People-Pleasers — If You're Afraid to Stand Up for Yourself, Do THIS to Speak Up Without the Fear of Losing the People You Love With Africa Brooke

25:45And I know people who are listening and watching have probably written posts and edited, edited, edited every word, edited every word, and then deleted it, or got a text together to send to that person and written down all your emotions and feelings and then gone, no, they're just going to think I'm being too needy. No, they're just going to think I'm being too this, deleted it, or sent it and then felt, oh gosh, they're going to think I'm needy. They get a message back going, you're being too needy. People don't make us feel we have the time to explain ourselves. People don't make us feel that we have the space for them to understand us.

26:21And people make us feel that no matter what we say, they've already made their judgment. So then we just be quiet or we hide or we never express how we feel because it's safer and it's easier two questions what is lost in that for us yeah when we just hide and second question how do we change that like how do we get to a point where we can start understanding each other and not accepting each other i really want to thank you for um allowing yourself to express that thought out loud because to me, these conversations is, Jay, especially the conversation you and I are having now. I wish you knew, and I'm getting goosebumps, how many people are scared to talk about this.

27:05And the fears are not unfounded at all. We only just have to look online, offline, have conversations with people. When you speak to people in a very honest way like this, you see the relief being like, oh my God, people are willing to talk about, like there's a very real fear. And the fact that you and I can sit here and have this conversation is such a, it's such a beautiful thing because I know how many people are so terrified. And as you were speaking, I could feel just like, uh, almost sadness, but also joy in my, in my chest, because you're saying words that I think about all the time and that people share with me thousands of people all the time.

27:49And the word grace comes to mind. and I'm going to also explore a thought in real time with you and just riff out loud on this. Which is what we're doing. I think this all comes back to whether we like it or not to the self. If you have an inability to show yourself grace for your own contradictions, I promise you, you will never be able to do it for someone else. We respond in that way to other people, expect other people to be reactionary, expect other people to match our worldview, scan for malicious intent in what people are saying. Why? Because we already do it to ourselves. Someone who shows themselves grace is able to honor other people's contradiction without thinking they have to become or that other people might be seeing.

28:37It's like self-surveillance, which then becomes surveilling everyone and everything. I think that's what it is. The inability to be graceful with ourselves. Yeah. I mean, you're spot on. That resonates so strongly. And anyone who's watching, if you're listening, I literally sighed. It was so relieving to hear that because I think that's kind of, you know, it's a journey I've been on and a journey that I've mentioned. And I said this to you earlier. This theme of yours has come up in podcasts in miniature moments. And today I was excited because we're diving right into just this. I think for me, what's been really interesting is that I've lived so many paradoxical lives and it took me forever to give myself grace to live as a paradox.

29:28It took me forever. I was self-critical. I was harsh on myself. I was disconnected from myself. There was a sense of ridiculing myself, pointing fingers at myself. Like there was a lot of that for many years. And I started to realize how much more layered, complex, and there was a third version of me. And so, you know, when I lived as a monk, it was one of the best experiences of my life. And I would never change it. I would do it again. And it was so special. And if you would have asked me then, I thought I was going to do that for the rest of my life. And at one point when I had to admit to myself that not only could I not do that for the rest of my life, but that it wasn't my path.

30:13That was the first time I felt I really had to sit with giving grace to myself because in my eyes, I'd failed. In my eyes, I had let people down. In my eyes, people would judge me for having failed. And I felt if I leave this, everyone's going to think I've completely messed up and that I'm a failure and that I'm really weak. In my eyes, and by the way, there were like 10 people who knew where I was. So it wasn't about a scale thing. It was just a feeling of not only am I letting myself down, everyone's going to be let down by my actions. And I think everyone can relate to that, whether it's you had a breakup and you thought you were going to marry that person and all of a sudden you're thinking, gosh, everyone thought I was going to marry that person too and now they left me.

30:58Maybe you've had that same experience because you had a job and that job was going really well and then you lost your job and all of a sudden you're thinking, well, everyone thinks I'm a failure because I got made redundant or I got fired or whatever it is. Maybe you've had that experience because you had a dream that you told everyone you were going to chase and then it didn't work out. And now, so we've all had that experience of feeling canceled by ourselves and others. In that moment, I remember having to go deep and give myself permission to say, no, I can evolve. I can re-become and I can keep the parts of that experience that were true, but I can also let go of the parts of the experience that are no longer.

31:37And that doesn't take away from that experience. Then I had to do it again when I started, then I worked in the corporate world. I started to become a creator after that. And it was the same thing then. It was like, okay, now I'm actually going to share. And I remember the start people being like, well, you're promoting yourself. This isn't aligned with humility and this isn't aligned with being a grounded individual. How could you make a video? Because the binary, right? You were this. and by virtue of you being a monk and this, even if you've never said to people anything about your desires or the way you want to live, just by identity, you having that identity and that label attached to you means people can assign anything they want onto it and you have to perform and to be that forever.

32:23Absolutely. And some of that is my own doing and I take responsibility for that. Some of that is definitely something I've created for myself. so it's not that I'm free of all responsibility and that I can only point the fingers outwards and be like stop being mean you know whatever it is because there is a sense of like well no that's a part of my identity that I decided to share with you and and that was a choice that I made before we dive into the next moment let's hear from our sponsors

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33:42I'm Radhi Dvlukia and I'm the host of A Really Good Cry podcast and I have the opportunity to talk to Logan Ury. Logan is a dating expert, a behavioral scientist, a best-selling author and someone who is seriously changing the way we think about love and dating. In our conversation, we talk all things dating, that Logan has studied and tested from what to put in your dating profile, the pictures you should and shouldn't be using to the conversation starters that actually work. And the huge no-nos that people probably do not realize are reducing their chances of success on apps. Whether you're single, dating, or just trying to be more intentional in love, Logan offers the kind of clarity we all need.

34:17Relationships do require work and the best relationships are people who really work on them together. They're so focused on if I find the perfect person, then I'll have the perfect relationship instead of understanding really that they can choose someone great and then build that relationship together. They don't need to keep searching for perfection. Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And back to our episode. The reason why I was walking through that thought experiment is because this is the conversation. And I think, again, the binary is, it's all your fault, you're all picking on me.

34:54i'm i'm just doing a good job or the binary is i've really messed up and you're all right yeah and the third perspective is well actually there's some things i need to take accountability and responsibility for but i hope you do too yes because we no one's going to get far in a world where we don't give ourselves and others grace but i think we we think we hold ourselves to such a high standard that we then project that high standard onto others. And I think it's been said for years, I don't know who said it, but the famous phrase of we judge other people by their actions, not their intentions.

35:33And we judge ourselves by our intentions, not our actions. That's exactly it. And it speaks to the projection of moral perfection. And the reason social media plays a role in this. And I want people to know that when I talk about social media, I'm not kind of bringing it back to that cliche conclusion where I think social media is the problem. I speak at it just from a very different point of view to highlight that these things that are already primal within us, that have already existed within us, just get a different stage because of social media. And I think it's something to be curious about.

36:10But I find that because of that kind of shame we feel because we know we're not morally perfect, because we know that behind closed doors, there are things that we agree with that other people would look down on us for, or the person that we used to be that maybe we've been able to cover them up quite well and no one else knows, but there's the shame that can still lie beneath. Whereas on social media, we get to create this morally perfect person who posts all of the right infographics, all of the right links, all of the right things. They always have the right opinion. They're somewhat of a 24 hour news cycle as well.

36:45So when something is happening, they're up to date on everything. They're educated, right? All of this, but a lot of the time it's in direct contradiction to who we actually are, but we're so wedded to that morally perfect avatar that we expect other people to also have one of their own. So if someone shows a side of them that is a little bit unsavory or a little bit inappropriate or someone who doesn't agree with something and is willing to say it. I think we experienced this kind of cognitive dissonance because a mirror has been held up. I find that sometimes it's almost like how dare you say what is on your mind when I can't?

37:26A lot of the time, it's kind of this frustration that we have. How dare you be free when I am in a cage that I have constructed for myself? It's not the story for everyone, but I promise you it's the common story. If you were to look just a little bit deeper to say, why do I feel these reactions so strongly when someone doesn't match my worldview? What feels so threatening? And sometimes it's someone's freedom of expression that feels threatening. And I think that's a good starting point to be honest about literally like i'm again i'm having just so many great thoughts and i'm glad that we're figuring this out in real time i know you've had a lot more hours in this place so it's uh and years but hearing you say that it sounds like there is a dual responsibility because there's a responsibility for us to be able to not censor ourselves to be able to express ourselves to be able to realize there's more options but so much of that rests on not feeling like someone's going to ostracize and judge us and i wonder how do we start within ourselves as you said that's really where it starts yeah you said a few moments ago that because people don't give themselves grace for their own contradictions they can't have grace for other people's contradictions what is the process of giving ourselves grace for our contradictions because i think almost sometimes we don't even see them yeah like i think sometimes we're just so self-unaware and it's so funny i i consider myself to be quite a self-aware person just two weeks ago i was sitting there and someone gave me some honest piece of feedback and i sat with it for the rest of the day and i was like i am so self-unaware like i'm so self-unaware and i thought about this weekend And I, again, got some good feedback from someone.

