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

Turning Challenges into Opportunities and Finding Success

• Jermaine Pulliam • Season 1 • Episode 68

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Ever faced a hurdle and thought, "Here's another growth opportunity"? That's the mindset I've been cultivating as I navigate my family's big move to North Carolina. This episode is packed with personal stories and insights about how a shift in perspective can turn life's challenges—like having to replace a roof or a water heater—into steps toward our ultimate goals. I discuss the power of keeping plans under wraps to shield them from negativity, and I aim to inspire you to see challenges as opportunities for growth. 


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Speaker 1:

welcome. Welcome back to another episode of uploaded and unfiltered, the podcast in which I, your host, jermaine, interviews another content creator in regards to their journey thus far. This podcast is a lot of things. I also like to talk on topics that are beneficial for creators to not only entertain but know to lessen the stress and burdens that creating content could create. Me and my family, or my family and I, have been getting ready to repair the house to be sold and move up to North Carolina into our new house, and I have to say this has probably been the most hectic I've been in life, but it got me thinking into a lot of different mindset concepts. One that I'll be talking about tonight is perspective and having the mindset of learning, and that everything provided to you or presented to you in life is an opportunity to learn and grow. With that perspective, I feel like anything is possible. Now I have a few stories I want to go over in regards to perspective that I think would be beneficial to hear. I always like hearing different stories in regards to mindsets, because everybody has an example of some different perspective that could be beneficial to hear, different perspective that could be beneficial to hear, and one day, my ultimate goal is to simply break down that your mind creates your reality. I can't wait to break that concept down, because there have been so many people who have said that exact same thing in 15 different ways Some of your favorite artists, your favorite celebrities, so many successful people have said this, but one day I'm going to try to put my spin on it as well. I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, let's get back to this move that we're getting into. I have to say we haven't been telling many people that we're moving or that we've sold our house or that we have plans to, because, frankly, it's really nobody's business. But if I'm being real, part of me fully believes that large part of me that people's negative energy or perception of what you're doing could ultimately impact what you're trying to achieve. So I know in the past everyone's always like oh, you should brag about your wins or you should care what you're trying to do, and I think that mentality is false. I don't think you should tell everyone exactly all of your plans and your aspirations, because there are people and you might have some people in your life, you don't know it that are for the lack of a better word haters. They don't want to see you hit your goals. They want to see you stuck where they're at because and I think this is not always the case, but a large case they are jealous and mad that they can't make the same moves that you're moving, the same moves that you're doing, and they see you doing it. So they get upset. They're like no, you're not supposed to be doing, that, you should be scared, and everything that they're telling you is their fears. So a perfect example for this the few people that we like let slip that we're moving.

Speaker 1:

Majority. Like I told my family and of course, the first thing I want parents, even my sister's mom was my god, we're gonna miss you, but congratulations. It always ends on a positive note and I just lived my whole life like that. I've always heard that from my parents. I try to instill that in my kids and I try to live my life like that. Leave on a positive note.

Speaker 1:

But there's some people in life like we had to go to a few birthday parties that they found out that we're moving. It's either, oh, have you did your research in that state, or it's a horrible time to sell a house right now, or, oh, they're selling a condo. So let me give you the small gist of some of the things that we have been taking in stride, and at the end of this ordeal we will have a house with the exact specs that we want, and we will be in North Carolina and that's what we envision. So along the way, there are going to be things that pop up that you're going to need to deal with, and I've been having the mindset and I've been sharing this with my wife that it doesn't matter what pops up. Ultimately, if we can handle it, we handle it and we move on to the next sass. Whether it be why a new roof for the house, which we had to do because we haven't changed the house since we've been here, or we haven't changed the roof since we've been here and unfortunately we had to get the roof replaced. That's getting replaced soon, but even in that, I think we come out on top of, ultimately, what we've been asking for for the house. So it's not even like it's a major expense. It's just the way that it played out at first.

Speaker 1:

If we would have just been negative and like, no, there's no way we're going to do that or no, that's too much money we would have potentially lost a buyer for the house. My main goal is get the house, and so when that came up, I was like, yeah, that makes sense, let's do it a water heater. When it initially comes out, that's another cost like no, we shouldn't have to replace that. But to me I was like, water heater, bet, let's go. If that's what I gotta do to get my ultimate goal, which is get the fuck out this house, get the fuck out of this state, then that's what I'm going to do. So with that perspective, any challenge that came to me, I didn't see it as a negative thing. I just saw it as something that needed to be tackled for me to get to my ultimate goal. And that just gave me a little small lesson in the way that we see our problems, the way that we see our trials and tribulations and roadblocks, the way we look at those will ultimately determine not only how we get through those but how we, I guess, react to problems in a similar fashion in the future.

