Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain

Emma prefers to share her thoughts with a microphone rather than a physical human being, so thank god she has a podcast. Recorded from the comfort of her bed, Emma talks at length about whatever is on her mind every week. Anything really does go on this podcast. Sometimes philosophy, sometimes a random story from 10 years ago, sometimes advice, and sometimes nothing at all. You never know what you are going to get, but that’s what keeps it interesting. New episodes every Thursday.

standing up for yourself

standing up for yourself

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 16:33

for so long i struggled with being a pushover and a yes man. i hated conflict, i hated thinking people could be angry with me, and i let people walk all over me. it sucked, and i know a lot of people struggle with this too. finally i had enough and started standing up for myself, and all those fears i had about how people would react never actually happened. so i’m here to help you guys out with the confidence to do it too, and explain why it’s the best thing you can do for yourself. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Carvana is in the business of driving you happy, and with the widest selection of used cars under $20,000, you're bound to find a car that'll put a smile on your face. They even offer customizable financing so you can plan your down and monthly payments to shop thousands of affordable vehicles 100% online. Download the app or visit carvana.com. Availability may vary by market. Hi everyone. I hope you all are having a gorgeous day. A gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous day. My drink of the day today is a bottle of water and. A cold brew. Nothing. Nothing crazy. Today I made my cold brew using the Chamberlain coffee cold brew elephant bags. They're like these massive. Bags filled with coffee that you throw into a Mason jar cover with water put in your fridge. Overnight. Wake up and you have multiple cups of coffee in the morning. Kind of a gorgeous thing. Why do I keep saying gorgeous today? That's my 4th gorgeous of the episode and we are 45 seconds in. You guys, this is scary. Anyway, those are my drinks of the day today, the reason why I have a bottle of water. Next to my bed. Is because. I woke up this morning severely dehydrated. And. The reason for that is that I don't drink water. I don't know how I'm alive. I'm serious. I do not drink water. It's so weird. I just don't drink water. I never think to do it. I always forget. I like drinking other things. I just don't drink a lot of water and it's not good, but today I woke up and felt genuinely ill and. It only took me a moment to realize why, and it was because I hadn't. Consumed more than a glass or two of water. In the past two weeks. And so, you know, I'm just kind of. Hitting rock bottom a little bit. And I really need to prioritize my water consumption anyway. You don't care. You don't care. Let's get into today's topic, which is. How to be nice? Without being a pushover. How to stop being a yes man? How to stop? Letting people walk all over you. How to stand up for yourself? Without feeling guilty. All of this, all of this is today's episode. I'm going to be giving some advice. I'm going to be telling you about my journey as to how I stopped being a pushover. Yes man. And why I think it's an important thing. To work on and and we all are on different. Parts of this journey in life, you know what I mean. Some people were never a pushover. They always stood up for themselves. They don't have an issue with this some people. Struggle with this severely on a daily basis and it controls their life and some people are a little bit in the middle. So, you know, take all this advice with a grain of salt. And let's discuss. Let's discuss so. I want to start by giving some examples of how I used to be. Kind of a pushover. And a yes man. In my everyday life. A good example would be that I never used to. Enforce having people pay me back, like let's say I'd go to dinner. With a group of people. And we would agree that we were going to split dinner. If somebody you know would forget their card or forget their wallet or something like that. I would always be the one that ended up paying. And. They would always say, you know, oh, I'll pay you back. I'll pay you back. I swear. I swear. And then they wouldn't. And when I was younger, I didn't have an income. You know, I was spending my, my parents money. When I would go out to eat with my friends or something like that. I didn't have a job, you know? So, like, I'm not spending my own money. And so when someone else doesn't pay me back. They're not paying my parents back. You know what I'm saying? I like this wasn't my money to be spending, right? So. My parents would be like, hey, like, can we be paid back for for this dinner that you, you know? Paid for or whatever. And I would be too scared to ask my friends to pay me back, even though, you know, I know their family situation. They could have paid me back. It wasn't like because I'm not somebody who. Ever has been like, oh, I'm not paying for someone's meal. Ever. Even if they need help, like, no, if somebody needed help and they needed, you know me to