39:21And I was thinking, yeah, like, I don't even see how me acting that way could be perceived that way. But it is. And whether that's my intention or that's how it's perceived. But I'm so self-unaware. I'm just, I'm not conscious of that. And so even as someone who considers themselves very self-aware, I would consider myself to be not that aware. And so I think a lot of us are so self-unaware where we don't even know we have a contradiction. We're like, nope, I've always signed up for the same thing. I've always voted the same. I've always felt the same. No, no, no, this is who I am. So wait a minute, like you just did something else last week to your partner or whatever it may be.

39:58So where do we start when we have no space for grace for our contradictions because we don't even know what they are? I love that question so much. And I organized this book, but it's actually not even really about the book. I had to organize a lot of my own thoughts from my own journals and a lot of my work with clients because I'm a developmental coach and a researcher and I'm trained in union psychology. So my fascination, Jay, is really understanding the shadow of humanity, which is essentially what we're talking about in that if you are willing to integrate and understand your shadow, you will experience a more fulfilling life.

40:37You will find yourself being in more integrity. So I organized the book in three parts, awareness, responsibility, and expression. And I see this as the journey of going from conforming, whether it's conforming to ideals and expectations of your past self, to a place of actual brave expression and courage. A lot of people want to rush to expression. What do I say? What do I do? Give me this strategy, Africa, or I've been cancelled. What do I say? it's kind of, no, we have to start at awareness. What are you afraid of? If I express the truth, I believe that I will be punished. I believe that I'll be abandoned, rejected, whatever it might be.

41:17I truly believe that everyone has to start there. Be honest about what you're afraid of. When Jay tells me an opinion that I don't agree with, and I'm very defensive and reactionary, and I want to take him down, I'm afraid of something. What am I afraid of? Right? Is it because his worldview feels like a threat to my sense of self is that just be very honest. And then the second part where you're talking about contradiction falls into the responsibility aspect where I asked the question, what do you stand for? And I always use another sort of mantra that I wrote, which says, when you don't know what you stand for, you will always be at the mercy of the external world.

41:57And that's really important. I'll say that again. When you don't know what you stand for, you will always be at the mercy of the external world. So if you come across someone who's more intimidating, someone you believe has more status, has more power, someone who maybe you believe is better than you in some way, or a mob, or someone who says you need to speak up in this exact way or use your platform, whatever it is, you will always be at the mercy of everything else. You will never consult yourself. You will always consult other people before you consult you. And to actually know what you stand for, you need to know what your values are, which I think is what we're talking about.

42:35And I think a really good place to spot your contradictions is to say, okay, what do I value? People will usually say things like, I value honesty, integrity, transparency, kindness. And it feels so good to say, this is what I value. It feels amazing. But then I like to go a step deeper to say, the results you see in your life right now, right now in real time, in this moment in time, they will actually show you what it is you actually value. The state of your relationships, the state of your bank account, the state of your, how you behave online, whatever it might be, that will show you what you actually value.

43:15So is that still congruent? The values that you said, And in the book, I call it, we have our embodied values, which is how we actually live. And then we have our desired values, who we think we are. I think I'm someone that values open-mindedness, but I promise you in 2020, I was shown that I didn't value open-mindedness as much as I thought, which is when I started writing this book. I was shown that even though I was open-minded in some areas and I was courageous and blah, I was very fearful in others. I had moments where I chose popularity over truth. And that is just the reality of it. So my results at that time and my nervous system at that time were showing me the truth of what I valued.

44:04So I think, and there's an exercise in here, many of them, but I think that's a good place to be able to see where contradiction actually is. What would you say you value versus what the results in your life are actually showing you? I value health. I value this. What do you watch most of the time? What do you listen to? I value maybe ambition and being consistent. Okay. The results in your life, do they show you that you value that or do you value other things? So I think that's a good kind of objective way to, to be truthful. I agree. I agree. I think that's a great reflection exercise. And I love how simple it is, how structured it is.

44:43And I really hope everyone takes time to do this. I mean, I think when I hear these things, I recognize how the biggest challenge with all of this is time. Yes. Because it all takes time to really sit there and look at what is the third perspective. It takes time to ask yourself, what are my embodied values and what are my desired values and what's the difference? It takes time. and I find that everyone is so time poor today and that's why we're living in this society we are living in do you think we're time poor? I think we think we're time poor we think we're time poor because I promise you we will watch Love is Blind and talk about it the whole series in a day yeah yeah yeah no it's true and I mean I was looking at studies recently because I was talking about how couples there's a wonderful team member of mine who named one of my presentations her name's Annie and it's called, it's called I Miss You When You're Next To Me.

45:38It's something she says to her husband. And it's this idea of how we miss people when we're next to them because we're not really with them because we're watching TV or whatever it may be. And I looked into all of these studies, which talked about just how much television, again, not television, how much we're watching streaming platforms every night with our partners, but we think we don't have enough time with them. And so it's, you're spot on. you know there is a lot of we have time yeah it's just that we're either too exhausted we're either too overworked we're overwhelmed we're stressed that love island becomes the only escape yes to let us feel like we're decompressing and letting go but that's the time that we'd have to invest in let me ask what the third perspective is let me figure out my values let me let me do all these other things and i think it becomes interesting because you're right it's not time that's the challenge it's space and energy and priorities and priorities yeah and i i where i'll bring in that that thread of empathy and compassion again is that the world that we live in is so overwhelming the average person is i promise you just trying to get by that's the reality of it the average person is just trying to figure out how do i keep the four walls up and how do i find some level of escapism where I don't have to think about how much I'm working and how much everything costs and blah, blah, blah.

47:00There's a reality to all of it. And I never dismiss that. I am not someone that thinks we all need to be on this relentless quest for self-improvement. And what I just don't, I just don't believe that. And at the same time, I think maybe I can offer a little bit of relief to say, we don't have to do everything all at once. I really don't think we need to do everything all at once. I don't think that we have to look at ourselves as some kind of project that needs fixing to be on a mission to undo self-saving. It's just, it's not realistic. But I think what is realistic is to look at some pain point in your life right now, because there is one.

47:36And then to get curious about it, even just a little bit. I think it's the bare minimum. That's what I will say. I think it's absolutely the bare minimum. If most of us can notice that there's a problem where we're starting to feel, even in our most intimate relationships, that there's sort of this walking on eggshells feel and we can't quite name it. And where there was a time on social media where you were quite excited to just post about your day and your dog and maybe your child or whatever. Now people are terrified to even share something that is non-controversial. And the thing that you brought up earlier, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and people that are visible and they talk about kind of putting 200 caveats on everything and disclaimers.

48:20And just again, because we want to keep the mob at bay. It might not be an actual mob. It could be perceived. It could be real, but there's a fear. There's a fear that is so palpable and we need to talk about it. We need to be honest about it. So I don't think we need to do everything all at once, but I think it's just about being honest about areas in which you're finding yourself repressing, not even just your speech, but your thoughts. Because I think the most dangerous thing is when you center yourself in your mind before you even anyone else does it for you. You've done the job yourself. I think that's a very dangerous place to be in.

48:55And I call it in my book, the mob in your mind, because I think once you befriend the mob in your mind and you just see that it's a, it's just a bunch of toddlers trying to think, how do we keep you safe? What do we have to do? but you're you can see the shadows so they look like giants you know but actually just befriend them and understand them and see what are they trying to protect you from but we don't have to do everything all at once you know and i think that should allow for people to address that part that's like okay this is great but like where do i even begin yeah you know yeah for sure yeah it's a really interesting thing you just said about the shadow and the the size of the toddlers yeah yeah it makes me remember like i know a lot of us would feel that the one percent is so loud and so the one percent of people that are trolling negative and even that word it would be good to discuss that word same as cancel culture but i feel like that language around like the comment section as we all know on youtube instagram wherever you are tiktok twitter like it's almost like it's so loud so you could have and i always look at this paradox again where it's like you could have a million likes on a post and a hundred thousand shares and ten thousand negative comments but because the comments are qualitative in some regard yeah your energy goes straight there if you let social media teach you about the world it will have you believing that everyone in the world is irrational crazy and just not a good person that's only the one percent because they're loud but that's not everyone like i don't meet i meet more reasonable people on a daily basis that i don't know yeah than unreasonable people and i'm hoping most people would say that maybe not but at least our belief system is oh my gosh everyone in the world is absolutely against me the mob in my mind is really loud.

