the corporate jungle. Here's your host, Kandice Whitaker,

0:12  
welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast, friends. Here we focus on personal growth, career growth and entrepreneurship, our family, who are your virtual coworkers, are dedicated to providing you with the tools and insights to turn your dreams into reality and help you get your money up. In each episode, we'll explore strategies rooted in my framework, the bail method of resilience, designed to guide you in conquering challenges and thrive. I'm your host, Kandice Whitaker, and at the age of 21 I was a determined young mother of two who wanted to ensure my best possible life and defy the odds. So I took steps towards achieving the life I desire. I got my master's degree. Then I was a sought after consultant, which led me to starting my own company. I have a passion for helping people live their life to the fullest through resilience, using the bail yourself out approach. So I'm happy you're here. Kick off your shoes and relax your feet. Fill up your favorite drink, because the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast is about to start now. Hey, y'all Hey, welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast, friends and today, our guest host is my friend and also my coach, Michael Clark, who is CEO and founder of personality pitching. He coaches entrepreneurs and startups, also CEOs. And guess what? Y'all he's helped people raise up to $20 million he lives in Atlanta with his wife and three kids, and he's also a dog dad. He has a new litter. Probably by the time you guys hear this, that all won't be true, the litter won't be new, it'll be old. But welcome. Michael Clark, what do you want the world to know about you? Michael Clark,

2:03  
well, first of all, I want them to know that they're listening to amazing podcasts by amazing host Kandice. It's just a firecracker. I remember the first day I met you at amazing conference here in Atlanta, and you just you lit up the room with your questions, and it's been amazing to work with you. I am just humbled to be on this podcast with you. Excited and looking forward to having an amazing conversation with you today. I

2:29  
am so excited that you have decided to come and be part of our humble pod lounge, and I feel like your message personality pitching, even though pitching is something we often attribute to entrepreneurs, people who are in corporate, people who are not in corporate, they just have jobs, you have to pitch yourself, right? Because what is pitching but advocacy? And a direct correlation with pitching is self esteem or your confidence, right? So being able to advocate for yourself also kind of assumes that you can. That's the thing that you can. In anticipation of our conversation today, I just did a quick and dirty search. I can't even say I did research, right? I did a Google search. Psychology Today has a big article about self confidence, and it says that roughly 85% of people worldwide have low self esteem.

3:27  
Yeah, that's an amazing stat, because that means that so many people that we see every day that we look at them as they're leading companies, leading organizations. They're sitting next to you. They're a cube away, office away. You run into them, they also struggle with low self esteem, and they're doing it many times in a very silent way. May not be a parent, but they're just kind of silent suffering through it, which also means it's also encouraging sad. I look at it the other way. So if there's so many that if someone's listening to this, they know that they're not alone. They know that they can there's other people out there that are functional and are getting through it. I think the ones that get into that higher percentage of not having that low self esteem are those that say, Wait a minute. There's some things out there that I have to go after. And I know we'll get into that today, but I look at that stat in the way of it's almost encouraging, because that means that you can lead a company, that you can get the deal done that you can be happy and function on relationships with a little bit of self esteem in there wasn't

4:27  
Michelle Obama, the one to have that quote where, you know, she's been in the room with all of these world leaders and company leaders, and she's not that smart. I haven't been in the rooms that Michelle Obama has been in, but I can tell you when the ones that I've been in, they're not that smart, she's right. So I think the difference between those people who are able to be in those rooms and lead and have those conversations, or that they have confidence in themselves, sometimes maybe a little bit too much, depending on who you ask, and some of us who are dope, need to really work on our confidence. So let me. Ask you, Michael, as a coach, what strategies can help someone break through the confidence wall and step into their full potential? Well,

5:07  
I'm a big advocate of doing two big things. One, creating a brag bank, because oftentimes there are things that you have done, and we forget about them. We forget about that degree that we got, we forget about that promotion that we receive, the accolades that we get, the thank yous that we get when we always do something so building that brag bank and just kind of writing down, hey, wait a minute I have there have been some great things here. And then the second thing is really focusing in on the small wins. And I use the word small. I believe there's no such thing as small win. But really, as life goes on, being able to look back at a day a week a year, and saying, Hey, what has gone right? And when we are faced with challenges, we have to say, like, Wait a minute. I know. Maybe right now sales are slow, but over the last six months, I have been able to close deals. I have been able to achieve certain things. So those two things really help. That's where I always start reading that brag bank and then making sure that at least I love to do it daily, but at least on a weekly basis, you're counting the wins what has gone right. Because so often we just focus in on two things. One, we focus in on what's gone wrong, or we just focus in on the fear of, oh, this is not going to work out. This is not going to work out. This is not going to work out. And that takes a lot of mental energy and can wear us out.