pay for their dinner and and that was the situation, like, I would do that in a heartbeat. My parents would do that in a heartbeat, no questions asked. But if somebody just isn't paying you back just because they don't want to or they don't feel like it or they're too lazy or they forgot, that's not an excuse, you know what I'm saying? That's there's no excuse for that. And if it was a agreed upon, then you know it. That's a fully different situation. But I used to never. Ask anyone to pay me back and. You know, that didn't really directly hurt me. It hurt my parents, which is ******** for them, but I just never could get myself to do it because I was so scared that they were going to get mad at me, that they were going to think I was being annoying, that I was going to be that girl that asked to be paid back and I just, like, couldn't. Bear to do it. Another example. Of me being a pushover. When I was younger, would be when I would be at. A store, let's say a Barnes and Noble and I would be picking up a few books for school and. I would be checking out in purchasing the books and. The cashier checking me out. Would say hey. Do you want to sign up for a Barnes and Noble credit card? You'll get 10% off of your purchase now and moving forward. You know you'll get. Coupons in your e-mail every week, whatever. I literally did not know how to say no to these things when I was younger. Like if somebody would ask me that. I would not know what to do and. Half the time I would use the excuse that. My mom didn't let me sign up for a promotional deals, but if that wasn't flying and the cashier wasn't taking no for an answer, I would end up like signing up for things and then having to like make my mom cancel the membership so the credit cards or the loyalty programs later. Because I could not say no, could not say no. I felt too bad and I was scared. I was like, well, what if, like, what if, you know, the this cashier, like, makes a Commission off of this? And what if they're really struggling and I don't know and like, blah, blah, you know? And I was stressed out and I would feel so bad. And so I ended up just signing up for **** and then canceling it a week later. I also feel like I used to let people take advantage of my kindness a lot when I was younger. Like. People would go out of their way to ask me for a ride somewhere or ask me to cover their dinner or ask me to, you know, let them borrow clothes that they were never going to return back to me or. Anything in that sort like like I think a lot of people used to. Kind of prey on me a little bit. Not intentionally. I'm not saying like everybody was out to get me, but I think that subconsciously when I was younger, a lot of people. Would take advantage of me. Without even realizing that they are doing it because they were like, well, Emma says yes to everything, so let's just use that to her benefit. Like, see how far we can test the limits. I don't think anybody meant to do it. I'm not saying that because I don't think that anybody meant to do it, but I think that it happened. Just because people knew that I was such a pushover and such a yes man and I could not say no and I would do whatever I could to just please everybody because I just didn't want conflict. I didn't want drama. I wanted everybody to be happy. And you know. I'd rather inconvenience myself or put myself out then. To have any kind of. Drama, right? The reason why I was so. Adamant about. Being. As accommodating to everybody as possible. Was because I was. Living in fear of people being angry at me and I don't know why that is, but I had this genuine fear growing up of people being angry at me. I was constantly. Avoiding anger at all costs and. I also was living in constant fear of people turning on me as well. Now again, I don't know what that stems from either, but I was living in this. Never ending. Prison in my mind, where I felt like. I couldn't stand up for myself. I couldn't say no to anything. I couldn't. Make a selfish choice every once in a while. Because if I did, then people would be angry at me, people would turn on me, people wouldn't want to be my friend anymore, people wouldn't want to hang out with me anymore, and I would be alone, surrounded by people. Who are angry at me and that was so scary to me that I just. Refused to. Even try to stand up for myself or try to say no every once in a while. It was also one of those things where. I had lived my whole life. As a pushover, just letting people push me around, walk all over me, you know, take advantage of me. They want whatever. I had lived like that for my whole life, so I didn't know what would happen if I tried to say no. I didn't know what would happen if I tried to stand up for myself, because I genuinely had never done it before. So I was like, this is an unknown, and in my imagination I've convinced myself that. If I shift my behavior. In a way that's a little bit more self-serving. I'm going to be. Screwed like my life will be ruined and I will regret it. Right. I think it also kind of. Relates to the confidence and self respect that I had as a child. I think that I felt very unworthy as a child, just in general. I think a lot of children feel like that, but I just always felt like I needed to earn. Love