50:53So how do we reconcile that kind of proportionality and ratio of our belief system? Because we give more weight and value to the mob than we do to humanity. Because does that make sense? It does. It makes total sense. And it's again, it brings me back to where we sort of started with this around the underpinning biology of so many of the things that we're speaking about, whether we like it or not, we do as human beings have a negativity bias and it's for survival. You need to look out for danger. But again, now it just manifests in a different way. But also that just speaks to the kind of personal understanding and personal responsibility, if you will, aspect of things of being like, okay, I have a negativity bias.

51:40So it's my job to either seek out positive things or to notice when I'm being more drawn to it. But I think, especially in a post-pandemic world where our offline lives and our online lives are pretty much one in the same, our algorithms play into the fact that we have a negativity bias. So that is all that's going to be propelled. I mean, you see it everywhere. The news as well. The news picks out specific stories that tap into that negativity bias because it keeps us watching. So I think there's kind of like a need to understand our primal inclination, but to also understand how big media works.

52:23So I think it's a little bit of the two because I don't think it's as simple as just reducing all of this to personal responsibility. I think that's a part of it, but it's not the full picture. It's why I really love the work of people like Jonathan Haidt. It's why I love people like Johan Hari because they are, I feel like they do a very good job at addressing those sort of two components, the primal biological aspect of things, but being like, actually, we also need to be very honest about the platforms that are taking a lot of our time and tapping into those biological things. So I think for me, it's a little bit of that, just awareness.

53:02It's like what you were saying before, knowing that if you have this sort of thing within you where you think you're self-aware enough, always know there's a little bit further you can go yeah I find that to be the block that at least at least I find it I'd love to hear what people think I find it to be the block and we we mentioned this when we were just hanging out earlier so when Africa walked in me and her were talking about what kind of experience we like when we do interviews and we meet new people and we go on podcasts and things and I was talking about the kind of experience I like to create for guests and what kind of mood I like to set and why I do things the way I do.

53:42And when I was doing that, I felt a creeping in feeling of ego and pride. And I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I know exactly what I'm doing. And there was that inside of me. And then my egoless mind started to get involved in the conversation and third perspective. I was like, wait a minute, this is the exact reason we're having this conversation with Africa is to get rid of the righteous mind, like this belief system that one is better or worse. But we really get into the space really in a nuanced way. And through all my monk training, I got really good at knowing even the tiniest moments when the ego was kind of coming to the forefront, because that was such a big part of the training we had.

54:22And even then, it's so hard to calm down and connect with the ego and, you know, create harmony with it. But I find that the biggest challenge is the people that do say what they feel and do express boldly believe that they are fully right. And those of us that stay quiet, we also believe that we're fully right. So there's this belief of like, oh, if you're joining cancel culture and I'm not, then I'm right. I'm actually doing the right thing. And the person who's diving into cancel culture is going, of course I'm doing the right thing. So the belief is how can we even try to understand someone because we already think what we're doing is right.

55:03If what I think I'm doing is right from the get-go, I have no need or space to understand you because you're already wrong. And so that to me is at the root of why there's no space to understand, why there's no space to reflect, why there's no space to listen to you because I already feel I'm better in a really subconscious way, whether I'm not talking or whether I'm talking. There's no like beautifully neat answer to any of this, which I think is also one of the best parts of it because it's an ever evolving conversation. But I think bringing it to that sort of beautiful landing of finding opportunities where you can notice your righteous mind coming into play, that moment where we want to exercise superiority.

55:56And I tend to find again, if I bring the element of online, because again, this is where most of this is happening. If you're just walking down the street and you're not meeting people that are just shouting at you. When you walk down the street, people are saying, use your platform, speak up. They're not saying that to me either. But when you go online, it just feels like a very different world because we've created a very, very different world. A world which needs more values like grace and true understanding and knowing we can be open-minded and still have our convictions and to not hold them so tightly.

56:29But I think it is about looking for where you are exercising superiority. And I think some of us, and I had to do this, need to be very honest about the fact that when you feel so out of control in your life, in other areas, you are more likely to try and gain control when you're online. I think that's a very big one. People that feel so powerless elsewhere, but now they're in this place where people don't have the context of your life. People don't know the insecurities that you have. People don't know what you've done in the past. You get to curate the image of who you are. And again, we'll lead with moral perfection because a lot of the time we want to make up for things that we don't think we actually have.

57:15but I think it's that self-inquiry is so um it's really uncomfortable it can even be a little bit excruciating but it's so liberating because you free yourself from this sort of it's not even enough to just call it intolerant because it's not that I think it's a version of you that is so deeply unfulfilled and needs to maintain control and power and has so much fear around being rejected and abandoned so you feel that you need to overcompensate with a lot of these things but i think it comes back to the righteous mind you have to be able to spot your need to exercise superiority it's such an interesting thing i was you made me remember a experience i had back at school when i used to be part of my i'm just gonna sound super geeky but yeah i was part of my debate team yeah that's cool and that's good and i really enjoyed it

58:42because it was such a great learning experience. myself and thinking I was amazing. And I talked to my teacher afterwards who asked to see me after the presentation and I'd won the debate. And he said to me, he goes, Jay, did you win the debate today? And I was like, yeah. Like, no, he said to me, how did, how did it go for you today? I was like, well, we won. Like, it was great. And he was like, no, you didn't win. And I was like, what do you mean? Like, didn't you just see everyone applaud and like go, you know, crazy. crazy and he said no he said you you won the crowd but you lost the debate and and i was like what do you mean and and he and he said well he said a good debate is where you have a deep understanding of the other person's space and place and insight it's not that what you're saying proves them wrong it's that you understand their arguments so deeply that you're able to dismantle it on its own it's not about yours being better yeah it's about you actually being to understand it so deeply that you're able to show that parts of it don't add up and and it was a really nuanced profound point for me because i just thought if you win the crowd then of course you win and i think that's the society we live in today where it's like if someone wins over the crowd even if they're completely wrong we're okay with it yeah right even if someone acts completely immorally or we don't even know the truth we don't know what happened behind closed doors if they win the crowd like if someone wins it on social media and and they they're in a legal case or whatever it is and on social media it all goes well even if we have no idea what that person's moral character is we're with them uh and you see this on shows you see this everywhere and again i'm not saying we should judge them.

1:00:31I'm just saying, we all believe if you win the crowd, you won. And so we've lost the ability to actually say, well, no, do I deeply understand? Can I actually get context of this person? Yes. That just landed so, so strongly for me. Thank you for sharing that anecdote on the debate because it's, I actually write about this and speak about it a lot because it's a big part of my story, my experience, but a lot of what you're saying directly parallels what I experienced in 2020. As I've said at many points throughout this conversation and kind of reference to that point in time, didn't get very specific.

1:01:102020 is when there was a big conversation around race relations after the killing of George Floyd in the US. And it ignited really important conversations that have transformed the way we speak about race, the way we interact with each other, the way we have started to just notice our conscious and unconscious biases. But I, again, at that time had already been doing the work that I do in understanding self-sabotage, self-censorship, how do we have brave conversations, et cetera. But this is all identity, right? Even as I'm saying it right now, it's, I had been studying, I've been learning, up in whatever, but there were aspects of what I was doing and grounded in that was just from the neck up, but hadn't been actually embodied.

1:01:58And I got to learn that in 2020 because I was one of the people for a very short time, but a very intense time demanding that people speak up about what was happening in the States. And again, I use that language very specific because I'm not taking in the context of where people are in the world. What if Africa, someone doesn't have any idea of what has actually happened? What if it's someone from India or Kenya or Zimbabwe or, and I'm expecting them to speak up, speaking up, meaning you have to do it online. It has to be a performance. You have to post something that is going to make me feel like, okay, you've done this the right way.

1:02:38So it's all ego. Because who am I as a individual person in West London, in my house, expecting the world? When you actually look at and speak about these things in this way, you realize just how it's not only self-righteous, but entitlement is a part of it as well. That's the right word. Right? I am entitled to your opinion. And there was just so much at play for me that was really humbling. So I was one of the people specifically on the Tuesday where people were being told to post a black square. I think most people listening to this will understand. And it was so out of character. But I think I have to even do a self-correction in real time to say, actually, no, it was a demonstration of what my character actually was.

1:03:26I thought that it would be out of character for me to do something like that, but it was in character in a way. But I was pretty much just demanding that people speak up about race in the way that I wanted them to. And you could look at it and say, yeah, you were inviting people to do something that was right and very important, but I was doing it in an extremely intolerant way, in a way that was pretty much not giving people an option to speak up in a different way. There was no sort of third perspective. There was no nuance. There was no consideration of maybe Africa, people are speaking offline.

1:03:59And I have a feeling so many people listening to this will remember that time and maybe the way they participated or what they experienced. Cause I've had so many enlightening conversations in the past four years about that time period. And I was applauded Jay so loudly for it because I was essentially shaming those that were not speaking up, those that were not saying anything. And again, I would have never expected myself to behave in this way, but guess what I did. And when I looked into it a little bit deeper over time, I realized that I was speaking in that way because I was afraid of what people would say to me if I didn't say anything.

