RICH Tips on Being Extraordinary and NOT a Fake!

Welcome everyone to Shedding the Bitch Radio with your hostess, me, Bernadette Boas, where we will discuss the everyday challenges that cause you angst, attitude, and negative mindsets, or what we call bitches in our lives. They are things that hold you back from pursuing the goals and the dreams and the brass or gold ring that you're looking for in life. And therefore, we want to provide you some tips, some advice, some resources as we go forward that will help you shift from bitch to rich. Now, I also want to hear from you. So there's a number of ways you can do that. You can call into 1-818-572-2910. That's it, 818-572-2910. Or you can join us at BlogTalkRadio, Shedding the Bitch, and you can chat with us. I'm going to be getting used to that, so bear with me on that. And at the same time, before, during, and after this call or radio show. You can also share your stories on sheddingthebitch.com by either joining our blog or submitting your story. We definitely want to hear from you. But whatever it is that's holding you back from realizing your dreams, we've talked and we'll continue to talk about my experience around corporate and business. At the same time, there could be things around your relationships, around your divorce possibly, raising children, being bullied, going through a chronic illness, going through menopause for all you ladies out there, or even dealing with office politics on the golf course, all you men out there. But whatever it is, we want to help and we want to hear from you and see what we can do, what I can do, to kind of leverage my experience and my lessons learned around it. So call 1-818-572-2910. But what I want to discuss today is a continuation of last week, I told you my story regarding my very purposeful decision to kind of take on a persona of a bitch because you probably hear it yourself. You know, you get what you want when you're, when you demand it or when you're aggressive about it or curt. And those were the influences around me, though I take accountability that I'm the one who made the decision to take on that persona. And I've done a lot a lot of soul searching over the last few years since I left corporate about 3 years ago now as to why I felt it was important or I thought it was going to be useful to me to take on this Curt abrasive demanding manipulative type of personality and more importantly though what I learned was, and think about it yourself, the only reason people lash out is because they are lacking something or lacking a skill or talent, lacking self-confidence, self-esteem, and therefore they think it's important for them to, to kind of wreak havoc on people around them in hopes that that will mask or cover up what it is that they feel that they're lacking in themselves. And so what this show is about, Shading the Bitch Radio, is to kind of come face to face with that, look in the mirror, be real with yourselves, and work towards shedding those angst and attitudes. Because trust me, take it from someone who's been there, done that, you don't wreak havoc on anyone else fight yourself. And yes, there are some impact to the people and the things around you, but number one is what's going on right in here and what's going on right in here. And I can testify myself that it'll land you up either, you know, like me standing in a parking lot, kind of trying to you know, determine if I'm having a heart attack or just a panic attack or just that I'm miserable. Or it could just wreak havoc on your relationships and the people around you, the things around you, your career, so forth and so on. So I want to kind of look back and give you an idea so maybe you can relate more to what I'm talking about. Look at my— where I came from and what I've done, or where— basically where I came from and what's evolved from my childhood into my adulthood that might glean some light onto you as to what it is that, that you're looking to, you're looking to achieve in your life as well. I have a caller, and I believe that's a raising of the hand, so I'm going to check in with 416. Hi, how you doing out there?

Hey, I'm great, how are you?

I'm fabulous. Did you have a question? Were you listening in? I'm getting used to the switchboard, so I see a hand raised.

Yeah, yeah, I do have a question, and I was listening in, and I know you just got started on your show, but something that you said really struck a thought with me, and I wanted your input on it. You know, I am 41, and what I've come to realize recently is that I don't feel extraordinary. I think that when we're younger and we feel as though that life has, you know, all this potential and possibility, and we feel it, and there's a certain sort of arrogance as well that we might possess when we're younger and think, you know, that we can, you know, we have all the time in the world and we can do all sorts of things. And I just realized that I just feel really average. And what I found, and Adam, I was tied into what you were saying, is that, you know, I do consider myself a spiritual person, and so I do try to pull it in when I find myself being judgmental or catty or bitchy. But I do, you know, when I think about it, the reason why I tend to lash out is because I've been grasping for moments of being able to feel extraordinary or feel somehow empowered or better and just go about it being totally the wrong way. I'm wondering how it is that you, or what advice you would give anyone who's listening, and me included, on how to get back to feeling extraordinary.

That's a great question. If you don't mind, I hate to call you 416, would you provide your first name at least?

Sure, I'm Wendy.

