Uploaded and Unfiltered: Conversations about Personal Growth, Mindsets, and Advice with BIPOC Creators for Creators

Crafting Our New Narratives

• Jermaine Pulliam • Season 1 • Episode 37

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Ever wondered how a simple intention to be approachable could unlock a world of connections? My journey to PodFest Expo 2024 was more than just an exploration of podcasting landscapes; it became a lesson in the magic of openness and the strength found in community. Wrapped in the vibrant tales of this solo expedition, I unfold the unexpected joys and alliances formed through the power of approachability, and I spotlight the inspiring narrative of a spontaneous meetup for black podcasters that blossomed into a network reverberating with solidarity and support.

Shifting the lens on life's everyday script, I venture into the realms of perspective—where a traffic jam morphs into an unexpected bonding session with my daughter, and a friend's silence is seen as a space for understanding rather than doubt. The art of crafting our narratives, as I've discovered, can guide us to positivity's oasis. Gerald's story is the centerpiece of this chapter, where loss gives way to serendipity and the closed doors we face might just be a redirection to more suited paths.

To cap it off, I challenge the mental barriers clamping down on creativity, urging us to wield enthusiasm as our weapon in the creative battlefield. Radiant Reflection, my newly minted coaching venture, is a clarion call to all creators seeking to hone their authentic voice. By shifting from a paradigm of suffering to one of joy, I reaffirm the might of a positive mindset and invite you to join this crusade of transformation, where we convert the mundane and the adverse into stepping stones for learning and growth. Together, let's sculpt our journeys into unstoppable forces of creation.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome. Welcome back to another episode of uploaded and unfiltered. The podcast in which I, your host, remain, interviews other creators in regards to their creative journey thus far. Today is going to be a special episode. I am doing a solo podcast because you know what I've been going to? A lot of different meetups for podcasts in general.

Speaker 1:

I went to pod fest in January, which I'm going to speak on that a little bit, because I don't think I did at the time when I went, and I think I need to interject few more solo episodes into the mix. So I think I'm going to do like maybe two episodes with me and then we'll do three episodes of interviews, something of that nature, just to switch it up a bit and to provide a little more information for those listeners out there. So today the topics are I was going to say they're going to be random, but I have one specific topic that I know I want to touch on, and that topic is assigning meanings to everyday events, anything in our life, and I will get to that in a moment, but before I do, let me talk about pod fest. So pod fest, expo 2024, happened at the end of January and it is an expo for podcasters. Essentially, there were different vendors there for podcasters in regards to hardware, software, different platforms where you can host your podcast. There were a lot of sessions on how to monetize your podcast, market your podcast, how to niche down. All sorts of information was at this event and I luckily got invited through my host, buzzsprout shout out to Buzzsprout for sending me a free ticket, otherwise I don't think I would have even known it existed.

Speaker 1:

So my goal plan was simple. I made an intention before I went into the event every day, to be the person in the room that everybody wanted to talk to. That's the mentality that I went into this event, with that's mentality I walked those halls with and I got to tell you it was an amazing, amazing event. I learned a lot. I started, I even implemented there was a few things like a YouTube page. For the longest I was putting my YouTube videos on my kryptonite page just because it was easier and I didn't want to recreate a YouTube channel. After I got over that hurdle, that stuckness, I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to take longer than it did. It actually took me probably like an hour to take all the videos down, reupload them to the new YouTube channel, uploaded and unfilteredcom, and now I have a dedicated YouTube channel for the podcast where I will be doing all sorts of different events and how to's, and the podcast itself will live there as well. So, like I said, I learned a lot of stuff at PodFest.

Speaker 1:

The one amazing thing about PodFest was there was as always, you know is black people. We go out, we see each other, we always acknowledge each other, and that's something I love about us is a culture. We don't hesitate, for the most part, to acknowledge other people in our presence when we see them. Someone set up her name was Elise Rose. She set up a meet and greet for black podcasters and going to an app we were using for the festival. It was called Huba. It's basically everything you needed to know about the conference was in this app, as well as people who attended. You can start text message groups and add in your own ad hoc event. The app is pretty good. It needs some UI overhauls. It's a little clunky, but for the most part, the information that you needed was there. So she used this app to just send out hey, we're meeting up here at 12.30 to just random people. That she sounds like. Of course you have your profile picture there. Oh, this guy's black Similar message Just girls, black similar message. And that first meeting, I think we had about 20 people. We got in a circle at the end of a hallway at the expo and we talked about our podcast, how long we've been doing it, and it was very, it was very spontaneous and it was also just a great event to be a part of. That went on two more times and with every meetup ad hoc meetup that we had, they grew bigger and bigger, to the point where we now have a Instagram group that we text each other either things we're working on accomplishments, accolades, stuff like that in the hope that we grow the connections that we made at PodFest. So, overall, I came out of PodFest energized, excited to push forward with the podcast and having some deliverables that I wanted to execute on as well. And that leads me to the topic that I want to talk about today.