6:28  
You're absolutely right. And it's funny that you started with the idea of creating a brag bank, because literally, two weeks ago, I taught a class for 1 million black businesses, which, by the way, if you guys don't know about it, look it up. It is free classes for entrepreneurs in a whole bunch of different topics. Michael's going to be doing a pitching class at some point in December, but I just did a Class A couple of weeks ago on achievements already realized, and that's what I focused on, because you're right so often as an entrepreneur, or so often as a person, right? When you are very goal oriented, it's so easy to just focus on what you need to achieve next instead of saying, yo. But I did some dope stuff,

7:11  
absolutely. Yeah, we take so much again. We take so much mental energy worrying about the thing that usually never happens anyway. So we worry about get getting a bill or debt, or we worry about a deal, because all of these deals, as it go through, my business is going to fail. I'm going to have to shut down my when all of a sudden. I give you a good example. I had a client that was so worried about this particular deal, and they said, I don't know. I haven't heard back, and I don't think it's going to go through. And I say, You know what? Let's, let's let's call them right now. They're like, Well, what do you mean? I said, literally. I said, we're on a zoom call the client right now. No, I think that my rate was too high. I don't think they wanted it. We got the client on the phone during the zoom and they were like, Oh, hey, how you doing? Oh, yeah, you know what, I've been away for the last week. We didn't get a chance to look at the proposal. We definitely want to move forward, so we'll get it back to you on Friday. And the deal went through, and it was one of her biggest deals. So I'm saying yeah, because sometimes we assume the worst, like we haven't heard back. Oh, they rejected the deal. My price was too high and but let yourself off the hook a lot of times, does not you. It's just life.

8:22  
Love that idea, and it reminds me of back in the day, when I was young. I want to say, like in my teens, getting a job. My dad told me to always follow up with a call. So there was, like, two things that I always did, right if I went to, let's say, the grocery store and filled out an application, because this is the level of job I'm talking about, I would always after I filled out the application, because my dad told me to do it, find the manager, introduce myself and shake his hand. That's good. And then I would call and follow up if I haven't heard anything. When I tell you nine times out of 10 when I called, they would say something like, oh yeah, or they would just pull my resume and say, Oh yeah, you're the one that shook my hand. And so essentially what you were doing in coaching is what my dad told me when the year started with 19 absolutely,

9:11  
absolutely and think about what you did. What did your dad had you do? He had you take your destiny in your own hands, do something to set yourself apart and follow up. And first of all, you had to show up, right? So first of all, you had to have the confidence to even take the shot and fill out the application. You know that all saying we miss every shot we don't take. So a lot of times, out of fear, we don't apply. We don't ask for the business, we don't set up the virtual coffee, we don't fill out the grant application. So we automatically disqualify ourselves. And then once we do apply, we have to set ourselves apart. There's always that unique thing, and this is one of the things too, that really help you get past the self esteem factor, is that you've got to figure out what makes you so super unique that God created you. You and you only have like your mission. I love using superhero analogies, and I'm a confident believer that we all have our own superpowers, and we also have that community. We have our own Gotham City that we call the Save or serve. So whether it's I know this works, corporate or entrepreneur, right, no matter what space you're in, you are on the scene and in that room for just such a time as this, you're there for a reason, because of what you bring to the table, and that also defeats self esteem. So if you're sitting in that boardroom, you sometimes have to sit back and do exactly what we said, brag bank. I've done amazing things. I've been promoted. I've done one amazing deals. That's why I'm here. And then you have to, you know, take that inventory and realize you're in the room for a reason. You're there, you have a superpower, you have a role. And then know that maybe this is the company, and this is the client you're called to serve or save. So I know I threw a lot in that answer, but you know, that really starts to defeat that low self esteem demon. No,

