That Girl Radio

JanYouary: Q&A Finding Balance, Dating, Imposter Syndrome, + Imposter Syndrome

• Rikki Lee • Season 3 • Episode 20

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Discover your 'thrive zone' and redefine success on your terms as I, Rikki Lee, guide you through what That Girl would do for today's Q&A session. We'll reveal how to set boundaries and prioritize effectively, ensuring you don't just survive the juggling act, but you thrive in each aspect of your life. I'll share insights into speaking up and taking space, overcoming biases, and exuding the confidence to showcase your true greatness to the world. Alongside this, we'll tackle the transformative power of divine love over lust, the redefinition of relationships, and how to enter your influencer era.

Wrap up this session with a candid discussion on overcoming setbacks and refocusing for success. A personal story of academic hurdles turns a lens on the universal experience of finding purpose and strength in struggle. And remember, your subscription and sharing breathe life into the That Girl community; we're here to uplift and inspire each other. So, embrace this call to action, join our family, and let's grow together.

Did you enjoy today's episode? Leave Rikki a voicemail about what you took away to be featured on the next episode.
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Speaker 1:

Hey guys, and welcome back to that Girl Radio. It is your girl, ricky Lee, here, and for today's episode of January, we are going to be doing a Q&A session. I want to do these every couple of weeks just to check in with you guys and provide you with some that Girl advice, basically telling you what would that Girl do in any case and scenario, or if you are battling with anything, I can try to give you some words of encouragement so you can get through the rest of this year and start becoming the woman that God called you to be. So I have quite a few questions that I am going to be going through. I will be sharing the names of some of the people, but for more private questions I am going to keep it anonymous. So let's go ahead and get started.

Speaker 1:

The first question that I have is how do you balance starting a business and being in school? Now, starting a business and being in school is quite the challenge and I know for a lot of you. Looking from the outside in, I may make it look like it is relatively easy, but I am here to tell you that it is not To who much is given. Much, surely, is required, and for you to do business with integrity, for you to do business the way that God intended business to be done takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of skill and it takes a lot of patience. So what you have to do is understand that you have a priority and in the year 2024, I really am telling myself to do a lot more monotasking instead of multitasking, because monotasking allows you to truly focus and hone in on just one thing, instead of trying to do multiple things all at once and giving a half ass effort to all of the different things that you are in, because no one likes to be on a group project or working with someone that barely comes in, is in and out. While they are there, they are taking calls from another meeting. It's just like you are never truly present, and that's what it feels like for your businesses or the endeavors that you are in. When you are half in and half out, you are constantly multitasking and doing other things, it's going to obviously feel neglected and it's not going to be able to grow and prosper in the way in which you wanted to.

Speaker 1:

So for those of you who have really big aspirations to grow and scale something and you know that you can't devote as much as you should be able to to business while you are doing school. Do not do it. You have your entire life to start a business. You have your whole life to have to, like, do your taxes and have to manage clients, or you know, inventory and all of these different things. Like, don't put that unnecessary pressure on yourself just because the world is really putting out there that you need to have a business. You need to have a side hustle, because what a lot of people essentially have are side hustles.

Speaker 1:

I think when you have a business, a true business that can liberate you financially, you won't have to work as hard. But in the beginnings of starting anything, you definitely have to be hands on and very present, and I think being hands on and being super present during college is just not the time to be doing it. And I'm speaking from experience, guys. My first year of college I had like five jobs all at the same time. I was trying to save for college. I actually made the Dean's list that semester, so kudos to me. But I was in the dorm all day, like I didn't have to go to classes in person because this was during COVID. So that was a very different time. Now, in my senior year, I'm on campus from 8 until 6pm. There's no time in the day for me to be able to take meetings with people or do those sort of things.

Speaker 1:

So, depending on what your schedule looks like, you may be able to balance it. But just know that every single year of school is going to look different. Every semester in school is going to look different. So to set yourself up for success in your business, you have to, already on the onset and the beginning, say to yourself okay, I am only going to work on specific days of the week. I find that when I try to do school and work in the same day, it just almost never works. So every semester, when I've crafted my schedule, what I will do is I will have days where I have blocked off that I know that this is a school day, and then I have work days. Some students like to work and do school in the same day. Whatever works for you, but this is personally what has allowed me to be successful during school. I will do this.

