Get Confident When You Are Uncertain

Welcome to Everything You Need is Within, a Spotify Greenroom live audio show and podcast produced by and for Gen-Z, with me, your host, Gigi Robinson.

All right, now we're in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Hello, everybody, welcome to Everything You Need Is Within. My name is Gigi Robinson, I am your host, I am a Gen Z creator, entrepreneur, chronic illness, mental health, body image advocate, and I'm also a student. I cannot wait to share so much with you tonight, and about what the title of this episode is which is "Getting Confident with Yourself When You're Uncertain." And you all know that I like to keep it very real with you, very candid, very open and honest, and in doing that, a part of my show, means I need to get a little more vulnerable and invite some of my friends up here. So tonight I have a very special friend of mine. This is going to sound crazy but I think we must have been friends in the womb because both of our mothers were friends since high school, which means that we go way back, basically. So, Lindsey, who's up here, and I have been friends for basically forever. And I think it's really interesting to see how like you can go from being kids and being friends by default because of your family and the situation that you're put into and like your friends around you and around your family, but you can also become friends, when there's distance, and when there's challenges and uncertainty going on in your life, whether that had to do with me, or whether that had to do with Lindsey. I think that a lot of different times call for different conversations and different important pinpoints that honestly contributed to shaping who we are today and why I wanted to do the episode on self confidence and uncertainty with her. So to start off, I just wanted to also kind of see if we had any people in this room, if you ever want to ask a question, feel free to write it in the chat and Lindsey and I will answer at the end of the episode, and just hang tight and I hope you enjoy the show. So, without further ado, Lindsey, will you please come on, introduce yourself, tell us what you're doing, where you are if you're comfortable sharing that and a little bit about yourself.

Thank you, Gigi for having me on your show. Hi everybody, my name is Lindsey Crowe. I am 25 years old. I am currently living in Los Angeles, but like Gigi, I'm from Bronx, New York. I am active duty US Navy, and currently I am in a program where they have sent me back to college, so I'm pursuing my Bachelors of Science and Environmental Science at the University of Southern California so that I can commission as a naval officer. So that's sort of what I've been doing so Gigi back to you.

Thank you so much for introducing yourself to all of us, and for those of you that may not know, I went to USC so USC was really special place in my heart, especially in the way that I was able to kind of shape my personality. I know in the past episodes, we've discussed, kind of like the privilege and the, the ability to even attend college being something that I'm very grateful for and that I worked very hard for in my life by also that like not everyone has that experience. But regardless, it can still be... the time period can still be something that I think can shape who you are as a person, regardless of where you had your education, if you had an education. But on the note of being a USC student, I would say that kind of environment really just catapults you not only into the real world because it's right near... basically like in the heart of LA, and everything that you need, whether that is going to a sporting event going to the beach, going to the mall, going downtown, going out to bars and clubs ,like there's so many different things going on there like any big metropolitan city. And, it kind of forces you to grow up a bit really quickly, that is, if you push yourself outside of your comfort zone. And that is what we will be discussing today is like how can you really capitalize off of that and take advantage of it because there's definitely times where you can have everything around you, be perfectly aligned, but if you don't jump on some of those opportunities, you will fail to ultimately capitalize on everything that you can.

One of my favorite quotes actually which I talked about in a lot of my lectures, is "there are people out there claiming your victories. Stop thinking you're not good enough, and start claiming yours." Part of that has to do with the fact that other people can just be persistent with their mindset and force themselves to kind of go out and do whatever they are meant to do or they want to do for lack of a better word, and it forces them to really get vulnerable and also be okay with rejection, and be okay, knowing what, like, like, if things might not turn out. I definitely experienced a lot of this at USC, especially in asking and applying for internships, different brand sponsorships as a content creator, and even things like starting my own show, which obviously you're all here tonight so that one worked out for me. And I want to just help as many people as I can learn how to do the same thing and get fearless in being persistent and competent and enjoying the uncertainty. I literally used to be so frustrated by uncertainty. And I think part of the reason why didn't really have to do with the world around me or like what other people thought, it had to do with what I thought and what I thought I was capable of. And part of the reason why I wanted to bring a close friend of mine on here is because, first of all, Lindsey is like one of my best friends so we talk all the time. And we've been kind of having this conversation about. When was the last time you celebrated, like everything that you've done. So if you're listening, I want you to think of something or write something that you've done recently that you're really proud of. You can write it and send it down in the chat so that I can see, you know what you guys are writing and what, like, how I can celebrate you and support you but I know there's got to be at least one thing, even if that's making your bed today, or taking a sip of water with me in a couple of minutes, you are able to be proud of. Even the smallest of things every day. And that's kind of how I find joy as well in my, my day to day life, but