11:03  
I love how you describe that. I think you described it perfectly. Because essentially, when you think about it, your situation in terms of a larger plan at work, then it is not so much focused on well, how I do today makes or breaks. What happens, right? Because the the reality is a lot of us, especially if you are goal oriented, especially if you are a go getter, you're going to hear a lot of no's, but you can't take that personally. You know, I have a example personally. I don't know if y'all know this about me, but do a TEDx. I've not set that out publicly, but I do so I have been kind of researching it and working on it a little bit for, gosh, over a year at this point, and I did an audition for a TEDx, like, this time last year. And I can say, and this is not Kandice two, in my own horn, I'm like, No, I nailed it, I couldn't have done better. Like, I left that audition saying, if they don't pick me, it's not because I didn't do my best, like, I could not have done better. And I say that to agree with what you just mentioned, there are a lot of things at play other than your performance, right? It would have been very easy for me to say, like, oh, maybe I wasn't that good. Nah, I did my best. Like, maybe I wasn't speaking on the topic the way they wanted me to speak. Or maybe they had enough people it could have been between me and somebody else. Like, there are so many other things that could have been happening behind the scenes that I know nothing about. But I walked away and said, Nah, man, I couldn't have did better. I nailed it.

12:43  
Yeah, you left it all on the court. And I know this could probably be a podcast unto itself, but I get a lot of clients who have put in, say, decades in the corporate space, and have achieved at a very, very high level, and one of the things that they see potentially as a setback is their race and and and again, I know this, this, this could be a podcast into itself, and I often and they connect that that is a source of their low self esteem. In particular, they'll say, but I'm a black woman, but I then also have to remind them of the amazing things that they've done, that same brag bank, those same amazing wins that they've had, and so I just the reason I'm throwing that in there is because sometimes that's that unknown factor that we're considering and we're not sure of, but we still have to take the shot, set ourselves apart, right? Leave nothing on the court. We have to give it our all in those situations, you know, and again, only because I deal with this so much with clients where it's like, yes, you're black, great, that is one of your superpowers in your assets. Yes, you're a woman, and that's one of your superpowers in the assets. Yes, you're over 40, and that's one of your superpowers in an asset. So even looking at those things and taking inventory that again, those things sometimes lend to people's low self esteem. Gotta turn those things around as superpowers.

14:08  
Actually, I was gonna say something to that, but we are at break time, so when I come back, I'm going to respond to that, because I have a phenomenal story to tell. We'll be back. Join our community

14:21  
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14:27  
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14:42  
You're listening to Kandice Whitaker on the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast.

14:50  
Hey, y'all, hey, we are back in the bail yourself out Happy Hour lounge with my friend and co host Michael Clark of personality pitching. So before the break. Break, we were talking about self esteem and people having confidence in themselves, but we ended up with some people seeing their race as a barrier to their success and plausibly giving them low self esteem. So I want to tell this story, but I didn't tell it before the break, because it's kind of long. Several years ago, I brought Tony Brown. I don't know if y'all know who he is, but he's a journalist at a Hampton University. Shout out to Tony brown to Yale when I was working there as a speaker, and he said two things that changed my life. We had dinner together the night before, and then I had him speak in front of Yale African American affinity group, shout out to y A and at dinner, he said, and I'm paraphrasing, this was many years ago, he said something to the effect of, I don't see myself as black. I'm black, but constantly thinking about myself within the box of being black is limiting. I think about myself as a person. That's just a label, right? I am black, but the idea, the connotation of putting on limiting labels is not useful. It doesn't serve me. So he said, I'm black, I use hot sauce and I season my food, everything I do. I don't look at it through the pair view of being black that changed my life, because before then, I didn't realize I did that. I looked at everything as black. Woman. Kandice, yeah, so the next day, at these talk, he started his talk like this, how many of y'all have seen the sunrise or the sunset? So, you know, people raise their hand. I've seen the sunrise. I see the sun. He said, You know, you go out there, you hold hands. You see the sunrise, you see the sunset. So that this fool said, none of y'all have seen the sun rise or the sunset, because the sun doesn't rise and the sun doesn't set. You've seen the earth move on is access. What if I told you racism part of it is that perception,

17:07  
yeah, yeah, that's good.

17:12  
Changed my life. Changed my life. We're not saying that racism doesn't exist, sure, right? But the crux of his message, and it forever changed my life. Shout out to Tony Brown for that was that how you come to the table and how you perceive things also plays part in how things play out. Sure. So give people, places, spaces, the opportunity to do what they said they're going to do. They said they're not racist on the brochure. Go in there, act like they're not going to be everybody's HR says that agreed, agreed.