Speaker 1:

I will typically have a schedule that's like Tuesday, wednesday, thursday that I'm on campus, and then Mondays and Fridays. I was off this semester. I'm on campus Mondays, tuesdays and Thursdays, and then Wednesdays and Fridays I have off. So on those Mondays and Fridays or Wednesdays and Fridays now, I will work and I have on my email signature that my office hours are from nine to 2 pm. So from nine to 2 pm on Mondays and Fridays, those are my admin days. Those are the days that I really get into the weeds of answering emails, scheduling any meetings, checking in with people, doing coffee chats, anything like that, that where I have to be hands on completely and I shouldn't be multitasking while I'm doing it.

Speaker 1:

Now, on my school days, during my breaks in between classes, of course, I will probably edit a few TikToks, I can edit some images from a photo shoot that I've done, I can work on some brand strategy, but all in all, I don't have to be present for anyone on those days. On the days that I need to be present, those are my complete work days. Those are my admin days. And then, even deeper into my work schedule, I know that when I have a spring break, when I have winter break, those are my times for me to reset and realign my businesses. Those are the times when my juices are flowing and I'm coming up with new ideas and I'm really strategically planning for my new year, because that is a set of time where I don't have to do anything for school. Obviously, there are no due dates or anything when you're coming back, so that's the time that I would really recommend for any business owners business owners that are listening to just reset and realign yourself before you come back to school.

Speaker 1:

Maybe put some systems in place that are gonna help you be more successful while running your business in school, just like really using breaks to your advantage, because a lot of times we see a break and we're just like, oh, I'm just gonna go home, I'm gonna chill with my family, I'm gonna do nothing, and that is perfectly fine. I did that this year and then the last week or so before school started, I got back into my routine and I fleshed out that girl radio I mean that girl radio and also that life planning, because typically I would launch something like that at the very start of the year. But I just gave myself some time to decompress because I had just gone on a crazy sprint with finals. I was studying for things. I had to write a 15 page paper, do 20 discussion board posts like I needed to give myself a break, because you can't be creative or produce your best work when you're in a state of exhaustion and when you're doing both school and work at the same time. No work that you're producing is gonna be truly good if you're not giving yourself proper rest. So I hope that answered that question. Just make sure to block off on your schedule times that you can truly focus on one or the other, and that's what's going to help you prosper in both, because I did that last semester and I had the best grades that I've had since my freshman year and I also dialed back on extracurriculars.

Speaker 1:

If you are going to be someone who owns a business and does school, you can't be on student orgs executive boards. That's my biggest piece of advice, because I tried to do all three. I tried to be a student leader, a business owner as well as a student, and it's just not balanced enough because in the free time that you could be devoting to your business, you will instead be devoting that to student orgs and, at the end of the day, what is yours? The student org isn't yours. Your business is yours and it is your job to help that flourish and grow. So you can give to a student org in a different capacity by volunteering. You can be a student ambassador. You can just simply attend the meetings, like you can still get just as much without having to be an executive board member. Now, that is that question. I hope that helped you guys.

Speaker 1:

Moving on to the next place, the next question is in workspaces how do you deal with haters and negative people? And another question was about imposter syndrome. So I'm just going to kind of dial all of those up into the same question. In workspaces I have endured a lot of praise. I don't feel a lot of negativity. I would say I more so feel that in academia, like in my classes, a lot of times I would be kind of overlooked. People wouldn't want to listen to me.

Speaker 1:

And is it because I'm black? Don't really know. Is it because I'm a woman? Don't really know. I don't know what it is. It's probably internalized prejudice and a lot of other things that are coming from each person and those dials can look different for every person. But I will say that through and through. I'm going to show up as a me, I'm going to show up as myself, and while the myself that shows up with my friends may be different than the myself that shows up at my work board meeting table or in my student org meetings. I'm still me at the end of the day, and at the very core of that is all of my lived experiences. And I think that when I know that my lived experiences are my value add, rather than just my skill set or my age or any sort of jobs that I've worked, that is what gives me the comfortability in every space, because I wasn't given any opportunity just by chance or because I was lucky, especially as a black woman.

