Let's Catch Up And Reflect

Some seasons break you. Other seasons rebuild you into someone stronger.

In this episode of the Kevin 3.0 Era Podcast, I reflect on growth, graduating college, protecting my peace, surviving burnout, dealing with negativity, and learning how to finally make things right for myself. This conversation is about resilience, dignity, self respect, and becoming unapologetically yourself through every version of life.

If you’ve ever felt doubted, misunderstood, exhausted, or ready to give up… this episode is for you. 

Transcript

Kevin Vega 0:05

Welcome to the Kevin 3.0 era podcast. I know it's been a minute, but I'm back. Anyways, grab your cup of coffee or your beverage of your choice and sit back and relax. Tonight's episode, we're just gonna talk and reflect. It's crazy that in nine days I'm gonna graduate with my Bachelor's of Science in Business Administration with an option of human resources. Yes, the journey was tough. The journey was crazy. And to be honest, I'm just excited. I'm very ecstatic that I'm that I actually made it this far. These past few months have been honestly different and insane with schoolwork and my other commitments and my other you know escapades. It's been kind of taking a toll on me the past few weeks. It was very, very difficult for me to overcome those incidents, those escapades. Dealing with the fine shits. I like to crack jokes here and there. And to be honest, I made a lot of changes in my life these past few weeks, especially in the last month. I made a lot of really, really critical changes, and at the moment I'm very happy right now. I'm very, very happy that I'm in a better environment right now. I'm in a better mindset of how things are. I'm no longer feeling stressed. And to be honest, stress can come in so many different forms and shapes, in my opinion. It's always the external and the internal stress. But the external being, external forces, like individuals, negative entities, things are out of that are actually out of your control, that you have no control of, and internal stress. And what I mean by internal stress, things that stress myself out, and that's something that I've been really taking, you know, account for these past few weeks. Why was I so stressed? Why did I stress out over things that were not in my control? And dealing with negative entities was a hard thing, trust me. Long story short, I dealt with a negative entity, and I have no respect for them. This negative entity will be like, what's the best way to put this? And there's no best way to put it. You know, when you deal with a negative entity that's external, you have no control of what they say, how they can damage your reputation, with their lies. And it's hard to do a certain rebranding in yourself when that negative entity honestly has done so much damage to your name. And it sucks because you work so hard to build this image of yourself, you work so hard to to to work on yourself and this negative entity that just comes in, swoops in and talks down on your name and everything. And it's not fair. It's not fair, like and it sucks because you cared about this entity, you really did. You really cared about this entity, you cared about their well-being, and you cared so much about them on how you know they like you really did have a love a lot of love for them. And for them to just talk down on your name, to spread rumors, to and then when when shit hits the fan and it goes back to them, they start crying like it sucks. It really sucks. And at the end of the day, you look like the bad guy. It sucks. Totally sucks. But all I can do is smile and wave. I just stay true to myself and just live my life the best that I can. And that's pretty much it when it comes to those negative entities. You live your life the best that you can, and just don't acknowledge them. That's it. There's no need for you to acknowledge them or you know, continue on like feeding into what they want. Let them let them talk. You know, these negative entities can repost your post, talk bad about you on your forum, your body, and everything. Like, I know how like it sucks. In the past two years, I dealt with this negative entity when it came to me posting with crop tops. I got internationally bullied by so many people. And instead of me going back and forth, instead of me calling them out, or you know, just making a scene, I just blocked them. Because at the end of the day, I know there's a saying that when you block someone day one, no, I'm not gonna pay attention to you, I'm not gonna give you clout, I'm not gonna give you that energy. You say something negative, you're just getting blocked here and there. Worst case, I report it. That's what it was on social media on that time. People were just talking bad about my form, my looks. I just block, block, block, block. I don't need to deal with it. My block list is, and they're probably to be honest, I haven't even unblocked them. All those negative entities that I have in my block list. At the end of the day, I still have dignity in myself. I have dignity on myself, and that's something that I really, really hone down on. I know my true self, and I know what I am, what I wear, who I am. I'm not gonna masquerade as someone that I'm not. I'm just chilling. I'm a chill guy. I just wear whatever I want to wear. Some days I want to carry a purse, some days I wanna, you know, just be myself. And to be honest, as I reflect with my, you know, my ending of my academia for my bachelor's, I still remember when some counselors in high school told me that I was gonna be stuck at community college. I still remember how certain of my um classmates said I wasn't gonna be shit or I was gonna continue just being a low life. And I remember people that I know and love said that I wasn't gonna make it. That I was gonna waste my time studying on a useless degree. And at the time, okay, I don't no shame on any degree. I wanted to study English. That was my original degree that I wanted to study with. I wanted to just be a writer and write books. That was my true dream. To one day have a book of my own and to have it on a shelf at a bookstore. I wanted to I actually had a novel that I was writing, like essentially it was about two lovers, a singer and another person. Kind of short term, but it was like a romance type of novel that I wrote when I was 16 and I really spent a lot of time writing on it, especially during the pandemic. I wrote some really good content. But um we're in the era of you know, generative AI, and it's kind of hard now. When you want to write a book, people are gonna assume, oh, you went through chat. And maybe someday I'll actually publish it, or actually finish it. Maybe I should. Like, that should be one of my goals in the next few months is to actually finish that novel and just publish it. Who cares? Like, of course, you know, I have to get an editor, edit every you know, grammar mistake. This is stuff that I wrote when I was like in high school. But that's one of my biggest dreams that I've actually let down in myself. I remember I was influenced