#23 – Feeling Alive with Joe Leposa

Transcript
Welcome to the Sword of Sure podcast. Where doubt looms, fear whispers, and the only way forward is through. I'm Samar Carbo, and if you've ever felt like you're just sort of sure about what you're doing, you're not alone. This is where we face the uncertainty. Push past the hesitation, and keep going anyway way. So take a breath, step in, and let's move forward together. Hello, and welcome to the Sword of Shore podcast. As you may have heard in the beginning, my name is Samar Carbo, and I am so glad you're here to join me for a conversation with Joe Laposa. He is the host of the Human Fluence YouTube channel and podcast. He is a titan of a man, and he comes from the same area of the world as me, Western New York. So, you know, he's good people. Before we get on into that, if you have a story to tell, shoot me an email at sort of surepod Gmail.com. let's have a listen.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I'm Joe. I'm 32. I was born and raised in Western New York. You'll probably pick up from my story. I've worn a lot of different hats over the years, from tech to fitness to law enforcement to my spiritual work. These days, my focus is pretty simple. My family. Family comes first. The career ventures and building and Human Fluence, which is my YouTube channel, which is really my sole passion project. And it's where all those experiences converge. Spirituality, psychology, self mastery, and just being fully human in a world that keeps trying to make us forget what that means. So I guess my channel is really about waking people up to who they really are. Beneath all the conditioning, spiritual, psychological, philosophical, and giving people a lens to see clearly, cut through the noise and reclaim their purpose.
Speaker C:That's great. Thank you for doing that. What do you think led you from thing to thing? I mean, you said you were law enforcement and just a number of things that don't seem to touch each other. So what led you through these things?
Speaker B:So wearing many hats and trying different, many, many different paths, trying to figure out, you know, what's right for me, what is calling to my purpose. And I think that searching for meaning and purpose has been a driving factor for me. And I've kind of channeled that into things that are really matter to me now. And like they say, your purpose kind of finds you. So I feel like I'm in that phase now where I'm kind of consolidating all that experience from many things I've done into something Concrete. But imposter syndrome has definitely been there all along. Not to mention I come from a little bit of a rougher background and upbringing. I guess it's wired me to second guess everything you learn early on that the world doesn't give you the benefit of the doubt. And that can bleed into adulthood, especially when you start to succeed at things. So that lingering feeling of like, this can't be real or I'm not supposed to make it here, being thrown into a world with a straight face and silent expectations. As I was saying, I'm naturally introverted too, which makes it more complicated. So I process everything internally, which has served me well in the long run. But early on it made me feel out of place in roles where maybe visibility mattered more. But as I've come to learn, I don't know if you're aware of this whole thing, but the left right brain dynamic is a real phenomenon. And in the world we live in, it's heavily left brained, which is logical, analytical, structured to reward output over intuition or control over creativity. And we built a society that values facts over feeling sometimes. And I think there needs to be a little bit more empathy and understanding. But my first real taste of imposter syndrome hit me when I became a data center technician at 20 years old. I got hired full time after contracting, but from day one I was basically self taught. So I learned everything on the job, the terminology, systems, all the processes. And then I'm sitting next to these guys who know how to code, know the data center in and out, and are throwing around jargon I don't understand. So I'd quietly be googling stuff in between tasks just trying to keep up. And so that was my first real sense of faking it till you make it. And the only thing that gets me through it is my discipline, my work ethic and setting a really high bar for myself. But then once I did that for six years, I decided to pick up my next hat and I became a health coach and personal trainer, which was a complete left turn from tech and strange because my son was about to be born. We moved from Buffalo area to Rochester and it was about a quarter of the pay, so it was definitely a risk. And it was one of those things that I don't regret, but might not have been the smartest decision. But hey, sorry, but I've never been like that alpha gym person. I was just, I always had to fight for every inch of my progress physically and mentally. And I'm introverted and now I'm in a Public facing role, guiding people through their transformation. You know, so you can see that kind of cognitive dissonance where I'm trying to break out of my shell and be more extroverted. But I'm an introvert at heart. So that voice shows up again, you know, you're not, you're not supposed to be doing this. You're not cut out for it. But as comes with experience, you know, you get better and faking it till you make it and getting that confidence and competence. But then came law enforcement, which is what I'm currently doing. I'm a deputy in the Monroe County Jail, which is a whole nother level of psychological weight. I mean, we have the environment which is high stress, hyper