Speaker 1:

Anytime that I am considered for something, it is because I have shown absolute just like God speed difference in the amount of the caliber of work that I can produce. I was never mediocre in any aspect and that is why they considered me. Because I just told you, in a lot of academic spaces people wouldn't want to pick me for teams, like all types of stuff. I had to prove myself. I'm now in my fourth year at my college and now people are yearning for me to be on their group projects because they know the type of marketing plans and strategy and graphics that I can produce, because my professors brag about it, other students that I've worked with brag about it, and it's just like the work speaks for itself.

Speaker 1:

And so when you come to a place where you become comfortable and who you are and what you bring to the table, and you know that at the end of the day, because of the reps that you put in, you're gonna get the work done, it doesn't matter if people like you on the onset, you know at the end of the day, by the time you leave this meeting, by the time you leave this room, somebody's gonna feel you, but the only way they can feel you is if you actually speak. The only way they can feel you is if you actually take up space. And once I learned that it's okay to take up space, it's okay to breathe and actually be present in a room with people who are sharing their thoughts and ideas, I was able to propel myself so much more in my career and also in academic spaces, because one of the greatest pieces of advice that I've ever received from a mentor was that when you enter a room and you don't speak, you weren't in the room. No one was able to experience you because you shrunk yourself, you sat in the corner and you didn't interact with anyone. So how is anyone gonna be able to pick you or choose you or want you on their team if you're not being present and actively contributing to conversations and that's beyond physical spaces, that's also on social media as well.

Speaker 1:

So many of us want the platforms, we wanna do this, we wanna do that, but we're not making content, we're not existing and taking up space on people's explore pages and their for you pages. And how do you expect for people to find you if you're not putting in the reps and having conversations with them and creating pieces of content for them to see and say, hmm well, you know what she actually may be for me and I may want to be a subscriber or a follower of her. So in those spaces you just have to show up in you and when you show up in you, you attract more like-minded individuals. You bring on allies and sponsors and people who want to propel your career because they know that you're dope. And for the negative piece and asking how do you deal with haters and negative people? At the end of the day, you're always going to have haters, like Jesus had haters At the end of the day, if people ain't talking about you, you ain't poppin'. Pop your shh like. Do what you gotta do to get your job done. Don't be bragging, don't be boastful. Always be humble. I've always been humble.

Speaker 1:

But I feel as though no one can applaud your greatness, no one can give you the standing ovation you deserve if you don't show up and perform. How are people supposed to be like wow, she's great. If they've never met your greatness? And so many of us show up in these academic spaces and in work professional spaces and we just want to shy back and just be the title that we're given and it's just like. That's not what God called you to be. He called you to be so much more than a financial analyst. He called you to be so much more than a creative consultant. He called you to be so much more than just the accountant.

Speaker 1:

Just because your job to be done is to do that, doesn't mean that that is the only value add that you can contribute. And when you start to walk in your greatness, it's going to rub a lot of people wrong because they've been taught to come to work and just do the job that is to be done and go home. And while that may be very comfortable and joyful for them. I feel like as that girl. We are not called to just be career women. We are, all in all, renaissance women. We have so many different things about us that are magnificent, and that's what makes us invaluable.

Speaker 1:

When you dilute yourself to just a task doer, then at any point, your job can replace you, at any point your team members can replace you, and at this point you're not really contributing anything different. You want to be irreplaceable in every space that you occupy and the only way that you do that is by going above and beyond. And we're not saying you show up to work, you have on Celine and Prada shoes and you're quoting things from all types of books that you've been reading, and you're just going and doing all types Like it doesn't have to look a certain way, it doesn't have to sound a certain way. All it has to look and sound like is you, because they need your unique perspective at the table. That's why they hired you. They hired you because you have a skill set that they need. But they don't just need the skill set. They need your brain.

Speaker 1:

Use it, use your lived experiences, use your lived interactions and bring that to the forefront, bring that to the strategy and to the table and conversations, and I promise you that will move the needle so much further. And I'm telling you also, it's going to rub a lot of people wrong, but as God's people, we're going to rub people wrong because there's a certain light about us that when it shines in dark places it's going to make people scared. It's going to shake the table. But at the end of the day, don't you want to shake the table? Don't you want to change the status quo? Don't you want people to grow and expand when they are around you? That's the type of fragrance that I want to give off. I want when I enter the room. I know that once I leave it, the needle has been moved, we've made progress, because Ricky Lee showed up and when you set that sort of tone that once you are added to meetings, things are going to progress, once you're added to a team, things are going to progress.

