Penelope:
If you're a dreamer who does, you're in the right place. I'm Penelope Bent, and this is BUILD IT, BABY!
Today I'd like to talk about something subtle, something that happens very quietly. Something that doesn't look dangerous at first, but I believe it is. I'd like to talk about the difference between resignation versus surrender. And I do believe there's a difference between those two.
I'm not talking about quitting loudly or giving up dramatically, but that quiet moment when you decide, "Hmm, this is just how life is for me." Or, "People like me—we don't get rich. We don't create prosperity or find abundance at our front door." And then the one that really bothers me the most: "This is as good as it gets for me."
This is BUILD IT, BABY!, the show for big ideas, brave pivots, and bold next chapters. So let's do it. Let's build it, baby.
I believe somewhere along the way, many of us didn't fail at anything. We just simply resigned. I think there are a lot of folks out there who resigned from the belief that life could meet them halfway. They resigned from the idea that joy and abundance or alignment might be available to them. Truly, they resigned before life even had a chance to respond.
Here's the thing: in that moment when you stop expecting more, that moment changes everything. Let me repeat that. Interestingly enough, the door didn't get slammed in your face. You drew the door closed all by yourself.
So my big question always is why? I believe the answer is because you chose to believe ideas that, for the most part, are, in my opinion, absolute bullshit.
Resignation often sounds mature. It's an act of being responsible. And I love this one the best: "I'm just being realistic." But resignation is not wisdom. It's fear dressed up as certainty. It's a belief in limitation.
What does resignation sound like? It sounds like, "My family's poor. That's just my reality." Or, "No one in my family has ever done that. Why would you even think I could?" Or, "Life is hard. That's just the way it is." Or, "I should just be grateful for what I have."
And I get it. Gratitude matters. But gratitude without trust is a cage. It's a box with the door wide open, and you're just sitting right there inside it.
When we confuse realism with limitation, we shrink our future without even realizing it.
It's interesting—most resignation is not chosen. It's inherited. It's passed down through family conversations, survival-mode households, generational scarcity, cultural expectations, and systems that taught us to comply instead of imagine.
I believe many of us grew up watching adults do the best they could, but also watching them give up on what they wanted. Many learned early on, "Don't expect too much. Don't get your hopes up. Be practical." Slowly, I believe, we stopped asking for more. Sure as hell not because we weren't capable, but because we were trained to survive, not to expand—not to believe in anything better than what was right in front of our faces.
Here's what makes resignation so dangerous. It won't hurt you right away. It settles in quietly. You still go to work. You still show up. You still function. But you stop dreaming. You stop imagining.
When you stop imagining, you stop creating. You stop listening to that inner nudge, that intuition, that poke in the side from the universe saying, "Come on, get off the couch. Let's get going here." You stop imagining a different outcome. You stop believing life could surprise you.
The truth is, resignation doesn't scream. It whispers, "This is enough. Don't push it. Get real, babe. This is all you get."
This is where I want to be very clear. Resignation is not surrender. I think they're opposites.
Resignation says, "I already know how this will end."
Surrender says, "I don't know how this is going to end, but I'm open to the possibilities. I'm going to relax. I'm going to surrender to the possibilities."
Resignation closes the door. Surrender leaves the door unlocked.
Resignation collapses all possibilities. Surrender creates space.
Surrender doesn't mean you're giving up. Surrender is simply releasing control so life can participate. It doesn't say, "I don't care." It says, "Yeah, okay, I was born into this, but I'm willing to be surprised."
It doesn't say, "I'll never have that." Surrender says, "Maybe there's more available than I have been shown."
Think about that for a second. Maybe there's more available than I have been shown. Maybe there's more out there for me. Maybe I don't have to keep carrying the same generational belief system. Maybe I don't need to pass that down to my kids.
Maybe this is the time to step out and say, "No, I think there are possibilities for me." I'm going to take control of the idea, take a deep breath, and relax.
Because you know what surrender allows? It allows new ideas, new timing, new support, new alignment.
The most amazing part is that when you relax and surrender to what could be, it keeps the heart open. You're not demanding guarantees.
If you stick with the idea of resigning to the limited beliefs that were passed down through generations, you're not just limiting money or success. You're stealing the possibilities of joy, ease, creativity, relationships, and inner peace.
Think about that for a minute. Joy. The feeling that life could actually be easy. Creativity. The relationships you might have. The peace you could create for yourself.
When we stop building from possibility and start managing disappointment, that's not a way to live.
You don't want to manage disappointment. Fuck disappointment. We've all had disappointments. You get up, you dust yourself off.