17:40  
Agreed. No, that's good. That's good to your point. You know, when you do the opposite and you wear it as a cloak, and you you always think you're starting a game two touchdowns behind because you're black, it makes it tough. It makes it tough to be functional. And then you start to, you know? And again, I know this could be a podcast into itself. You can look at everything through a lens of, why did they say that? Why they email that to me? And you know, they looked at me a way I could feel everybody. And sometimes people are not as concerned about you or thinking about you as as we your mind sets you up to think

18:13  
a lot of the times, as a person with a very expressive face, I will make a face in a meeting, and honestly, I'm thinking about what I'm going to cook for dinner.

18:27  
Oh, that's funny. Think about you. Think about you. It's the truth. Well, you know,

18:32  
it's funny you say that because I think that, I know this is a sidebar, but I think that that's why I like zoom, because I've gotten feedback. Like, you know,

18:40  
they said you had this really intense look. And I was like, No, I was, I was just looking, just listening

18:44  
with Zoom. I'm very conscious of, hmm, okay, like, so I think that's the one benefit of virtual meetings and the pandemic forcing us on Zoom when it was here. So,

18:59  
no, that is completely valid, because zoom has saved my life for that reason, because nine times out of 10 on Zoom, I'm looking at myself. I'm not looking at you.

19:07  
I know, I know, I know, I know. I've got my I got myself at the top here, right? So, but

19:13  
then the other thing of it is, you know, because I'm black, I'm intimidating, and then add on the fact that I'm five nine barefoot, so that means I'm looking most men dead in the eye. Gotcha. So my stature alone says intimidating with Zoom. I'm not intimidating because we're all the same size, square,

19:31  
same size, same viewing angle. But I do teach. That's one of the things I do work with my clients on camera. Angle is so, so important. I've had, you know, so many people who are, well, I don't want to say new to zoom, but if they're just not as familiar, and you get that view, they're looking down at you from their laptop and stuff. And so that's

19:52  
not good either in business. Well, listen, we need to have a consultation too, because I'm constantly playing with my background. But that is a separate i. I let me ask you this, what are the key steps to effectively advocate for yourself, both personally and professionally? Well,

20:08  
a couple of things in both settings. There's a need to be direct, and that's direct about what your needs are, what your goals are, and what your contributions are. So let's talk about what your needs are coming into a situation. And again, this goes across the board. Whether you're executive or we're in your own business, there are certain needs. There are certain things that you want or desire with low self esteem. So often we put everybody else's needs first. I literally say you should be writing out what are you looking for? What are your needs? What do you want out of this relationship, situation, deal? And I would say then the next is having having larger goals. I'm a big advocate. Everyone should have their six month, one year, three year and five year goals. And I know we throw around the term goals, and we think about that only during like New Year's, but you should have goals. One of my backgrounds is my vision board. So having that vision board, having those goals, looking at them every single day, also builds up self esteem. Right when I've got my horse, cayenne up on my screen certain things is very aspirational, and the next thing, and it keeps the fire burning so many times we stay in this silo, and especially social media, spending so much time scrolling on social media. I think there's a definitely a direct correlation between low self esteem and absorbing social media, because you're looking at everybody else's goals, dreams, visions, their awesomeness, their blessings, and you're not focusing on yourself

21:41  
that crappy lies too. Hey, let's just talk about a fake

21:43  
book, yep, yep, yep, it's lies. But everybody's got that little like, I think if we were to take a poll, 90% of people like, oh yeah, that's fake. But then you have that thing like, oh, I always watch this. Always watch that, even sometimes I gotta be careful too, watching a lot of crime stuff and true crime, and all these people get murdered and all this other stuff, because there's a lot of that on YouTube, and you watching people get murdered for like, you know, five hours a day, and then you're like, yeah, let me get myself a steam up and be careful what you're putting in your spirit. So, oh,

22:20  
that's 100% true. When I went to TEDx, I went to a TEDx in Logan Circle, there was a speaker, and she was amazing. She was a TV exec, and she was talking about just that, and about how the number of true crime shows has increased, and it is to our public detriment. I stopped watching those things quite a while ago, because when I started paying attention to how things make me feel, I realized that this makes me feel bad. It makes me feel anxious. I don't feel happy, I don't feel settled. My stomach hurts

22:55  
like, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of people that you would say, Remember back in the day, it was like, Oh, don't watch too much TV. And nowadays people say, I don't watch TV. But if you look on their phone for screen time, and they spend like, six hours on YouTube, but they don't watch TV, they spend four hours in Netflix, but they don't watch TV. I do want to say this also goes back to you have to rehearse or practice asserting yourself and setting boundaries, literally just like I have my clients. Practice their pitch, practice asking, practice their introductions. Sometimes you have to practice, if you know you have a big presentation or you need to ask for something for your boss or assert or even in a relationship, practice it. Practice it. Literally. Kandice, I just wanted to talk to you about how we could just