Speaker 1:

That is how you grow your identity, capital, and it won't matter to you if you have haters or if you have negative people, because at the end of the day you get your job done and you're a pleasant woman, you're a graceful woman. You don't ever have to get loud and over talk people. You can get your point across and add what you want to contribute and say you know, while I do think differently about this, I would like to say this is what I think and this is why and I'm happy to discuss, you know, how we can come to a common ground to appease the both of us. But this is where my head is at this point and people can do nothing but respect that I feel like I don't have haters. I have people who recognize that I am not for them, but they have a level of respect for me because of the way that I carry myself.

Speaker 1:

I'm not upset or moved by how others feel about me. You don't like me? Cool, like what's new. There's a lot of people who don't like me. I'm a lot. My spirit, my walk with God, a lot of that is it's a lot. For people. It's off-putting because favor isn't fair and I have a certain grace about myself and while a lot of people have tried to throw crazy things at me, I've still remained me and that confuses people because they're just like. I've never seen that before. Normally when we say these sort of things, normally when we do these sort of things. It takes their humanity, and that's what the devil tries to do. He tries to take your humanity, he tries to take your moral compass and, as God's people, when you're tried by fire, you have to remind people in those situations that that's not me. I could never stoop so low and indulge in petty behavior because, as I always say, where eagles soar, pigeons cannot fly. I'm not worried about pigeon behavior because I've got places to go. So I hope that answered your question about both imposter syndrome and how to deal with haters and negative people.

Speaker 1:

The next question is how to keep your head up with a busy life. I would say that you should definitely listen to my podcast episode from season one, and it's like booked and busy or something else. I can't remember exactly the title of the episode because I've made so many episodes now. But we don't want to be busy bodies, right? We want to be intentional bodies. We wanna be people who are filling up our schedule with things that genuinely make us happy and genuinely make us grow, and so what I want you to do is do the life audit. It is inside of the Be Mindful Journal that is on my website, therickyleecom slash shop In this Be Mindful Journal is what I like to call the life audit.

Speaker 1:

It is a Venn diagram where you are able to list out all of the things that you are currently involved with people, places, your environment, your job, all of that and you're able to categorize them according to the feelings that they elicit. So does this thing bring you joy? Does this person bring you pain? Does this opportunity bring you growth? Like you're able to categorize things according to all of those three categories. And obviously there are overlapping areas where some things may bring you joy and growth. And those are the sweet spots. Those are the things that we wanna keep in our life and expand more in the year 2024.

Speaker 1:

And anything that's bringing you pain. You wanna figure out how you can put into place a graceful exit plan so you can rid yourself of all those things that are bringing you pain at this point. Because if you're keeping a busy life but it's making you keep your head down and you're feeling like sad and you feel like you're missing out on a lot, then we need to figure out how we can fill in more of that joy space and that overlapping part of joy and growth, because you wanna put a lot of things in your life that bring us growth right, but sometimes when you're growing, there's pains and the only way that you can bring things that are both joyous and growing you is by doing more of your hobbies, like I almost always find when I do that life audit that my hobbies are in between both of those spaces. Some of my hobbies are interior design, it's cooking, it's hanging out with friends, like those things really make me thrive. That's your thrive zone in your life audit, and I want more of those things in my life that are going to help me get through the busyness, get through the season where I'm doing a lot Because you're not busy.

Speaker 1:

Busy is like chasing the wind. Right, you're not busy, you're being intentional with your time and it's calling you. Well, it's not, it's calling you. God is calling you to more, so you're having to do more daily. However, while you're doing more daily, you can still be filling back up your cup. And how do you do that with that thrive zone, with those things that bring you joy and growth daily, so that you can feel like, oh well, while I did 9,000 things today, I at least did this one thing that brings me a lot of happiness and it's still growing me as a person, so I'm able to move with a sort of posture of grace every single day and gratitude that I get to do all of these amazing things Because at the end of the day, I'm taking care of myself.

Speaker 1:

When you're a busy person, you're a neglectful person, right? You have to do all of these things and by the time you get home, you're so exhausted with the day and all the things that you have to do that you can't even show up for yourself. And the last thing that you wanna do is neglect you. Because when you neglect you, I mean everything falls apart your apartment, your hair, your appearance, like everything just starts to look like you're going through it. And in 2024, I want women to stop feeling like we have to look like what we're going through.