Speaker 1:

And I gotta say like and it's been this whole ordeal has been fun, from trying to figure out how I'm going to do content to figuring out what our new lifestyle is going to be once we move up there. It's been an awesome exercise to live, out, live, and we have no like. We don't have a choice Like. This is our life, so we have to go through it and I think we've been doing it swimmingly. We have a few more moving parts that we need to go through it, and I think we've been doing it swimmingly. We have a few more moving parts that we need to lock into place and then I will be in my new space and I cannot wait to get to. I cannot wait to show it all. I have so many creative ideas that I want to accomplish or I will accomplish in that room. It's only a matter of time. Everything that we envision and talked about is right around the corner, which leads me to my second story.

Speaker 1:

For some reason, I was in my room packing, putting stuff away, and an old co-worker that I used to talk to years ago opted my head. I was like you know what? Let me see if he still has same same phone number. So I shot him a text. Sure enough, he had the same number and the last text that I sent him was three years ago. It was talking about my old job and I was like man, they tried to do me dirty, but my goal is to move us up to charlotte. And that was the last thing I said that we didn't reply to that text. It's crazy because now everything not everything, but the moving to charlotte is happening and I said it was gonna happen.

Speaker 1:

That was three years ago and if you were to look at everything that went down from me quitting my job to covid, to the housing, whatever, so many things would have made most people be like nope, nope, it's not the right time. No, it's not the right time. We, literally at the beginning of September, we were thinking of one plan about the rest of our not the rest of our life, but as far as our living situation goes and that one would have been awesome. But we were like, nah, I don't think we're ready for that. And then we were like, well, it was Charlotte, charlotte.

Speaker 1:

In that day, click, click, click, click, click. We look, fly to go, look at houses. We put the house in the market. The house sold without a buyer. Their house immediately sold. Uh, we got a pack, we got to clean up the house, but everything is moving so rapidly, fast, but it got me me to think that I don't care what the road is to get to what I need, as long as I just keep pushing forward until I get to whatever my end goal is.

Speaker 1:

And, honestly, the more crazier the story the better, because that'll just help me in my quest to ultimately help people realize that there are so many things that we are worried about that are out of our control. The only things we control is what we think and honestly, that's about it it always. If I could just teach everybody one thing, one thing and one thing alone. Those times where we are thinking so-and-so is probably thinking X, y and Z they're probably thinking the worst. Probably thinking x, y and z, they're probably thinking the worst. We literally have no idea what the other person is thinking. So why are we wasting energy assuming we know what they think? It is a waste of it is a waste of time and ultimately we don't know what that person's.

Speaker 1:

So, rather than it's harder that we push to think that people are talking shit behind our backs or are not fucking with our content as hard as we think that and as deep as we allow that to affect us, I want to do the opposite. I want to think that people are loving our content or they're not talking. She's like simply not talking shit about it. They're not even thinking about us. If that is going to ease our mind, if that's going to allow us to put out more content, so I will figure out a way to do it. Hey, I'm here to help.

Speaker 1:

If you want a one-on-one session, if you just want to lay it, I got a few things I want to talk through, or I feel this way and this is keeping me from making the content that I know I want to make. Hit making the content that I know I want to make. Hit me up, find a way to get in contact with me. You can hit me on socials. You can get into the message to the podcast. I should probably set up an email or phone number.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I'm sure I have one, but don't be afraid to ask for help. That's always something that you hear and it might just go in one way or not the other, but asking for help is not a sign of weakness. In fact, all of the successful people you know, probably in your life, ask somebody so they can get some assistance. Not asking for help is how you keep yourself stuck in the things that you're doing? Because again it all comes back to perspective A lot of these goals by athletes that are being broken, a lot of these different styles of play that are happening in the different leagues. If they never saw somebody else do something similar, they wouldn't think that it was possible, so they wouldn't have the perspective of oh, this is possible. With that simple thought, literally anything is possible.

Speaker 1:

Tiktok on my TikTok account at Kryptonite a few weeks ago maybe it was a few months ago I saw that TikTok was handing out access to the TikTok affiliate shop without having the requirements, which the requirements are, I think, 5,000 followers and a bunch of other stuff. I just heard they were handing out invites without having a requirement. So that put that idea into my head and when I heard that idea me myself and I was like no, I want that. And so the thought or the intention that I had I was like yo, I'm getting that before the end of the year and I'm not gonna need 5 000 followers. Like followers, like, if I hit 5,000 followers, cool, but I plan on getting that before the end of the year, and in my head, getting that was more a surefire thing than getting 5,000 followers. Now I know what you're probably saying. That is just a mindset thing and it is, and I am working on that.

