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 anywhere way. So take a breath, step in and let's move forward together.

Hello and welcome to the Sort of Shore Podcast. In case you missed it in the beginning, my name is Samar Carbo and I'm so happy you've decided to join me today. I'm going to continue on in the same manner as last week of just kind of talking head in the podcast. And here's the thing, I got good feedback on the last one, but if you don't like this, I'm going to do this for a few weeks just to kind of feel it out and if you don't like it, no worries at all. Skip to episode 45. I'll get right back to the interview style of podcast then. But we're gonna feel this out for a few weeks for four, well I guess five, we include last week and it'll be all in topics of my choosing and you know, a couple of stories thrown in. So what is there for today? You know, it's something, I was thinking about this this morning as, as you know, I'm with my kids and they're kind of being loud and doing their thing and my, my now 7 month old, by the time this one comes out I'll have a seven month old in addition to a three year old. She just does this new thing of shouting. She just ah, she just holds a note for as long as her lungs will hold out and then, and then she takes a breath and then she does it again. She's not, she's not doing it because she's tired. She's not really even doing it. I don't think she's even doing it for attention. I think she's just doing it because that's what she thinks you do. My three year old being three, she's quite, quite loud and so she's trying I guess to add to the cacophony that is my home. And, and you know, three year olds, they're quite talkative, not necessarily only loud or at least my 3 year old is quite talkative and so she will just keep going if nobody stops her some days and those are all the good days but the, the little one I think is just emulating her and it got me thinking about a time, a long time ago when, when somebody kind of went viral that I sort of knew. We kind of have this understanding that when somebody goes viral or when somebody's louder than others, they have the power in the room, right? Or they have earned something that the rest of us haven't earned. We live in a culture that rewards visibility but is being seen the same thing as being powerful. I knew a guy, I knew him. He doesn't know me. I went to a rather large church a long time ago, so that's how I know him. And he doesn't know me. He was like the praise and worship leader at the church and he redid a song many years back while it was still popular. Oh boy. What was the name of that song? I don't know. I can say a few words. Hopefully this is covered under fair use and I'm not going to get sued. But it's a song that goes I'm gonna marry her anyway. Marry that girl. Whole thing. It would be easier if I sang it. But I also don't know the legalities. I don't have a producer behind the camera here or behind the. The microphone here talking to me and telling me what I can and can't do. So we're just going to go ahead and. And go off the cuff. So the song is why you got to be so rude? Don't you know I'm human too? All that stuff. I'm sure you got. If you know the song, you got it from what I said already. Anyway, this guy, he redid the song to flip the perspective from the dad's point of view. His name's Benji. He did a very good job. It was a very fun to listen to song. But he got noticed. A big thing about that is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how viral he went. It doesn't matter how much attention he got. How much influence did that come with? 0. People are seeking this viral moment. I see creator after creator because I doom scroll just like anybody else. But I see creator after creator focusing on trying to get that one moment that changes their lives, that gives them their millions. Billions for some, right? But we. We've got the. The. That Godim guy who it turned out was, was a homeless person who is now being taken care of by strangers. Every time they see him, you know, they'll drop him a few dollars, but he is still a homeless person. Going viral didn't help him at all. And there's a ton of mean people like that who who were. Who were and are very famous for one particular thing, but they live regular lives. Heck, that the kid in Troll 2, that. That is one of the most popular so bad it's good movies in the world. He's a dentist, and most people don't even remember a single thing he said in his personal life. You know, only the people who know him, like most of us, know what he would say on a regular basis. It's not like he turned into Will Smith overnight. So the question becomes, have we confused being noticed with being needed? Have we confused as a society and as people being noticed by the crowd, by the marketplace, with being needed by buy the marketplace? I brought up Will Smith. He's said many things that are impactful. He's very visible even when he's keeping a low profile. Very visible. His movies out there, you can't avoid them. On the 4th of July here you're seeing Wild Wild west, you're seeing Independence Day, you're seeing his movies. And so you'd think that this guy who. Who was not only noticed, but incredibly famous must be needed by the marketplace. We must need him as a soc. But after he did an indiscretion at an awards show, he disappeared. Gone. And we find out we don't need him. And then you realize when you. When you see something of his, oh, I haven't thought about that guy in a while. And then you think about how often you saw them before, but that's neither here nor there. It's. It's that thing, right? And each of us is. Is. Some can sometimes get into that mindset, right? We can all think of times when we were seeking attention. I was a bartender once upon a time. It was my midlife crisis, 30. And there's something that even though I've had so many jobs, this one thing was incredibly unique to being a bartender in my life, and that was that you are quote, unquote, on all the time. There is no time where, even when you're, you know, a manager, a server, host, even, there are times when no one's looking at you, when no, no customer can see you. Now, I worked in a restaurant, so there were a few times where, you know, no one could see me because I would go back to get something. But I mean, those times had to be quick because I was rather committed to being good at my job. That's kind of, you know, the thing with people who are working? You all get it. Well, probably the vast majority of you get it. And. But that's. That was my. On all the time. I, I did like it, right? But I couldn't call that impactful. Right? The times that I could talk, that I could say I was impactful in somebody's life were when it was a little slow and I had one, two, maybe even five people sitting at my bar just talking about life. And then I said something and then I stopped saying things and I listened. And that is something you can't do on a Friday night when it's wall to wall people and the restaurant's fully sat and nobody has a chance to breathe. I don't have time to listen. I have time to ask for your drink, to make it, get it to you and move on. I think that's kind of all of our lives. Maybe we can be loud, but a moment with somebody is like a flash in the pan with my, my seven month old just shouting into the void every morning while her sister says real words and, you know, full sentences and all that stuff. It's loud, but it's fleeting. Maybe