Speaker 1:

There is this phenomenon in my life where I have this feeling of and I always say this to my wife I always say I feel unstoppable today. And what do I mean by that? Unstoppable means anything that I think of. I feel like it's going to be a banger. Any project that comes to mind, I think of it with excitement. I'm not thinking about the Anything negative about that, like all I see is excitement. Oh, I'm gonna get to work on this today. That is awesome. And Even in life, like there was a point in time I can't remember what situation it was, but I thought small, I was like, hey, why, why can't we sustain this happiness, this level of ecstasy, forever, like throughout our whole life, and and that was like a couple years ago when I thought that. But that question keeps popping up in my head and I feel like it is possible. I feel like it's possible to walk through life and have nothing but either neutral or positive Experiences, and I think the thing that I'm starting to learn, that I'm starting to dive into, is the meaning that we give.

Speaker 1:

Specific events or things that happen to us in our life determine how happy we're going to be in our life or determine the state of mind we will be in our life. So here's some examples. Let's say you were in. Let's say you sent your friend a text message. Nothing crazy, you just send a text message and they took three or four days to respond. What type of meaning are you assigning to that specific event?

Speaker 1:

Usually, people get really upset when they don't get a response within one, two, three days or whatever, and they assign meaning to that event, saying oh, either I'm not special enough for this person to respond to me, or I'm not important enough for this person to respond to me, or they read it and they don't want to talk to me. Did I do something wrong? Or they mad at me. And then you allow your brain to go down these little rabbit hole paths that lead to you being anxious, you being upset, you being Something that is not because that situation that we just described you made all of that up in your head. You have no idea why that person didn't respond to your text, and I think it is our nature to Think the worst, and I blame society on that, I blame our interactions with other people on that. For some reason, I'll say at least, it seems like our society is hell bent on Explaining why they're upset, explaining all the things they hate, and that's always been strange to me.

Speaker 1:

I Consider myself a positive person and I would say the last couple of years I have strived to Look at events as neutral or positive Experiences. Either I'm going to learn something from this or something amazing they will benefit me in the future or in the present has come out of this event, and I think that is the hardest thing to tackle. So imagine if you walk through this life with this knowledge that no event that happens in my life has any meaning, positive or negative. The only time that meaning is established is when I put meaning towards that event. So ultimately, I am in charge of my perspective of the world.

Speaker 1:

Here's another example. I was in a car with my girls. Where are we going? Oh, we went to Sam's Club. You know, sam's Club would have got all the food and of course I let them pick something. Now I think my daughter picked us mango, dried mango slices. My oldest daughter picked out cinnamon, cinnamon pretzel sticks. They were good. Both of them picked out dope stuff. Anyway, that's not. That's not the point of this.

Speaker 1:

We were in the car, we're driving back home, and before we got on the interstate I looked up and I saw traffic and and before I even finished this, go further into the story what is the first thought that pops into your mind when I say the word traffic? Or if I was to tell you hey, I'm stuck in traffic. What connotation are you putting with that? I can guess this is probably negative, because most people look at traffic as something that is an hindrance or something that is to be upset about, fighting negative meaning to that event. So in that moment this is what happened I said, oh no, traffic, hold on, it's just traffic. That doesn't mean it's going to take me 20 extra minutes to get home. And my girls were like huh. I was like traffic means there are cars on the road and all the cars are going slow. That doesn't mean that I will be late to my event, and I think that is the meaning that we associate traffic with. And I saw in that moment I said you know what? There's traffic, but that's okay, we're still going to get home on time and we'll still have time to.

Speaker 1:

I think we were going to play UNO or something of that nature, and so my daughter is a human clock and I don't think like if she didn't have a watch, I'm 90% sure she would know what time it was within like three or four minutes. So on her smart watch, her fitness watch, she set a timer of what time she thought we were going to get home. So we're driving down the road. I'm still talking, being positive, I'm like you know what Look, it's not that slight Like at least we're driving, it's five miles an hour, but at least it's not zero being positive and just talking and letting them know that, hey, this situation is not a bad situation. We're together, we're in the music, we're laughing. If anything, this is giving us more time together. Again, look for the positive and things that usually seem negative. So we get off our exit and my daughter is like wow, we got here 20 minutes before I thought we were going to get here and I was like I told you, traffic doesn't mean you're going to be late. Traffic doesn't mean you get an extra hour until your travel time. Traffic is there's a lot of cars on the road, and so we might not be driving the speed limit for a part of the road. Other than that, it is what it is, and once I made that realization, I feel like I can apply that to everything in my life.

