You don’t EARN Joy
In this season of life, I’m learning a new lesson each day. The lesson I have for YOU today is that even though life is tough, you deserve joy TODAY. Yes, you don’t earn joy, you deserve inherently.
We’re chatting about how to experience joy in the little moments, no matter what else is going on in your life. In this episode I also answer a question about imposter syndrome and whether or not a mistake or failure disqualifies you from teaching on a specific topic.
Thank you for being here for this chat friend! Let me know what resonates by tagging me on Instagram @NicoleWalters – talk to you there friends.
Nicole:
Hey friend. I am so excited that we’re chatting again today, and I hope that as you are listening in the kitchen or in the car, you got the tinies behind you or whatever you’ve got going on that you’re joining our weekly chat and you’re feeling well. I know that I am excited to come to you week after week, and it’s been amazing to hear on Instagram, Twitter and just all over social media. The amazing feedback about season three of the Nicole Walters podcast. Now, I, I know you probably listened to a lot of different podcasts and they have a different vibe, right? Each week they’re maybe have a different guest or maybe they’re you know, talking about products or whatever, telling, you know, true crime stories, you name it. But I really like the special thing that we have here, where it really is just us sitting down like friends catching up over coffee and, you know, just plugging through all the crazy things that are happening in life and chatting about all the things that we’re seeing and being exposed to day after day, and really doing our best to fuel each other with, you know, joy and energy and grant and grace so that we can keep going.
So I’m gonna keep coming back here. <Laugh> every single week, and I’m glad that you do too. And I wanna hear from you. So this isn’t a one, let me, let me pause for that. I wanna hear from you. So what that means is that you can actually reach out to me. If you head over to Instagram @NicoleWalters, you can leave me a message. I actually put the link to leaving me a voicemail in the show notes. And I want you to know that these voicemails all come directly to me. So they are anonymous. I’m not gonna be able to hunt you down or put your name out there or anything like that. But you know, they come right to me. So they let me hear from you. If it’s just feedback, you can say that and say, Hey, Nicole, this is just feedback.
Or if it’s just a message and you wanna share it, you can do that. But if you have a question about anything, whether it is business or life or TV shows or podcast, or you have a tough thing, you’re trying to figure out with a friend or a family member I’m really, really happy to keep this conversation two ways and to lend whatever gifts I may have to help you sort out whatever’s put in front of you, because it is so much easier for us to do life together. Now, in that vein, I have the most amazing messages that have been coming in, and this week’s message is really, really powerful. And I think that a lot of us are gonna relate to it and it comes from Beverly.
Hi, Nicole. My name is Beverly. Thank you for opening up this space and being so open and authentic with your journey and just allowing us to, and learn and heal with you as you and learn and heal my question. Have you ever struggled with the imposter syndrome feeling that you’re not good enough to sit at that table or you shouldn’t even be in that room? And how did you overcome that? And also, have you ever struggled?
Can you cut it after just the first part instead of two questions? Awesome. Beverly, so I have been talking about imposter syndrome for years, and I’m so glad you’re bringing it back up because it’s something I haven’t really talked about recently, but you know, if you’re newer to the podcast or if you haven’t been following for a while, I really really think this is powerful for us to always kind of circle back to and discuss. Now, if you’ve never heard of imposter syndrome you know, let me, let me start over that part. If you’ve never heard of imposter syndrome, what I’m about to tell you might very well change your life. I know what changed mine maybe eight, 10 years ago. I remember starting to decide whether or not I wanted to quit my job and jump into entrepreneurship for the first time. This was long before I opened up my multimillion dollar company, inherit learning company.
And long before I had the TV show, the via, you know, any of those things. So it was before I had good wigs y’all I was still wearing synthetic wigs. Listen, a lot has changed <laugh>, but that said way back when 10 years ago, I remember being in corporate and knowing that I was deeply dissatisfied, that I had a very specific set of gifts that I, that were underutilized, underpaid and underappreciated. And I knew that I felt a call under my life to, you know, branch out and do more. But you better believe I was scared and we’ve talked throughout the podcast and we’ll keep on talking about the different reasons, why we’re scared to take things on and things that keep us from stepping into our purpose. But ultimately it boiled down to me feeling like it just wouldn’t work and it wouldn’t work because I wasn’t good enough that I maybe didn’t have all the skills and resources that were required.