Hi, Wendy. Obviously Bernadette. You know, Wendy, I, since I've been sharing my story, and it's been actually, it's turned me into feeling extraordinary, being that, you know, I didn't realize my story would have such an impact and be relatable in so many other ways to people. And it's actually kind of helped me feel extraordinary on a daily basis, quite honestly. But what I get a lot is, and I'll ask a question too, is people don't know what their real purpose is in this life. I mean, I know that sounds really big, but they don't. They're not quite sure what it is. So my question to you would be, do you kind of really burn with a great passion that you've recognized and that you execute on?

You know, I think that I've pretty much lost that because I'm in this place, or have been in this place, I think I'm waking up from it, of just wanting to have a comfortable life, which means, you know, not having any drama, not having any financial— like just keeping things even and healed financially, and just doing what I need to do in order to just live a comfortable life and not really take any risks or go out there and really do anything that triggers passion.

Right. Well, and I guess I can only account for myself. You know, I went the total opposite as well. Or I went that same direction. I had that drive. I mean, I was one of the most ambitious women, individuals, people you could have met, and I definitely expected to break the glass ceiling and conquer the world, so to speak. And yet, and you know, for the last few years since leaving corporate, I've gone out on my own. I risked myself financially. I kind of put myself out there, and I can't be happier having what you call what many people would call a comfortable life versus trying to, you know, always go after that big dollar number or that big office. And yet what I have found personally is you can remove all the drama, which I did, and the negativity, which it sounds like you have as well, and all the things around you that kind of created that angst, but yet, you know, you can take take small risks and put yourself out there in smaller ways, still wanting to live comfortably. Now, I guess my question is, do you want to live comfortably? I mean, is that what you really want, or do you want to be able to take the risks? Not to, like, you know, not to, you know, break the glass ceiling, but at least to kind of put yourself out there.

You know, it's interesting that you say, like, the removal of negativity, because, like, I have an example. I'll give you a brief example. There's a young woman, like a 26-year-old, who wrote recently, self-published in the last year, self-published a bunch of young adult novels. And she publishes herself, and she's doing incredibly well selling them on Kindle and self-publishing on Amazon. And I went to read the reviews of her books. And as an example, she sells one of her novels for 99 cents on Kindle. And the reviews were harsh. I mean, like somebody said, as an example, you know, "This book isn't even worth 99 cents." Just reading these really bad reviews. And it makes me think, like, on the one hand, I admire the woman for being innovative and for putting her work out there. And for actually sitting down and completing a project. But on the other hand, I look at the bad reviews and I think, "Ooh." Is it really worth it kind of putting yourself out there and really exposing yourself to people being really harsh?

Harsh. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. And yet at the same time, Wendy, I would have to tell you, and this was something I have had to learn myself over the last several years, I always wanted everybody to like me. I always wanted to make a good impression. I always wanted to kind of be the center of attention, and I cared very much for how people thought about me. And I don't know, I've gained, you know, once I really did, I kind of shed all that angst and attitude and negativity around me and the need for all of that. I could care less. The people that I want to, you know, to hold me up in high regard are my family, my nieces and my nephews, you know, my close friends obviously. But I don't know the people, and this woman I'm sure doesn't know the people that are writing these things about her. And hopefully, yeah, and hopefully if she's continuing to write, she's recognizing that, you know what, you're not gonna make 100% of people happy. They could be lashing out. The one thing I want you to think about too is, and I never thought about this myself, is when someone's lashing out, let's take that negative review, those negative reviews, you don't know what's in their head, what's going on in their head at that particular moment and that particular day that's causing them to lash out. They could be having a bad day, they could be jealous that she's publishing herself and she's putting herself out there and, you know, they're not. So what I would always also think about is, you know, where is it getting you to worry about what other people think? And I have this accountability team, we're all working on our challenge, the Shedding the Weight Bitch Challenge, and, you know, she was petrified at the accountability aspect because she didn't want to disappoint everybody. And I said to her, I I said, "Are you disappointing me or are you disappointing yourself? I mean, it doesn't hurt me that you're overweight. It doesn't hurt me that you're sitting at home by yourself on a Friday night. It doesn't hurt me that you're miserable. It only hurts yourself." So, yeah, so what I would suggest is just to kind of think through, and as a matter of fact, that's a great segue, Wendy. I had provided on the website just a little while ago a free downloadable kind of worksheet, workbook, that kind of gives you some of the questions that I ask myself and really kind of put myself— actually, I went to the dog park and sat there for hours and really just thought through some questions like, what am I afraid of? What if I face these things? What if people didn't, you know, appreciate what I was doing or the risk Cyborgs was taking. When I went out on my own and I invited about 75 of my friends over to my home to talk to them about it, I didn't have those friends about 3 months later. It was that drastic.