1:04:43So it was almost like a performance. Again, that idea of keeping the mob at bay. So behaving in a way that you think will appease them. But then behaving in that way got me applauded. So the thing about the crowd instantly, also because of the time period, everyone is pretty much online. We're on lockdown in most parts of the world. So the digital space was just a very different place to be in. Things would sort of just spread like wildfire. So all of a sudden I'm having thousands and thousands of people applauding me and cheering me on, telling me that I'm doing the right thing. And then I have this man who sends me a message.

1:05:20He sends me a DM and he says, Africa, I've been following your work for a while. I really respect what you do and you've helped me a lot, but I just wanted to ask you, do you think that this is the right way to bring people together? Because again, I'm saying that I want unity. I'm saying that I want open conversations. I'm saying that I want tolerance, but my actions are in complete contradiction. So someone that had a bit of an understanding of who I am and what I supposedly stand for is saying, hey, do you think that this is the approach to take? Instead of responding to him and even sitting with it for a while to kind of be curious about where he was coming from, I immediately shamed him and I did it publicly.

1:06:07It wasn't extreme in any way, but I screenshotted the DM that he had sent me and I posted it onto my main feed on Instagram. I guess it was sort of a thing of trying to supposedly share someone else's intolerance, which I was perceiving as you're being intolerant to my expression. Again, my self-right, my opinion matters, you know. And I would also have to be very honest with myself about the fact that I believed that as a black woman, even though he was a mixed race man, that I had more of a right to behave and to speak in this way than he did. So this is where the sort of identity hierarchy things come in, where I used a very important part of my identity to shut down conversation, which is also something we need to be very honest, happened so much, where I had the inability to actually engage critically and to feel what I call the initial out of being like, oh, that doesn't feel so good.

1:07:07But let me be curious about this and just stay. Let me humanize this person and realize that it took a lot for him to say, to even open with, I love what you do. You've done a lot for me. And to pose just a really important question, actually. There was none of that. I made it all about me and used my identity to shut down the conversation because I didn't have a response for it. So I posted this thing and again, immediately started getting even more applause. And I remember the feeling that I got. It was sort of, it was a very tiered feeling. There was kind of like an excitement, like an exhilaration, because again, it's the crowd.

1:07:53Think of that moment where people, you've just said something and it's like, you've just shut everything down. You're being seen by your peers in a different way. You've just won the debate, right? It's that feeling of winning, what it does to you somatically. It's like a, it's like an arousal of senses. It's so you see how, if you don't even pause just for a moment, you will want to experience that forever. You will do whatever it takes to experience that. And that's what I had for a moment, that kind of exhilaration of being like, oh, okay. And then about 20 minutes to half an hour later, I started feeling sick, like actually sick.

1:08:35That feeling sort of moved from being like an excitement, which usually happens in the chest and you can sort of feel it in your upper body to kind of just dropping down to the pit of my stomach. Why? Because it was a huge integrity breach. I was experiencing this applause and whatever, but the means, the path that I had to take to get it was not in integrity. And I'm so grateful that I experienced that because for some people, they will never pay attention to the integrity breach. Most people won't even really feel it because that sort of sense of power and honestly, power could just be 10 likes when you've never received 10 likes before.

1:09:14It could be anything. It's not about scale. It's just about what it makes you feel. You're getting a level of recognition and applause that you just haven't had before, you know? And I remember feeling, just looking at what I'd shared, looking at that message again, and just feeling quite literally sick. And I deleted it and I didn't post anything maybe for a couple of days. and I sent a message to that man and I apologized. I apologized to him for it. And he was like, oh, that's no big deal. But that's when my own unraveling started. That's when I started journaling. And that's when that idea of the third perspective came through because I experienced a level of cognitive dissonance I haven't experienced.

1:10:04Only at the time I've experienced that is when I finally realized after seven relapses that I had to get sober and nothing new had sort of happened. It was just like a big sort of you dissociate and you see yourself and you have it. You have a decision you need to make. And that's what I had in 2020. And that's what moved me from looking at self-sabotage from like an interpersonal lens to trying to understand it on a societal lens. Because what I had experienced there is what we kind of call cancel culture, but I prefer to call it collective sabotage. So I coined the term collective sabotage because I think it's less politicized.

1:10:48And I think it's a more accurate definition of what this actually is. We think we're doing the right thing, but we have no idea what we're doing. We're saying we want tolerance, but we're leading with intolerance. We're saying we want progressiveness, but we're being extremely regressive, you know, in our approaches. And I got to see that in myself. And I could have taken the path of doubling down, which is what you tend to see a lot of the time, where people get applauded for a certain thing. And then that just becomes, and they become sort of like a caricature of themselves. That was not what I needed to do.

1:11:25I needed to go to the path of being like, what the f*** have I just done? You know, and owning up to that publicly. And that's the process that I started to actually share that experience publicly and every other thing that I'd experienced that was in line with that. Thank you so much for sharing that. I mean, it's so powerful to kind of dive into such a specific moment in time that kind of embodies and encapsulates this whole message. and to see it play out like that. And for you to have that level of intricate self-awareness, which is what it takes to kind of question and reflect and pick apart and dissect your own self.

1:12:07And how you've done that, that takes so much courage and vulnerability. And even the way you shared it, I'm sitting there listening to you going, that's what it takes. That's what it takes. That's what it takes. Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our sponsors. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, we're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year, prostate cancer.

1:12:48I first found out about my cancer at the age of 45. Anything with cancer, you just think death sentence. In this episode, we'll explore the science behind detection, along with the practical steps men can take to protect their health. Listen to Health Discovered on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Health Discovered and start listening. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a people's princess. But now you're also going to know me as your favorite host.

1:13:27Every week on my new podcast, Fudder Round and Find Out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my UConn Huskies to just trying to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the FUD family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me.

1:13:58But this show is the only place where you can really FUD around and find out. Listen to FUD around and find out, a production of iHeart Women's Sports in partnership with Unanimous Media on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And back to our episode. It shocks me still to this day that we think that blame and shame and guilt are good ways of changing people. I know. Ourselves included. Yeah. It's like shame, guilt, and blame are rarely good techniques or approaches to creating change within ourselves or others. When was the last time you changed your partner because you blamed them for something?

1:14:44When was the last time you got through to your child because you shamed them for something? When was the last time you made yourself eat better, work out more or live better because you guilted yourself into it? Maybe you did for a couple of days. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. You're so right. They're just such ineffective strategies. I was speaking to my siblings about this the other day. And we were talking about, we were speaking with a group of friends actually, and we're all African. but we're all African in this setting and we were laughing about being hit as children because it was just the normal normally Indian family exactly you kind of laugh about it everyone got beads everyone whatever and we were saying but it didn't work and it didn't even really work for our parents either but it's like we do this thing because it's always been done and because you become afraid it looks like it works which reminds me of kind of pretty much what we're talking about because someone is afraid and they apologize from that place of fear we believe that it's worked we don't actually care to know whether they've actually embodied that apology are they truly taking accountability do they even think they need to take accountability for it or is it to keep that internal and external mob at bay you But I think even though it sounds very idealistic, I think grace is truly the antidote of so much of this.

1:16:13But I don't think it's about immediately grace for others. It's grace with the self. And grace with the self is projected onto others, whether we like it or not. Because another thing that I wrote in my journals was a question to myself around that time in 2020. And I was saying, can you truly be fulfilled in life and still participate in cancel culture? Wow. Can you truly be fulfilled in life and still participate in cancel culture? Because if we're having this conversation of binary, I realized that maybe an answer could be, yeah, you can still be fulfilled and maybe dip in and out of, but for this, I don't believe it's possible.

1:16:56I don't believe that you can truly be whole within yourself because to be whole is to accept your shadow, is to integrate the messy, gross parts of you that you would rather just keep behind closed doors. But you have to meet them. You have to be with them. You have to understand that other times your shadowy self will come out to play a little bit more, but then you have a conversation and then it's a constant dance. Sometimes you might need the shadowy parts of yourself in different ways. but I truly don't believe this is where I'm more than happy to be convicted in in that you can't be truly fulfilled in who you are as a person and participate in the dehumanization of anyone and anything no that's super intense and powerful at the same time because there's a there's a sense of what I'm getting from listening to you that when we see other people's shadows we're so deeply reminded of our own that we have to project this belief that theirs exists bigger than ours or there's a feeling of if someone shows their shadows it gives me the excuse to continue to show mine and so your imperfection allows me to continue to be imperfect and not grow yeah it's both yeah it's both it's both it's both and oh wow i've never heard anyone put it in that way.