If you look at my life's timeline, hell, I've fallen on my butt more than most people ever thought about falling on theirs. Was it disappointing at the time? Yeah. But I'm not going to carry disappointment around in my handbag or label it to my heart.
Disappointment is temporary. It goes, "Well, that didn't work, and I'm feeling a little stupid for a few minutes." But holding onto disappointment? That's no way to live.
Resignation is a victim mentality. It's a mindset. You give up because you feel powerless, bitter, and defeated. And you know me and the whole victim thing. I'll be damned if I'm ever going to be a victim.
I really believe when you relax and surrender to the possibilities, that's a victor mindset. That's a winner's mindset. You let go of control because you choose peace, trust, and freedom.
You don't have to hold onto resignation and a defeated mentality like it's your badge of honor. "Well, you know, that's all my parents expected, so I guess that's all I should expect."
Bullshit.
Take it from me. You get to choose what you expect. Nobody's going to tell you what to expect.
Let's look at this. Who's rewriting the story? Your family? Your friends?
No.
You rewrite the damn story.
So here's a question for you. What do you believe you may have resigned from too early? What belief did you inherit—not choose—but inherit?
Who told you what your limits were?
Was it your dad because he didn't believe women should work? I understand that. That was my generation. That was the way my family believed. You were meant to marry and be quiet.
That's okay. I respect him. That was his time in life. That's the way the culture expected women to be, especially coming back from World War II. Women had helped win that war, but afterward they were expected to leave their jobs, give them back to the men returning from war, go home, and make babies.
There's nothing wrong with that. That's the way the culture was wired at the time.
But that's not today.
If you're willing—just willing—to question the story you've been living with, the one someone else shared with you, the belief that was popular in their time, I think that's really important.
You're not being disrespectful to your family because that's how they were raised or because that's how the culture defined beliefs for men or women at that particular time.
Remember, when you're ready to make these decisions, those beliefs are over twenty years old. If you don't think that's a short period of time, especially today—when I swear to God the culture changes every five years, or every fifteen minutes—it's important to remember that.
You need to stop deciding the ending before your story is finished.
I've been living a long time, and I'm still creating chapters in my story. How the damn thing ends? Hell, I don't know. But I'm going to keep writing.
Think about this.
What if you're at the starting gate of a race? You're bent down, ready to go. Rather than choosing to sit it out because everything you've learned and everything you've been told says you're just going to lose the race, what if, just for one race, your first thought was, "I'm not sure how I'll place, but I'm incredibly curious, and I'm open enough to surrender to the possibilities."
What if that was your thought?
"Yeah, I'm bent down here on the starting line. I don't know how it's going to end, but baby, I'm going to give it my all. I'm going to run my race and let the chips fall where they may. I don't know what place I'm going to finish, but at the end of the day, I chose to run the damn race. I didn't sit there listening to someone else's belief system. I made that choice for myself."
What if you went from, "I'll never have that," to, "I don't know how it could happen, but I'm open. I'm open to the possibility. I'm going to allow that desire to creep into my heart, to creep into my mind."
Or what if you went from, "That's not for people like me. People like me don't create anything that could help us have a better life," to, "Maybe—just maybe—I haven't seen the full picture yet."
I tell you with all my heart, that shift alone re-engages life. It plugs you into the possibilities.
If you never do anything else, if you never listen to another word I ever say for as long as you live, just wake up every morning and remember one thing:
Plug into the possibilities.
If you don't get up and put that plug in, how are you ever going to know what could have been?
That's what I want for you. At least plug in. Discover the possibilities. You deserve that. Life is giving you that opportunity.
Think about your desire, plug into that sucker, and see how the race works out for you.
That's all I ask.
So here’s the part where I tell you exactly what I know. These are my knowings, the things I no longer question because they've shown themselves to me again and again—not from a book, but from building, getting knocked down, getting back up, and doing this work in the real world.
Okay, here are my knowings.
I know that my life is full of possibilities. It is my right to explore them all.
Number two: I know that the only thing limiting me from living all of my desires is my ability to—yep, you got it—plug in and think big.
And number three: I know that life is not a spectator sport, and I love being in the game.
Okay, those are my knowings.
It's time for listener questions.
This question is from Harper in Nebraska.
Oh gosh, Harper, I love your name. I'll begin there, and I hope things are going well for you in Nebraska. Well, maybe they're not going quite as well as you expected. Let's read your question.
"Penelope, I have recently found myself to be a single mother. How do I start over at 41 years of age?"