and respect, right? Like I needed to earn. Uh, kindness towards me and and respect and love towards me. Like I needed to earn that. And in my mind I felt like, OK, in order to earn that, I need to be the most agreeable, easygoing, yes, yes, yes, person on the planet. I didn't feel confident that. I had enough to offer. To be able to say no every once in a while. I felt like I wasn't good enough to say now. I was like, oh, I'm not a. I'm not a valuable enough person to be able to say no if I want to and. You know, I don't know why I think most young people don't think of themselves as like, the most amazing, perfect person on the planet. I think most young people feel really uncertain of who they are and really uncomfortable in their own skin, and I think that's a common. Issue right? So I'm not saying that, like, this is like a very unique to me sort of situation. I think a lot of people can probably relate to that, but I think that for me personally, that's why I was such a pushover. But after years of being a pushover. And just saying yes to everything and just trying to please everyone and living like this, I found that it had some negative effects on me personally. For one. It made my confidence plummet even more because as I continued. To be a pushover. People kept pushing me over and every time somebody would take advantage of me in some way or I would say yes and inconvenience myself, my confidence would drop a little bit, I felt like. There was a direct correlation between my confidence and whether or not I told the truth when somebody asked me, hey, can you do this for me, or? Hey, can you sign up for this membership at our store so that you know we can make more money like? Every time I lied to those people and I said, yes, I can do this. Yes, I can do that for you. Yes, I can sign up for your scam of a membership. Sure, yes, I can do that. And I lied to them. I would end up feeling like **** about myself because I started to see myself as someone who was. Almost dishonest, because I was saying yes to everything. One, my real answer was no, I can't do that. Well, I could, but no, I don't wanna do that. You know? I don't want to do that. That's not something I want to do. That's something that's very inconvenient for me and something that I don't want to do every time that I wouldn't say that which was my truth, right? I would feel. Really bad about myself. So that wasn't very good on top of that. I started to notice that. Every time. Somebody would ask me for a favor or. Something like that and I would. Lie and say that it was something that I wanted to do. And then I would do that favor for that person. I would end up feeling angry at the person. Let's say for example, my friend and I are going to a party and my friend says, hey, can I borrow? A pair of pants from you for this party. I don't want to let my friend borrow that pair of pants because those are my favorite pants. And if my friend wanted to wear any other pair of pants in my closet, sure, but not that pair because that is my favorite pair of pants. But let's say I said yes anyway, because I just wanted to take the path of least resistance, and I wanted to be easy going and I wanted to be a yes man. And let's say I said yes, and then my friend wore those jeans, those pants, whatever, to the party. That night. Even though I'm the one that let my friend wear those pants. For whatever reason. I would still find myself being angry at the friend. Which is actually unfair, right? Because my friend asked and said, hey, can I wear these pants? I said yes, as far as they know. Those are just any other pair of pants in my closet. They don't mean anything to me. And then all of a sudden my friend notices. Why is Emma kind of being weird? Like, why is she kind of, like angry at me or annoyed with me? I don't know. Like, what could it be? Like? I don't think anything's going on. Like, what's going on in my head? I'm all ****** ***. Then I'm letting my friend wear my pants because I didn't want that to happen, but yet this was a whole self-inflicted. Issue I could have just said. Hey, you know what? Those are my favorite pants. I don't let anyone wear those, but like, you can wear this pair. I could have just said that in the moment. And then I wouldn't be resenting my friend, and my friend would still have a great pair of pants for the party. You see what I'm saying? By me. Being a pushover, I was then. Getting angry. At others. Because I said yes when I didn't want to, and that's not fair because that's not their fault. I felt very out of control as well because. I mean, obviously I felt like a spineless idiot. I felt like I could just be pushed around, you know, in any which way. And I didn't have control over it because if somebody were to ask me if they could borrow $1000, you know, I might say yes, even if I don't have $1000 to give. And and that's and and feeling like I'm out of control of my own responses. Made me feel very scared because I was like, I don't know how to handle these situations that are uncomfortable. I don't know how to say no, so I feel out of control. I also felt like I didn't know how to protect myself. I didn't even care to protect myself. I just let people. Do whatever they wanted to me. You know what I