Energy Reclaimed: How Letting Go of Fear Fuels Creativity

We explore the transformative power of accepting praise and finding your authentic voice as a creator, revealing how mindset shifts can unlock creative potential and meaningful connections.

• Learning to accept compliments rather than seeing them as manipulation attempts
• The importance of men holding other men accountable for harmful behaviors 
• How empathy fundamentally changes relationships and content creation
• Redirecting energy from anxiety and anger into creative pursuits
• The value of speaking authentically even on challenging topics
• Approaching nearly 100 episodes of consistent weekly content
• Considering expansion into video podcasts and other formats

If you want to reach out for collaboration or mindset coaching, check the links below:

Coaching Site:
Jermaine Pulliam (@CoachJermaine) | Stan

Tiktok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@radiantreflection

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@radiantreflection

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back and Taking a Break
• 1:38 Learning to Accept Praise
• 5:27 Holding Others Accountable
• 9:53 The Power of Empathy
• 12:40 Future Plans and Finding Your Voice
• 16:58 Closing and Contact Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

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 the journey thus far, today is May 26. I'm not even sure which episode we're on in regards to the podcast, but today is definitely a let me keep this streak going podcast episode. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's the weather, I don't know if it's the food I've been eating lately, but I am exhausted, so I'm going to do what I tell so many people to do Take a break. Now, this is not going to be like a full-on break, but there are a few things that I know that I can dial back a little bit. I'm still going to post that content daily. I'm still going to get this podcast up every week, but streaming might take a little pause on that for a little bit, just so I can get myself, gather myself, gather my energy so I can hit this ground running this episode. I don't really have any subject that I want to touch on, but I do. You know what? That's not true. We'll touch a little personal story about me and how I used to view the world, how I view it now, and then we'll end it out for the day. So, if you haven't already, go ahead and subscribe to the channel. Share with your closest Black content creators so they can get some information like this into their perspective, and, who knows, maybe something will change and they'll start making more content, and, oh my God, that would make me excited as hell.

Speaker 1: 1:38

Anyway, I want to talk on a subject of praise for your work. I guess, for the lack of a better word, we'll start here. The content I create. I don't do it looking for thank yous. I don't do it looking for people to acknowledge my work as far as coming up to me and gushing over it. If I'm being honest, I make my content first and foremost for me. But with my content I do have an intention and with all of the negative and horrible and not satisfying content out there, I want my content to inspire. I want my content to make you laugh. I want my content to have you leave content, but I want my content to be uplifting. Now, every video I put out, every story that I write, every stream that I have doesn't need to contain all four or five of those different feelings, but at the very end, I want to make sure that I am contributing to your subconscious and not feeding it things that is going to cause you mental harm going forward. So with that, I try to remember that before I do anything. I should have did it before I did this podcast, but I'm doing it now. I said it out loud and now I'm here.

Speaker 1: 2:58

I wanted to thank everybody out there who has ever came up to me and said thank you for what you do, or I appreciate your content, or thank you for streaming, or thank you for the podcast. The number of people who have shared with me over the last month that they listen to the podcast, they're getting information out of the podcast, it's helping, or it's having them look at things differently. That's all I ever wanted out of this podcast and I don't know why intention towards my content never really fully showed up like it did over this last week. But hearing those kind words, hearing those kind things from loved ones, from friends, from people don't even know, is encouraging, and for the longest time I don't even know is encouraging and for the longest time I don't know why. Hearing somebody saying they enjoy my content or they enjoy what I do was such a triggering event that like I would hear it and I wouldn't be rude.

Speaker 1: 3:56

But I never took it to heart. I never allowed myself to enjoy that compliment. I never allowed myself to be like, yeah, you know what I am doing? Good shit. And I think it's because and my wife and I talked through this a little bit that I in the back of my mind, maybe in my subconscious, that I thought that someone complimenting you was a way to manipulate you. And I know that sounds very conspiracy theory and very guarded. But yeah, that's how I was for the longest time. I was very guarded with my emotions. I was very guarded with what I allowed people to see of me. Hell, I was very guarded with my family in general. Like, it took a very long time to work up the courage to allow people to compliment me, me. Take that compliment and let it do what it needs to do.

Speaker 1: 4:50

And I think compliments are there when they're from the heart and when they're sincere. I think compliments help fuel the fire that you use to create content. So I guess my advice for today would be allow people to give you your flowers, allow people to show you how much they appreciate you and in turn, take it with gratitude, take it from a place of love. Don't think they're being malicious or they're trying to manipulate you into doing something. Just take it at face value. They enjoy your content. Your content might change something in their life that you have no idea about. Say thank you, I appreciate that, be gracious about it and move on.