And despite the life that I’d lived thus far, despite the things that I’d overcome through a traumatic childhood, through growing up in intense poverty, all of that, even though I’d managed to be the youngest person in my division to remove from the CEO of a fortune $500 billion company, I had just made the whole thing up and that I didn’t have the ability to do anything else and that I was always faking it till I made it. And that at any minute, at any point in time, someone was gonna pull the rug out from under me and that I just wouldn’t be able to actually be successful on my own. Well, I wanna let you know, standing on this side almost a decade out from that moment. That definitely wasn’t true. <Laugh> right. Everything that I did to get everything that I had, I’d earned, I’d learned I’d applied and I’d made it happen.
And I don’t say that, you know, as you know, I’m a Christian, I’m a God girl, not withstanding. I’m super blessed as well, but I also wanna just throw in that, you know, it’s very easy for us to discount our successes and a lot of the manifestation of that fits under something that has a real scientific definition called imposter syndrome. So imposter syndrome is the inability to internalize your own successes, despite the evidence proving that you had indeed earned them in their true. And it’s amazing how many women, minorities and people who grew up with very difficult backgrounds are affected by this. And part of that is because one, we may not grow up around examples of people who have done it. Who’ve been highly successful and were able to say, oh, okay, well, here’s the path they followed. And I followed that. So that’s totally normal.
And it also happens because oftentimes, you know, when you’re follow, falling into one of those categories, when you’re in the workplace or the workforce, our successes are often minimized and not celebrated completely. So what that means is we have a hard time realizing that the thing that we did was actually pretty outstanding and the place that we got, we really did earn through our own efforts. And so what happens is when it comes time to take on a new challenge, well, narratives form in our head that tell us, you’re not gonna be able to make it. And you can barely hold onto the thing you have and the job that you have now, you’re lucky to even have, and you’re just making it up as you go. And the minute you get found out, everyone will know you’re a fake and you don’t deserve to be there and, and you’re gonna get kicked out.
So maybe you shouldn’t even try. And imposter syndrome is damaging to your future friend, if you are listening, or if your littles are listening, or if you have you know, teens or kids out there or speaking into people’s lives, or even if you’re just a boss with employees, you gotta be on the watch out because the truth is, none of us knows what we’re doing. None of us we’re all placed into something for the first time. And that feeling of not knowing isn’t a sign that you’re not capable, not knowing something doesn’t mean you’re not capable. It just means that you don’t know when you’re hired for a new job. When I hire employees, like I’ve 16 employees in my headquarters in Atlanta. And when I hire employees, what I’m looking for is someone who has the general skill set and a little bit of a proven background to do the thing that I’m going to call them to do.
I’m not looking for someone who already has a mastery around the work, because honestly, if you’ve never worked for me before, however, you did it at your previous company, it’s not gonna work for me. You need to learn how to do it. Then Nicole Walter’s way in our company, cuz we operate with a certain level of integrity, expectations, service, all of that. So you’re gonna have to learn it all over again. Anyways, everybody comes in new. So what that means for you friend Beverly, is that you have to remind yourself that everything you have, if you’ve managed to figure it out, ask the right questions, use your resources, learn, apply, and, and get into your stride, so you’re having successes and a job becomes familiar. Well then yeah, that is the definition of earning your place.
That means that you actually do have the ability to be successful wherever you go, because you have work ethic, because you know how to show up, because you have integrity, cuz you have personal standards. Those are the things that make a successful person. Not degrees, not paperwork, not you know, approvals and certifications and awards and all those, those things can help. But at the end of the day, your true success is based off of you. And it’s so important to not let imposter syndrome tell you that you can’t be successful because it does keep you from going into new spaces. So one of the ways that I’ve learned to tackle my imposter syndrome is to sort of keep a here’s how you did it list. And here’s how you did it. List is whenever I’m finding myself saying I’m not qualified for an opportunity, I write down all the things I’ve done that match up with why I am qualified.