mean? Like. Use my money, use my belongings. Use my shoulder to cry on, whatever it may be. And whether I wanted to do it or not, I was going to do it regardless and. That. Was unsettling for me because it almost felt like I. Was living robotically. And just. Doing whatever other people told me to do and it just was not. Good because? In a way, I think that humans. Or at least some humans. Kind of have a split brain. One side of your brain is your emotional side of your brain and one side of your brain is your more logical side of your brain, right? And a lot of times. Your emotional side will say, well, I just want to help everybody and be nice to everybody and do nice things for everybody. But then the logical side of your brain says, no, you can't always do that. Sometimes you need to prioritize yourself, sometimes you need to put yourself first. And you know, you might have to say no every once in a while. You might have to say that's not gonna work for me. Every once in a while you might have to say no, thank you. I don't want to do that every once in a while. And that's OK. But. For majority of my life. I didn't listen to the logical side of my brain as much as I should have. In majority of the time I was listening to, you know, the more emotional side of my brain that just wanted to help people and avoid. Any conflict or drama? OK, so I've told you guys about circle before, right? Spelled CIRKUL. 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But I I didn't really like many people, so I found myself in this in this period of my life where, number one, I didn't like very many people. #2I avoided as many in person. Contacts. As possible. Like for example, if I could order something to be delivered to my front door, I'm going to do that instead of going into a store. Unless it's a store like Whole Foods that has self checkout. I I would prefer. To avoid. Human to human contact. And last but not least, people in my life were starting to say to me, Emma, you need to stop saying yes to everything. Like people in my life were starting to be like, this is actually a problem, and they were bringing it up to me. And that was embarrassing to me. And those three things combined made me have this realization that I can't be living like this anymore. And. Something's gotta change. I would say that like the first few months. Of. Really trying to. Be true to myself and tell the truth about. What I want to do and what I don't want to do. Was the hardest because. It was like. Trying something completely new, you know, I had never. Said no. When it was uncomfortable to say no, I'd always said yes, you know? And so. I didn't really know what was going to happen right when I would. Tell somebody that I couldn't help them out with something or that I needed them to pay me back for. That vacation we went on or. That dinner we we went to or. That pair of shoes that I let them borrow and they never gave back. Like when I'd be asked to be paid back when. I would tell somebody that I was too tired to go to dinner and I needed to cancel. Whatever it may be. My first few months of saying no, finally. For the first time in my life. Was very scary for me because I. Expected. People to be angry at me. Every time I would do it. And every time I would do it, I was scared. I was like, this is the time that someone's gonna get mad at me. But you know what I found? No one got mad at me. Nobody got mad at me when I would ask somebody to pay me back, when I would tell somebody that I'm too busy to hang out. When I would say that. I don't have time to help them move this week because I have too much work to do when I would say that. I just don't have it in me emotionally too. Talk on the phone at a certain given moment, like. When I started. Saying no. Nothing bad happened. Everybody would just be like ohh OK no problem. Every time I can't name one time when I've stood up for myself or asked for something or said no to something where someone's been angry, I can't name one time nobody got angry. Nobody's ever gotten angry. And that gave me confidence. I was like, wait a minute, people still want to be my friend. People still want to hang out with me. People still like me. People still think I'm a valuable person in their life, even when I say no. Or even when. I'm not a pushover, and in fact what was crazy was people actually started to respect me more and they started to want to hang out with me more and people. Just generally liked me more. And it was beautiful. And my confidence grew because I was like, you know what? I'm a valuable person in people's lives, even when I don't say yes to every single thing that they ask me for, even when I stand up for myself and. I don't always let other people get their way. They still like me. Even if they don't get their way with something in regards to me. Because I didn't want to do something. They still like me. You know, I'm not just a valuable person in people's lives because I'm a pushover. Holy ****. Wow. This is awesome. And. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. It was a beautiful thing. I was like, wow, I I mean it was life changing for me. And I think really what it all comes down to. When it comes to standing up for yourself in life. Is delivery. How do you stand up for yourself? In a way that. Is respectful and kind and. Rational? It's all about the delivery, because let's use an example here. Let's say your friend didn't pay you back for dinner. And you want them to pay you back. You have two ways. Of going about getting this money one way we'll make your friend angry. In one way we'll make your friend. Feel neutral and they'll just be like. Oh. OK, yeah, sorry, I forgot to pay back. OK, here's the money, you know what I mean? If you want to make your friend angry. Approached them. With a frustrated tone, be like. OK, dude, like you didn't pay me back like it's been a week and like you told me you'd pay me back the night that we went to dinner. You never paid me back. What the ****? OK, now your friend's gonna get defensive and be like, whoa, they're gonna feel attacked, and then they're gonna get angry. And then there will be an argument. But if you go to your friend and you say. Like? Hey, I haven't seen the Venmo payment come through for dinner last week, it's no worries, just let me know. I mean, that's so chill. That's a text message version or in person just be like. Hey by the way, like. No rush on paying me back for dinner, but. Just, you know, wasn't sure if, like, you forgot or the payment didn't go through or whatever, you know, you can go about it in a way that's like, nice. You know what I'm saying? My favorite thing to do is be like, hey. Like, no worries at all, but like, I just wanna make sure that you didn't send. The payment to the wrong person? Like I'm looking out for you, but I didn't get paid back yet so I'm just like wondering. If you, like, pay back the wrong person because that would be so bad. And, like, you need to check up on that because you don't want your money in some random person's bank account. That would be so bad, right? Like, I'm just looking out for you. But yeah, it doesn't show that you paid me back, so you probably accidentally paid back someone else. Oh no, wait, that's so bad. You're going to need to get that money back. I'm. You're welcome for helping, though. Helping? You notice that, like me, I still kind of, like, beat around the Bush a little bit. Sorry. Sorry, but. Yeah, as long as you deliver. Things with. Kindness and rationality. And. Peace. Nothing bad's going to come of it, and you standing up for yourself is only going to. Help? Others respect you even more and also help people understand what you are willing and are not willing to do if you're constantly lying. To yourself and to others about things that you're willing to do. Then other people are going to start to think, Oh well. Emma doesn't mind. Driving me. To and from work every day, you know, because my car is in the shop like, Emma doesn't mind doing that. It's not an inconvenience because she keeps saying yes, so it's probably fine when deep down you're like this is a huge inconvenience. In my day, I don't have the time to be driving this person to and from work every day while their cars in the shop, but I'm doing it because. I don't want to say no, and it's really inconveniencing me and I've been late to work three times this week because of, you know, what I'm saying like. If you're honest with yourself and everybody else, good things will come and. There's only good that can come from it. I think especially in relationships this is huge. Because. I know that. It's one thing to stand up for yourself in real life. With your friends, with your family, with strangers on the street. But it is the hardest. To stand up for yourself in relationships, in my opinion, because. When love enters the equation. You know, you, you turn you, you turn a little bit. Softer than usual, a little bit more vulnerable than usual, a little bit more. Agreeable than usual, especially in the beginning of a relationship. I would say this this applies. In the beginning of a relationship, for some, throughout an entire relationship, it just depends on you. But I know that for me, I was such a pushover. In my first few relationships, I said yes to everything, in anything and everything. I would help them out do things I didn't want to do. Agree with things that they would say that I didn't agree with, blah blah blah. Just because. I wanted them to continue to like me and I felt like if I. Wasn't. On the same page as them saying yes to every. Thing that they would. Ask me to do for them that they would no longer like me and everything would go in the trash can. But The funny thing was is that in my first few few relationships the guys did not respect me like at all. And you know. They should have anyway, you know, like it's like one of those things where. I was kind of at fault, but also they were kind of at fault in a way. They were at fault because you should just respect people no matter what, period. But I was at fault because I wasn't being honest with them and I was, you know, constantly agreeing with everything, blah, blah, blah, blah. That doesn't demand respect when you stand up for yourself and. You say you know what? No, I'm not going to do that. And. You make them work around your schedule and your life like you do for them. Then that makes them respect you. Because not only did I used to say yes. To everything in relationships, but I also. Would. Go