masculine, rigid in its culture. You're surrounded by authority figures, a lot of military energy, very type A personalities. And again, I'm an introvert. I don't really fit that mold, although, you know, I can stand up for myself and whatnot. But I have a strong sense of empathy, which isn't always rewarded in that space. As far as the jail environment, I think builds a lot of character being in that environment. I think key is treating inmates with the same basic respect you have for yourself, not being naive about what they've done, but because you know how fast life can spiral, how like thin the line can be between free and incarcerated. So it's about seeing people, humans being in bad circumstances, which back to empathy isn't always a popular take. And for a while I questioned whether I belonged there. But in time, I started to realize the job needed people like me and others that can hold space, de escalate, think clearly. But then everything took a turn because I started noticing things, I started sensing things, picking up on thoughts that weren't mine, emotions that seemed to come out of nowhere. And I don't know how familiar you are or if you've had these experiences yourself, but dreams and vision, so to speak, but things that couldn't be chalked up to stress or coincidence. And these things have been going on through my whole life, like deja vu's and synchronicities, stuff like that. But not only now am I dealing with imposter syndrome, but I'm having this spiritual awakening I couldn't explain. And that's really what led to human fluence. The teaching, guiding, speaking about the things we're not taught to talk about. Consciousness, healing, that inner work that no system ever prepared us for. So I went from hiding my sensitivity to realizing it was my greatest strength. And yeah, imposter syndrome still Visits, especially every time I do a reading. You know, there's always those nerves and those self doubts. But you just have to learn to trust yourself and believe in yourself. So learning to recognize that voice for what it is, not always truth, it's not always your intuition. It's just most of the time conditioning, you know, your mind, trying to keep you small. So every stage of growth, everything I stepped into, that voice has been there. But maybe it always be. But I try and just see this background noise now. Imposter syndrome doesn't come from a lack of skill. Like, it doesn't matter how much experience you stack up, how many people validate you, if you don't believe it internally, none of it lands. You'll keep waiting for permission, keep validating your place in the room, even when you've earned it 10 times over. So eventually I had to stop chasing certainty and start building confidence from the inside out. Not faking it, but building it. And you do that daily through repetition, through ownership. And like I talk about a lot on my channel, it's outgrowing the version of yourself that needs to be accepted by everyone else in order to move. In the end, it comes down to one thing. The moment you decide to believe you belong, even if the voice in your head isn't there yet. Especially then. Because belief, real belief, isn't a feeling. It's a choice. That's good.
Speaker C:You mentioned you really had to fight for every inch of progress that you've made up till this point in life. I wonder what made you keep fighting. Like, are there habits that you have in place? Or, you know, even before you found your calling in being a psychic, what was, what was the thing, your impetus to just keep going?
Speaker B:I think it goes back to the way I was raised. You know, I was raised, like I said, it wasn't the best upbringing. So that makes you not only doubt, but yourself and second guess everything but the world in general, like making sense of things. So for me, it was always like finding answers and figuring things out and trying to break things down into the smallest pieces so I could put it back together and make sense of it in that way. So fighting for everything, even when people aren't watching, you know, it's like the discipline to do things that you're doing the right thing when no one's looking. These types of things build that type of resilience and discipline. And it's not that my childhood was horrible. It was actually pretty great. But I think when you are a child and trying to make sense of the world, and then you become an adult. That's kind of like imposter syndrome in itself. At least it was for me, a little bit, trying to make sense of the world. But I think just that drive and that work ethic is something that is so ingrained in me that I learned early in childhood. I learned it through karate when I was a kid. Um, and those are just core values of mine.
Speaker C:Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And so do you keep up with karate now, or was it. Do you do, I don't know, meditation or affirmations in the morning just to keep yourself on track or anything like that?
Speaker B:Yeah, I try and meditate every day. That's like, a key habit of mine. I think everybody should meditate, whatever that looks like. It doesn't have to be sitting in a lotus position. You can be walking and meditating. Anything that allows you to let your thoughts pass like clouds. You don't really give any of them too much attention, but you just kind of clear the air. And the deeper you go in meditation and the more you allow your mind to settle, you know, problems that you're facing, answers will come to you out of nowhere. And, you know, these things happen when you have a clean slate and you're not so distracted. And the world nowadays has plenty of distractions, so it's hard for a lot of people to find time to do that.