Speaker 1:

But I honestly, if I'm being honest, I like reviewing, reviewing things, I like buying things and figuring out if it's good or not and giving that opinion. I've been doing it since I've made content. So when I saw the option did I can get paid to do it, I was like, oh yeah, we in there. So it happened. A few weeks ago or like last week, I believe, I was driving, I just randomly checked my account on TikTok and I saw that I had access to the creator affiliate shop and I was like excited and like the feeling of like gratitude and like just knowing. I was like I knew I wanted this, I knew it was a matter of time. How did I get it outside of just wanting it and knowing that I was going to get it, like there was no doubt in my mind that it was going to happen. So now I'm able to talk about some things that I've already bought, give you my my opinion on that piece and you have the shopping cart right there on that video. If you want to go, click it and buy it and I get a commission off of that.

Speaker 1:

It is a new way for me to monetize my content, doing the same things as I've been doing, and if you play your cards right, if you stay consistent and you just keep putting out content, those videos are doing numbers. Already I've made sales on my store and I'm just like getting my feet wet trying to figure out what kind of content I want to do with it, and I'm already doing numbers. So my ultimate lesson for this week is figure out what you want to do and see yourself doing it. See yourself going through the motions. I really want to have this podcast reach a thousand downloads so I can start not only reach more people, but so I can start bringing sponsorships in here. And so I see that. I see myself having conversations with people to try and negotiate price. I see me looking at my analytics just rising week after week and just being excited and gracious to this happening, like I see that and I feel it. So I know it's only a matter of time for it to happen, and I want to not only teach people how to do that, but I want to live that way in everything that I do.

Speaker 1:

And it is a challenge because there are a lot of mindsets, a lot of things that we just picked up from growing in this society and watching different things on TV and listening to different pieces of music and watching different movies. There's just things that we learned, that are part of us, that we didn't necessarily opt into, if that makes sense. Things that if we gave ourselves the time to be present and think about why we think about certain things or why do I think that we question those things, I feel like a lot of the things that are keeping us back would just go away because we would no longer be holding on to somebody else's beliefs. So I will continue to talk that talk here on uploaded unfiltered. I appreciate everybody's here.

Speaker 1:

There was also another story of a architecture that I'll briefly tell, and this is just another example of looking at your problems and using it to your advantage rather than staying in a negative mindset. It was an architecture. Unfortunately, I didn't know his name, but I can say I believe it was episode like four of this show called Home on Apple TV. It's about different homes and how people live in these houses differently or make them differently, or their feelings behind houses in general. Regardless this architecture.

Speaker 1:

Growing up he didn't have a bed. The house was so packed that when he was younger and I don't know how long this lasted, but it's not only say it scarred him, it ultimately changed how he viewed the world. He slept on like a full out bed from a like a bench or something, and that was his bed. So he didn't have a real room that was his and I can't imagine growing up as a child and not having your own room. I know it happens a lot, but I was fortunate enough to have my own room. I think I shared a room once with my little brother, but for the most part I had my own room. I couldn't imagine not having one growing up.

Speaker 1:

So instead of looking at his childhood as dramatic or traumatic or like horrible, he used the lessons that he had to reimagine what it means to live in a house. So his house, I want to say, was like 320 by 320. It wasn't a ass house, but he had the way he had laid it out. It was multiple different rooms in the house all in one space, because he had these sectionals and he was slide across the ceiling. They were like attached up at the ceiling so he could slide them out. He was like, okay, this is the bathroom, this is the kitchen, this is the entertainment room, this is where I play my projection TV. This is this is the entertainment room, this is where I play my projection tv, this is where I sleep at night. He had so many different configurations that, honestly like when I get to a point where I can just have a budget for a room, I want to reach out to either him or somebody who's learned from him to outfit an entire room like a, to make it multiple different things with little, almost no effort in changing the configuration, and it just me and my wife were watching it, and it just highlighted another example of it.

Speaker 1:

All depends on how you look at situations. It all depends on what lens you are looking at a problem at. It will ultimately determine what you feel and what will out will go coming forward. Highly, highly suggest anything that pops up in your life. Just give a brief pause, let yourself breathe before you, let yourself emote before you, let yourself react emotionally. I have found a lot of success in that. Knowing that the content I'm putting out will reach the people that I wanted to reach has sparked another fire inside me to keep pushing and once this move gets done, I cannot wait for the content I'll be making.

Speaker 1:

So, with that, I appreciate y'all for listening. I hope y'all had fun. I hope you learned something, as always. If you haven't already subscribed to the podcast, go ahead and do so. Uploaded and unfiltered, we are everywhere. We don't miss any weeks. Even during this move, I was like I have no reason to miss any weeks, so I'm going to keep the streak going. But other than that, I appreciate y'all for listening and, as always, text your mental, keep creating content and I'll talk to you in the next one. Peace. Yeah, by the way, this episode was edited by AI, so I just let it cut out the ads and all, so we'll see what happens If it works. This might cut a lot of time out of my editing process, but we'll see. All right, talk to y'all later.