23:44  
practice it. No, you know what, rehearse it. I love that you gave that advice because, you know, I'm very accustomed to advocating for myself in a professional setting, right? If we're talking about salary, if we are talking about, you know, compensation, whether it be benefits or whatever, I'm fine with that. I'm never taking the first offer. I'm going to push you for something, right? However, comma, the same person in my personal relationships, I realized that I have a bit of an issue of advocating for myself because of how I see myself in my personal relationships, and I don't see myself as less, but there's something in the back of my mind that I know about we're working on Jesus in therapy, right? Yep, that says, Well, if you advocate for yourself in this area, it's not going to turn out how you want it.

24:37  
Mm, well, that also will lead to you living almost a double life, which is also stressful. So you've got this boss thing in the boardroom, but you leave the boardroom, and now you become and you shrink down, and you're just immortal with everyone else. And that double life can really pull on you emotionally. So just like you would practice asking for. Sometimes we have to practice asking for space, asking for more communication, you know, asking for maybe our significant other, having those conversations, because otherwise there is such an imbalance. Now I'm not saying treat your spouse like, you know, like an employee or vice versa, right, but I am talking about

25:20  
because you could take that tone right back to work exactly,

25:23  
exactly. But I think the core of it is really focusing in on your needs, focusing in on your goals, and then that third portion is focusing in on your contribution. It's like we have contributions at work. We have contributions even in our personal relationships that we have to sometimes remind people of, I'm a big advocate of just also backing up your your claims with results. You have results on your job. You have results in your personal relationships. You

25:53  
know, one of the things that you said a little bit earlier reminded me of a quote that I heard from a class I took a couple of years ago with a hypnotist, but it stayed with me. He said, Your imagination is stronger than your willpower. If you can see yourself there, you can achieve it.

26:11  
Agreed. Agreed. That also pops in my head, like, if you believe you can, you're right, right, but if you believe you can't, you're also right. It goes back to self value. If you believe that your services are only worth $100 an hour, and your colleagues are being paid $500 well, if you believe it's worth 100 You're right. And it goes back to, I know we talked in another segment about kind of what you do to build that up. We talked about brag bank. But also, just like a sports, someone in sports, you have to visualize yourself winning often time the movie that we play in our head is us losing. We see us losing the game. We see us getting hurt. We see us getting carded off the field, where, in all actuality, we have to rehearse in our minds the boss saying yes, our spouse's significant other saying yes, seeing us on vacation, seeing ourselves doing well, seeing ourselves out of debt, seeing ourselves happy and fulfilled. That movie that we play, I think it's somewhere around, I don't know. It's like 17,000 thoughts that we have in our head, really almost reprogramming. I liken it to the iPhone, right? We have no problem upgrading our iPhone each year, getting a new version of the iPhone, upgrading the software, but we don't do the same for ourselves, for our spirits and for our minds. Think it's okay to kind of run on, you know, iPhone iOS nine from 10 years ago, when he left, she left, we got fired, and we're running on that same operating system. And I think shameless plug, that's where coaching comes in. We we're there to help you upgrade, upgrade your thoughts, upgrade your goals, upgrade your motivations, upgrade the people that are around you.

27:50  
Well, listen, you don't have to sell me on the value of coaching, right? I am. But I also have a coach because it is that important. You know? It's one of those things I had a doctor tell me, years ago, this is weird, but true. My doctor had a child who played professional football. He was in NFL, and my son was playing AAU basketball, and he was really good, or whatever. And so she said to me, Well, have you gotten him a coach? And I'm like, Well, what do you what do you mean, like a coach? She goes to, like, basketball. It's, like, expensive, the AAU, like, we have a thing. She's like, No, like, a personal coach. I didn't even know that was a thing. I did not know it was, like a sports coach for kids, right? Yeah, he was in high school. She's like, this is serious. She was like, because in those settings, you're going to be able to have somebody who says to your son, well, put your hand like this as opposed to this, and it'll help you do it that way and be more successful with your results. And so I've carried that over into my personal life and coaching here, because you have blind spots. We all have blind spots. But the coach could look at you and say, Hey, if you just do this, or maybe just change this word on your resume, or get new pictures or speak of yourself this way you'll have a better result. So this is a great place to take a break. All right, what

29:11  
do you want to talk about if you have a show idea? Drop Kandice alive. At bail yourself out.com.