out of my way. To schedule my life around whoever I was dating. So like if. A guy would say to me, hey, can we hang out on Friday? I would look on my calendar and see, oh God, I have a meeting on Friday. For work and I would reschedule that meeting. Just so that I could. Respond to the guy at the time and say, yes, I'm free on Friday. I'm just so that I wouldn't have to say, can we maybe, like go hang out another day? I don't know what was wrong with me, you guys. I mean, listen, nothing was wrong with me. I was just scared of rejection and people being angry at me and people hating me, blah blah blah blah blah. But I mean like living like that is not good. Living like that is not good and. I know that you know when you're in a new relationship. Especially or you're just in a relationship in general and you just happen to be more of a yes man type of person. It can be really exhausting. To keep up. The yes man. Persona in a relationship. And you're going to end up finding yourself frustrated and exhausted and you're it's just not a good thing. A person that you're dating is not going to stop liking you because you say. I don't want to do that. I don't wanna. Help you with that right now. I'm busy that day. Blah, blah blah. It's just not going to happen. Like, unless you're being out of line genuinely in some way, chances are. Nobody's going to get mad at you. And that applies to relationships and the rest of life. Relationships just being the hardest of them all in my opinion. Once you learn how to stand up for yourself. You truly do feel liberated and it's an amazing, amazing feeling just to feel like. You're only doing stuff that you really want to do in life. And you're never inconveniencing yourself. Beyond what you're capable of. And. You have more time for yourself at the end of the day, you know you have more time to focus on you when? You're not saying yes to every little thing that everybody else is asking you to do all the time. Umm. And your confidence will naturally grow from it as well, and you you'll just feel more. True to yourself and confident in your own skin. Now, all of this is to say that. We all have moments when we don't have the courage to stand up for ourselves. I still have moments like this. There are still moments. When? I'm in a store and the cashier asks me if I want to sign up. For their membership program where I get 20% off a month and free coupons in my e-mail every single week. Where I have to? Literally force the word no out of my mouth. There are still days when it's tough. There are still days when somebody will ask me for a favor or will ask me to go to dinner and I won't be feeling it, and I'll say yes because I just feel bad. There are still times like that. I still have moments like that. But they're far and fewer between. And. I hope to eventually reach a point where I only do things that I truly want to do. In life. Because I think that. By doing that. It just creates a happier life. Being a pushover is only saying yes when you want to say no. There are going to be a lot of times in life when somebody asks you for a favor. Somebody asks you if you like something or not. Someone asks you. If you want to sign up for their membership at their store, there might be moments where you want to say yes. So you know it's not like. Now that you're no longer a pushover, you say no to everything. No, not at all. There are still endless opportunities to say yes, to help people, to. Be agreeable in in many ways, but it's just about. Being a little choosier about. When those moments are. What does it really take to make it in New York City when you're young? The come up is a new freeform docu reality series on Hulu. It follows 6 ambitious creative 20 somethings in NYC as they break the status quo and take up all the space. It's a real look into how this next generation of icons are breathing life back into the downtown scene, all while pursuing their dreams, which is a long way of saying they're killing it. The show follows Sophia, a breakthrough photographer who shot her first spread for nylon at just 13 and has been shooting major campaigns ever since. Fernando Modeling's next international star, Tawfiq, the youngest fashion designer to show at New York Fashion Week, Claude, a New York native and aspiring actress. 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And this is like a real show where you can have people listening live and you can pick exactly which songs to play, and you can even have fans calling in to chat while you're on air. If I had a live show, I would definitely. Have people call in and ask me for dating advice honestly, so I think I'd have to do dating advice. You know what this actually sounds like the perfect radio show. Sad music combined with dating advice, because all of the shows on AMP are run by real people. You can tell that the playlists are authentic. A playlist generated automatically just sounds different than one that an individual is controlling based on their passions and tastes. And with 10s of millions of licensed songs to choose from, everyone will find the music that appeals to them. But it's not just music. You can have a talk show, or react to news, or riff on pop culture, and that's one of the best parts about