43. Betting on Yourself & Cultivating a Life Worth Living Through Self-Belief, Faith, Resilience and Growth with Hazel Atkinson-Brown

Have you ever felt the exhilarating rush of stepping into your true self, shedding the expectations of others like a snake discards its old skin? That's the journey we're on today as Hazel Brown walks us through the labyrinth of personal authenticity and the friendships that challenge and shape our core values. Together, we unpack life's lessons and the wisdom Hazel's mother bestowed upon her, illuminating how the company we keep can either anchor us to mediocrity or catapult us towards self-fulfillment. We delve into the nuances of staying genuine in a world that often rewards conformity and discover why being seen, heard, and genuinely understood can be the compass that guides us to our true north.

Strap in for a transformative ride as we equate the hard work of personal growth with the determined hero's ascent in classic video games. Hazel encourages us to bet on ourselves with the same fervor we'd storm Bowser's castle or dodge barrels from Donkey Kong, reminding us that life's most rewarding achievements demand our sweat and unshakeable faith. And when we're tempted to shrink back into the crowd, she's right there cheering us on, fueling our drive to grow, glow, and boldly occupy the space we're meant to fill. This is more than just a conversation; it's a heartfelt rally cry to step into the light of our dreams and live without apologies, with the unwavering belief that we are each worthy of a life that's as abundant and authentic as we dare to make it.

Chapters

• 0:00 Embracing Authenticity and Personal Growth
• 7:56 The Hard Work of Personal Growth
• 19:06 Believe in Yourself and Keep Growing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to. It's the Human Experience Podcast Hosted by Hazel Brown, a healthcare leader, wife, mom and career coach. If you're big on authenticity, personal development, perseverance and transparency, you're in the right place. Get ready to be uplifted, inspired and empowered as you become fearless in pursuit of the life you desire and deserve. Our goal is to help you level up by creating a safe space to learn and reflect, while listening to transparent stories from our host or successful professionals and business owners who've agreed to share the parts of success that typically gets x'd out on social media, because that's the part you need to see and hear the process. Go ahead and subscribe. You don't want to miss out on these transparent stories and discussions that reveal highs, lows, aha moments and nuggets that'll help you to grow and glow.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Hey, hey, hey, you are now tuned in to the it's the Human Experience Podcast. I'm your host, hazel Brown. Welcome, welcome. It's your first time here. Welcome, welcome, yay. Thanks so much for joining. If you're a return listener, thank you, thank you. I appreciate your support.

Speaker 2: 1:31

I hope that this episode provides you nothing but value nuggets and all the things. I'm going to jump into the episode because lately I've been thinking. I've been thinking about how my whole life I've said things like man, I wish life came with like a blueprint, have a compass to learn how to live our life and decide the direction in which we want to go and take. And as I evolved, I started to think well, no, we have something called an intuition, we have a gut. God constantly tells us things, we have downloads and when we're still enough, we completely have some sense of direction in terms of how we should live our lives. And then my thoughts evolved over time and I started to realize that as a society we're stubborn when I think about sayings that I've heard over the years, like easy come, easy go, be careful of the company you keep, walk by faith, not by sight. Just three different sayings that I can share with you that I'm sure we've all heard on our journeys to growing into the person that we are today.

Speaker 2: 3:06

I remember as a child, my mom telling me to be careful of the company I was keeping. As young as middle school, I had a friend that wasn't necessarily making the right decisions. In fact, I'll become a little bit more transparent and share that. My mom was dropping me off to a friend's house. I got out the car and my friend was in between the legs of a grown man and my mom said no, no, honey, get back in this car, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. And in that moment I couldn't understand what was wrong with my mom. I thought to myself I'm not doing the things she's doing. She was actually three years older than me, so I didn't see anything wrong with her behavior. I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to be around people that were making poor decisions in terms of my mom seeing that clearly, because I felt like my mom should know that she's raised a child who firmly knows how to make decisions based on what makes sense for her. She should know that I was a born leader and wouldn't make the same mistakes as someone else. I was the kind of person where I can look at someone else making a mistake and realize like, oh, I don't want to do that, that's not for me. So in that moment I just couldn't wrap my head around why it is that I had to come back in the car.