So if I hear my brain saying, look, there’s no way you could, you know, go to this casting opportunity for this show because you know, you’re not an actor. You’re not whatever. Well, first and foremost, I don’t just walk up to casting act opportunities. They’re given to me by my agent. So somebody already determined I’d probably be okay, so why am I unpacking it for myself? So I’ll write down, I’ll say, well, maybe they’ve never met anyone like you before. Maybe you have a perspective to give that people really need to hear. Maybe when you go in, because you’re a professional speaker, you’re still gonna do a pretty good job reading for whatever it is they’re looking for. Maybe this opportunity isn’t necessarily about what you have done before. And maybe it’s not the opportunity you’ll get today, but maybe you’ll meet the people who will connect you to the opportunity you’re supposed to have.
And you absolutely are qualified for that. You know? So I mean, I’m telling you, when you start writing down the reasons why every opportunity is something that you deserve or at minimum that you can show up to, it changes your perspective. You start realizing, look my belief in wanting to move onto the next thing or my interest in another opportunity is valid because it’s grounded in truth. So friend, you have to keep doing, doing is the answer to imposter syndrome. You have to tell yourself, even though my mind might be telling me that I’m not capable or qualified or deserving, I’m going to keep doing until I am proven. Otherwise, what you’ll find is that in the daily doing, you’re actually gonna find evidence that you’re worthy.
And in this week’s don’t make yourself content y’all. This one is actually pretty applicable to our DM question that came in. So I was scrolling through the internet. I don’t know about y’all I spend way too much time on the gram. And one of the things that popped up is that DeVon Franklin, I don’t know if you’re familiar with him. If you’re not, he was married to an actress named Meagan Good, who was really popular in the nineties, still continues to work, has had some really great shows and she’s known as generally being like a really like sweet girl. And I, a sweet woman she’s grown. I’m like, this is the mom in me that I’m always, everybody’s like, Hey kiddo. <Laugh>, she’s known for being a wonderful woman.
And DeVon Franklin is a I believe he may be a pastor or a minister is his background, his primary background, but frankly him and Megan, when they connected and became married, they actually built a brand around their relationship. And they released some books around why they chose celibacy until marriage. They released some books around why they chose celebrity until marriage and how they were choosing to structure their marriage. They spent a lot of time on the press circuit really discussing, you know, the value of their relationship and things of that source. They really did put their marriage out there. And at first I think people were a little bit critical, but down the line it became something where people were like, wow, this is a really great example of what looks like a healthy, successful marriage. And they both seemed like they were doing very well, but unfortunately after I don’t know the exact number of years, but I know that it was quite a few, I wanna say maybe six or seven, they filed for divorce. And that was recently I wanna say last year. And when they filed for divorce there weren’t many details given. It seems like it’s amicable. But essentially they both said that it’s, you know, it’s difficult. It was unexpected, but there’s a parting of ways and they both feel like it’s best if they go their second direction.
Now y’all already know I am not the one to judge <laugh> at all. Not just because I’m not a judger, but because I also, am someone who is going through this transitional process of you know, shifting from a marital state to a non marital state, you know, and it’s interesting because what is trending right now around Devon Franklin is the fact that he was just selected to be the marriage and relationship expert on a show called Married at First Sight for season 15. And there’s a lot of feedback around why on earth can he be an expert on marriage when his own marriage wasn’t successful? What is he going to teach these people about having a successful relationship when he is the byproduct of one that did not work and is currently processing a divorce, especially one that, you know, by all means may be amicable, but seems to be pretty painful.
So what I wanted to reference here is not the, is he or isn’t it? You guys know how we do this. Don’t make yourself con isn’t about coming to an end solution of right or wrong. You can go anywhere for that. What I wanna talk about is this idea that we can’t be an expert or have anything to offer. If we failed at something that’s bananas, y’all not only is that concept hurtful, it’s harmful because some of the best lessons come from people who didn’t work.
And I wanna tell you a story about one of my friends. So I went to Johns Hopkins university and it’s primarily a medical and science based institution. And a lot of my friends were engineers or pursuing a medical background. I, of course, was a polysci major because I’m not strong at math. And I just like being around smart people. <Laugh> but my best skill is like reading and talking. So I’m there, but all my friends are fancy man doctors, and one of my best good friends, Lucas, he is a premier biomedical engineer. He’s now a professor. He works in a lab. I mean, he is easily one of the smartest people I know and Lucas, you know, used to go into the lab every day as part of his work in college. And his job was to, he was working on a research project and I think it was around cancer, don’t hold me to it. You know, Lucas, if you’re listening, I, I don’t remember all the details of your experiment, but it was still important to me.