29:19  
Do you want me to speak at your next event. Hit me up at bail yourself outpod.com, now back to the show. Hey, y'all Hey, welcome back to the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast. You know, we're chilling today with my guest co host, Michael Clark from personality pitching. We've been talking about all things related to confidence, advocating for yourself. But I want to ask you this, Michael, what are the common barriers that prevent people from fully embracing who they are, and how can they overcome them? Oh,

29:50  
okay, okay, I would say in no order in particular, it's gonna be self doubt, just just not believing in yourself, counting yourself. Out the fear of failure, and then the pressure to conform to others expectations. And I'll take those in reverse order of pressure to conform that is the need to just build your own expectations. What are you expecting from you? And so often because of self doubt and fear failure, we just, we think life is just kind of blowing us in the wind. And this is very circular. If you listed earlier on the podcast, we talked about building that bragging and recognizing your superpowers. You do have superpowers. There are people you're called to serve and save. So if we can start to build a list of expectations, you can have the expectation, hey, I'm always showing up. If given the opportunity for grants, I'm applying to them. If someone gives me a referral, I'm calling them back. Now, those are little things, but some for some people listening to this, you're just one referral call back away from changing your life. You're one applying to a promotion to change your life. Why? Because self doubt and fear failure has kept you in this place of procrastination. And the big one, I've been hearing a lot, I was really blessed by it. It's delay meaning. And the difference is it's like procrastination. There's one thing to put something off. I don't even want to start. It keeps you from starting. And then, as I mentioned, fear failure, we don't take the shot because we think we're going to fail. And tied into fear of failure is wanting things to be perfect before they launch. I love it when you ever see a video and it's just like, oh, the lighting, oh this that you'll look and the number of views are crazy because people respond to you and your message. So my

31:40  
podcast Season One,

31:42  
there you go. There you go. Right? So fear of failure that keeps us, keeps us back, and that procrastination and fear of failure, they're, they're, they're brother and sister, totally tied together, and then self doubt you not believing in you. So oftentimes, we don't have people around us that are cheering us on, and we have to be our first own advocate. Like, how do we build Yeah, and how do we build up that, being our own advocate, looking back at our past, being able to say, and I know we'll talk about that, but, but not really taking things and so often you do have wins, I encourage you even, even after this podcast, I'm going to give you all homework my honorary clients. If you do not have a brag bang, you need one. You need one. Or if you have one, you have one. Okay, good, good.

32:30  
I definitely already have one. I have index cards in my nightstand, and you have

32:35  
one, you're my client, you have to have one. So Well, that's

32:38  
true too, but I did have one before we even met.

32:42  
No, I know I'm messing with you. No, I

32:44  
know, I know, but I keep wins. I also keep nice things that people have said to me, write them down, yeah, and any kind of quote or something that someone has said that resonated with me, that I want to remember, like your imagination is stronger than your willpower. That's

33:03  
good. That's good. And the nice things they said to you, that's also a really good source of what your superpower is, too. Because some people like, well, I just do this. I don't know when you take account of and I've heard people say this, the thing that people thank you for, thank you for that. Thank you for

33:20  
it feels like nothing, and it feels like nothing, yep,

33:23  
and so often that's what we say. Oh, that was nothing that took me five minutes. Cost me 50 cent. Do that all the time. It's a superpower. Yes, that is a super.

33:33  
Glad you said that, because think that's the thing that people ask the most. How do I know what my superpower is? So it is the thing that people thank you for the thing that gives you energy when you think about doing it, or the thing that's just so easy to you, it comes naturally to you. So that's what I heard you say, Yes, you know, shout out to all my Jamaicans listening. What do we say? You have to big up yourself, basically what Michael just said, shout out to all the Jamaicans listening. So in trying to build the life that you want, right, how do we acknowledge what's happened in the past? Because everybody's had some things that's happened, things that have gone well, things that have not gone so well, but then learn from them. Because, you know, that's what we do here in bail, because you gotta learn from your past, sure, while moving forward, because you got to do all of those things, acknowledge, learn and move forward. What is your best advice for that to