Speaker 1:

Just because you're in a grind season doesn't have to make you look like you're grinding. You can be grinding, but also taking care of yourself, because I think that's also a grind as well Grinding for my appearance, grinding for how I show up. I should show up and look like I'm ready to work and not show up looking like I'm exhausted from last week and I've been in that space where my head was down and I was busy and I was just trying to show up and do everything that everybody told me to do and doing all of the things that everybody else put on my to-do list. And then I woke up one day and I said, all of this stuff is bringing me pain and, all hindsight, I don't feel like I'm growing from any of these opportunities. I'm, for darn sure, not joyful about any of these opportunities. So how do I figure out a graceful exit? God and God put into place so many stops along the way for me to close a lot of doors that I thought were going to take me down a path that was purposeful, but at the end of the day, those chapters I needed to close them in order to be able to move forward. So I hope that answers your question, so that you can start living more intentionally and just have a posture of grace in all that you do. Take care of yourself.

Speaker 1:

The next question is how do you focus on multiple projects or ideas at once? And that goes back to my previous point about monotasking. Monotasking is something that we all should be practicing this year and every year to come. I have found that when I do 30 to 60 day sprints focusing on one aspect of my influencing platforms, it really just grows everything exponentially. When you have yourself showing up in nine different areas, right? Just imagine it as a pie chart. Every single slice can't be 100%. The more slices you add up, the less you are able to give to each of those spaces, right, the less you're allowed to a lot.

Speaker 1:

And when you think about your life as a pie chart, think about where you are putting a lot of emphasis and focus. If this is a season of school, that's where your focus should be, because you need to put all that you can there so you can eventually remove that pie slice. Because what so many people do is they have this one thing that they're supposed to be focusing on and they're like I haven't finished this yet, but I still want to do this. So then they add another pie slice, then they add another pie slice and another pie slice and you just become there's like a lack of clarity and focus and you're all over the place. I know you feel like you're, you're able, you're capable and you you're just so ambitious and you want to do all of the things.

Speaker 1:

But at some point you have to get real with yourself and say, okay, what is the priority? Because you have to prioritize your priorities. Everything is not a priority, and somebody needed to hear that Some people are telling you that this is a priority and it's not. You may be telling yourself this thing is a priority and it's not For anybody that's listening and you're in school. School is the priority. The business can wait. The business and the clientele and all that stuff will come.

Speaker 1:

You can, you know, start to do some of the things and figuring out what you really want to do long term, but you shouldn't be trying to scale it while you're in school, because I promise you is going to get crazy and school is going to become less of the focus and your grades aren't going to look as good as they're supposed to and you're going to be looking around like well, dang well. Let me just focus on something else, since school ain't working. That's not how life works. You have to focus on one thing at a time. You only have two hands and you have to use both of them very diligently in one place to actually grow and manifest something. You can't just put one hand in it and have your one other hand elsewhere, thinking that you're actually going to grow and foster something that is going to flourish? Because you cannot. You have to have both hands present at the same time working on something diligently to really manifest the results that you want. And so what you're going to do is figure out a strategic plan where you can actualize results in so many of these different areas. But you realize that there are particular seasons that you can work on these things.

Speaker 1:

Some of us think that to build a business we need a whole year. We need to be doing the business all school year long, or, you know, for two years. We're planning on it and it's just like. All you need is a couple of weekend workshops to really build out your business plan. And you could do a VIP day with the agency and build out your entire marketing plan and your website and your logo. Those things exist.

Speaker 1:

You can do sprints, but you can't run five marathons at the same time. Are y'all hearing me? You can do sprints, but you cannot run five marathons at the same time. So what you'll have to do is figure out which marathon are you going to run right now. Are you running a 5k, and is that 5k for your YouTube? Then you have to stick with that 5k. But you can't be running five different marathons or events in the same day in the same year. You have to train and focus for one, finish that one and then you go to the next one.