But you know, every single day he would go in and he would have to kind of work with some lab rats and like get some data, work on numbers, tweak things, all that jazz as part of this greater experiment. And that was part of his student gig. Well, I remember sitting down with Lucas one day and saying to him, isn’t it frustrating to think that you could spend your whole life working in a lab, trying to solve and cure and fix and treat these conditions and you could literally die and never do it. Like you’re already signing up right now. And I remember at the time we were, you know, so young, we were in our like early twenties and saying to him like, I mean how can you sign up for a lifetime of potential failure? I know, right? We’re really deep for, for younger kids. Aren’t we <laugh>, but this is me. This is Nicole Walters. This is the one who’s at target is asking people if they’re on their purpose. So Lucas looks at me and he says this, and I, I tell you like, I, I carry this to this day, cuz it was so valuable. Lucas said to me, I don’t look at it as failure because for every single time, one of my experiments doesn’t work out, I’ve taken an experiment off the board for the next person, which means that they’re gonna be one step closer to actually curing cancer.
And that was so powerful for me because it helped me understand that one, it’s all about perspective. He easily could have looked at it and said, oh yeah, no. Like, I mean, you’re right. I need to pick something where I feel like I’m getting a ready, obvious, clear, and apparent win all the time. He could have said that, but that’s not how he looks at it. And two, I also thought it was really impactful to hear him say that he understood that he plays a part in the greater picture and that his role, while it may not be the one that is greatly celebrated, he may not have the vaccine named after him. He may not be the guy who’s down in history books, but he recognizes that he is part of a process that’s tremendous.
And furthermore, there are people who did things before him, for him to get where he is. And all of this kind of comes down to this perspective around what makes an expert. I think in the internet space, so many people, and I’ve talked about this in season one. I have an episode say called the most valuable three words and a lot of people think it’s, I love you. Spoiler alert. It’s actually, I don’t know. And I talk about this there, where I say that, you know, being an expert doesn’t mean, you know, everything an expert means, you know where to go to find it. And we’re so quick to criticize people because their lives may not look a certain way, but we don’t understand that there’s a lot to be extracted from our various experiences when they don’t work. So granted throwing it out as a caveat.
I’m not saying that, you know Mr. Franklin is the best pick for this marriage expert. When it comes time to do casting, honestly, they’re looking for a name they’re looking for someone who can get in a press. They’re not necessarily look it’s TV show y’all, you know what I mean? They’re not necessarily looking for someone who’s going to give rock solid advice to help preserve these marriages. I mean, honestly, these people are throwing their names into a hat and being mashed up together to get married when they see each other, they’re not looking for a success. Y’all like, this is entertainment. But what I can say is that even though they’re not booking therapist, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s not a good fit because he probably has something valuable to add to the conversation.
Look for those of us who are married now or seeking to get married or in long-term relationships or recently divorced, we all know that relationships are hard. And a lot of the things that make them work are the same through and through. Communication, honesty, trust, faithfulness, integrity, vulnerability, all these things are overlaps that every single person needs to do and do well in order to have a successful relationship of any sort, whether it is platonic or romantic. And so knowing that I actually think that someone who’s been through a divorce can probably speak to that.
Listen friend, to be honest, if we live in a world where he’s not allowed to be an expert, even after you know, all the credentials he may have, or the years of being a pastor or writing a book about relationships and all that, then it makes me feel like I don’t have room for redemption. And then it makes me wonder, like where does any of us have room for redemption and the ability to speak to our experiences? I think that languaging is actually a little bit dangerous because it keeps people from wanting to share what they may have learned when they were delivered from their suffering and isn’t that how we help each other avoid the pits and get ahead.