Speaker 1: 5:35

Once I did that, or now that I'm in the habit of doing that, it's just a nice feeling, and I think the thing that I really wanted to avoid was having myself think that I needed that feedback to go forward. That's not true, and I don't want anybody out there to think that they need that feedback to go forward Again. At the end of the day, this content is for those who find it, and there are definitely people out there who need to hear the things that I'm saying and share my perspective on mindset and sharing my perspective on how we create content is how I grow my audience, is how I reach out to people who may think they're going through things unique to themselves alone, and I've lived long enough to know that that's not true. The ideals that I have in regards to where I want to take my content, where I see society could be as a whole, only happens if I get out there and talk. It only happens if I make the content. It only happens if I am strong enough to say the things that I feel, because at the end of the day I got to keep reminding myself and it's crazy that I need to do this, but we're going gonna do it until it's a habit, until it's locked in. I don't give a fuck what most people think, especially loud wrong people. Loud, wrong people can't tell me shit. They can't tell me my content sucks. They can't tell me that I need to pack it up and go do something else, like their opinion doesn't fucking matter. And if their opinion doesn't matter, there's zero reason for me to be scared.

Speaker 1: 7:05

An incident happened earlier this week. Shout out to Deontay Kyles, who essentially I'm not going to get into the whole thing, but I just want to say he says some things that I will speak for myself, that I have thought for years but was too scared to speak up about it Basically said that men need to hold other men accountable for their actions. So simple example if I'm hanging out with my homeboys and my homeboy says some foul shit or does some shit or makes a joke, and at the expense of women or God forbid went in, caused harm to someone in front of me or mentioned a story about it. It's on me as a man to check that motherfucker. It's on me to be like, hey, that's not cool, you should not be doing shit like that. And then the chips may fall where they fall. After that, either we stop being friends either they wise I'm like you know what they wise up. You know what, my bad, you know the fuck I was doing.

Speaker 1: 8:01

In order to stop the cycle from perpetuating, we need to speak up about it, and that goes about anything. And again, if you don't give a fuck about the people who are going to come at you and be like, oh, you're just pandering or oh, you're a feminist, or whatever negative shit they have to say, if we don't step up and say something towards that, then we're part of the problem. And I wanted to specifically say shout out to Deontay for stepping out on that ledge which, again, I know a lot of people were saying it's not really a ledge, not the biggest take to take, but not many motherfuckers were taking it, at least not with the platform that he has. And that is a goal and dream of mine. That's the goal. That's the reality that we're moving towards, and my platform will be big enough that when I say something that may be controversial to the quote unquote normal society out there, it is very much going to get said without question.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Like people, people need to hear this also because I was somebody who thought like him and me seeing him go out on that limb, and he just didn't. He's like yeah, this is it. Fuck y'all. Why the fuck are we still celebrating R Kelly and Diddy and Chris Brown? Like we should not be as men who do not want that type of behavior or that type of energy in our society. It's up to us to speak up. Seeing him do that I'm not going to lie it lit a fire under my eyes. It reminded me that, yeah, I have daughters, I have a mom, I have a wife, I have friends who experience the world differently than I will ever experience and I will talk about this more later, when I have a little bit more energy.

Speaker 1: 9:44

But I think the one thing that most men need to learn is how to be empathetic, how to show empathy. Empathy is a emotion that has fundamentally changed the way that I live my life, fundamentally changed the way I interact with my loved ones, with my wife, my daughters, my parents. Is it always there? No, but the fact that it's there at all has been monumental in my life. So, with that being said, I do want to talk about more things that maybe I have shied away from because, at the end of the day, I started Radiant Reflection, started Uploaded and Unfiltered, because I see a need for two things Black creators to speak authentically about what they feel, and I think seeing how many I don't even want to talk shit about them Seeing how many men reacted the way they did in a way that I do not see as productive, has taught me, has showed me that what I bring to the content space with Uploaded and Unfiltered, with radiant reflection, is very necessary.

Speaker 1: 10:59

When I see somebody react to something they don't agree with with anger, with name calling, with trying to tear somebody down, that is a mental issue. That's not even. That is a mental issue. That is tied to how you are reacting to what was said. Because you're taking it personal. Your subconscious is like oh, fight or flight, some crazy is happening and it goes. It takes you out of the critical thinking process. That is crucial for conversations like this, I think next week, I think this next week I'm going to spend some time on things that have fundamentally changed my life being a Black man in America.