Speaker 1:

There was a story I heard recently I can't remember where I heard it, so I apologize to the creator or story where this came from and I'm just going to say now this isn't that my own story, but I'm going to retell it anyways, and it is an example of how to look at the positive side of things, because you never know what's going to come out of them. So the story goes like this there is this guy, let's say he's 25 year old and we're going to call him Gerald. Gerald loves music, he's a big music aficionado and he recently just purchased a new car. In the car I had a subpar sound system and Gerald, being the tech geek that he is, he was like you know what? I'm putting the best sound system in this car because I have a commute, an hour commute and if I'm going to be in a car for two hours a day, at least I want to be able to enjoy the music that I'm listening to. So he went over to Best Buy and went over to the stereo section and noticed that the best stereo was out of his price range. No matter, he didn't get upset. He was like you know what, something to work towards. I'm going to get the second best, because it's better than the one that's in the car already, and move forward. So he purchased it, they installed it that day and he went home.

Speaker 1:

During the night someone broke into Gerald's garage and stole his stereo out of his car. Didn't touch anything else, they just stole that stereo out of his car. So he didn't even get 24 hours of ownership out of that stereo before it was stolen. So Gerald woke up the next morning, went down to the garage, saw that somebody broke in, investigated his car and noticed that the stereo was gone. Now, rather than getting upset, gerald was like man, I just got this. This is crazy. I just got this and it's already gone. Whatever, that's why we have insurance. So let me go ahead and call up my insurance, let him know what happened and get this taken care of.

Speaker 1:

So Gerald didn't freak out, he actually laughed at the situation, called up an insurance, let him know what happened and they said hey, this is the amount of money that will cut for you to fix the enclosure where the stereo goes and also replace the stereo itself. So Gerald was like all right, cool, this is easy, I can get this all done today. So he called up a repair shop and they said yeah, yeah, you can bring your car in today. We might be able to knock it out before the end of the day. So just bring it in and we'll get it taken care of. So Gerald drove to the car repair place On an inspection. The car repair place told Gerald that the damage was not that bad and they can fix it, and they were willing to do so for free. No reason, like he's never been to this place before, they had no reason to fix it for free, but they did so. Like I said earlier, insurance cut Gerald a check for the fixing of his stereo. As well as replacing the stereo One of those things taken care of. Now Gerald has extra money to go to Best Buy and guess what the exact amount of money he had to purchase that's right, no-transcript Audio system that he wanted to put in this car in the first place. He now has it and all he had to do was let his car get stolen and remain positive, and now he has exactly what he was manifesting. Now Some people might think, oh well, that would have happened anyways.

Speaker 1:

If he would have been upset, then the same situation would have happened. But we don't know that. The future is Not written, the future is ambiguous. The future is Ultimately what we think it's going to be. So if you go into a situation negative, if you think, oh fuck man. They stole my carcass and now I'm gonna have to pay all this money, and then it cost me extra. I don't have this shit in my bank account. I am with the belief the dash is gonna happen. That way, I Also think if something like this happens to you and you remain positive, you don't get upset because nothing happened to you, like your car got broken into and as of right now you don't know it's gonna cost you anything or not. So to be upset is kind of I'm gonna say it's dumb. It's a dumb emotion to have when you don't know all the situation at hand and you know what. That's another thing that I want to talk on. I'm not gonna judge, I'm not gonna dive too deep on it, because I got to do a little more research on it, but when we're thinking of Ourselves doing something in the future, in the past I would tend to think of all the negative things that were gonna happen and not what I wanted to happen. And that is a shift that I needed to change and I have done over the last year or so. That has been instrumental in me pushing forward with ideas that I have Now, when you think of doing something new, letting yourself think of all the negative that comes with it, all the hard work you're gonna have to do, always gonna take so long to edit this video oh, nobody's gonna watch it.

Speaker 1:

All of these things that you are putting in your head are Making barriers that are causing you to procrastinate and stop trying to Get that work done now. If you flip that and think of, oh, I want to, I can't wait to edit this video, it's gonna be fun. I want to meet this editing world. I want to meet this editing with some enthusiasm and not assume what the outcome is gonna be. Try to remain as positive or neutral is as possible. Tackling those projects become not only easier, but they become joyful. You actually look forward to working on your podcast because the ideas you have in your head it's about to become reality.

