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

Your Voice, Your Power

• Jermaine Pulliam • Season 1 • Episode 85

Share episode

Send me a text! Be part of the show!

Jermaine highlights the power of black creators owning their voices and sharing their stories without hesitation. He brings attention to the strength of mindset in content creation and how clearing obstacles leads to clarity and creativity. Through personal experiences, he illustrates the impact of gratitude, consistency, and authenticity in growth. Mental well-being takes center stage as he encourages listeners to move forward with confidence, free from external judgment.

Support the show

Speaker 1:

welcome. Welcome back to another episode of uploaded and unfiltered, the podcast in which I, your host, interviews another content creator on their journey thus far. Also, I am very into giving creators black creators gems, nuggets, little bits of information, just things to allow us to push forward with our content. Because I got to tell you I don't know if you notice the rhetoric around our culture, our skin color or us black men, black women, black children, but it is fucked, to say the least, and I truly believe that if more black creators get out there and make content, I truly believe that if more black creators get out there and make content, put your face out there, be your authentic self. We can capture that story that has been told by us, or that story that has been told for us for so many years, and actually own it and show up as our authentic selves. Like that is one of my life's mission is to get as many people to be creating content and showing up as themselves as possible, and so far, so good.

Speaker 1:

This last week has been interesting. Of course, as I stated a few weeks back, I have created goals, smart goals, that I want to knock out this, this week or this year, rather and this is mond Monday for full disclosure, and for some reason, early in the day I was letting myself like be upset over the dumbest shit and like I'm going to tell you about it and show you some of the things that I go through and some of the challenges that I face and how I get out of them, even knowing that our mind creates feelings based on the situations at hand and depending on what our thoughts are or what the meaning behind whatever is happening is, will determine our outcome. I promise I'll explain that a little better, but this week, monday, I had a video that I shot as a tech and video commentary video wanted. I wanted to have it done at a certain amount of time. I woke up around like nine to ten o'clock and I was like you know what? I'm gonna bang this out two hours 11 to 1. I'm gonna knock this tech and video out and get it done.

Speaker 1:

And that time came and went and I had not completed. I don't even at that point. I don't even know if I started working on it. I think I did, but regardless, I went into this whole situation all messed up. I shouldn't have gave myself that hard time code and if I didn't hit it. I should have just relaxed and been like, all right, why didn't I hit it? And then plan for the future. But when I didn't hit it, I let myself. I myself I was like man, why didn't you hit that? Come on, man, you got to make these videos, you got to get this. You're never going to hit your goal if you keep slipping on your goal or slipping on your little baby goals that you're making like a time goal or a deadline like. If you're not hitting those, how are you going to get the bigger goal?

Speaker 1:

And for like a little bit, probably half the day, I was just letting my mind swim in that negativity, just like it was weird. It was foreign to who I am now, but it was reminiscent of how I used to feel. And then I had to sit down and just remember a couple of things. One it's Monday. You want to do a video a week. You still have least, let's say my. My week ends on Saturday. You have six more days to knock this out, or five more days, I can't do math, but you have until Saturday to knock it out, calm the fuck down. And so that kind of helped. But then the other thing. I opened up my YouTube studio the back end of YouTube and I in in the last I think, two weeks I've uploaded three videos. So I need to fucking calm down, like I'm ahead of my curve. That I set for myself. It was just a bunch. I don't know why my my head went there today, but that's where I was at and then it just reinforced remember who you are, what I'm trying to accomplish, and then move forward from there and that's all I can do.

Speaker 1:

I can't be worried about what other people think, which, lucky for me, I could care less what other people think. I had this epiphany last week. I think I shared it. But we can't make content. We can't move through life thinking or worrying about what other people think. Thinking or worrying about what other people think, specifically if you're Black, if you are worried about what people think going to the mall or getting gas. That's why they say we walk around with trauma all day, every day, because we're in that constant state of worry and you don't have to be like I think. The worry comes from wanting to be prepared. That makes sense. I need to get people to realize that you don't need to be worried or mad or anxious or upset or pissed off. To be prepared Like you don't have to look at a problem with anger or any type of emotion that doesn't bring value to your life is not necessary when becoming prepared for something. I think the faster we learn that and the faster I'm able to teach that, the better we will be, not only as people but as creators Because, again, my whole thing is content.

Speaker 1:

Creators are some of the most blessed people in the world when it comes to getting what they want, because 95% of obtaining what we want out of life comes down to creativity. You need to be creative to outthink something that seemingly, on the surface, seems like a problem to anybody else they would panic and lose their mind, maybe stop doing what they were doing. But if you look at it, if you have the creativity to look at that problem as hey, how do I use this to move forward towards my goal? There's nothing stopping you when you create content and your goal is to make money off it or get to a place where you're changing lives or whatever your goal in content creation is. Know that there's no quitting.

