Teaser: Growth, Grit, and Allowing Ourself to Become

What if the biggest thing standing between who you are today and who you're capable of becoming... is a story you've been carrying for years?

In this week's mini teaser, I'm sharing a glimpse into the final episode of Season One - a reflection on courage, self-trust, questioning old narratives, and what happens when we stop waiting to feel ready before we take the next step.

Sometimes growth means climbing the ladder anyway... even if the slide might burn your ass on the way down.

Join me next Monday for Growth, Grit, and Allowing Ourself to Become.

Until then, remember...

It doesn't matter if you fall. What matters is how well you bounce. 💜

Transcript

Hey - missing me already?

If you're catching one of my in-between weeks, here's a little taste of what's coming next Monday.

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So… I was sitting in my truck on my lunch break recently… and if you’ve been hanging around here with me for any length of time, you’ll know that I spend a lot of time on my lunch breaks parked in a quiet place… listening to some of my favourite podcasts…or just sitting in silence thinking… and ultimately taking a break from peopling  - which I can only do so much of without draining my battery.

Anyway… you might have also noticed that it’s where a surprising number of my podcast ideas seem to happen.

Apparently, my brain does its best work when its hiding from people.

So…

This particular day, I was parked near a playground, watching a bunch of kids scrambling all over the equipment.

Climbing.

Jumping.

Running.

Taking turns launching themselves down the slide – sometimes landing on their feet at the bottom… and sometimes landing on their ass.

And I found myself thinking...

Johanna… do you remember all the stuff you used to do… before you knew you were supposed to be afraid?

Before you learned to agonize over every decision?

Before you started worrying about whether you'd fall… or fail?

When you climbed to the top of the monkey bars… or the 15 foot high metal slide at the park… without it even occurring to you what could go wrong?

Because those kids weren't standing at the top of the slide doing a risk assessment.

They weren't wondering if they had enough experience…

Whether they were qualified to be there…

Whether they were good enough at sliding to attempt it…

Whether the other kids would judge them if they landed on their ass at the bottom…

They weren't waiting until they felt confident.

They just climbed the ladder and went.

And somewhere between childhood and adulthood...

I don’t know about you… but I started doing all that.

I began collecting stories that other people wrote... about who I am…

About what I’m capable of…

About what people like me do and don't get to do in life.

Then we coloured in those stories with illustrations of what happens if we fail.

And about whether we're enough.

Smart enough…

Educated enough…

Credentialled enough…

Or just plain enough. 

Over time we internalized those stories so deeply that we stopped questioning them – and now we just assume that they're true.

What's fascinated me… is that some of the biggest changes in my life didn't happen because I suddenly became brave.

Some of them happened because the circumstances gave me no choice but climb the ladder on the slide and hope for the best on the way down.

Sometimes I landed on my feet at the bottom… sometimes I landed a little bruised – on my ass… and occasionally I landed face first and took a soil-sample the uncomfortable way lol.

But… there came a time… not too many years ago… when the changes weren’t by chance…they were on my terms Because I started questioning the stories.

The story that said I wasn’t qualified to start a podcast.

The story that said I needed to know everything about everything I was doing before I began.

The story that said I was too old to learn to ride a dirtbike.

The story that said I had to feel confident before I took a chance.

Truth bomb:

I didn't know what I was doing.

I wasn't at all confident.

I was scared shitless the first time I hit “record”.

And there were moments where I wondered if I'd lost my fucking mind.

And do you know what?

As insanity would have it… I did it anyway. 

And here I am.

Just over a year later… wrapping up my first season… and staring down the guns toward season two…

The truth is that sometimes I still think I have no idea what I’m doing… 

But apparently there’s going to be another season of it!

And I’ve learned SO much in this last 48 episodes (this upcoming one is going to be number 49)…

Some of them didn’t surprise me – like the learning curve around podcasting tech (which I haven’t even close to nailed… I think I find something to struggle with just about every episode lol)… and how sometimes the words just flow when I’m writing out my episode ideas – and other times I find it hard to put my thoughts into words.

But some of them came as a bit of a surprise to be honest.

I thought healing from intense grief was hard…

Growth? Really examining the patterns behind some of the things I do and the ways I think?

Man… that’s sometimes really hard.

Finding the courage to turn on my mic for the first time – and then… to actually hit fucking the “upload” button…?

Learning how to disentangle myself from some of those old stories and narratives I had thought were mine… ?

Unlearning the person I had always thought I was – and thought I always would be – and figuring… or beginning to figure out who I actually was, who I wanted to be, and where I wanted to take myself for the (hopefully) next 30 or so years of my life… ?

And cracking it all open in real-time and putting it out into the world…?

That kind of growth is hard. And it doesn’t just fall into place all at once.

It happens in baby steps… messy, uncertain steps… where you fall down and get bruised sometimes…

And sometimes ass-blistering-hot-metal-slide steps.

But…

Somewhere along the way, if we keep showing up... keep falling down and getting back up…

We start to figure out that, maybe it’s not just okay to become someone different than we thought we were… and maybe were expected to be….

Maybe we deserve to.

Next week, I'm doing something a little different.

We’re going on a guided tour through four conversations that, together, represent the journey that’s taken me here.

A journey of growth.

A journey of self-trust.

A few stops to do some unlearning.

And what happens when we take a chance 

And keep showing up anyway.

And until then…

Remember that it doesn’t matter if you fall…

What matters is how well you bounce.

See you right back here on Monday.

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