1:18:19Yeah. Oh, this is good. Oh, wow. I'll give an example of the last one you've just said, like, um, almost like if you show your shadow, it's a permission slip for me to keep showing mine without ever questioning it or ever. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes people that are uncomfortable with my work, which by the way, you can tell me, I think it's fairly non-controversial. I think my, what am I really saying? I'm saying that we need to be willing to understand differing viewpoints without feeling like we have to take them as a part of ourselves. I'm saying that we are braver than we realize. We need to push back against this culture that says we need to be constantly monitoring what we're saying and self-editing.

1:19:02I just don't believe we need to be doing that. But there are some people who will say, well, Africa, do you think some really dangerous people could come across your work and they will use it as an excuse to say really hateful things, to say really et cetera things, whatever the thing might be. And then I always come back to why do we always have to see, why is that the default response, right? Why do we always have to go to those extremes? Are you an extreme person who's resonating with my work? Why do you believe that you can be nuanced, but other people can't be? Why do you believe that you can take what you need from what I say, but other people can't?

1:19:45It's that thing that you were saying before around how we believe that our approach is the best way. Only I can decipher this work. But what if someone dangerous comes across? It's like we need to grace. It comes back to grace again. Can you have the grace to believe that other people are actually more rational than you've been made to believe? And we see in our everyday lives. You were so right when you were saying for the average person, when they walk out into the world, it's rare for them to experience something that is so, it's rare. Because the norm is actually just normal people just going about their day in the same way you do.

1:20:21So why do you think that you are the exception? Right? And again, these are questions and things that I say to myself, Africa, why do you get to be the exception of someone that can encounter something supposedly dangerous? and say, I don't resonate with this, but this is fine. Trust, give other people the grace and the good faith that they are able to do the same. Totally, totally. I meet more kind, reasonable, thoughtful, genuine, sincere people on a daily basis than I do the opposite. But the opposite feels so loud online and so activated online and so amplified online that you can very well believe that kind people don't exist.

1:21:06And I can honestly say that as we're talking about this, I want to understand from you why collective sabotage is the right terminology that you coined for cancel culture. And I want to dive into this. I've been waiting to get into it because I've really been wanting to honor each thing we're discussing and not run through because it's sparking so many thoughts. And there's a sense of cancel culture holds people accountable. it holds people responsible it helps people own up to their mistakes or not even own up it helps people it helps justice uh be be served how could that possibly collective sabotage how could that how could that possibly be a bad thing even if we just look at the word let's start with the word cancel and just try to think of the the sort of synonyms we can think of to cancel is to delete it's to eject and then you can go even further is to reject is to when something is cancelled it's ended it doesn't exist anymore so I think that's a it's a type of contradiction that doesn't really work for me in the sense that justice and deletion and ejection they just don't work together it's the kind of contradiction that actually causes chaos so for me the reason why I think it's important to really understand the importance of language when it comes to these issues is because we have a definition issue.

1:22:38We just do. I think a lot of the time, if we were both clear on the definition that we're working with, we would come to kind of similar conclusions, maybe different ideas about how to get there. But we'd be like, okay, that's fair enough. I don't know any reasonable person who wouldn't want people that have done harm to be held accountable, to be truly held accountable. I don't know anyone that doesn't truly want progress, not some kind of utopian idealistic type, but progress that is grounded in the reality that works for most people. But if I think it means accountability and someone else thinks it's public shaming, we're working with very different definitions, but we're not even curious enough to know what it actually, what is your definition of cancel culture?

1:23:23Cause mine is this and you're like, oh, okay. So to me, cancel culture, not only has definition issues, but it's been so heavily politicized to the point where if I say I have written a book that also takes a look at the psychology of cancel culture, some people will think, oh my God, that God, someone is talking about this. Or some people will think, oh, you're using the term that the right wing uses, right? So it's so politicized already. So we can't even enter the conversation in good faith because there's already suspicion or people I'm thinking I'm speaking for them or people thinking I'm alienating them.

1:24:00I'm really serious about the work that I do because I truly believe that this conversation is not just a nice to have. It's something that is causing relational fractures. Relationships are breaking because of this. People are ending long-term relationships because of kind of insignificant political differences. There's so many things happening that would have never happened 10 years ago. And it's not because of progress. It's because of a fear that has been embedded into cultures and into people's homes and beds. So I think it's a very important conversation to have. So I think the language aspect of it is very important.

1:24:38So as someone that has really been doing my best to understand the workings of self-sabotage, when your behavior and what you say you want is in direct contradiction and it causes chaos in your life, when you have an inability to hold good in your life. So you do something to pull the plug. I realized that what we're experiencing just on a wider scale is individuals who are in their own state of self-sabotage. And then we come together as a collective and what do we do? We sabotage because it's all we know. So I think collective sabotage to me is not politicized, but it's just much more accurate to the reality of what's happening.

1:25:17Whereas cancel culture, It feels nice and fun to say, but I think it doesn't really mean anything because we don't have an agreed-upon definition of what it actually is. I fully agree with you. I don't think anyone's ever thought to define it or step back and look at it. And it just feels like, yeah, we'll jump on the back mag and like, this person's cancelled. Oh, weren't they cancelled? Oh, isn't it over for them? Right. And it's like, I always look at that and I think about even some of the criticism that the England football team took in the Euros. Yes, yes. And a lot of them came out and were just like, guys, we're trying to win.

1:25:51And it affects our mental health, especially young players. And it was so interesting. We live in a society that says mental health is the most important thing. But then if we perceive what someone has done is wrong, we're happy to destroy their mental health. Instantly. Yeah, yeah. And I go back to that, perceive what they've done is wrong. Because some of it, you know, obviously there's illegal activity. There's things that are just, you know, that need - And again, that's common sense. We still get to use. I love what you're saying because it's something that I also find though that people are now needing to find themselves doing in conversation is to cushion everything and saying, but I don't mean this.

1:26:31No, no, because I've found myself having to do that. Then I'm like, no, Africa, because that kind of feeds into that thing of being like, but I'm not saying this. I think there's a time and place, but I think this culture has created a thing where we're overly apologetic and just cushioning just in case, which can actually remove a level of conviction and assertiveness that is really important. And also putting the responsibility onto the listener to say, actually, but that is common sense, you know? So I find that we always have to do this sort of dance where we give like a disclaimer to say, I'm not saying this, but also look out for where we're doing it because we already know that there's going to be people.

1:27:13well what about this for sure for sure for sure i i saw the best version of it it's funny you say that so there was this video that went viral a few years ago i think it was made by maybe maybe it was an hr company or it was i can't remember the company but they made this videos a few years ago and the concept of the video was there were interviewers interviewing interviewees for a potential job yeah so let's say you are applying for this job and i was interviewing you So I was asking you interview questions like, give me an example of when you've been proactive and how would you deal with pressure, etc.

1:27:47And then some of the questions became, how would you deal with pressure 24 hours a day? And then the questions went on to say things like, the asset that you're assisting requires constant attention. How would you deal with that? So they started asking all these questions and the interviewees were quite like frazzled by some of those questions. They seemed extreme. They were like, that sounds hard. Like that's really tough. That's difficult. And then the interviewer would said, we were interviewing for the job of mother. And it was a happy Mother's Day video to honor mothers and just how hard they work.

1:28:22And it was this beautiful celebration of like what a mom's job profile would look like and just making people aware. And the whole video was just happy mother today. Like that was the point of it. Beautiful video, millions and millions of views, shares, et cetera. And the top comment on that video was, what about dads? And it was really interesting. And I looked at that and I was like, oh, fascinating. And it was Mother's Day when it was made and posted. And again, I was thinking, I was like, I understand that. I do understand. Dads are important. Dads are valuable. There are some people who don't have moms who have been raised by their dads.

1:28:55I do think that men are involved and are doing incredible things at home. And I get it. If I was a dad, I'd probably feel that way too. But it's a Mother's Day. And it's a happy Mother's Day video. Can we let that breathe? Can we let that have its space and not have to make it about us? So that gives me an example of what you just said, I think. Yeah, no, no, it does. Even just those words, can we let that breathe? Can we just let that sit? Can what I'm saying right now just be what I'm saying right now? I ended up writing kind of like an extensive section on this towards the end of the book about looking out for preemptive apologies.

1:29:35Because I noticed I had started to do that in my work. where I was always anticipating the rejection. If I'm just to name it plainly to that primal thing, I was already anticipating the rejection, the abandonment, the sort of suspicion from other people or that I haven't done enough or haven't said enough. I haven't prioritized enough people. Even speaking from my subjective experience, I'd find myself, and again, we got here because we're talking about kind of how important language is. I found myself sort of being like, but I'm not saying this, but in talking about this, then I was like, no, I can't keep doing, that's not the way normal people speak.