Speaker 1:

So anytime a roadblock comes up, you can't have any emotion. That deals with panic, negativity, imposter syndrome. Those are the things that we want to eliminate, and they are capable of being eliminated because everything that happens to us, everything that we feel, it's all caused by the mind. It's the way that our mind is processing data, just like a computer. If you had a browser open with 4,000 tabs and you keep opening more tabs, what's going to happen to that browser? Eventually, it's going to slow down and crash. So, rather than let our minds get to the point of crash, we need to clear out those goddamn tabs, make sure that we have the tabs open that we need and to make sure 1000% that the website we're going to, or the data that we're getting into our brains, is going to the correct website and it didn't get hacked by somebody who's trying to get our credit card information and buy Bitcoin. It's the same thing with our brains when our mind interacts with data, this data being um.

Speaker 1:

Today I got a flat tire. The data is a flat tire. The way that my brain interprets that data will determine how I feel and respond going forward. If getting a flat tire is a negative and is associated with bills and money and a bunch of unnecessary shit that I don't want, I will be more inclined to panic during that event, because my mind has associated a flat tire with something that I don't want to do. My subconscious fights hard to get me to not do it, either by procrastination, or it goes into turbo mode trying to figure out what could happen. All bad, and then, as I'm experiencing that future thought of okay, this is going to happen because I got a flat tire, I'm going to have to pay X amount of dollars and my insurance is going to go up and I might have to work extra hours at work.

Speaker 1:

Once our brain is doing that, we're feeling that in the present. So that panic that it comes with having to scramble to pay the bills, we're feeling that in the present. When we're thinking of the future of, oh, the car insurance is probably going to go up $700 and how that's going to make you feel. You're feeling that in the present. You feel what I'm saying, that shit is not useful for you in the present. It is possible for you to be feeling that in the present and have it dealt with by seeing somebody who can help and specializes in doing so. This is the reason why I finally opened up Radiant Reflections. Radiant Reflection dot best. There's no S. I can't remember that Because it's all a mind game, it's all in the mind, it's all our mindset. What we think, what we feel, will ultimately determine where we go in the future. And it took me a while to remember that today, on this Monday.

Speaker 1:

And another thing that pulled me out of it was being gracious and showing gratitude towards the little things that are happening in my content creation career. Somebody reached out to me that wants to be a I think it was on TikTok to to be like an affiliate, whatever, like collabo, that shit's dope. My youtube, my kryptonite youtube, is starting to trickle in more people, like the numbers are constantly going up, my subscribers are constantly going up, and it's because I've been somewhat consistent with getting a video up every week and again, that's the goal be consistent. What else has happened? Of course I'm being consistent with the podcast. There's so many good things that are up every week and again, that's the goal Be consistent. What else has happened? Of course I'm being consistent with the podcast. There's so many good things that are happening.

Speaker 1:

When I go into that panic mode, I need to remember that. Oh hey, yo, you're doing X, y and Z, the reason why I talk about the podcast and how long I've been doing it. We're 85 weeks straight, no misses, it's not for you, it's not for me. You, it's not me bragging, it's to remind me until it's not a surprise which is getting there that yo, you did this for 85 weeks straight. I love streaks because anytime you tell somebody a streak in something that they, you both, mutually do, they understand how hard it is to keep a streak going and they understand the work and how precious those streaks can get. So they, they appreciate it more. Again, I'm not doing it for you, I don't care if you appreciate. But when I hear somebody say, oh, I've been streaming for 400 days straight, I'm like that's crazy. Good job on the streak. And that's where I'm at 85 weeks, baby, like I can't wait. Good job on the streak. And that's where I'm at 85 weeks, baby. Like I can't wait till I get into the triple digits. We're almost there, we're like 15 off. And then I can say I've been doing this for 101 days, 101 weeks straight. I said it correctly there at some point. But so, yes, I am excited to see what the rest of this year has in store for me. I can't wait until I start rolling in clients to help them get to thinking like I am thinking of how can I make my life better?

Speaker 1:

Consistent to avoiding the mental wear down and the fatigue that comes with creating content is being who you want to be every time you're on the camera. When you get into that state, it no longer feels like making content, no longer feels like a chore. You think of an idea you don't go into. How am I going to be perceived? Because you already know how you're going to be perceived, because you are who you are and you're not worried about the audience. That doesn't give a fuck about your content.

Speaker 1:

Again, if you are a creator out there actually, if you're a creator out there who has imposter syndrome or you are worried about somebody else seeing your content and judging your content, somebody else seeing your content and judging your content hit me up please, because, like that's one of the biggest downfalls in stoppage in creators, creating content is giving a fuck what other people think. You can't. You cannot care what Joe, who's never going to see you in real life, thinks and poses the racist comment or the misogynistic comment on your content. You cannot put energy into what they think at all because it does not fucking matter, because I guarantee you, especially if you're black, especially if you're black, there is a house full of people who would love to see you not be on this earth anymore. Do you give a fuck what they think about what you're doing, or do you care that they don't want you alive anymore? No, because that's crazy. They're out of sight, out of mind.