I mean, I know that when I saw what was happening to my marriage and I was put in a position where I didn’t have a choice, I remember feeling obviously shocked, disappointed, overwhelmed, saddened, and at loss. And a huge part of what took me so long to be able to, I mean, literally it’s been over a year now. It took me so long to even be able to sit down and like vocalize it to you is just because of the fact that I didn’t want you guys to look at me and say, gosh, Nicole, like you disappointed us. We love your family. We love the idea of your family. We love the construct of family. And if you’re not able to do this, can you do anything right?
Y’all I was beating myself up so badly about it. When eventually I realized, you know, there’s a lot of learning I’ve been going through in this season, partly because I did not anticipate it. And as I mentioned in episode one, it’s been a season of starting over and I’ve learned that starting over is something a lot of us have to do often. Whether it’s through jobs or a new baby or, you know, a marriage, you know, and if we can share our secrets around that, we should, because we do deserve to have ease in our next chapters. And we do deserve to have support and love and grace, as we navigate this difficult, challenging life.
Life is hard enough, if we can get a roadmap or tips or tricks, who are we to yell or complain about where they come from, as long as it’s good advice and it’s rock solid and it can help move us forward, we should be receiving. So I know the conversation is around whether or not he’s qualified or credentialed or if it makes any sense. And I think that’s reasonable, but that should be based on clinical things. Is he a therapist? Does he have, you know, some background knowledge on mental health or does he understand those checklist items? I think that’s reasonable to evaluate, but if we’re trying to judge whether or not somebody can speak to a new experience or guide someone just because theirs was less than perfect, well if that’s the requirement, then I don’t think any of us are really qualified to do anything. And I don’t think that’s the case at all. God wouldn’t have delivered us from our suffering if he didn’t want us to use our story, to deliver someone from theirs. So friend lean in share boldly and know that whatever it is you have to offer from your failures is good enough worthy and needed.
Friend, so I am really excited to chat with you about this because I’ve been dabbling in it on social media. We’ve been kind of going back and forth in the comments and the feedback has been crazy because I didn’t realize how many of us held this idea, this mindset and how limiting it was for us. So growing up for me, I grew up in an immigrant household. So my parents were both really hard workers. My dad was a cab driver for 40 years. My mom, a secretary at a boating insurance company. And what that lent itself to was many, many years and many, many hours of sort of being a latchkey kid. If you will. I had a younger sister, seven years younger than me and the two of us pretty much were, were, we are besties.
I spent so much time in my youth, caring for her, you know, being home, making sure she had what she needed. And a lot of my experiences growing up, surrounded my parents working. Whether it was trying to figure out how to get a dollar, how to shift a job, how to fit in more hours. It was just work, work, work, work, work. And I know that for a lot of us, even those who, who didn’t grow up in intense poverty, but just had parents who were really committed to trying to change our way of life or at least keep up on the bills. We have that experience of our parents sort of being absent from working or focused on work or talking about work. And I also think it’s amazing because in so many conversations I’ve had with you a lot of us are trying to change that narrative for our own children.
We’re trying to create a world where maybe that won’t be the experience where we’ll be able to be more present or where, you know, our time that we are present is more meaningful. So, you know, cheers to all of us for working on that. But what I learned and what I really recall, which has been really poignant for me in this season where I am entering the world on my own. And it’s just me and my girls is that my parents just didn’t have fun. Like, I don’t think they would’ve known a hobby if it hit them. Like, yeah. They knew how to maybe meet up and have a cookout, you know, or maybe turn on some music and kind of dance here and there. And yes, there’s some joy in that. I’m not minimizing the joy in that, but I’m just talking about the moment of like the momentary joy, like watching a quick comedy show or like how we listen to podcasts, you know, to have a laugh or scrolling on social and laughing at a meme or, you know, just taking these little pockets of joy that present themselves through the day and allowing a little bit of indulgence and fun in order to keep us going.
And in realizing that my parents were just constantly on the, you know, workhorse of needing to push through and it’s about the daily grind. I didn’t realize the messaging was sending to me until recently. And friend, you may relate to this, and you may not even realize you’re doing it when I realized I was doing it, it blew my mind. But the messaging I was receiving and watching my parents kind of always put a primary focus on working and what you can get out from working and the next hustle and money and responsibility, the messaging I got growing up that I’m just working to dismantle is that there isn’t room when you are working and suffering, and life is hard, to fit in joy. That if you wanted joy, you had to earn it. And that joy was a distant destination that you were only allowed to, you know, receive and go towards, if you kind of battled through this hardship all along the way.