1:30:16Because we've started to speak kind of like Twitter threads and infographics and disclaimers because you put disclaimers if you're writing something. But in conversation, that is not how you have normal conversation. It's fear because I was afraid. I was afraid that I'll be called out and said, and then I said, you know what? I really do trust myself. I trust them that I'm already being so mindful with what I'm saying. I refuse to live in such a fear where I'm overly monitoring and saying, but I don't mean, no, you get to use common sense. I'll leave that part to you. You get to use common sense.

1:30:50We're all autonomous adults, you know, and that really changed so much for me. So I think something else that you can do without needing to go on this big, okay, now I'm doing the work is sort of just looking at your language. Where do you have sort of preemptive apologies of saying, maybe sharing your story and anecdote than saying, but I don't mean this. And of course I don't, where is your mind going to cover the extremes? Because you already believe that people will go to the extremes. And if they do, can you sit with that discomfort? Can you let that breathe? Oh, so good, yeah. And that's the thing.

1:31:23What you're hitting like really strongly there is that's what we're doing. we're constantly comparing common sense to the extreme. Right? That's why your point about not apologizing is so important because most of us live in a common sense. Like I would honestly say that if anyone who listens to my podcast regularly or has read my books, I feel knows that Jay has good intentions, is a good person who cares, who wants to do good in the world because you hear me and know me deeply enough. And so for those individuals, I actually don't need to clarify at all because for the people who are deeply involved in my work and embedded and the millions of people that do that, I feel like you know me and you know who I am.

1:32:09If I have to caveat everything for someone who may come across a 30 second clip of me or edited piece about me or whatever it may be, if I'm speaking only to those people, now I'm going to constantly speak in disclaimers, caveats and everything else because I'm now catering for the 1%. I'm not catering for the majority of people who are living with common sense who are not living in extremes who are not judging every word I say and analyzing everything but we're all scared of that clip being made of us where something's taken out of context and what does it mean when it's out of context? It's been used in an extreme way because in context it was not extreme and it's only extreme when it's out of context and I feel like of course the ironic part of all of this is a lot of platforms have built their platform by being extreme.

1:32:59I really want anyone watching or listening to know that this still applies to them, whether or not they have a platform or not. For sure, yeah. But that's the most interesting thing with all of this in that everything has sort of changed in that everyone is now seen as a platform. That's the part of this that makes it most interesting for me in that every single person, not even just when you're online, by the way, but even when you're offline, you feel like you have to be a representative for someone or something or some kind of stance or opinion. So even though you might not be getting actual clips of you being put online, it's almost like you're looking out for where the snapshot someone might take from a conversation, someone you've just met.

1:33:44So I think it's again, that thing where it's dehumanizing when you think of all of this, because human beings make mistakes. We stumble on our words, might say something wrong, and then you might kind of correct yourself or whatever it might be. And then you might sort of, it's human, you know. But we're dehumanizing ourselves and thinking that we have to be these machines that say things in the right way. And when you say something, you have to neatly put a disclaimer on it. Not even just in a conversation like this, a public one, but private ones too. And I actually care more about that side of things because I think the personal becomes the public.

1:34:20It really does now more than ever. So something that I always say and would like for everyone to remember is that your interpersonal relationships are the best training ground for everything we're talking about. It's not about a public performance. I'm not trying to tell you how to be better on social media. I think that that's completely irrelevant. I think who you are in your personal life then becomes who you are on social media, whether you like it or not. And I hope that can also offer relief because it's not about teaching you how to deal with people in comment sections. It's allowing for you to be grounded enough in who you are as a person and to know what your priorities are.

1:35:00That when you see things in comment sections, you remember that these are strangers. That if we walk past each other right now, I wouldn't even know that it's you. So therefore you don't get to have that power over me. You really don't. You get to remove the charge. But I think if enough of us give ourselves that grace that we were speaking about, I don't think it's a utopian yearning for me to think that we would start to see our social online interactions look differently. I think they just would. Because it wouldn't feel normal for you to leave a comment about someone's body. Because to you, why would I even say that?

1:35:34You know, I think I find myself coming back to grace in everything we're speaking about. I got really lucky. I was the mediator in my family growing up since I was like 10 years old. And so I early on had to listen to everyone and make sense of it in order to help everyone. And so I've just done that for so long that I don't know any other way. I don't actually know how not to show grace or not to give someone space to understand because I've had to do it for so long. And I saw it to be the most valuable way to create a sense of understanding of nuance, understanding of the layered nature of our world, understanding the complexity I have within.

1:36:24And so it was really fascinating for me because as I started to give myself permission to be all of myself, and I knew at the beginning of my journey that if I could have easily played into the caricature of what a personal growth self-help individual should look like, should do, and should act like. and I chose very clearly I was like I'm purposefully not going to dress spiritual because I love that to me is not what I learned like it wasn't about what I wore it's not about my hairstyle or it wasn't about the length of my beard like all of those things were not the definition of practicing wisdom or learning the path or following a path and I was like also as a kid who grew up in London I like streetwear yeah and even though I became a monk and gave that all up at one point when I came back to reality I was like that's still a part of me I'm still a kid who grew up in North London and so I'm gonna let that breathe and at the same time I love meditating every day and I do that for two hours a day I'm gonna let that breathe and at the same time I don't care to drink anymore and so I'm gonna let that breathe and oh I actually still love football like it's still the first love of my life and I love watching football I'm gonna let that breathe and oh you know what I actually do like certain comforts and things okay I'm gonna let that breathe and yes I gave them all up at one point and what I found was really interesting is the more genuinely transparent and authentic I was about giving myself permission the majority of people saw that and loved that and I felt so much support and love but then the one percent feels triggered by that and then you start questioning whether you should curate your whole life for that one percent because this is also our professional life not just our personal life yeah and I've constantly gone more and more to say you know what I'm just in a place in my life where I just want to let it breathe I'm not gonna stifle curate perfectly present because I don't want to be 30 years older and look back and go gosh I just don't know who I am anymore and it came with who we had on the show like we had podcasts with guests that I remember when my comment section was sunshine land because it was just this small beautiful place where it hadn't yet scaled enough but it also hadn't we we weren't doing things maybe that pushed the boundary or pushed the envelope right and as soon as we started to do that you start to see the conflict you start to see the disconnect.

1:39:04I guess the point I'm making is an interview didn't have to be me saying I agree and accept what this person is saying, unless I actually say I agree. Maybe it was for me to understand someone's experience. Maybe it was for me to understand someone's story, going back to your language of the difference. So when did an interview become an acceptance of someone's beliefs? Isn't the point of an interview to understand someone's perspectives? and so I started to see you know judgment of what guests we had or whatever like you know I remember again this is the one percent I want to say to the majority of people but it's so interesting how you start seeing it and it was like I would see every time we had a celebrity clip there'd be the one percent of comments that go Jay why are you only interviewing celebrities I'm like wait a minute if you look at the 52 guests we had this year I promise you there's not 52 celebrities in the world and if you look at the guests you'll probably find two to three guests a month that are not celebrities and by the way the celebrity conversations are also human conversations they're humanized human conversations they're still about mental health well-being personal experience and so it's so interesting to me that you start having to explain everything and and then i got to a point where i was like no those who know me know me yes and those who don't i truly wish them well and i hope they do expose themselves to more of my work because i think they will if they look beyond one episode or one page of a book or one clip for 30 seconds and I hope that you you do that and and I hope that I can connect with you one day but I'm not going to try and cater and curate myself for the one percent because I don't want to live that way and I trust that the common sense and the lack of extremes is where the majority of the world lives and that's where we all want to live together I love that I love that so much because it speaks to exactly what I had to do and what I encourage anyone who's even visible in some sense, especially online, to pay attention to where you might be creating an audience that will never allow you to change.

1:41:05Because that's what I noticed for myself in 2020. So after that thing happened and I was getting applauded for it, and there were people that dropped off, people that were like, this is so out of integrity compared to what you have said and who you are as a person. And I completely understand that now. People that could see the intolerance for what it was, maybe some dropped off silently, some might have said something, but the majority was the crowd and the applause and it triggering that sort of elation and power and arousal, whatever it might be. But once I changed my mind and sort of walked back that behavior and saw it for what it was, I had a lot of people drop off people that didn't appreciate the nuance and the grade that I was bringing forward there were many more but again it's that it's that seemingly one percent or at least the the minority right there were people that thought that I needed to speak and think a specific way because I am black because I'm left-leaning because I'm progressive because I'm xyz whatever the identity markers are there's an expectation for all of those things you know So when I did change my mind and started exploring a lot of the themes that I explore today, there were a lot of people that were very uncomfortable with that.

1:42:21Similar to what you're saying about everything is fine when you're sort of abiding by what is expected. But when you deviate from that norm, there's a lot of teething issues and a lot of friction and a lot of, you know, creating space for new people to find you, whatever it might be. But a lot of people felt uncomfortable. But what I loved, Jay, is that a lot stayed. There were many that felt uncomfortable, but they stayed. There were very few that sort of declared their departure, which is always lovely when people announce that they're unfollowing. But I love that actually there were so many people that even in the discomfort, they stayed and they listened and they got what they needed.