Speaker 1:

And if you want to do a sprint in between from one marathon to another marathon and you want to say I want to do a sprint and, you know, develop this podcast, then do that. I want to do a sprint and write this book, then do that. And then the marathon is this other thing you have to define for yourself what is a marathon and what can be a sprint. And once you figure that out for every single little thing in your life, you will be able to get through so much more, so much more effectively. Because I realized that that girl radio For me it can be a sprint but it also can be a marathon. For certain projects that are aligned with that girl radio like, let's say, rebrands, that's a sprint, that is not a marathon. I can do that in a week, but for a marathon that's like a whole season of a catalog of work. I can't just sprint through that in one weekend. In hindsight it might sound good for me to pre-record six episodes, but because of the way the podcast episode content comes to me with time and through my lived experiences and conversations that I have on the day to day, it's so much better for me to record the episodes in real time. So for me, I've identified this project as a marathon.

Speaker 1:

The Ricky Lee Agency is sprints. For some agencies it's a continuous, ever-going marathon that never stops. But because I'm in school, I only have so many portions of the year that I can completely and wholeheartedly focus on developing my client's brand identities. So I've defined those sprint times as the summers and winter breaks. While I'm in school I might be training, I might be checking in and seeing things and brushing up on my skills, but at the end of the day, I'm only doing the sprints at certain parts of the year. So that would be my biggest piece of advice for people who are trying to focus on multiple ideas or projects at once Identify the amount of focus that it requires and the amount of endurance it requires, and then, once you do that, focus on just one thing at a time. That will be your best.

Speaker 1:

The next question we have is how can we decentralize men and less from our lives and recenter God Whew, this is going to get me together and a lot of you. I will say the first way to decentralize men is to recenter God. God's love is so abundant and when you receive and experience that for the first time, so many of us are trying to navigate relationships and love based on the love that we've received from parents or from previous lovers or from friends and a lot of capacities, that is not abundant, that is not unconditional, that is not patient, it's not the things that God has defined in the Bible. That is love. And so you're navigating the idea of love on a premise of a broken foundation and so we've centered lust because that's the next thing that we can get. We are guaranteed that we can get lust, but we're not guaranteed that we can get love.

Speaker 1:

And when you're navigating these situations with a cold heart but a warm body, it's really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really hard to find depth and genuine intimacy and vulnerability in these sort of situations that we have defined as the new golden age, era of relationships, that God didn't design relationships to have this middle ground. And it's really hard to de-center what society has normalized, like we have Hollywood Unlocked, justin LaBoy, the Shade Room, all of these different accounts that are spewing into our faces, the normalization of situationships and loosely sleeping with a bunch of different people, and you know, being a flown out girlie, and all of these different things. And you have to re-center for yourself what will keep you whole, what will keep you sane? Because when you continuously go after lustful situation after lustful situation after lustful situation and never truly experience love, you can trick yourself into thinking that you're not worthy of love, that you're not worthy of the real thing, because you never experienced the real thing. And so many of us are saying that you know, we haven't experienced love and this and this and this and that, and it's like uh, yeah, up duh, because you're out here continuously subjecting yourself to nothing but lust. And when you've experienced true intimacy with God and you've experienced his love and how boundless it is and how like he will move mountains for you, you will start to want a man that mirrors that, that is nothing but kind and caring and gentle with you and patient with you, and so many different things. And so once you de-center the likes of your roster and you start to re-center God and get back into your word and getting your daily bread, you will start to really be annoyed with the things that you've subjected yourself to.

Speaker 1:

There was a quote that I saw on this girl's page and I'm going to pull it up because I think this is very um telling of of of what we're talking about right now. And it says that where is this quote at y'all? I'm watching the video right now, okay, so it says what you're attracted to while you're broken will disgust you when you heal. And I think that is just so true and so prevalent and, you know, just real, like the things that I was attracted to when I wasn't the the woman of standard that I am today. Whew, it will probably. It brings me to tears because I just think to myself, like Ricky, if only you knew who you were back then, if only you knew what you were deserving of back then, you would have never subjected yourself to such piss, poor behavior and watered down love. That was just truly lust. You would have never indulged in such things because you would have known your worth.

Speaker 1:

And so when you de-center them and you re-center God, in a way, you're re-centering yourself. You're saying that you, you're standing on business, you're standing on his word and what he's called for you to have, and you're not going to allow yourself to just experience things, just to experience it. And a lot of times, the women around us who will encourage for you to break yourself will encourage you to subject yourself to really bad situations for the sake of the plot. And in 2024, we can't just be doing things for the plot anymore, because what it is doing is distracting your and destroying yourself, esteeming yourself worth. Every time you allow yourself to even be in close proximity to this person who is in the borderline of demon, you are devaluing yourself and you will start to see that God is. He feels like he's going further and further away from you, and it's not by his doing.