Speaker 1:

Treat these comments the same way. Treat whatever figment of your imagination that is telling you that oh, I'm not an expert, so I can't be talking about this. That's bullshit. Or that person that's like oh, you don't make X amount of of money, so you can't call yourself a writer, or you can't call yourself a director, or you can't call yourself fuck all that. If you write, you're a writer. If you make movies hey, guess what, you're a director. The amount of money that you make or getting paid to do something does not equate that being you. Does that make sense? You don't need to get a paycheck from somebody. You don't need to be told by somebody else that that's what you are in order to be it. That's fucking crazy, Like, if that is your mentality, please erase that shit from your brain right now. I swear to God.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, there was a bunch of rambling in there. I just I don't know, man, I'm feeling very antsy to start getting people on the path of knowing that they're amazing, knowing that they have a gift and a talent they want to bring to the world, and not giving a fuck what the people who don't like it say. Like, if we can get all to that point, I can't imagine what our content would be like. I can't imagine what this world will look like because we would be no longer scared to say what we want to say in fear of a response from somebody we think we couldn't handle Again. That's the other thing. What do you think is going to happen if somebody perceives you and sees your content and sees your vlog of all of the things that you do through the monthly basis? What do you think is going to happen if they don't like it? I don't know. Somebody, leave me a comment, send me a message to the podcast. I want to know, but that's all I had for you.

Speaker 1:

Remember to give yourself grace when you're in those times where you think you should be doing something. First of all, erase that from your memory. That is aant piece of corporate america that is still in me, like making sure that you're doing enough tasks and you have your lists and your deadlines, and if you're not doing it, then there's consequences. That's all bullshit. You know, like fuck all that. That's one mentality that I didn't realize was still there, but now that I've shed light on it, it can't hide. You get bullshit like that cannot hide in the dark. If you put light on it, meaning if you talk about it and think about it, eventually your brain can figure out a way to eradicate that shit, because we don't need that in our lives. I don't need to be beholden to a task list or a feeling of if I don't get this deadline done in the next two days, then something horrific is going to happen, because when you think about what's the horrific thing that's going to happen, you never come up with anything.

Speaker 1:

So again, our minds are amazing at a bunch of things. They're so powerful that if you think of a future event that you don't want to happen and you think about all the icky and gross feelings that'll come with it, you'll feel that shit in the present. It's like magic. It's like you time traveled, except you didn't go anywhere, and now you're experiencing all those bad feelings in the present and your family has to deal with that and your friends have to deal with that and you're crying and you're anxious and you don't know fucking why is because you're allowing yourself to live in the future. Come back to the present, relax and let's get this shit taken care of.

Speaker 1:

All right, appreciate y'all for listening. Guess what? I'm not editing any of this. I'm just gonna throw this thing up and, uh, hope for the best. So I appreciate y'all. Thank you for listening. If you have any questions that you want me to knock out, definitely send them my way. Uh, there will be a link in the description of this podcast. Also have two people lined up, so I think next week we'll have a guest on. But yeah, if you are interested in getting a session with your boy either a goal setting session where we go through and plan out the most badass set of goals for you to achieve without any pressure, and they're actually going to be fun to do hit me up. Radiantantreflection Best. Or if you want to talk about something that makes you feel stuck, something that has you from creating content whether that be imposter syndrome, whether that be procrastination, being anxious about something that might be coming up in the future. Hit me up again, radiantreflection. Best Get on a discovery call, we'll have a chat and we'll get you fixed. Simple as that.

Speaker 1:

I know that sometimes mental health and therapy has a weird stigma, but I feel like that stigma is actually being changed, which I'm very grateful for, because the mind games that the world plays on us and we're not even aware of it is terrifying, and I just want to bring a little more awareness to my people and make sure that we see the games that they're playing and make sure that we're not allowing their games to infect our minds and get us off course, because the goal is to own our own identity, to do what we want to do in life and be presented and represented in this world. Truthfully, I can't wait to go into the psychology of advertising because I think that's something that I think will be a dope either video series or podcast, I haven't decided yet, but yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to see where this rest of this year goes and where some of my mutual content creators go as well, because a lot of people are doing some dope things. I see some people starting to cook up on TikTok and getting more consistent with that, so that excites me. I cannot.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that was weird. I had a little technical difficulties there for a second. But other than that, I appreciate y'all for listening. Thank you, as always. If you haven't already subscribed to the podcast, also leave me your, also leave me a review and let me know what you think about the podcast. Anything that I can update for you or any topics you want to talk about, let me know. Other than that, as always, protect your mental, keep creating content and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.