Speaker 1:

I don't think creators realize how magical and Amazing they are because think about it we have an idea in our head and eventually that idea becomes reality. Again, I'm gonna say that again, creators have the ability to think of something and Make that thing a reality. I'm not saying that that's manifestation, but I am saying that, if you think about it, what would be the difference between you thinking of a dope concept for a video and making that happen, versus you thinking, oh, I can't wait to speak at twitch con 2024 and Making that happen. The process is the same. Once you start thinking of something that you want to do, your subconscious starts to go to work. They're like, oh, this is what we want to do, bet, let's figure out how we can get this done. The same thing goes with the negative. If you think, oh, if I go to this event, nobody's gonna talk to me, your subconscious can be like, hey, we don't want that, that seems dangerous, so it's going to put up barriers in your mind, so you will find every excuse to not go to that event. I cannot wait to dive deep into the conscious, subconscious, conscious debate that I want to have not even debate, just information dump. Again, there's a lot of research that I want to do around that and then make sure that I'm providing everyone with the best information possible. But I have to tell you there are a lot of things that we do as creators that are hindering our performance, hindering our trajectory, and it's all Self-based, it's all things that we can change internally, and that's why I cannot wait to get my coaching business Officially off the ground and helping people who want that help.

Speaker 1:

Radiant reflection. I created the company because I wanted my content. I want creators content to be a reflection of them, and I think the best content comes out of Creators who are clear, who know exactly what they want out of life. I do not believe in that bullshit of you need to be a broken soul or Undowntimes to make awesome content, to make awesome art. I think that's bullshit. I think that's something that has been perpetrated over our lifetime that needs to die. I think the best content comes from people who are happy, who are enjoying their life and Passionate about whatever the subject matter they're talking about.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, this was all about the pursuit of happiness, how we can theoretically chase that dream and sustain that energy of being unstoppable by Deciding what meaning we are going to provide to different events that occur in our life. Again, it's going to be a challenge. It's not going to be easy, but I rather Challenge myself to be happy than allow myself to live in anger and anxiety. Those are feelings that don't serve us. There is no reason for us to be Anxious when we're just sitting down watching a TV show. There is no reason for us to have a posture syndrome when we are about to upload a video Because we are afraid what other people are going to think Again, if we look at that situation as either neutral or positive, hey, I'm gonna upload this video and it might reach the person that needs to hear my words. Think that way hey, I'm gonna upload this video and somebody who was thinking about uploading it's gonna do so because they saw me uploaded and that's just inspired them to do so as well. Think that way. I have now come to the realization, like I know what my purpose on this earth is and is to help other creators become great. Simple as that. I see too many creators beating themselves up unjustly, so that is.

Speaker 1:

Second, the negative self-talk, the self-doubt. We are amazing, magical People and we need to tap into that and we need to remember that when we are putting our content out there, we can't Give any thought or give a fuck what people think about us because ultimately, we control our own narratives. I Will be saying that for the rest of my life, until it sinks in. But what people think about you, ultimately it doesn't matter. If you can find it in yourself to know who you are and lock into that. When people talk shit about you in the comments or anything of that nature, it just rolls off your skin and you just keep it moving. Yeah, that is it. I just wanted to get that off my chest. Make sure, when you're assigning meanings to things, that you were doing so consciously so we'll allow you to attach the right meaning to the correct event and allow you to forego some some stuckness in the future. But yeah, other than that, I appreciate y'all listening. If this was an exciting or interesting topic to you, definitely leave me a comment. I think you know what On Spotify.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to turn on the questions, because I have this, this challenge. I want you to send me an email, send me a message, send me a question. Let me know what type of events that will pop in your life that you think are incapable of becoming either a neutral or positive. A neutral will be, let's say, you learn something from it, even though it potentially wasn't a good thing. A positive is it shifted either your perspective or something in your life to the next level and I will tackle those things. And it will be a challenge to myself because again, I am on this goal to become unstoppable and fill that level of ecstasy for the rest of my life. I think there's a worthy goal to chase after. It's going to be lofty and it's going to. It's going to. It's going to. It's going to cause me to be a little delusional to get there. Fuck it. I cannot wait.

Speaker 1:

Other than that, I really appreciate y'all listening.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for doing so. Again, if you know someone that could benefit from conversations like these and more, please share the podcast with them. Upload it on our filter. It's on Apple Music Podcast, it's on Spotify, it's on YouTube and various other podcast catchers out there. Until next week, remember to tell your loved ones you love them. Make sure that people in your life know that you appreciate them and, as always, protect your mental, keep creating content and I'll see you in the next one. Peace. Thank you for listening this deep into the podcast. I truly do appreciate it. If you enjoy what you heard and you want to get this podcast to a state work and actually make even more changes in creators lives, please share the podcast with those that you know. They probably can get some enjoyment or some information from the podcast.

Speaker 1:

Head over to uponbuzzsproutcom, that is, upnbuzzsproutcom, to check out where the podcast is hosted On that website.

Speaker 1:

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