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God isn't removing himself from your life. You are removing him from your life because you went out of his way and out of your way to involve yourself in relationships that don't involve him, and so you have to stay away from him, to stay involved in those relationships and you'll find yourself lost and it's going to take you a long time to find yourself again after destroying yourself, worth your self image and your relationship with God, and you have to ask yourself is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is it worth one night of fun? Because that brings a lifetime of pain.

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There's a lot of choices that I've made in my early 20s and I've only been 20 for years, y'all and also you know at 18, 19 that I wish I could have changed, I wish I would have said no, I wish I would have been like absolutely not, you cannot be in my space because I know I'm worth so much more. I know where I'm going. You know I wouldn't even want to be attached to a man that looks like this, that feels like this Absolutely not. So love yourself and, first and foremost, love him, and that is what's going to attract a man that will love you in the same way Do that first girl. And with that lust I mean honestly. Once you have one really bad experience when it comes to lust and it not being all cracked up to what you thought it was going to be, you experience the warmth of that situation and then also the extreme cold of that situation. You will then learn that the only intimacy you should really crave, as a Godlike intimacy that, in totality, never goes cold, like it's always warm, it's always there for you, it loves unconditionally, it warms up unconditionally, you get what I'm saying. So once you experience that you won't ever, ever subject yourself to lustful situations that you know essentially are just stealing from you, they're not even giving you anything. They're literally robbing you of yourself, a seam, your self worth and so much more, and just for a temporary moment of satisfaction, you will endure a lifetime of pain, and when you realize for yourself that that is not worth it, you will be far less lustful.

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Moving on to the next question I am going to answer how do I enter my influencer era? Answering your influencer era looks like being able to first influence those around you, including yourself. You can Go for 30 days influencing yourself to do better, to be better, because to have a platform is very serious. When you can do that, that's how you can enter your influencer era. I would say really investing in a quality phone is the first thing that you can do. I know a lot of people say get a camera, but in my last episode I talked about hard habits to live a soft life.

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So many of us think that buying all of these things is going to make us the influencer. Buying these things is going to make us the lawyer, the nurse, all of these things. While buying those things may make you look like one, it's not going to make you one. You need to first consult your work ethic and your faith and have conversations with God and ask Him if that is in His plan for you. Are you called to be an influencer? Does he believe that you can influence the people and, if so, how are you going to influence the people? Once you get those answers, they will reveal themselves to you. You will start to want to start to show up, but you have to show up consistently. And once you show Him that, then so many other things are going to fall into place and the followers are going to come. The topics that you're going to discuss are going to start to come to your mind and everything is just going to start to flow.

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And once you've done that, I would say repetition is your best friend. Put in the reps. Figure out how you want to film your day in the lives. Figure out how you want to film your. Get Ready With Me. Figure out your secret sauce and your recipe to your videos.

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And when you have a video, go viral. Pay attention to how you edited it and then just duplicate that. Duplicate it, replicate it and see how it works. And more often than not, people are creatures of habit, like they love seeing the same thing because it reminds them of the thing that they'd seen previously. So if you have a certain editing style that you did on the video that went viral, just do it again and I promise you statistically there's no way that it won't do just as well, if not better, and just keep repeating it and growing it and scaling it and with time you can expand your repertoire of the content that you're producing, allowing them to get to know you a little bit better. And as they get to know you, they'll want to stick around and become not just followers but like your community, and they'll want to follow you along the way, no matter what portion of your journey it looks like. If you start off with fitness and now you're doing spiritual stuff, like no matter what you do, they will want to listen because you're not just influencing certain aspects of what they're doing, you're influencing the whole person. So that's how you're going to enter your influencer era, and if you want to know any other additional questions, you can DM me, but I'm going to go into the last question and then we are going to wrap up.

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The last question is I'm having some financial trouble with school and my family is so mean to me because I'm not able to finish school on time. I don't know how to still be happy and believe in myself, my love, my love, my love. You are worthy. Just because you are not finishing things according to their timeline does not mean that you are not worthy. It doesn't mean that you are not deserving of love. It doesn't mean that you aren't deserving of words of encouragement. Everyone falls short. You get what I'm saying. I've fallen short. I was very weary of telling my mother that I had failed a class because me, as you know, the smart girl and the girl who gets her work done, like you know, that's not expected of me, but at the end of the day, I'm human, you're human. We're going to fall short.