34:26  
really embrace the past and especially the failures. Embrace them as lessons. Embrace them as a former teacher, being able to just like we create a brag bank, I'm a big proponent of going through and saying, Hey, wait a minute, that thing now, I want to just look back at at it and how does it settle? How does it resolve itself? I'll share a personal one. I started law school long time ago, didn't finish, looked at it as a total area of failure for me. I mean, it beat me a. Affected every part of my life, even my marriage, everything, the whole law school not finishing, just messed me up. And I said, like, oh yeah, it was, this is a real point of failure. But as I look back, it actually opened up to about 15 years of work with law firms. Wow. It opened the door to 15 top law firms. Just amazing opportunity. And now to this day, I don't know, I don't even think you know this, but I'm completing my law degree starting next year. And so about this, yeah, news flash. There you go. But, but I say all that to say is that I had always looked at that as you know, yeah, sometimes you gotta fail forward and but now I realize it was, it was nothing more than a stepping stone for me into big law top law firms. Made a lot of money without a law degree in that space, and now it's bridging the gap, because there's some things that I want to do that, having a law degree is really going to build another bridge, but, but being able to look back at it and say, you know, it was, it was for a reason. And many times you and you're listening to issue that one or two points, you're either in the midst of what you feel like is a failing moment, or you have a long list of failing moments. And I would challenge you look back at those moments and see maybe what it connected to, what it opened up a door to what it was now a bridge to, I never forget I and it was with a law firm. I had to, I got fired from a law firm, and it just totally just blew me out the water. But it bridged the gap to another opportunity, which bridged to another opportunity. Yeah. So being able to look back at your past as a teacher, and if you are in the midst of a failure, I think, take inventory right now, because you're in the midst of it, you got say, if you in the midst of you got laid off in the midst of some type of turmoil with a client. Sometimes we have to take inventory in the moment and say, I would say to my clients, how can we make money off of this? How can we benefit from this? Right now, I had a huge client go in a different direction, and all it did was make me push more marketing. It made me do more other things. So so often in the midst of failure, it's actually a motivator and pushes you, because you have those lists of things that you've been putting off, procrastinating. If you listen to earlier this podcast, we talked about that low self esteem does what it makes you put stuff off. It makes you not want to take the shot use the failure that you're in, seemingly the failure that you're in right now as motivator, as rocket fuel, to push you to do those things, because we all have that list of things that we've been putting off, hope that helps

37:51  
absolutely and thank you for that. I don't know if you know this about me, Michael, but I know the audience, if you've been listening, probably does. I started my life, you know, my college career as a opera singer, my undergraduate degree, I was in a music conservatory, and when I came out of that situation as a non musician, I saw that as a failure at the time, like, what did I just Do? Why did I do that? I should have picked differently. They told us at the very beginning, like probably one of you guys will be actually a singer. So I was like, Why the hell am I here? Why did I do this? But when I tell you the things that I learned as a singer, how to have stage presidents, which is how to have confidence, how to speak up, how to project your voice. I use those things every single day coming making sure you look polished, making sure that your presentation is polished. Every single day, there are no wasted moments. So even at the time when I was really down on myself, and I felt weird about it, even though, let me be clear, I don't want to be a professional singer, because there was a part of me that said it makes no sense for me to be working when everybody else is off. That's what singers do. I don't want to work when everybody else is off, but because I put it out there, and I didn't come through the way that I wanted or the way that I felt like it should. There was a part of me that was embarrassed, you know, you got to talk about that too, right? Your ego is hurt like, I don't put this out there. I'm going to be doing this, and now I'm not. So now what? But I think this goes back to what you were talking about earlier. That's part of pressure to conform to other people's expectations. That's right, you can't really control and, you know, I'm old enough to realize that they ain't really paying you no mind anyway. They don't care that much. They ain't thinking about you.

39:56  
Yeah, they don't call that spotlighting thing and everybody. Thinking about you, but it's not really like that. Say,

40:03  
not at all. So I love the fact that you brought it home with the idea of learning from the things that have happened in your life, taking them as lessons, and then inventorying them. And I would even take that a step further. You said, How do I make money, right? Which is a great strategy. How do I make money off of this, right? But I said, how can you use it? That's right, you know, how can you use it? So, you know, I was able to take my speaking skills and leverage that into making a lot of money as a trainer. That's

40:35  
right, that's right. That wasn't a plan, yeah, yeah, because the years that I spent in law firm in terms of shaping me as a coach and consultant, priceless, priceless, working internationally with the priceless experience. To this day, I utilize a lot of what I've learned in that space, and just the different environments, different areas of practice have just, again, such a great, great teacher. But again, I could have been like, oh, I should be. No, there's a lot of stuff that the listeners right now are thinking you should and I'm like, maybe you should.