1:43:04And that's where, again, I really choose to focus on the people that didn't allow the cognitive dissonance to sort of make them reject and cancel and discard and devalue everything they had got from you for however many years or however many episodes, people that chose to be like, okay, I don't quite like this. I don't get it, but I'm going to stay. You know? And I think to me, that's the most beautiful part of all of this. You get to be uncomfortable. You maybe get to have a little strop, but you stay, You stay and you find out why you feel that uncomfortable and you repair because it's conflict.

1:43:42You need to repair. It doesn't mean you accept. It doesn't mean we go to those extremes. Well, what if it's, no. We're talking about the common sense, everyday interactions of discomfort and a worldview that kind of pushes back against your own. You get to stay and you get to repair, if not with the other person, with yourself. Yeah. So, so beautiful and fully agreed. But first, here's a quick word from the brands that support the show.

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1:45:51These are our moments to laugh, learn, and exhale. So join me every Monday and let's find the bright side together. Listen to The Bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Thank you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in. That's what makes me believe the work is happening. Yes. When we can sit in the discomfort and when we can look beyond also unsaid cliches. Like I remember, I've never been a proponent of the old cliche of money doesn't buy happiness. I've never written about it in books I've never spoken about it I've never like hey you should never achieve something like that's not who I am that's not even my thought process but sometimes the background of monk people assume that's what you believe and it's so funny I've never said it but it's an assumption I've never said it it doesn't exist I've never said that because I actually believe that people need to change their relationship with money they need to be more abundant with it and that's not just money it's just one thing But whatever else it may be, I don't believe a simple life and an ambitious life are incongruent.

1:47:01I don't believe that a minimalist life and extravagance are incongruent. I don't believe those. I actually believe that the paradox is where the magic is. I actually believe that. I was saying to someone yesterday, you need the perfect amount of anxiety and the perfect amount of inspiration to win. you can't have a life just of inspiration and you can't have a life just of anxiety and so even in those the paradoxes where you win because you need a bit of pressure and then you need a bit of purpose and you need both if you just had purpose it wouldn't work it needs both and so similarly I think we draw from these old cliches and these old traditions and old belief systems and project them into the new world and I feel like that limits us from allowing ourselves to grow and others to grow because we do the same to ourselves where it's like no no no but you've always been a simple person and this really hit me when I heard this this statement of like how in the bible it says the common quote that's always given is money is the root of all evil but actually the original quote is that love of money is the root of all evil oh wow and that is such a the context the context wow it's such a different way of looking at it and i was like wow like we have propagated not and forget the the difference we have broadcasted and propagated false information as correct uh and not even false incomplete information is a better word incomplete information and it's been broadcasted and that's what we've all lived by and all of a sudden when you zoom out and look at context you're like wait a minute that's actually a totally different theme but we've all built our entire mindset on an incomplete version of the truth.

1:48:49If that isn't a representation of so much of what we see today. And immediately I thought in bringing it back to the personal, it makes me want to get curious about where in my life am I living according to an incorrect truth or even a truth that I didn't choose. Yeah, that's so, yeah, a truth that I didn't actually choose because I often think about how many absolutes we have on our identity that maybe you didn't even choose. Maybe they were chosen for you by a parent, chosen for you by an audience. Because I'm this, I shouldn't speak about that because I've been writing about this. I can't pivot into so many of these things that we decide are actual fact, even things that we think we don't like.

1:49:35I don't really like this much. I don't really like hiking. Have you been hiking? You know, it's some things that are kind of seemingly obvious, but when you pause, you think, oh my, when did I decide that? Or who decided that for me, that I'm supposed to have this opinion because of my identity? I'm supposed to wear this. I think in the beginning when I was talking about expression, I might have spoken about kind of what you might wear, because I find, I like to bring all of this kind of to the everyday. Even what you adorn your body with, it can show you what you believe you should do and you shouldn't do what you're allowed to do and what you can't because of your age because of who you are the colors oh this is too bright it'll be who who told you why you know there's so many little moments where you get to say where am I kind of being not even just out of integrity but censoring my expression not even just what I say I think we tend to think self-censorship is just about what you're saying it's actually who you're being it It could be in your body language.

1:50:38When you walk into a room and you kind of just slouch a little, you make yourself invisible. Yes. Whereas if you were to just put your shoulders back, even just a little bit, even just your chin up, it communicates just a very different thing, but there's a different vulnerability to it because it's visibility. It's actually being assertive in your body, right? And that's vulnerable too. It's so vulnerable. Yeah, whereas people see that as confidence or arrogance or it's not seen as vulnerability because we've created these outer shells of what qualities look like. We've created these external avatars and embodiments of what humility should look like or what arrogance looks like or what good character looks like.

1:51:21And it's like, but rarely is it that obvious. Like rarely can you, you can't see someone's heart. Like you can't see someone's soul. you're not seeing someone's genuineness or sincerity through a snapshot of their life. I always think about this example of if you were running late to the movie theater and you walked into maybe even the wrong screen, you might think that the hero is the villain and the villain is the hero. How do you know? I remember there was this, I think it actually was. Yeah. And it's like, how, how do you know who the character is because of one snapshot of their life? And I think cancel culture and so much of it is based on this idea of here's a snapshot of this person I'm not going to give you the full story and the full picture it reminds me of when I was doing this training and there was a photo it was it was just about that it was about context essentially where there's a photo of a woman on the floor and a man sort of standing up with his hand there and immediately you think that he has pushed her onto the floor but then they widen the photo and you sort of see that she had tripped and she had fallen and he was actually helping her up and reminds me of exactly that.

1:52:35You know, we see an image or a moment and we create an entire story or we see a subtle expression on our partner's face and we create a story about what they mean. They're upset with us or maybe they don't want to do something. Yeah, without even asking. Without even asking. And that's where the, I think that's the perspective is so much of our perspectives are built from one narrative yes i think that's the point that our understanding is about people beliefs what's happening in the world are all generally built from one narrative yes so what i always ask people to do is reflect on like what would it feel like if you were judged on your worst moment what would it feel like if you were judged on your worst day and what would it feel like if you could never ever come back from that because you'd be cancelled for it and what did help you become accountable what has helped you become responsible what has helped you have behavior change because we also want to take that into account what has it been in the past that has really encouraged you to go you know what i'm gonna be better i'm gonna change i'm sure it wasn't you being told by your family member never come back to the house yes i'm sure it wasn't someone saying to you like don't ever come back here and you're not wanted here reflect on that and then also reflect on just that negative negativity bias is so strong.

1:53:57And I want to ask you two questions, not that I think we haven't answered or maybe we have, but I think they're important to ask because I see them being what people are thinking about. So two questions. The first is, when is it okay to cancel someone? And second question, is there anyone who doesn't deserve grace? I will answer that from my carbon definition of cancellation, which is exile, deletion. It implies that there is no rehabilitation. It also presupposes that people cannot change ever. So by virtue of those things and me actually believing that it's possible to transform, me believing that rehabilitation is very important because it's the only way people can actually integrate that shadow that we're punishing them for.

1:54:48So I don't believe, I don't believe that to be true at all. However, I think we can address the harm that has been caused. And I think we have to give the person, whether we like it or not, the grace and grace does not mean acceptance of what has been done. It just doesn't. Grace means I'm going to humanize you so I can understand. And in understanding, I'm able to give a solution or give myself a solution and peace that is actually sustainable instead of... believing that you have to be punished for the rest of your life. Again, that snapshot in time. And I know that what I'm saying is very difficult because it can be applied to so many things, but I encourage you to use common sense.

1:55:31I encourage you to use discernment. And I also think it's okay to have your convictions where you can't be moved. Say, you know what? I could be understanding around this, but I'm going to choose to stay in this conviction. I think we get to do that when it comes to things like abuse, when it comes to human rights, when it comes to things that are just so disturbing and unfathomable, I have to make peace with the fact that people will deal with it how they wish to yes but I'm speaking to that middle that exists for so many of us and I believe that grace even if we're so uncomfortable is the only way you can understand and that doesn't mean you accept so I think that kind of answers both it answers both in different ways yeah yeah yeah I I fully agree with you and and I I'm glad I asked it because I always wanted to get that kind of like the encapsulated thought process almost of the belief system and it's good to hear it that way because i i agree with you i think that humans have amazing ability to transform and given the opportunity i also think that so much of the culture today writes people off over very little information inaccurate incomplete information or misrepresented information like it's not even as clear and also in not understanding what you what someone was even trying to say in the first place and so it's coming from such a uneducated yes yes often and and like you said going back to where we started it's what we do to ourselves it's what we do to all of it we beat ourselves up if you didn't beat yourself up so much or shame yourself often in unconscious ways by the way because i I think so many people, again, we have so many beliefs about who we are, what we stand for, et cetera.