And if things were really, really hard, you’re expected to double down on the difficulty and reject even more of the joy that would present itself. So here’s an example, when I first started building a business, I remember thinking to myself that it had to be all daily grind and that celebration moments were only allowed around certain milestones. So if I didn’t hit a certain number, I was still on the grind and it was wild because all along the way I was hitting little milestones. Like I was you know, welcoming in new members or my people who had signed on to work with me through my products at Inherent Learning Company, they were hitting successful goals. They were making money, they were launching businesses. They were having things happening. But instead of taking the moment to celebrate those things, I always felt like it wasn’t allowed. And especially when things got hard. So I don’t know about you friend, but if I’m having a bad day, I have such an inclination to meet the energy of that day with what I feel like I’m supposed to do in response to fixing it.
For instance, if I was in the office and an employee came to me and told me that the software was down, something had crashed and you know, they needed to fix a portal or a system or something, I literally would not get up and go to the bathroom, I would sit at my computer, I would skip meals and I literally would work round the clock through the night until the problem was solved. Friend, ask yourself, have you ever held your potty too long? Because you felt like you had to get the work done first. This is not normal. <Laugh> okay. This is not normal. Have you ever skipped meals because you’re sitting at your desk, cranking it out?
And you’re like, the only thing that matters is the deadline. Now I wanna let you know that, yeah, we all have some seasonality where we have to push through and crush and get it done. But when that starts becoming the norm or where it starts becoming a response that you have to hardship or difficulty or challenges that you’re not even checking that you’re not even saying to yourself, Hey, this is a one off. And you’re just kind of used to it. You don’t even realize you’ve been holding your potty for hours and hours and hours, right? Because you just literally are like, I just gotta get this work done. You’ve gotta reevaluate the messaging you’re telling yourself around what you deserve. I mean, friend, you’re telling yourself that you don’t even deserve to go to the bathroom until you finish your work.
You don’t even deserve to go to the bathroom until you finish this thing for the kids, you don’t even deserve to go to the bathroom until you finish this load laundry. That’s just not normal. And it’s definitely not healthy. And it was something that I carried for so long and what it lent itself to was burnout. I was pushing myself through even normal bodily functions. If you feel like you can’t even get up and go to the bathroom, do you think that you’re gonna have the energy to say to yourself you need a break? Or you need a nap? Or you need a walk or you need a laugh? Or you deserve to go get a cocktail with a friend or a new outfit friend? Mamas, when was the last time you bought yourself a new pair of underwear? You’re still wearing the same three bras, cuz they’re your favorite.
You just pulled the wire out and you’re just moving on with your life. We deserve nice things. <Laugh> we deserve nice things. Seriously. It’s absolutely unbelievable how we reject the joy when we’re facing hardships. So just as an example of that, right now, I am out in the world. I am still trying to figure out what it’s like, because I have not been single since I was 22, you know? And so so long ago, and I don’t know how this works, but one of the things that I’m struggling with is attention from the gentlemanly fellows. <Laugh> this is why, how, you know, I can’t date <laugh> it’s cuz of this, this energy. And so it’s weird because part of me feels like, because my life isn’t all the way figured out yet, I’m not allowed to, you know, grab a drink with someone and because everything’s not all figured out yet, I’m not allowed to even accept a compliment.
I get weird about it. You know what I mean? Like, and not that I even know, or I’m ready to like navigate all of these pieces, but it’s definitely strange to me. And it was something that I had to bring into therapy and something I’m talking about with you now, friend, that I felt like my healing and my happiness could not coexist. That I felt like work and relief and joy could not coexist. And I’m not saying I have perfect answers on it, but I do wanna call it out to you. One thing that I do know is true is that we deserve, we deserve ease. We deserve happiness. Even if you’re at a funeral if someone tells a joke, especially about like, you know, the deceased or the relationships like it, you’re allowed to laugh just because you’re at a funeral, doesn’t mean you can’t laugh.