Speaker C:Yeah, you're not kidding. The second people wake up, there's a phone right next to their heads that can tell them anything but what's going on in their own brain. You mentioned you feel imposter syndrome sort of throughout your story. How does it manifest in you? Is it, you know, it really gives you more to move forward, or does it slow you down and make you want to stop?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's a great question. If there's some sort of pattern to it, I'd say it doesn't really show up when I'm playing small. It shows up when I'm leveling up, so to speak. Like right when I'm stepping to something that actually matters to me. You know, that challenge, that. That next thing. It's okay to feel like you're an outsider until you're an insider. That's a natural instinct. Or when you're being seen in a new way, like when I'm going from tech to fitness to, you know, being on a YouTube channel or whatever. It's. It's. The different ways that you're seen might be new ways of you feeling like an imposter, and then When I started working in the jail, it was a whole other level of it. But I think it isn't just external, it's internal. Of course, I think I've always held myself to a high standard, so self reliance and performance were survival tools. I think learning to earn everything. But that mindset can backfire too, because when, even when you've earned it, you still don't feel like it counts unless you bled for it, which is a fine line. You got to find that balance. But the turning point for me was realizing that it's just a voice in my head. You know, it's an old pattern of thinking. It may take years to notice it, but separating your worth from your output is huge. And not living from ego is huge. And it doesn't happen all at once. But it's something that I work on.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's so great. And you talk about self reliance. Do you think that was something that you learned in your childhood of just no one's coming to save you, or was that something you picked up later on?
Speaker B:I think that I've come to realize that there's some people that are just lucky. There's some people born into whatever family, you know, and they're well off and don't have to worry about anything. And then there's people on the complete opposite end that have to fight nail and tooth for everything. And I think when you realize the breadth of life experiences people have, especially working in the jail and seeing the diversity of people and personalities that come through, it makes you realize that, like family's most important and that you really are on your own out there. You know what I mean? You got to make a name for yourself. You have to go that extra mile. You have to, you know, work those extra hours, study for that next certification or whatever it is to move forward. When I'm stagnant, I feel like I'm regressing.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's so good. And I hear that in a lot of high achievers that if you, if you're sitting still like a shark, if you're sitting still, you're dying. You gotta be moving. You gotta be out there trying to, trying to make the world a better place. As you talked about your journey and as you were entering more, more modern times, you said this phrase, which I loved. You said, sensitivity is your greatest strength. How does that work in your current field of working in a county jail?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's a great question. There's a diversity of people, not only the incarcerated individuals, but staff members too. And I think when you are in such environment and energy is a real thing. It's just like when you walk into a room and feel like if somebody just had a fight or if you walk into a room and you're, you can feel like there's just residual energy in the air. Have you ever experienced that?
Speaker C:Oh, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker B:So you can imagine a jail when I'm a housing unit, might have 50 plus inmates. So when you're around 50 plus people with all of their, you know, they're in the worst stages of life, there's energy there that you pick up on. And that's what led me to sign up for a psychic medium course. Because I was a skeptic, I didn't really believe in any of this stuff. But I knew, I started watching YouTube stuff and reading about, reading books about energy and psychics and all this sort of stuff. And then I decided just to sign up for a class and it was a two day thing and come to find out I could do this stuff. And now I do readings. This was almost two years ago now. But that energy is real. So the sensitivity to things around you can be the greatest strength because when you pick up on those things, you can connect with people better. You can sense room and use your intuition to feel out, you know, what the next move is. And I think intuition is something that is so lost in today's age again with all of the distractions and the myriad of things we can do. But we all have intuition, we all can feel these things, we just can't always put a name on them or they aren't strong enough to really be provable, so to speak. But it's definitely a real thing. And the more you dial in to how you're feeling and going back to meditation, the more you meditate, the more you'll have a clear mind just in general to be able to pick up on these things. But it could be your biggest strength, like I said, because it can really offer you a lot of benefits in your day to day life.
Speaker C:That's awesome. Now, just for general audience knowledge, do you do remote readings as well?
Speaker B:Yeah, usually they're over zoom. Most of them are over zoom. Honestly, I haven't had too many local people, but yes, I do readings over zoom.
Speaker C:Okay, great. So that's one way people can definitely reach you. And of course, you know, we'll get all your info in the show notes so that people can find you. But I want to ask, what sort of advice would you have for someone who's trying to get where you are you seem to have it figured out. You seem to be in a place that's, that's comfortable, at least for finding your purpose. So what, what advice would you have for someone who just wants to get to where you are, but they're stuck by self doubt?