1:57:16But our actions, especially our default actions and default responses will show us what we're really working with underneath. But a lot of us do live in shame. A lot of us are very embarrassed about some of the things that we have done and said, the people that we were in the past. A lot of us are faced with our contradictions. We don't know what to do with them because we have, we live according to labels. you know whether it's ethnic labels political labels identity-based labels so you believe that because i'm this label i shouldn't think in this way i shouldn't speak in this way why do i kind of like this person so you you're always grappling with so many things but what do you do you just shove them down and just hope that no one you being no one the first no one no one ever discovers them finds them but they have to express themselves somehow and that creates more shame so i think because we're working with so much shame and we're not willing to do kind of the self-inquiry because it's not that comfortable.

1:58:16We just don't have the capacity to be graceful with anyone. We just don't. Whereas when you look at even just one area of your own gross stuff, the kind of stuff that you're like, you know, I should do. When you spot it in someone else, you're able to be a little bit more understanding. You can go the way of being, of rejecting it because you're not ready to face yours. But if you can face yours, you'll be willing to kind of dance in the grays a little bit more. Yeah, or you just wouldn't participate. You might not say or do anything, but you would not participate in the sort of cancellation and takedown of that individual in the same way.

1:58:55You would think there may be other methods for accountability and personal responsibility, but it just wouldn't be in line with dehumanization. It just wouldn't be. And I think, you know, we get there, Africa, because I think sometimes people feel they've been so forgiving. They've been so graceful. They've given so much grace and it's been so exploited that now they're so scared of giving that. But was that grace or did you just not have boundaries? Because there is a difference. You get to be graceful and still have boundaries. You get to say, again, you get to say, I understand, but I will not accept.

1:59:31Some of us think grace is being passive or fawning. yes or but that's not that's not grace grace is still very strong it's convicted grace says no this doesn't work for me i don't agree with that but your heart is open yes yes that's exactly so grace is not having no boundaries yeah yeah exactly no we have to define these things because i think these words have such again they have their own connotations and baggage and i think grace feels like this all merciful right all encompassing feeling of just no matter what you do i'm right just just take yeah that godly grace yes and this again it comes back to the extreme conversation yeah where we're not talking about grace and extremes yeah we're talking about grace and very practical robust and even the idea even though i'm not a religious person something i love about religion is that so many of them share the same threads it's like one big tapestry with all the same threads and from my understanding even a loving god has boundaries the 10 commandments exist.

2:00:32There are sort of principles in which are the guiding systems. And to me, those principles are put forward in a very graceful way, but they're still very boundary. You know, there are lines, there's still a level of needing self-discipline and control and not just a chaos, you know. Absolutely. Absolutely. There are so many amazing chapters in this book. I want to name a few chapters of my favorite that when you get the book, I want you to dive into deeply, of course read the book in order but some of your favorites uh chapter eight be quick to listen slow to speak beautifully put again africa's magician with words so number nine i love this because we talked about it but not in this language honest conflict or dishonest harmony and i know that i'd rather live in honest conflict than dishonest harmony yes did you want to say something to that No, no, no, no, no.

2:01:23I'm just giving people that. If you want to, please, Darren. No, no, no, this is perfect. This one is probably one of my favorite chapters as well that's in there. You owe the internet nothing. Chapter four, really important one to read with the age that we're living in. And chapter 11, a great one to look forward to, one before the end, which is brave expression, a price worth paying. And I can honestly say that in trying to bravely express myself, the freedom and liberation that I have felt internally is priceless despite the minority experience of the external the the internal feeling and I always ask myself how will I feel about this at the time of death I always ask myself that because that's the price worth paying for because at that point I'm not gonna think about comments and I'm not gonna think about DMs and I'm not gonna think about followers I don't think any of us are I don't think any of us in that moment are going to go oh well I wish more people agreed with me or knew who I was or knew what I stood for I don't think that's going to be what's going through my mind it's going to be did I serve did I live did I allow myself to be and did I become all of who I felt like becoming in order to help and improve the lives of others and share everything I had to share those are going to be the questions I ask so why not make those the questions now because I will only answer those questions if I ask them now yeah I will only find the answers for the rest of my life but if I wait till the time of death to ask them I'll have no time to answer them you're gonna make me cry that was beautiful yeah yeah yeah not really much more to add to that to be honest because I was just receiving everything you're saying.

2:03:12And I feel it so deeply. And it's just a reminder that a lot of the things that we think really matter, that we really just doubled down on, won't even matter, not even just at the time of death, but next week, you wouldn't even be able to remember the specific disagreement you were having in a comment section with someone or the way you were applauding someone's downfall, you know, it's not going to be, it's not going to add anything. It just takes, it takes and it takes and it takes and it takes. And you will, you will always feel that in that sense of being unfulfilled, which comes back to the thing I was saying about if you are truly fulfilled in who you are as a person, you just would not participate in it and if you did it would feel like a huge integrity breach it it would immediately it would so powerful africa i hope that this is the first of many conversations for us yes i have deeply enjoyed it online and offline i hope so uh we end every episode of on purpose with a final five which each question has to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum uh sometimes i go off piste but uh africa brook these are your final five so the first question is what is the best advice you've ever heard or received there is no such thing as failure only feedback love that uh second question what is the worst piece of advice you've ever heard or received be yourself that's great because the biggest teachers that i've spoken to say which one which I love.

2:04:49That's great. Question number three, how would you define your current purpose? Mind and tongue liberation. Yeah, yeah. That's my soul work for the meantime, supporting people with mind and tongue liberation. And sometimes we feel that liberation is saying what we want, when we want, how we want. Yeah, no, no, no. Yeah, so go on. As we've spoken about, it's about being so discerning, even when you're not using your tongue, knowing what you could say, but holding it. I think there's such a skill to not just communication, there's such a skill to being human. And I just, I just find it so cool that we can realize something is working or not working and do more of it or less of it and kind of play every interaction.

2:05:38Again, I think the beauty of this is testing it out in the micro interactions. From the moment I leave the building, from the moment we finish and I say goodbye, can I maintain a little bit more eye contact, even though eye contact can feel a little bit uneasy? Can I stand up straight with my shoulders just a little bit more? There's so many things you can do. And I think the mob in the mind is, it's really important for us to befriend it and to understand it because then it decides what rolls off the tongue and what stays. So my mission and my purpose is supporting myself and people with mind and tongue liberation.

2:06:14I love that. Great answer. What's something that you used to value that you no longer value? Escaping. And I did it specifically through alcohol and other drugs before I got sober. I valued it a lot because I thought that was the only place outside of my conscious mind where I could feel safe so i i place so much value into it but now i value clarity it's beautiful yeah and fifth and final question we ask this to everyone who's ever been on the show if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow what would it be it would be that if you find yourself outside and you're in a space with other people you have to greet one person at least once a day a stranger to just say hello or to sort of recognize someone because i I think something really beautiful happens when you sort of say hello with a stranger, whether you actually say hi or it's just like an acknowledgement.

2:07:10I think everyone has to do it at least once a day. Yeah. That's great. I love that. Africa Brooke, everyone. The book is called The Third Perspective, Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance. Go grab your copy now. And Africa, thank you so much for being here with me. So excited to deepen our friendship and get to know you better as well. and all the best with everything you're doing to bring the third perspective to everyone in the world. I'm so grateful for the work genuinely. And I loved every moment of this conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you. This has been so special. I feel so inspired, so excited, but also just so grateful because again, I've said it a couple of times, but this conversation and the different paths we've taken are really scary for a lot of people.

2:07:55And some people, they might think, well, what is there to be scared about? but we have created a culture of fear and a culture of intolerance but I'm so hopeful I know that a lot of this stuff was spoken about it's a bit dreary it's a bit but I am so so hopeful about us as human beings and the fact that we can have this conversation it's just so exciting and I think we get to laugh about it it's serious but it's really I mean it's it's also again at the point of death a lot of these things will not matter I think we have to fight for our joy and And I think one of the ways we do that is through conversations like this.

2:08:29So I'm just so grateful. I can't wait for many of them. I mean, we were already chatting away before we pressed record. And I'm just so, so excited. Thank you for your support. It's priceless to me. So thank you. Thank you. Hey, everyone. If you loved that conversation, go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist, Laurie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space right now, you won't want to miss this conversation. If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands.

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2:09:49Relationships do require work. The best relationships are people who really work on them together. Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The risks they took would be unthinkable to any doctor today. But odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. Welcome to the Wild West of American Medicine. I'm Chris Pine, and this is Cardiac Cowboys, a podcast that tells the gripping true story behind the birth of open heart surgery and the maverick surgeons who made it happen. Listen to the Cardiac Cowboys podcast starting February 6th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

2:10:32This is an iHeart podcast.