Speaker 2: 4:45

I fast forward because, as I've evolved through the years, I've had many friendships that necessarily didn't have my same values, but I saw that they had a good heart, they were a good person and I enjoyed the laughter that we shared together. I enjoyed being able to show up as my full self with that person. But maybe our values didn't totally align. And so, as I've continued to evolve, this episode should really be called evolution, right, because we're all evolving every single day. But as I continue to evolve, I started to realize, wow, mommy used to tell me to be careful of my circle. And as I've evolved in terms of finding fulfillment and what truly matters to me, what truly makes me happy, what truly makes me light up, I've learned that I have to be careful with my circle. I have to make sure that I show up authentically in every situation, every single day, whether it be at work, whether it be walking down the street I don't know how often I walk down the street other than to exercise and to get out my car. But the point is, in every interaction and every way that I show up, I have to be my highest self and my truest self, because that is what allows you to attract the kind of people that are at the same frequency as you. And by doing that, you start to feel more heard, you start to feel more seen, you start to feel more understood, you start to feel like, wow, this is the life for me. And that realization and that level of fulfillment and self-actualization and happiness doesn't come until you embrace your true self and surround yourself with people who get you, with people who have walked in similar paths, not because you're both wounded, not because you both are hurting and sobbing in your pity together, but because you both have worked on yourselves to where you're, at a place in your life to where you can look back and reflect and say, yes, I've overcome that, yes, I'm continuing to heal. Yes, I choose to serve, I choose to be passionate, I choose to live a purpose-driven life and because of those choices, you're able to better connect. I want to also move into easy come, easy goes, because I feel like I heard that so much in life and, um, leave it in the comments. If you heard that too, rate the episode five stars If this is resonating with you.

Speaker 2: 7:56

We hear easy come, easy goes and it makes sense. We're like, yeah, that's true. Like you know, it came easy as quick for you to lose it. Like, oh, somebody just gave me this five dollar bill and, okay, I lost it. You know simple mind thinking. But when you're starting to try to bet on yourself and you're starting to really push through and work on your goals and you're trying to really condition yourself and see how far you can go, and you start to get through places and you're like, yep, I done, checked off that, I've done this, I've done that. But now you're trying to go up a level, you're trying to raise your vibration, you're trying to become your next highest self, you're trying to get to that next level, like you were playing Donkey Kong or Mario back in the day and you're like, ooh, this is hard, this is not easy. Easy come, easy goes. It takes work to get to your next level. It takes work to become your highest self. It is not something that happens easily. The ease is in knowing that you are doing something that is truly aligned to who you are as a person and the calling over your life. That is the ease the ease in knowing that you're doing it for you.

Speaker 2: 9:34

But, honey, the hard is that it won't be easy. You will have to get over yourself many times, almost daily, listen. You will have to get over yourself and realizing, yeah, I got another obstacle. What do I do? Do I find a solution? Do I get out of my way? Do I understand that? I got what it takes, just like I had what it's helped for other things? Or do you play around in your head and get stuck, cross your hands and tell yourself it's not for me, I can't do it? And then, slowly but surely, you start winding down levels to the person that you worked so hard to not be.

Speaker 2: 10:25

Yes, I said not be All, because at some point, as you started to work on another level, you had to overcome the new obstacles, the new journey, the new hardship in order to level up, like we're playing a game, and get to the next level. And I share that because, in terms of relating it to playing Mario's or Donkey Kong or Sonic I used to love Sonic life was teaching us that you pass a level and you go to a new level and there's a bigger person to fight, there's a new obstacle, there's another maze you have to get through and, man, are we happy when we beat that level. But guess what? The next level? It has something for us.

Speaker 2: 11:26

But it's such an amazing feeling to know that if you embrace the person that you know you are from a self-worth standpoint and being confident to know that you have what it takes to do whatever it is that you put your mind to, you'll beat the level and in fact, you end up beating the game. And when you beat the game, you may, you know, sit down for a little bit and relax and just enjoy life and what you build. But over time, you're gonna now want to play a new game, or even play that same game again, to see things that you didn't see the first time, just like when you're watching a movie. You're like, man, I didn't even notice that the first time. Wow, I look at from a different perspective as watching that same show versus when I was a child or a teenager, or last week.