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Things aren't always going to go according to our plan and that's the most magnificent thing about life. Right Is that you can get it wrong, but you have a chance every single day that you wake up. That's an opportunity to get it right. Right, and getting it right doesn't necessarily mean finishing school. Finishing school this semester, that semester, getting it right looks like a pleasing God and His purpose path that he has for you. So pray to Him and ask Him like what does he want for you? What does he desire for you? And I feel like he does desire for you to finish school. So you have to figure out how you're going to refocus and what is your plan of action to redeem yourself and to get yourself right back on the right path, because I feel like God will knock you off sometimes of your track just to remind you that your plans are not your own right. Your plans are mine and he's going to make you endure certain hardships and things to reveal things to you about yourself.

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After I failed my class, I learned that I am resilient, and while I had thought that I had known that I was resilient before, I really learned that I was resilient after this, because I have experienced situations where I've entered a classroom a certain way and left a completely different way. I will never forget my seventh grade year. We had a summer project assignment to do and, according to the instructions, I thought I had done everything just right, but we were supposed to like do this story arc with this line that we were supposed to do and it just wasn't evident to me that that was what that was for, and so I got a C on the assignment and I'm not used to Cs at this point, like this is seventh grade, like I had been a straight, a girl. So I was just very confused, talked to this teacher and by the end of the year I was his favorite student. He was one of the people who actually wrote one of my college recommendation letters and from that situation I learned that you know how you start isn't necessarily how you have to finish. And no, I didn't go the entire year trying to prove myself or suck up to him or anything like that, but I was just me.

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I lived in who I was and I was never a quitter. I'm someone who, if you show me that I didn't do it right or that I got it wrong, I'm going to show you all the ways that I can get it right. You feel me Like I'm never going to allow you to knock me down and keep me down. I'm always going to get up and I'm going to show you and I'm going to show up and I'm going to work harder than everybody else that's up in here and I'm going to show you that I want it, and I might not be the smartest in the room, I might not be the prettiest in the room, I might not be the richest in the room, but I am going to work the hardest in the room and I'm going to be able to add and contribute something that no one else can.

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And that is what's allowed me to get back up again after failing a class, sitting in a room and feeling like man, why couldn't I get this right To now, being at a point where everything has fallen in line just perfectly, like the timeline that I'm on is perfect. I wouldn't have wanted to graduate any semester earlier, because this has given me the room to really experience and just think for myself like, what do I really want? I had come into college, I was going to graduate a whole year early, but this extra year because of me failing one class has given me quite a new perspective on like what it is that I want, what I want to be doing. I've been in Columbus a little bit longer and I've been able to network with so many different people that I otherwise wouldn't have. It's allowed me to start, you know, different business ideas and just do so much more because I've had so much more time.

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So don't question yourself or beat yourself up because things aren't going according to your timeline, because God has something that he's putting together that you don't quite understand right now, but you will understand in due time. So I really do hope that y'all enjoyed today's episode of our little Q&A session and, for those of you who submitted your questions, I really do hope that I answered them in totality and was able to give you some words of wisdom and encouragement. I want to end out in some prayer so that these words can really permeate your soul and your day to day, so that you can really go on your way and be that girl. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you asking that you allow these words of encouragement to really resonate in the hearts of the women who have listened today. We ask that you give them the strength and the wisdom to go on their way and continue to be the salt of this earth and the light of this world, because we know that you have called them to be more. We know that you've called them to be greater. We ask that you instill in her the confidence, the God-given confidence and will to do as you've told her to, that you allow her to walk in all of her light and all of her glory, that you show her that she is yours and that she is enough and that, no matter what the naysayers or anyone have to say, that she is her, that she is that girl In your son, jesus' name, we pray amen. I love you.

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Guys. If you're not already subscribed to that girl radio, make sure to do so, okay, and make sure to share these episodes with one of your friends. And if you haven't already reached out to someone in the that Girl community, make sure to do so important to her. Tell her how much you love her and how amazing she is, because some people are already doing it and it's lighting up so many people's days and I just received a message last week about someone receiving a message and it really just warmed my heart. So that's just to show the caliber of women that are listening Like you guys are truly special. I love you and I will catch you right and early tomorrow.