being a podcast host. You can just riff. On whatever. Excites your mind on any given day. So download AMP today in the App Store that's a amp, or ask Alexa to play amp. Putting yourself first. Is very different from being selfish. Being selfish. Is being. Careless. It's. Rooted in anger a little bit more. It's rooted in ego. A little bit more, it's rooted in. Immaturity a little bit more. Being selfish is. Not helping others because you're too hyper focused on yourself. And you see yourself as the most important. Person on the planet and nobody. Else matters blah blah blah. That's being selfish, but putting yourself first? Is just. Making yourself. A priority. Instead of making everyone else a priority. It's kind of like splitting the difference. It's like. Now you give yourself the same attention that you give everybody else. Instead of you giving yourself no attention and giving everybody else all the attention, being selfish is like only giving yourself attention and then not giving anyone else any attention. Like almost not even seeing other people, being almost oblivious to other people. That's being selfish, but. Putting yourself first. Is kind of putting everybody on an even playing field, you and everybody else. And on a case by case basis. Choosing what's best for you and the other people, you know what I mean. I don't know. Sometimes I go into these metaphors and it gets so abstract that, like, I even start to lose what I'm like. What am I even really going for here? Like? What does this mean? You know, like whatever. All right, to wrap up this episode, I thought we would do a little. Q&A About standing up for yourself, so I asked you guys on the Twitter at AG podcast. To ask me questions about how to stand up for yourself, etcetera, etcetera. So let's get into it. How to know if you should stand up for yourself or if you're just being too sensitive? Slash defensive. This is such a good question because. There have been many times in my life when I've been upset about something. And. I've almost brought it up. But then I've taken a second to sit back and really think. Am I upset because this person did something wrong to me or am I upset because? I got my own issues going on. And if I sit back, give myself a few hours, maybe even sleep on it. For 24 hours. And I revisited the situation and I'm still angry. Then I'll bring it up. But more often than not, if I sleep on it. I might wake up the next day and say, you know what? I'm not really angry anymore, actually. I was just taking out my anger on this person and my frustration on this person. So that I didn't have to address the real issue. Which could be. A number of different things in my personal life, you know what I'm saying? So I do think that it's important. When standing up for yourself. To make sure that you're coming from a place of. Calm as much as possible. Obviously, if your boyfriend cheats on you, you can go bang on his door and scream at him. I give you permission to do that because that's like the ultimate betrayal. Or if you're best friend. Like spreads a really evil rumor about you around the school, and you know for certain that she's the one that did it again. You have permission to approach that with anger, but with something. That is a little bit less. Evil like forgetting to pay you back for dinner or. Something of that sort. It's good to sleep on it and try your best to approach it with a cool, calm and collected. Headspace, because not only will that be received the best by the other person, but also. You can be more certain that you are. Acting out of rationality rather than anger. You want to be rational in as many areas of your life as possible. It just is. It's better. It's better to be rational than emotional in most scenarios, I would say. Yeah, I think I stand by that claim. Again. I'm just a child. When we really look at it, I'm just twenty, OK? I'm sometimes I'm like in the middle of, like, giving advice and I'm like, who is listening to me? Do I even know what I'm talking about? I think I did. Like, I I hope so. Whatever, listen, all of this is alleged. All of my advice is alleged. But also, I mean, I stand by it. I would say. Subject to change, though you know you never know anyways. OK, moving on. Somebody said I have a friend who shared stuff with my ex that I didn't want her to and is now acting like it was what was needed. How do I tell her it really wasn't without hurting her feelings? I see. You know, you just need to have a conversation with her. Maybe it's even shooting her a little text. Depending on how deep of a situation this is, I'm not sure. And just say listen. I know that you had my best interests at heart, but I just want you to know that the way that you handled this situation hurt me and. It it didn't make me feel good and you know, I want your loyalty to be with me rather than my ex-boyfriend. Because that makes me feel the most, you know, comfy in our friendship and. I I'm. I totally forgive you for for this, but I just wanted you to know that it made me upset so that we can just avoid this happening again. Somebody said how do you get your point across in a way that it actually gets understood? I think that this circles back to approaching a situation in a rational, calm