Speaker B:I love that. I wish someone had told me back then that feeling like a fraud or feeling like an imposter doesn't mean you're failing. It means you're alive. Like you're actually feeling, you know, and living. It means you're standing right on the edge of becoming something you weren't. And yeah, sometimes it hurts or it's isolating, it's quiet. You walk into rooms and carry that weight silently thinking everyone else feels solid when you're still, you know, trying to patch holes in the floor beneath you. But the truth is, most people are pretending. And most people are crawling in their own skin, afraid most of the time. They just try and put on a mask and a show, just like you might have to some days. Most people are scared. They're just not loud about it or they hide it. So I think if someone listening right now feels like this, like they don't belong, I'd say stop waiting for some outside force to come in and give you permission, because that never comes. I think the only permission that matters is the one you give to yourself. And you're not late. It's never too late. You're not broken. You're just early in the process of remembering who you really are underneath all of those masks. Learned aware to survive. And that's the ego. I have a lot of videos on ego death on my channel and shadow work. Confronting those aspects of yourself that you need to integrate to feel whole. I think that's a huge part of it. I think the one thing most people get wrong about Imposter syndrome is they think it's something you're supposed to overcome, like it's a dragon you slay. But I don't think it ever really goes away completely. It might get louder, it might be quieter at times, but it comes down to how vulnerable you are. And if visibility means vulnerability, what do you do? Stop trying to be that version of yourself that other people expect you to be and just take the lead. Because in the end, confidence isn't loud. It's not about feeling big, it's about feeling real. And when you get to that place where presence is no longer a performance, when you can actually sit down and listen to somebody and reflect with them and feel what they're actually saying instead of just scrolling on your phone and half hearing them. Things like this, building more positive relationships with people around you. All of these things. A good family life, a good social life. It's a holistic. It's a holistic wheel of things that all need to be in order. But when you work on these things, that imposter syndrome starts to lose its grip.
Speaker C:Oh, that is such good stuff. Thanks for that, Joe. And last thing, do you have anything that you didn't get to mention that you wanted to?
Speaker B:Sure. I Recommend My channel, HumanFluence, on YouTube, Spotify, TikTok. It's where I pour everything I've lived, studied and tested into something real. I try and be non woo woo. Like no guru talk, just straight truth for people trying to wake up to who they are. Of course, my books, I have a plethora of books on Amazon, everything from philosophy to spirituality. I have a book on becoming a psychic. I have a book on how America is New Rome called Echoes of Empire. I have a book on lucid dreaming. It's actually a free ebook if anyone's interested in that. And I have a few more on there. But beyond my work, I'd say go to the source. There's ancient texts, not just the skim quotes on Instagram, but really study these things. The Bhagavad Gita, the Hermetica, Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Gnostic Gospels, and of course the Bible. But read it symbolically, not literally. There's a lot of truth encoded in it all, even aside from religion. Just really good stuff. And this stuff's not new. It's been known. We've just forgotten a lot of these things. And once you start reading it with fresh eyes, not as history or dogma, but as a mirror, you start remembering that what this whole journey is about, remembering what your soul already knows.
Speaker C:Absolutely beautiful. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker B:Well, I really, really appreciate the time. Like I said, making the space for this. And to all your listeners. Hey, you got this.
Speaker C:They truly do.
Speaker B:You have a great rest of your day, Joe, you as well. Thanks. Bye now. Bye bye.
Speaker A:Wow. What a great conversation with Joe Laposa, the host of the Human Fluence podcast. You can check that out on YouTube. Check out YouTube.comanfluence. that's H U M A N F L U. I encourage you to check out the show notes for more ways to contact Joe and to look into his services as well as his podcast. Great guy. So good to have him on the podcast. And if you've got a story of imposter syndrome yourself. You can be on the podcast. Just reach on out to sort of surepodmail.com that'll about do it for me later days.
Speaker B:Sam Sa.
Episode Notes
In this episode, Joseph Leposa joins us to dive deep into the raw reality of imposter syndrome, spiritual awakening, and reclaiming your personal truth. From tech to law enforcement to psychic mediumship, Joe’s story is anything but linear—and Humanfluence is the living expression of everything he’s learned along the way.
We talk about the masks we wear, the systems that condition us, and what it really means to wake up in a world designed to keep you asleep.
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Website & Donations: https://www.humanfluence.org YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Humanfluence Books by Joseph John Leposa: Amazon.com: Joseph Leposa: books, biography, latest update Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/humanfluence TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@humanfluence
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