Speaker 1: 11:40

Talk about some of the things that used to anger me, used to keep me confused, but at the end of the day, I feel like there's an empathy being won. There are a lot of things that I have implemented into my life that have made life more joyful, made me have more energy at the end of the day, for not only the content and the work that I want to do, but for my loved ones, for my family, for my wife, for my kids, for my siblings. Like being able to have that energy because it's not tied up in me being angry or it's not tied up in me being anxious about going out in public. It's not tied up in me second guessing. Like no, all that energy that I used to use on negative shit, worrying about the future, worrying about how this bill is going to get paid, worrying about my content being seen future, worrying about how this bill is going to get paid, worrying about my content being seen All that energy is now been released back to me and I get to pour that energy into dope ass projects and like that in itself makes me happy. So with that I'm going to go ahead and end this now. I feel like I got some gems in there. I feel like I got some good. But again, thank you. If you're a new listener, I appreciate you. If you're an old listener, I definitely appreciate you.

Speaker 1: 12:52

We are rounding close to 100 episodes of Uploaded Unfiltered. I've been toying with the idea of expanding the podcast or maybe take it in a different direction, definitely been toying with the idea of doing video. Might do live video. I have a bunch of options that we can explore. But part of me is like what's broke, don't fix it. But the other part of me is okay, we got an established routine down. We've proven to ourself that we can do it. In July it'll be two years of straight, week to week to week, content uploaded for the podcast, which I can't tell you how happy and excited that makes me.

Speaker 1: 13:35

But the next move is to reach more people because, again, seeing how a lot of men responded to the thought of being holding their homeboys accountable shocked me. Being holding their homeboys accountable shocked me and even if Deontay said it in a way that could be, if you heard it, you might think a different way the fact that they're not even willing to be like hey, what did you mean by that? They instantly went to anger and and judgment. And like that level of nah, not me, man, I work individual. Like it echoes some shit that I used to say I did oh, not me, man, oh, I work individual. Like it echoes some shit that I used to say there was a time, point in time and I'll end on this, I promise Like I didn't think I needed community, I didn't think I needed other people in my life, I didn't think I needed to care about other people's plight.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Why did I feel like that? I can't pull that feeling anymore because, like empathy, like I give a fuck Not about everything, don't get me wrong Like I'm not going to almost fuck, I will say who I didn't give a fuck about we're not doing that today but because I can't feel like that, like I thought I wasn't able to talk towards those things. But I can definitely talk towards those things. When I speak, people listen. I know this. I've known this my entire life and it's now time for me to use that skill, use that gift that I've had forever to shape and to turn and to push people towards a way of thinking that will be better, that will suit them better for their lives, that will help them achieve their goals, that will help them regain that energy that is stuck in anger or stress or anxiety or procrastination or imposter syndrome.

Speaker 1: 15:20

All that energy that we put into those things are draining our creative brains, our creative process, and I know that it is possible to capture it and redisperse. I know it's possible to have one conversation about anything. Any stucknesses that you have, redirect that energy to help benefit what you are chasing in life. And so, yeah, I need to get more vocal about it. I need to let motherfuckers know that, hey, I am a mindset coach for content creators and that doesn't mean that I'm going to help you get 4000 followers on Twitch or I'm going to help you get the bag from one conversation. But I can promise you that I will help you understand the mental side of getting the bad, of getting the bag, of creating content, of being consistent, because those are the real things that get you to the bag being consistent, showing up for your audience and letting them know that, hey, every time, every week, whatever your schedule is, this is when I want to be here. This is when I'm going to show up that consistency especially when you're doing YouTube that consistency just snowballs and eventually you're going to be six, seven a year out and you're gonna be like, damn, I did all of this and then the good shit is going to start rolling. But it all, I feel, comes down to mindset how you feel about the grind, how you feel about the future, how you think about the future, how you fantasize about the future. All of that shit matters.

Speaker 1: 16:51

All right, appreciate y'all for listening. Hopefully there wasn't too many ums and uhs, but you know what? I don't give a fuck. Right now I'm editing this. I'm going to cut it, I'm gonna put some music on it, I'm gonna throw a thumbnail on it, and then we got another one in the back. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you. And hey, if you ever want to reach out to me and do work, you want to collab on some content? You want to set up a session so we can talk about what your stucknesses are and how I can help you alleviate those stucknesses, hit me up.

Speaker 1: 17:23

There's a link in the description of this podcast. You can send a message there. You can find me on Instagram, uploaded and unfiltered. You can find me on TikTok everywhere. I will leave my links in the description of this podcast and I will leave a link to my Stan store where I offer a plethora of different services to help content creators Black content creators become their authentic selves and start getting back to creating content. So if that sounds like something that would be up your alley or something that you need or something that you're curious about, definitely go check the links in the bio. Other than that, thank you for listening. I will talk to you next week. I don't know if I'm going to have a guest it depends on what my research does about as far as the things that have fundamentally changed my life but other than that, I'll talk to y'all next week. As always, protect your mental, keep creating content, and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.