way. Rather than in angry emotional way because. Angry conversation. Never leads to any sort of solution. I know personally, when I'm being yelled at, I immediately stop listening or absorbing information immediately because I just go into defense mode. When somebody comes at me in a calm and rational way and explains something to me, whether it's a really good thing or it's a really bad thing, I'm able to fully absorb what they're saying because they're approaching me in a way that does not feel like I'm being attacked. So my defense doesn't go up. I am receptive to information when somebody approaches me in a cool, calm, and collected. OK, also when you're cool, calm and collected and you're relaxed and. You're honest and you're rational. Whatever. You're better able to organize your thoughts when you're angry. Your brain is like a jumbled mess, so. That's what I would say about that. Somebody said literally. Why is it so hard to stand up for myself? I honestly think it's hard because. It's scary. Most people don't like conflict. They don't like drama and. Saying no or disagreeing. Or standing up for yourself. Is something that has the potential to cause conflict for sure, and if done correctly, most of the time it won't. But even if done correctly, it can still cause conflict. There is potential for conflict with every disagreement, with every, no with every. Instance of standing up for yourself. But it what it really comes down to is that. Short term. Saying yes and being a yes man is the safest bet, but long term it's not long term. You'll lose respect for yourself. Other people will lose respect for for you. You'll grow resentment. Towards people. It's not worth it long term. Short term it's easy, long term not so good. Somebody said, are you standing up for yourself? If you're standing up for your ideas, I would say yes. All ideas, all creations that come from you are an extension of you, and standing up for your ideas is very much standing up for yourself. Somebody said how to stand up for yourself in a work environment while still trying to remain professional. Again, I think that this really comes down to delivery, I think in a work environment. You need to approach it. In an even more rational way than you do in your personal life. Like imagine how you. Approach a confrontation with your friends. In an ideal way, which would be cool, calm, and collected. Now imagine that. But times 10 you're even more cool, calm and collected. You're even more rational. You've thought about it even more. You've, you know, marinated in it even more. Maybe you've written down some notes in a journal about. What you want to say when you stand up for yourself in this work environment? Maybe you? Sat in the bathroom and took deep breaths and thought about it. Maybe you write it all out in an organized e-mail instead of going in and directly confronting the situation. Whatever it may be, I think that the best way to handle. Standing up for yourself in a work environment is to just prepare yourself even more and. I think that that preparation will make you feel more confident. If you have something planned. If you have. What you want to say planned out? And you're in a headspace where you feel. As cool, calm and collected as you possibly can be. Then I think you're in a great spot. Somebody said how to stop feeling guilty when I stand up for myself. I think you need to remember that. You are. Of valuable. And amazing human being yourself, because. I know it's easy for some of us to put other people on a pedestal around us, and we see ourselves as below everyone. We see ourselves as less important. But that is not true. We are just as important. In special and. Awesome. I don't know. As everyone else. And so we don't need to feel guilty for putting ourselves first sometimes. Because sometimes, and for some of us, most of the time, we put everybody else 1st. Every once in a while it's our turn to be first in line to get what we want. To have our voice heard properly every once in a while, we deserve that. As much as possible, we deserve that. You know what I'm saying? And so you shouldn't feel guilty about standing up for yourself. Because. You deserve it, just like everyone else that you know does. OK, you guys, that's all I got for today. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you enjoyed, I loved hanging out with you per usual. Can't wait to talk again next week again per usual. If you want to subscribe to anything goes or follow anything goes, you can do so on any place that you stream this podcast. You can also follow anything goes on Twitter at AG Podcast or Instagram at anything goes. What else? You can check out my coffee company, Chamberlain coffee.com. We have a lot of fun stuff over there, including the cold brew bags that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, if you've stayed this long. I love you so much. Here's my cat. She's not making sounds. So sorry about that. You do not get cat. Cat purring sounds in today's episode, unfortunately. Maybe next episode? Stay tuned for that. It's possible it might happen in the next episode. Umm. And what else? That's all I got. I appreciate you guys so much and I hope you all have an amazing rest of your week. We will talk soon. Bye.