Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 271 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Thank you so much for sharing episode 270 about relationships, It seemed to resonate with you guys and I’m so glad. Relationships are one of the most important things in our lives. Our relationship with other people is a really big component in shaping our overall attitude. You know what else is a huge component in shaping our attitude? Our relationship with ourself.
When I was 17, I was a senior in high school. Unbeknownst to me, I was nominated for Miss Senior, and also nominated for homecoming court which would be decided by the football team, announced at the homecoming football game. If you’ve been listening for a while, you know I was raised in a pretty strict religion where we were not allowed to associate with people not of the religion, but we still had to go to public school. Just wanting to set the stage for what happens next.
For most girls, that would be reason to be pretty excited. For me however I remember being mortified. How was I supposed to explain to my parents that I played no role in being chosen for that, I didn’t lobby for it and had no idea it was even a consideration until it was done. I would never have considered myself popular. I wasn’t allowed to go to parties or football games or hang out after school or on the weekends with the kids I went to school with. And I had no idea that I had been voted Miss Senior let alone nominated to be on the homecoming court.
Privately of course I was honored, how could I not be, outwardly though I was trying to just make sense of it all and what I was gonna tell my parents. The Miss Senior thing was done, but homecoming court was a whole other ball game. That was announced at the football game and you ride in the parade and the whole thing, none of which my parents were going to let me do. So I had to get up the nerve to tell my parents about it. I know this all sounds foreign because most parents would be proud and say how cool that is and what an honor but not mine because the religion has pretty strict stances on pretty much everything. So I broke down and had the conversation. Miss Senior didn’t involve me having to do anything extra curricular, it was just a picture in the class yearbook, they didn’t like it at all but what were they gonna do at that point? But homecoming court was a problem so my dad said You have to tell them you aren’t going to be part of it and to remove your name from nomination. I figured that and hated doing that but at the time, I had no choice, so I hunt down one of my friends on the football team and I tell him. Im not allowed to be considered for this honor so please take my name off the list or whatever it was. I don’t remember because I was too embarrassed to process it but Im sure he was like “What???” Whatever, or worse he probably felt sorry for me. Ok so that was handled.
That wasn’t even the hard part of the story. The hard part came when I had to deal with the conversations that came from the people in the church because of my being nominated for these honors. Like the one where my dad sat me down and said You’re pretty but you’re not that pretty. We’ll come back to that, I promise… Or where another lady in our church pulled me aside and said “You getting those awards, that’s not something you should be proud of, it’s not something we are impressed by”. Ok, what do you say to that, right? At 17 how do you handle that? For me it was just all so confusing and embarrassing and also a little bit cool that I was actually honored by my classmates, how could it not be, right?
Now. Why tell you this story? It’s interesting but also you see, when my dad had that talk with me about being pretty but not that pretty, I remember feeling hurt but I also remember it not destroying my confidence, you know why? Because I knew where it was coming form. What dad says that to his daughter? My dad isn’t a monster, quite the opposite, he’s awesome but he was also very very scared of where all that could head. In his own way, he was simply trying to keep my feet on the ground and also manage expectations of the other elders in the church who were watching all of this with judgement. So a lot of this conversation had to do with fear. Fear of what all this could mean for him and his position in the church but also fear for me and what it could mean for me. He was simply wanting to clip my wings. He didn’t want any of this to go to my head and now I want more or now I get more attention from people outside of the church. The same goes for the lady that told me I wasn’t impressing anyone with these titles, she wanted to also clip my wings because confidence and inner personal power don’t jive really well with a religion that holds everything together by use of fear. I understand that my father was doing the best he could with the tools he had. Clipping my wings was the best he could do at the time to manage his world.
But I knew where all that was coming from. It wasn’t about me. What someone else thinks or says…it’s never about me. It’s always about what they have going on. What their insecurities are. When you know that, it sort of blunts the power of the insult or the comment or the advice. The same goes for you.
People will attempt to clip your wings, you have to learn to fly anyway.
The new female CEO of “The life Coach school” started her career working for a law firm as a legal secretary and someone very early in her young career tried to clip her wings. She had a goal of becoming a lawyer and everyone in the office knew that, she was extremely strong at everything she did. So one day, the partner of the firm called her in his office and she was kind of excited because she had been really making a name for herself so she thought, and he went to University of Miami Law school which is where they knew she wanted to go as well, so she thought he is going to want to offer to mentor her in becoming a lawyer….. no, that is not what he did. He told her that Miami was a hard school to get into and that Legal Secretary was a very noble career and if she stayed in it for 10 years she could be making $50,000 per year, law school wasn’t really for her. Ha she laughed and asked him if that was what he made? Of course not. I love that story. Long story short, she ended up going to Harvard Law School., becoming a lawyer and is now the CEO of the life coach school making crazy money and oh and just as a side note….she had been offered the Presidential scholarship to university of Miami, you know the one the partner told her she would probably not get in, yeah they were going to pay her to go to their law school but she ended up at Harvard. Be careful whose council you’re seeking. Be careful whose advice you take.
My husband was in the air force and he was in line getting his mobility gear when he overheard two enlisted air force guys talking, The one enlisted guy was a sergeant and had a little authority, he said to the other one who was a younger airman, once you are enlisted, you cannot become a pilot. He said it as a matter of fact. In a very confident authoritative tone. My husband happened to overhear the conversation as he stepped up to the table. He said that is not true at all. I was enlisted, I was an avionics tech and I got out and got my degree, joined ROTC and now Im a pilot.
So, It could be a well meaning parent, like mine. a not so well meaning boss, like Erika Royal’s. It could be advice from someone who has no idea what they are talking about like what happened in my husband’s story.
When you are trying to do big things, when you’re trying to better your own life… You have to remember to rely on your own gut, your own intuition. Sometimes people simply don’t want to change and you’re changing scares them.
You may want to change, and they may want to stay exactly where they are so you can see why they may want to hold you back a bit, that’s their issue……but are you gonna let them? The only way someone can clip your wings is if you let them. The stronger you are internally, the less likely you are to let them.
My challenge to you this week.
Never doubt yourself, even when others do.
Never play small to fit in
Always continue to work on your internal strength and develop a strong compass for what you know is right for you.
And if someone is attempting to clip your wings, Find a way to fly anyway.