Well, Harper, I have to tell you, you truly are asking the perfect person for this question because I, too, started over in my forties as a single mom.
That's a very interesting question, and it certainly has a lot of dynamics. I can only share my answer from my own experience. I'm sure if you asked a lot of people who started over or found themselves in a different situation in their early forties, everybody would probably have a different answer.
Since you asked me, I'll share mine.
I think it all begins with making peace with your current situation. You haven't defined exactly what put you in this situation as a single mother. If it was the death of a husband or partner, I am very, very sorry that you're having to face this new horizon. If it was not your choice—or perhaps it was your choice—to become a single mother at this age, I think the most important thing I can share is to make peace with your current situation, whatever the reason.
As you move through life, you have these ups and downs. We have glorified moments where we're feeling the joy of it all, and then we have moments where we're feeling the pain of it all, where it feels like the universe turned everything upside down.
I think making peace with it gives you clarity because once you stop being pissed off or upset about the position you're in, you can start shifting into the possibilities of what could be in your future.
I've always said that when one door closes, another one opens, whether it's in a relationship, a job situation, or whatever comes your way.
The biggest advice I can share is to move yourself away from the pity pot as quickly as possible. Look at the possibilities of what your life could become moving forward.
I'm sure underneath this question is a financial concern. I've often believed that every woman who chooses to give birth and bring another person into the world should also build an additional revenue stream for herself.
Whether you're looking at entering the current job market or creating another income stream as you move through this process, one of the keys is to focus on all the positive changes that could happen.
I remember that when I was in your situation, one of the things I thought about was that I was now able to create an environment for myself exactly the way I wanted it to be. It was organized, tidy, bright, filled with light.
I was walking away from a very unhappy situation, and I could wake up knowing that my day depended on my own choice to be happy. It was no longer dictated by someone else.
I think in the beginning there's a lot of freedom in creating what you want for yourself and your children moving forward.
I'm not suggesting you'll never want to get married again, but I do think those first few months—or even the first few years—are a fascinating opportunity to rediscover all the parts of yourself you may have set aside.
I remember a friend telling me it was really important to ask myself simple questions like, "What kind of eggs do I actually want?" I'd been making fried eggs for everybody else for years, but I didn't even like fried eggs that much.
I also remember my current husband of thirty-four years saying when we first met, "The best thing you could do for yourself is live alone with your child for a while."
He was right.
We dated for three years before we married, and those years were incredibly important. I discovered so much about myself. I learned what I wanted in my future.
I'll tell you something else you're going to discover—your abilities.
I found out I had more strength than I ever imagined. I found out I got to choose every day what the possibilities were going to be. Eventually I wrote those desires down and started moving toward them because, you know what? The most exciting part was that those desires were mine.
It was about how I was going to create a wonderful environment for my daughter.
Unfortunately, I didn't receive any additional income from my previous relationship, so it was all on me.
You know what?
I don't know that that's a bad thing.
From experience, I know you're probably feeling terrified. This is new. I don't know how many years you were in your previous relationship, but I do know that you're going to discover brilliant pieces of yourself you didn't even know existed.
Keep your head centered. Forgive your past.
And my last suggestion is to look forward with expectation. Look forward to what can be. Look forward with light, with the knowing that you can create an amazing life for yourself and your children.
Then, if you meet another partner—someone to spend the rest of your life with—so be it.
But by then you'll have created the whole of who you are.
I think sometimes, especially when we marry young, as women we're not really sure who we are. We don't know our strengths and weaknesses.
Take this time. Discover those. Discover who you are and what the possibilities are.
With all of that, go for it, girlfriend. Go out there and make it happen.
Because I know you can.
Hey, and if you ever want to chat, give me a buzz.
Harper, thank you for a great question and for sharing your personal experience with us. Take care there in Nebraska.
Thank you so much.
Okay, well, it's that time.
To end our chat today, I just want to remind you: you don't need to force surrender. You just need to stop resigning.
The moment you stay open, life gets to respond to you.
Your beginning does not get to decide your ending.
Your past does not get to dictate your future.
And as much as you love your family, their story does not have to be your final chapter.
If you're still dreaming, even quietly, then you're still building.
Now go build it, baby.
Always best, P.
BUILD IT, BABY! is a Rainy Day Production House original, hosted by Penelope Bent and produced and edited by Morgan Clymer. Music by Yuri Shemshishin and Oleksii Holubiev. If this episode spoke to you, please follow the show and leave a review. It helps more dreamers like you find us. And remember, you’re not just building a bold business or career—you’re building a bold life.