And I think that we’ve gotten to this place where we’ve put these parameters around ourselves, where we’re only successful or showing up in a certain way, if we perform in a certain way, which means that we reject some things that are very natural, healthy, and healing for us, that honestly could amplify our performance simply because we don’t think we’re allowed to have them. There was a novel concept that kind of came to me that has really inspired and forced me to embrace finding happiness in all the hard that I’m living right now. And it’s that, you know, life is hard, right, right friend, like we already know this. Life is hard, it is the meeting and solving of problems. It is, you know, at times it can feel like just suffering through, you know, life is difficult. We can accept that. We know this.
But also in knowing that life is difficult, one of the many ways that God shows up is in the pockets of joy, it’s in grabbing an ice cream cone, it’s in a friendly compliment. It’s in a nice 10 minute chat in the elevator. It is in meeting up with friends afterwards for dinner or briefly for a walk it’s in these little moments that seem like they might be too tiny to have any worth. But in reality, they’re exactly how God is showing up to remind us of the good that we’re always trying to pursue. It’s also where God’s showing up to say that the heart is worthwhile and believe it or not, the thing I’m really embracing is that if I allow myself to receive the joy that’s happening amongst all the hard, the compliment, the cocktail, you know, the guy winking at me saying, I look good. And I’m like, yeah, I do. You know, <laugh> like that sort of thing.
If I allow myself to just sort of receive that joy, even though it’s a hard day, well, that actually may help fuel me through the hard days. If you’ve been wondering why sometimes it feels a little bit too hard. It might be because you’re rejecting too much joy. So friend, here’s what I wanna encourage you, cuz I know that this part is working for me, allow yourself to receive. You are so deserving of the joy that shows up at your door. You are so deserving of taking a moment to watch that guilty pleasure reality show. You are so deserving of saying to yourself, you know what? I am gonna cut out 15 minutes early and I’m gonna just go for a walk. Before I go to my car, you’re deserving of sitting in your car outside of target for 15 minutes so that you can watch a TV show and eat those snacks in your glove box, girl, I do it too.
Sometimes these kids, okay, we do what we can do. <Laugh> but you’re deserving. And just like we may have received messages when we are younger, that there is a certain way that we have to respond to hardship. And there are certain things we’re allowed to have or not have. We don’t have to continue or pass on those messages. Cause we’re being watched too by our littles, by our friends, by our family on social media.
And so if we put out the message that you’re allowed to live life and deal with the challenges and the hardships or whatever, but you can do it with a smile and that’s okay, oh, that message gets passed on. And by extension, we’re making it a little easier for those that come behind us. And we’re teaching our kids in future generations that yes, life is hard, but you can be happy too. And the reason why you can be happy is because you deserve it. So friend today in all that you’re facing, in everything on your plate, and all the things that I’ve already arrived, and all the things that are yet to come, I encourage you to look for the happiness in the hard, because no matter where you are in your healing, in your growth, in your decision making you deserve joy today.
In this episode, I share:
- How to experience joy in the little moments, no matter what else is going on in your life,
- Why you don’t earn joy,
- My first experience with imposter syndrome and how it’s damaging to our futures,
- What my “here’s how you did it” list, and
- My thoughts on if a mistake or failure disqualifies you from teaching on a specific topic
Resources and links mentioned in this episode:
- Send me a DM on Facebook and Instagram
- Record a voice message for me here
- Don’t miss episode 32 from season 1 where I talk more about owning what you DON’T know
- I love reading your reviews of the show! You can share your thoughts on Apple here!
More about The Nicole Walters Podcast:
If you’re looking for the strategies and encouragement to pursue a life of purpose, this is the podcast for you! Week after week Nicole Walters will have you laughing hysterically while frantically taking notes as she shares her own personal stories and answers your DMs about life, business, and everything in between.
As a self-made multimillionaire and founder of the digital education firm, Inherit Learning Company, Nicole Walters is the “tell-it-like-it-is” best friend that you can’t wait to hang out with next.
When Nicole shows up, she shows OUT, so tune in each week for a laugh, a best friend chat, plus the strategies and encouragement you need to confidently live a life of purpose.
Follow Nicole on IG @NicoleWalters and visit inheritlearningcompany.com today and click the button to join our betterment community. Your membership gives you access to a world of people and tools focused on helping you build the life you want.