to not study English, that I was wasting my time studying something that I'm speaking. But I wish I would have actually pursued it with a concentration. You know, originally from there I wanted I did nursing, I didn't last. I never even got to the actual work of it. But then I chose business, and I honestly chose business because of my experience at my fast food job at being a manager. I actually loved running the business. Learn how to delegate, you know, actually doing some interviews, scheduling, fixing punches, dealing with problem solving. You know, it was really good to learn all those skills at the age of 18. And from there I got a job at a retail store and continue my educational path. And it was hard at community college. I felt like I wanted to give up at some point. But I had a really, really good counselor that pushed me to do more. She made me take a personal development class just so that it can help me out, and it did. From there, I made it to Cal Stala, and I remember the first semester I did my four you know, general you know, business like classes with the upper division type is and when it came to actually going to my actual major and stuff, I locked in five classes each semester, two classes in the summer. If I can do my all the hard ones in the spring and do my the two main ones that I needed to actually do before I advance to the next level, and I did it. When people ask me how did I do it, I honestly don't have an answer. I to be honest, to this day, I don't know how I did it. Five classes, which is 20 hours or more study work, especially studying finance and economics at the same time. I don't know how I did it. I was like mentally drained, and then I did accounting in the in the the summer, especially during ZenCon. I don't know if people have seen me like on my laptop at the lunchroom, at the little the dining area. I was on my computer early in the morning, late at night, like doing my homework after taking these sessions, and it was amazing. And then I took my HR classes my last two semesters, and you know, here I am about to graduate in nine days. Everything's completed. I completed all my coursework, just one more exam next week, and I'm scot-free. And I'm thankful for everyone that I've met at this university, and I'm very thankful for the professors that I had, they have really changed my mindset on a lot of things. One of the most notable ones that I will say if I don't like where I'm at or like a certain situation, why am I still there? And it played over my head many, many times. Not gonna go into details, and then another great advice that one of my professors told me is that sometimes you need to motivate yourself, and that's what I did. These the last slot run, like I just motivated myself and I continued, you know, just pushing through. And I'm excited because now I'm gonna pursue into the real world. Will I do my master's? I already have applied, and to be honest, let's see how it goes. And from there, I think I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna continue learning new trades, doing LinkedIn learnings to continue my educational journey. The whole point is that I proved everyone that doubted me wrong. I proved a lot of people wrong by me simply walking on that stage. I'm gonna walk that stage in nine days. And I proved a lot of people who didn't believe in me, who said I wasn't gonna be shit, or a lot of people that wished a lot of bad, you know, stuff to me. And I and to this day I don't wish anything bad on them. You know, I wish that they can find the kindness in their heart and find you know the light in their heart to continue being happy if they can actually be happy. You know, in this world, I realize there's people that are just horrible, just horrible, like, and I still give them the same respect and love. I don't treat anybody any indifference, even if I don't see someone eye to eye, I still treat them with respect because everyone deserves basic respect at the end of the day. Please and thank you, hi and bye. Nothing else, they don't need to know my personal story, they don't need to know what I'm going through. It is basic respect with me saying hi and bye and acknowledging them. A nice wave. And one thing I want to actually learn and start implementing in myself is actually talking to people anywhere, getting to know someone, you know, you never know what someone is going through, and a simple hi or hello or letting them know that they're doing amazing can really lighten someone's day, especially in fitness. Like when I teach my classes, I love to motivate my students. There's like their highlight of the day, like when after just imagine going to a hard day of work and you finally go to that Zumba class or that you know, for my case, Shawnee class, I'm giving you the workout so that you can relax and head home and just relax. It's crazy how we grow and change. It's crazy how we slowly become unrecognizable in a good and bad way. In my case, I changed a lot in just two years. I'm no longer this person that was scared of confrontation. And what I mean by that is I'm not afraid to stand up for myself. I'm not afraid to put my foot down when I'm going through an injustice. This whole time I've been making it right for a lot of people. I've been doing the make it right movement. But I really, really need to think about myself. And it's time for me to make it right for myself. It's time for me to really hone down and push myself to do better, to do more. It sucks having to go through what I went through these past few months, but it's okay. It's over. I reflected, I cried, and now it's time to move on. It's time for me to evolve, it's time for me to become something more. I'm ready for the real world, I'm ready for the future of work. I'm not afraid of it. Yes, there was a lot of change, there's a lot of things headed in our direction. There's so much that is coming at us at so many different angles, but I'm not afraid of it. I'm ready to take it on head on. I am not afraid to go into the deep dark for a better opportunity. I am not afraid of it. Of course, I'm considering, of course, I would not do a job abandonment. But as of now, I'm Kevin. And I'm still gonna continue what I do, what I do, and continue living my life because at the end of the day, I have dignity in myself, I have self-love for myself, I have self-motivation for myself. No negative entity will ever take that away from me. No negative entity will ever change my perception of myself. I will not allow anyone to disrespect me. I will not allow anybody to disrespect me on the way that I look or the way that I dress. Because at the end of the day, I am my true self and I have dignity. I have very high confidence in myself. I've changed these past two years. Unfortunately, people have come and go in my life, and it's okay. It's time for me to make it right for myself, and it's time for me to continue living my life the way I want to live it. Never give up on yourself and always remember that you're always enough, no matter what version you are. Have a good night and take care.