there's something to the saying that tells us that we're rewarded in public for what we do in private. Maybe your best work doesn't happen out front. Maybe your best work happens when you're in an unseen moment. I mean, does that make it any less valuable? I mean, I truly don't know. I'm asking the questions here. And maybe when we see this, this hustle culture happening, and I know I poop on this thing all the time on hustle culture, but maybe it's a trap. Maybe being, having to be on all the time, maybe this hustle, this five to nine before our nine to five is a trap. I mean, we've all seen, I don't know if we've all seen it anyway, there's this viral video of a guy who's rather well muscled, waking up very early, going through his morning routine. I think he does two workouts. He rubs a banana on his face, he, he does a cold plunge in a, in a bowl of water for just his face. I mean, it's, it's a whole routine, right? And while I submit that many people may need that to get started to do the best work in their day, other people really don't thrive in that environment. And I can tell you as a medicated depressive, that that kind of what I would call performative growth, performative consistency is not helpful. And, and when we're concerned with showing progress, are more concerned with showing progress than actually making progress. We were killing ourselves. And so what do I focus on? I focus on the 5 to 9 after 9 to 5, right? Largely when you have a job that you really care about or don't, as I'm saying, and I realize it doesn't matter if you care about it, but you have a job that you're working at that you want to keep. You're giving them your best work, you're giving them good work all day. And you may not have extra energy to do this huge five to nine situation. You maybe you don't work from home or even close to home, so you even have a five to nine. You have a five to eight and then you drive to work and then maybe afterwards you don't have a five to nine at home, you have a six to nine. This is not. There's nothing wrong with this. There's nothing wrong with starting your day a little later and finding your purpose in the after bits. After bits. I'm going to have to coin that I have to put that on a T shirt. But that 5 to 9 afterwards doesn't also doesn't have to be performative. You don't have to take two showers, do a workout and do, you know, practice your backflips. That five to nine that I focus on in the afternoon, at night, that's my time to focus on making a better me. But what I've found, it doesn't have to all be something that's going to make you better. So let's say, and this is a very specific example, so this probably won't be part of your life. Maybe you do shift work that's different every day or every week. But that after work time, when you're already awake and you've already done things and your body's already in motion, before you go into that comfy bed that's calling your name, do just one hour, do just one hour of something that's going to make you better. You know, just a suggestion, but what I can tell you after you is after you do that one hour, you will have changed your life in a very small way. Right? But you will have changed your life. I used to go for runs every morning. I would, I would hop out of bed. Hop. I would set an alarm. I would set five alarms. I should be completely honest here. I just said I would set five alarms right now. I'd get up, I'd get up with the one because I knew there were four more coming and I didn't want to have that kind of aggravation in my morning. I would do the next right thing, right? And you've probably heard, if you're familiar with Kristen Bell, you've probably heard her mention this. But my next right thing once I wake up is to put my feet on the floor, right? That's, that's what's going to do me the most good. And then I could get out of these pajamas I was in, or if I wasn't wearing pajamas, I could get into my clothes. And if I'm getting into clothes, they may as well be running clothes because it's too early to do anything else. And then if I'm dressed for running, I may as well throw those shoes on. And if I'm already dressed, ready to go, may as well go outside and stretch. And some days that's as far as it got. But other days, and as things went on, it got much more consistent. I would do my 5k on weekdays and I would pick a weekend day each week and do a 10k on that day, which was brutal in the winter and the summer, but was pretty nice in the fall and the spring. And I would run, I would do it. Then I would come back, I'd finish up with a couple of dynamic stretches, cool off and head back in, take my shower, move on with my day. But this sort of thing, this sort of thing I put together as a way of turning my bum ticker into a 120 over 80 blood pumping machine. And because of all that time I spent, I now can say that my blood pressure is pretty regular. But at the time my blood pressure was pretty bad. But even so, even knowing that occasionally I would go back inside after stretching, maybe I'd have something healthy for breakfast. And you know what I would tell myself? I would say I did more than the version of me that sat on the couch or the version of me that slept in. Even stretching, just not even getting my heart rate up. Just going outside and saying I did a thing was better than sitting on the couch. And so I was still proud of myself. And that's what it's about. Finding ourselves in these moments, getting that true power, that proof that we are something, that proof that stands in the face of the voices in our head, whether they come from our past or they come from people around us or whatever it is telling us that we're worth nothing. Telling us that we're not as good as the people around us. Telling us that it's a. That it's a mistake we got that promotion or that we shouldn't go out for that promotion because we're imposters at what we're doing right now, all of that stuff. Once we gain the proof of doing that one thing, man, I promise, it makes it a little easier. It's not everything. You still have to do work when the moment comes, but it makes it a little bit easier to tell yourself to go out for that job. To tell yourself you're better than you thought you were. So maybe, just maybe, the strongest people aren't the loudest ones in the room or the ones who have the stamina to be on all the time. Maybe the strongest people are the ones quietly offering their suggestions. But I don't know. All I'm doing is offering a few questions to think about. You know what I think. Thanks so much for joining me today on the Sort of Shirt podcast. This was a really fun one. If you have a story of imposter syndrome or self doubt, shoot me an email at sort of surepodmail.com I read every email, you know, clearly because I'm doing this when it's far more, far more comfortable for me to do a an interview style podcast. So you guys are stretching me. I'm out here doing my best if, you know, I'm not going to cut it short. But if we find out that I get enough emails that people just say, hey, not into it. Go back to the interviews. You know, maybe we do that and we only do this every once in a while. But. But hey, I'll leave that up to you. If you'd like to be a guest on the Sort of Share podcast, go ahead and shoot me an email to that same email address. You'll see the email address down in the notes in the episode notes. That's all for this week. I look forward to seeing you next week on the Sort of Share podcast. Later days.