Speaker 2: 12:18

It is okay to embrace the concept that things take work. I want to lastly sit in the walk by faith and not by sight, because I feel like, as we are betting on ourselves and going after these goals and taking up space and being unapologetic about who we're called to be, you are going to have to walk by faith and not by sight. You are going to feel it in your spirit to know that you are supposed to do more with your life, whatever that looks like for you, and you are gonna have to trust that. That was a conversation between you and God, because you were not watching TV saying, hey, I want to be like Jada and I watched something on my stories today on Instagram. That's why you got to be careful of who you follow and what you watch, and I saw something with her, so she comes to mine, but separate from that. Oh my god, jada cut her hair bald. I need to Child know my head's big. I'm not doing it.

Speaker 2: 13:29

The point of sharing that is sometimes what you're seeing on TV, social media and all the things that can cause you to go after a goal or go after a passion, or go after a project or move to a place or pursue a career or pursue a business. But it's not your own thought, it's not your own idea. The reason I bring that into play is that if it's not your own thought and it's not your own idea when you hit these obstacles, it's gonna be hard to walk by faith and not by sight. It is going to be hard to not consider everything about the experience hard as opposed to the ease, because you're aligned to what it is you're doing. So I would not be a good steward and vessel of my gifts if I did not share with you that you have to make sure whatever you're doing is for you, it's fully aligned with what feels right to you, because if you don't, that is a whole nother episode in terms of the chaos that you're dealing with mentally in the difficulty of how it is to be able to accomplish your goals, in part because it's not your goal. But I'm going to move into because I digress the walk by faith and not by sight. When it's yours, you're going to have to just know that it's yours. God gave this to you. He wouldn't trust you with the vision, the thought, the anything if he didn't have your back, and you're not going to always have the full blueprint in the way that you expect it.

Speaker 2: 15:23

When you're making smaller decisions, that can be hard as well. Like I'm going to college, I know I need to complete X amount of semesters. I know what kind of grades I need to be able to accomplish and achieve in order to get the degree. This job requires this kind of degree with this many years of experience. So I know I need to go find two years of experience in order to get to that level. It is a little bit more clear in those kind of goals, despite the fact that it feels hard in going through the conditioning and the process. But when you start mastering those kind of goals and those things and you get out into things to where the vision is not societal, it is not go get a degree and get a job, it is not get to the CEO level. It is make an impact, make a difference and bet on yourself so that you create a legacy and create that generational wealth and be the curse breaker in your family.

Speaker 2: 16:31

Those visions are different and those visions require you to have faith the size of a mustard seed. It requires you to keep going and waiting on God to continue to tell you what direction to go. When your spirit tells you to do something, your reaction time has to be instant. It cannot be. Oh, but I don't feel like it. Oh, but not now. Oh, but I look a mess. Oh, that's my favorite, I look a mess. I look a mess right now.

Speaker 2: 17:08

But the point is you have got to go after the things that you know you're supposed to go after, regardless of how you feel, regardless of what you think you have, because if you were called to it, god will get you through it. Continue to embrace your authentic self. That is my best piece of advice to you. If you are showing up as you every day of the week and you're coming from an authentic place with pure intentions you mean others well and you are simply trying to evolve into the person that you have visioned yourself being in terms of what you're called to be, then it is going to work out for you. No one knows the timing of when it's going to work out, because it's not on your time. And that is where it becomes difficult, because in your mind, in the way that you were conditioned, it takes four years to get a master's degree. It takes two to three years to get an additional master's degree. It takes five to seven years to go ahead and get a PhD.

Speaker 2: 18:21

But in the world of faith and betting on yourself. You don't have those societal timelines that allows you to say this is when it's going to happen, that's not how it works, and so it's unconditioning yourself and reconditioning yourself to understand that it just doesn't work that way in this zone and it's OK. Enjoy what's in front of you, enjoy the moments, enjoy the life that you've already built. As you're working on the life that you are building for yourself in getting to that next level, you deserve all the things. Don't be the reason why you don't become the person that you know you're called to be.

Speaker 2: 19:06

Keep betting on yourself, keep growing and glowing, keep taking up space, keep being unapologetically. You keep going after all the things, becoming all the things. You have one life and if you choose to not bet on yourself because of fear, because of what other people think, you are doing a disservice to yourself. You don't deserve that life. Grow into your future self. Make it happen. I'm rooting for you. Break the episode. Leave me a comment. I hope this episode was valuable. You were able to get gems and all the things you have. What it takes, don't be the reason that you don't win.