41:11  
Well, let me ask you this, because you like me. We're people of a certain age, and you're now finishing your law degree. What would you say to a person who says, Well, I'm too old. It's too late. I already missed it. I already messed up my life. People in their 40s say that, and I'm like, what? It's either one or

41:26  
two things, the thought that, oh, I'm too old. Part of this goes back to well, I have to ask, well, what are your goals? What do you want to shape your life to be? Because once you start to sit back and settle and say, You know what, I'm not applying. I'm not going to law school. I'm not not Not, not, not. Then you limit your options. I will tell you that as you take certain steps, and I'll give you example with law school, as you take certain steps, God will definitely open up certain doors for you. Like, that's right, you know, when I when I went to law school and didn't finish, it was super expensive. Now it's being positioned where I will either get a partial, if not full, scholarship. So I'm basically getting that law degree for free, but also two. And you think about where you're at in life, it would have been more of a challenge to complete my law degree working a traditional nine to five so, but I'm saying all that to say is that you're one, you're not too old. We do have to push ourselves. And I was really, really encouraged. I think his name is, I want to say his name is Brian, quick, but he does speed reading as well as kind of pushing your mind. It's K, W, i, K, and I am a firm believer that you are definitely as old as you think in your mind. And if you're not pushing your mind and pushing your thoughts learning something new, yeah, you you can atrophy. You can be a 40 year old functioning like a 60 year old. You could be a 50 year old functioning like a 70 year old, but at the same time. Or you could be, you know, a 50 year old killing it in whatever area you want to go into so take some risk. I would say listening. That's Biblical. So is a man thinking, so is he exactly, exactly, and the Bible talks about restoring what the Kanker worm is eating, right? So some of the things that you desire, and this is where I want you to take inventory, too, because we're not just saying, hey, think positive you're listening to this, and you have a certain burning desire that won't go away. If you're listening to this podcast, be challenged to say, wait a minute, I keep wanting to go back to school. I keep wanting to become a third I keep wanting to do I keep wanting to start my own business. The desire is there. Because when we talked about superheroes, because that's who you are, it's in your core, and it's gonna, I hate to say it, but it'll eat you alive until you kind of feed that beast. I always like to use animal analogies, and I'll close with this. You know what a beaver is? Everybody knows what a beaver is, right? And beavers have those long teeth to chew into wood. If a beaver doesn't chew into wood and make those dams, the teeth will grow so long it'll grow up into the beaver's brain and kill it. Oh, my goodness. And the beaver's tail is perfectly made, in a way, to be able to pack the mud into the dam. I'm saying all it to say is some of you are built a certain way that's perfect for your destiny. Some of you are feeling pain because you're not doing what you're called to do. So stop fighting it. Do what you're called to do. Take that first step. And it might be an application. It might be talking to the right people. It might be going out to network and let the world, let God, let the universe pave the rest of the way, and you are built for it, like the beaver that has that flat tail. You're built to serve and save, to call, to do whatever it is that burning desire is in your heart. So, man,

44:52  
we can open the doors of the church and take an offering and go, huh? Yeah. Thank you. So. For your inspiring words. I know that I've been encouraged, and I know that people who are listening will be as well. Tell folks how they can get in touch with

45:08  
you. Absolutely you can go to personality pitching.com click the link to book a strategy session. It's just a virtual coffee. Have a chat, if it's any help you need in the area of pitching, public speaking, if a lot of what you talked about, we talked about today in terms of really that goal setting, accountability, I'm a firm believer that coaching compresses time. So if you want to compress time, catch up. If you're a person of a certain age and you're saying, wait a minute, I don't have 1015, 20 years to figure this out. I'd like to do it in six months, a year, 24 months, reach out to me.

45:45  
You so much. We are so grateful to have you as a co host. We definitely gotta have you back and to my friends listening. I love you, and I mean it peace. Wasn't that a great interview? Hold up before you grab your hat and head out. Make sure you make your way to facebook and join the bail yourself out pod Facebook group. That's where you'll find your virtual coworkers, luxuriating and chatting. Thank you so much for listening, and if you enjoy the show, please leave a review. That's how we keep the lights on. If you're on social media, follow your girl, Kandice, with a K Whitaker. And you know what I'd love to hear from you with that I love you, and I mean it because there are people who hate in the world for no reason. I choose to love for no reason. I believe, as the great Martin Luther King Jr said, hate is too great a burden to bear, so I choose to love. Peace. Y'all. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai