SOLO: Charting a New Course Through Austin Community Support and Gratitude

In today's episode, Roger goes solo to share a deeply personal journey through the challenges brought on by an unexpected career change. He explores how the supportive Austin community guided him through this challenging period, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the right mindset for productivity and mental well-being. So, join us in the lobby, where we celebrate growth, connection, and the pursuit of our best selves—because together, we're writing the stories of our lives, one episode at a time.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

what's going on. Everybody welcome to in the lobby. You got just me today, roger, uh pumped to definitely have my own little solo episode here. I think we've been lucky enough to experience cassandra solo solo episode and we saw that there's some importance to maybe getting to know some more information about each of us individually, just so we could connect deeper to our audience but also really find ways in which we see stories that come up in other experiences or other episodes and how they relate to us as well. So I'm super excited to be here, very much so interested in sharing a little bit more information with everybody.

Speaker 1: 0:56

I think it's important to see how we basically have all moved here to Austin. There's a funny saying around Austin where everyone's not from here, but there are some people who are from here and they call them unicorns in Austin. So, whether it be moving to Austin, talking about dating or others' individual journey, it's ways in which we get to explore more information about them as well as misconceptions. Where we explore that here on in the lobby and we have the opportunity to really cross some wild, different, different walks of life or wild interesting stories and it becomes very engaging for us all. But it's all about the undeniable pursuit and that's really the goal, I think, where you hear every single story on every single episode and that shines through and is highlighted in many different ways.

Speaker 1: 1:55

So, as for me, when I moved to Austin, I moved here for work, and when I moved here, I was so invested in what I was doing, I really had my identity attached to my career and I had unfortunately experienced moments where I missed funerals, family gatherings, events for my personal life, friends life, weddings, I mean, you name it. I missed it right, like that's how invested I was into my career, so much so that it moved me here to Austin from New York and I was very good at what I did. But while I was very good at what I did, I had unfortunately lost that role, and when I lost that role, it was right there in the beginning of COVID. I'll never forget the day, april 6, 2020. It was hurtful because I invested a lot into it, and there was an experience as well where my father still works there and for me, there was just so much attached to it where I felt as if I was connecting with my father as a son, but also as an individual, as a man, and when those things change. It was hard, right, and it created an identity shift. But also, as I lost my career, it was almost like I got a BOGO deal, like I got to buy one, get one free. You had the ability to witness me go through an ego death, but also an alignment death, right, like I had to redefine what I thought was normal and or going to be my future. So that's what moved me here to Austin, and the part that I love about it is that was also the rebirth in one of those experiences where I will never take back. I'm thankful for it every day and again, it ties back to that undeniable pursuit being the goal, and when you look at it, it's like I had to really sit down with myself and understand that I was confusing movement with progress and I was moving towards this forever moving goal or forever moving target. That was defined as success to maybe some others, or or even what was explained to me in history books all the way down to what I was expecting after graduating college. But what I did learn was it wasn't connecting to me and my higher self as well as my best self, and that was something where I had to really face the music on, and as I faced the music on that, that was an experience that changed it all for me. So I stayed here in Austin.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Again, these are other ways in which you may hear. What attracted some people here to Austin is because there's a sense of community here where everyone's not from here but there's a shared alignment to where everybody wants to become better and reach their greatest version of their best self, and that's something that I definitely identified with and that's why I never left. So in me never leaving, I I really wanted to understand, kind of what was going on here from a deeper perspective aspect and understanding that deeper aspect of that experience. For myself, it was one where I had to decide okay, well, what is community? Um, separate of what is community, how do I define that? And a real fun question as well is like what makes life worth living? Um, and those are all three very loaded questions, um, but they all tie into each other in a very peculiar fun way, and if you're enjoying that experience of trying to become your best self, you can really have fun with it. And not only have fun with it, you could really heal some traumas as well throughout that process, because, for me, I had this expectation that once I landed that job of jobs, the one that's going to take me to move me from my home state to a new state, I was set I'm going to be on this journey for the rest of my life. And that was it. Well, guess what? Things changed, right, and I had to answer that and face the music on that. And then it changed my definition of community.

Speaker 1: 6:02

As I changed my definition of community, I had to redefine, well, who's good to be in my circle? Who do I want to be around? What type of experiences do I want to define memories for myself, let alone? Are these people around me making me better or are they making me worse? Like, are you feeding that prior ego or are you feeding the rebirth of Roger? That's tough to sit with, and those are tough conversations to have as well, um, because it also makes you really sit with that idea of, well, what's a life worth living? And a life worth worth living for me became all about energy, um, and ways in which I like to exchange energy. But that also takes a drift as well, right, because as you want to exchange energy, you can be misperceived, you could be misconceived, you could be misaligned in your expressions and you could really have some trouble with that as well.

Speaker 1: 7:02

So I think, realizing that that was really my new, new kind of stage to the game of all right, well, I had this BOGO deal of what moved me to Austin, where I lost my career and I had to redefine a lot of things for for myself and face things of traumatic experiences. I then moved into this powerful shift of redefining community, who I wanted around me, what I wanted around me and what I wanted around me, and what was this new version of Roger that I wanted to see and I wanted the rest of the world to know as well, because there was a there's a form of maturation going on within me. Um, I really fell in love with what. That answer to the what? The answer to that question was, uh, about a life worth living, and it's a matter of exchanging the right energy, sometimes in the wrong ways and sometimes in the right ways, because it's hard to exchange the right energy when you have people that are negative, when you have people that don't understand what you're fighting for, when you have people that maybe question what you're fighting for, but also, it's sometimes even easy to do when you're set up with the right people around you and just you have the ability to exchange energy very free flowing.

Speaker 1: 8:12

But for me, it's a task that I wake up and I, I, I attend to or or I report to duty for every single day, because I believe there's just two options here, right In the world that we live in, it's you have the option to do good or bad, and it's the idea of living in fear or love, and I just want to live in love and do good. But that doesn't mean I haven't done wrong, it doesn't mean I haven't been bad, that doesn't mean I haven't learned lessons, but I really just want to find the best ways in which I can exchange the most positive experiences for others around me. And if that is not the case, I want to find ways in which I can learn those lessons and just be a greater light to anybody, because it's just important to me, because being better is hard, right. The reality is, is that your ability to bounce back whether it be in dating, personal development, um, or let alone a career, but also just like who you want to become, or or moments where you're stagnant, whatever may have it that ability to bounce back is one that can really set up the remainder of experiences in your life to define well, am I going to? Am I going to have grit in any moment where I well? Am I going to have grit in any moment where I feel down? Or am I going to have grit and the ability to bounce back? Or am I going to live in fear and feel bad for myself? And I think what Austin has really become for me is a way in which I have really been reintroduced to who Roger Braxton is. Been reintroduced to some of the things that I thought I resolved as traumas and ways in which I can get past them, but it also reintroduced a new perspective on the world, and I'm forever thankful for it. So I think that's something that I can really reflect on in my pivoting, or my change of why I left New York to coming to Austin and why I haven't left. You know I've been here six years and it's just really been a wonderful place for me. But it's helped to define that idea of career and where I find myself and even get to have me here on the podcast now. So I'm super thankful for it.

Speaker 1: 10:25

Uh, but there's also a final question that we often ask a lot of our guests, which is like, well, hey, what's your biggest misconception? And I think for me, I have I got a pretty funny one. Um, I think it's I look like a fuck boy. Me, I have, I got a pretty funny one. Um, I think it's I look like a fuck boy, but I have the heart of just really gold. And it's tough sometimes when you have this image that you portray, but then you also have this heart that you really do have in ways in which you want to be there for people, and it turns into questions of like, well, oh, that's not true, or there's no way you could be that nice. Well, I can offer the answer to let people know that there is a way, and that way is because of things I've experienced. Uh, a question that I've asked myself of the person I want to become and really ways in which I want to see people become their best, most fulfilled self. So super, super thankful for that opportunity that I have to deliver that and even be misconceived because, um, I can really report for that and or or show up for that misconception on the daily to let people know, um, that I'm going to be consistent and I'm going to be consistent in my efforts to be there for them and for myself as well. So that is uh things that I I definitely want to make sure I offered some additional insight for on this episode.

Speaker 1: 11:42

Uh, furthermore, I think self-improvement and loving a routine has just been kind of like one of those side marks or or or side topics that I'd like to bring up here. Uh, because that was all part of the help and that was all part of me getting to where I needed to be. Routine I like it's. It's those darkest days when you wake up and whether you be sore and you want to go to the gym or you, you are, um, really not getting the replies you want. Like you applied 100 jobs and you get no's. It's the idea that you wake up with that routine and that intention to say you know what? I'm still going to do this when all the odds are against me, because that undeniable effort is one where it will shine through. It may not happen when you want it, but it will happen in the right way and it will breed a greater sense of character. So I think without my routine, I don't know if I could have ever done it. I know I've definitely picked that up from all of my family members. It looks differently amongst them all, but all of them within my immediate household has definitely been a part of that building process for myself, for routine, and they all do a great job of understanding the way in which their routine helps them for self-improvement. So that has definitely helped me to kind of create this idea of guidance of how I was going to get there.

Speaker 1: 13:03

But, man, there's some great people out there. I would love to say thank you to Some great people out there. I'd love to say I'm sorry to, because it's a time of transition, but I will say I really just want to express from just like the bottom of myself that while I've always been a focus on being better, it's never been easy, because we all have things that we come with right, and I think if we could walk away with anything from this episode today is that Look like you're not who you were when you were five. You're not who you are when you were 10, you're not who you are when you're 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, whatever the case may be. You have a decision to make every day and as long as you make that decision to be your best self to do your best. As long as you make that decision to be your best self to do your best, I think you can find some of the things that I've walked away from throughout my process of my journey that I think allow this podcast to be interesting, but also ways in which you can just tie it back to it all of creating a life worth living.

Speaker 1: 14:12

So I'm super thankful for the platform we have here, super thankful for my cohost, cassandra, super thankful for the audience of In the Lobby, and I would love to offer a quote from the wise words of Kyle. He's an artist that I've definitely fallen in love with recently. Recently, um, and I think he said shout out to my ex I wish you the best. My new shorty's a 10. I'm smiling again. Whatever it is that has you feeling down off off-centered, um, just bounce back like do your best, and you'll be able to listen to any episode here on in the lobby and understand that every single person that's on here has ways in which they probably thought their life was going to go and they it turned a different corner and they really have made the best of it, and we all have the ability to do that, so come on back for our next episode, because we know in the lobby it's going down. I appreciate y'all and have a wonderful week.