Principle #6 - A Positive Spin to "Not Fitting In"!

Foreign. Hi, everybody. Once again, it's Sandy Boucher here, Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan. I'm a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Northern Ontario, and I'm here for once again with a personal power message. And before I say anything else, I just wanted to take a second to thank you for helping me feather dance my way to reconciliation and what I mean by that. I've used that phrase quite often of late. A lot of people talk to two sides of a coin. Well, I like to refer to two sides of a feather. Non indigenous people on one side, indigenous people on the other. And every single time we come together, have a respectful conversation, learn from each other, that feather is growing stronger. And that feather is the feather of reconciliation. So by watching this video, by entertaining, possibly adopting one of my personal power principles, you are helping that feather grow stronger. Because all of my personal power principles are based in my Anishinaabe teachings. Our teachings work for anyone. And when we share our teachings with each other, you sharing yours, us sharing ours, that is when that feather grows stronger. Now, I've been practicing and learning these principles for my entire life. 57 years of training, and some I adopted a lot earlier. Some took me some age and some wisdom and a little more life experience before I adopted them. Whatever stage you're at, I encourage you to keep these principles handy. Come back and revisit these videos. They're on my YouTube channel. It's easy enough to do anytime you want to, but maybe you're not ready to adopt one now or put it into practice now. Six months from now, you're going to be a different person. A year from now, your life, you are going to have grown and changed. The principles are there waiting for you now, of course, this is June, so we are talking about personal power principle number six. Before I say anything else, and boy, do I have a story for you today. Before I say anything else, let me remind you what the principle is. Here it is, give others time to get used to you. They have never met anyone like you before. Give them time to adjust. This is one of the principles that I really didn't get till later in my life, until after I had started my own business. Now I became an inspirational speaker, full time, running my own business back in 2009, and I will never forget it. I was like one year in business, totally, completely, a novice, a local business person, very successful here in the city I live in, took an interest in my work, saw the value, saw a future for it. So he invited me to A very exclusive Christmas party. Now, this Christmas party is attended by successful business people, by influencers, by politicians. The people. Yeah. Know their name. And I will never forget walking into that building the same way you probably felt walking into high school for the first time or walking into that new job or university for the first time. Time. I felt totally out of my element. I was nervous, if not scared stiff. It was in a very affluent location. So the little voice in my head going, what in the world are you even doing here, Sandy? And in I went. Now, I met amazing people that night. I met welcoming people. And I met people that rolled their eyes when they saw my tattoo or realized I was coming at my work from an indigenous lens. I remember thinking, I just don't belong here. Think back to this month's principle. I can honestly say that up until Covid, I've actually attended that Christmas event every single year. Every year, I get my very exclusive, exclusive invitation. And guess what? I walk in there still dressed to the nines, still wearing an outfit that shows off my tattoo that happens to be the logo of my company. Besides being incredibly personal, if you don't know what my tattoo means, that video is on my YouTube channel as well. But I walk in there now and all I hear is, sandy's here. That's this month's principle. When people don't know how to react to you, we often think we're not good enough or there's something wrong with us. And that's not it at all. That's just insecurity talking. If you're different than the group of people there, if you come from a different place, talk with an accent, look different, look at the world differently, there's a really good chance they've never met anyone like you. You have to give them time to get used to you. So here it is one more time, just so you can really ingrain it and start using this principle. Here is principle number six. Give others time to get used to you. They have never met anyone like you before. Give them time to adjust. This principle plays out in my life so often when I'm doing a seminar with a new group, they don't know how to handle me. I've now discovered that the way I do seminars is very different from mainstream or dry professional type seminars. I definitely put the Sandy into it. The emotion, the feeling, the excitement, the passion that catches some people off guard. That's okay. I know there's nothing wrong with me. They're just not used to me yet. I hope you're used to me. And I hope you're enjoying these videos. Drop a comment if you're watching this on YouTube or send me an email if you're watching this, because you're on my list. If you're on Shaw Spotlight, you can send me an email too. Sandy@sandypuchet.com until next week. I love you. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.