I will bring Lindsey back on, And on the note of self confidence and kind of dealing with the way that you can celebrate your wins. I want to pose the question of what's kind of the most difficult part about your self confidence journey. I think talking about self confidence can be easy if it's coming from a confident person, but it's not easy if you've either had a difficult journey becoming confident or you don't feel confident right now. So Lindsey, tell us, please. What is the most difficult thing that you've experienced with with your…

So, my journey is a little bit long, people always ask, you know, at 25 years old. How did I end up where I am now, how did I end up in the military? I think that when you're looking at yourself confidence, I think the hardest part about working on your self confidence is actually the action of doing it. Back to what you were saying about how often do you sit there and celebrate your wins? Like how if you look back to five years ago, do you see a really big change in yourself, and how often today do you look in the mirror and say, you know what I did that. I'm so proud of you. And I think that that is the hardest thing to do when it comes to self confidence, because your mom or you know your friends can turn to you and say I'm so proud of you, like, look what you've done and you can be like yeah, yeah no whatever but the moment that you sit there and you look at yourself in the mirror and say, you know what "I did that" is such a change of pace in your self confidence. I mean there was a time before I joined the military that I think I displayed a lot of overconfidence as a cover up for deep rooted, insecurity, I mean you could look at me as I was walking down the street and be like, oh yeah, she's confident but when I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't like what I saw. And that isn't only about image and the way you look, if you're pretty or if you're fit, or whatever your body type. It's also about like where you are in life, and before I joined the military, I was just so not happy. And I think that like, that's the most important thing to me when it comes to self confidence is noticing your wins. And like you had said earlier, I mean, if the only thing you did today was make your bed, celebrate that, because at least tonight when you go to sleep, you can get into a freshly made bed. So I think celebrating your wins is the first step and the most important step in your self confidence journey.

Heck yes, I could not agree with that more and I think especially living with like a chronic condition, that's been really difficult. I know for me, growing into this confident person took years, but it also took again like getting really comfortable with that uncertainty element of life. And I honestly used to be one of the shyest people in the room, believe it or not, I used to have like a fear of public speaking, a fear of performing a place where Lindsey and I met, I mean, again, we knew each other way beforehand since our parents were friends but, um, she... when, when, when our family moved up to the Bronx from the city, her mom said okay, to my mom, she's like, you gotta get G involved in this theater program. And I was like, I'm never gonna like that like I'm a really shy person, and I just don't know if that's going to be like the best thing for me right now in high school like I was at LaGuardia and I really just wanted to develop my like art skills, learning about photography and design and, you know, drawing and this and that. But I just said, you know what, sign me up, let's do this, let's do it, let's try out, and I joined when Lindsey was graduating, so we had one show of overlap, which was Rent, and not to get all sentimental but you know one of one of the biggest songs in the show is oh my gosh Lindsey, you're gonna have to help me out but it's the one that ends with like, "there's no day but today." Um, and I think it has to do with really changing your life, and taking action and celebrating, every single day, no matter what the win is. What's that song called?

I'm pretty sure it's called "No Day but Today," but because one of the show, and "Seasons of Love" obviously but "No Day but Today" is its own song and I think, you think it's the biggest one, because in the musical it's the finale. Right, end the show with no day but today.

Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, yeah, exactly. And just on that note, I was like shy, scared art student, and I was forced to like go onto the stage. At first when you're in ensemble, you don't really have a microphone on, but when you are elite, you certainly do. And in the videos they certainly make sure to get videos of all the ensembles, so you've got to be on your A game all the time. I think theater is really interesting because it kind of, in my mind, operates similar to like an ant farm, or like a beehive where it's a group mentality, there's like the people that are like the queen, or like, aka the leads, and then there's all like the worker bees or like the worker ants and like, they're all helping to support the lead, carry the show. And as I spent time in this theater program, I found myself getting more and more confident going up on stage and knowing that if I forgot lyrics to something, or I've repeated myself that it wasn't really going to matter like at the very most, people who are in the audience are just gonna be like, oh she messed up, or whatever like she's a high school kid and she messed up in her, her shell. And...

I just want to say even most of the time, they don't even know that you messed up, your reputation of yourself is much more harsh, like you knowing that you messed up most of the time, they don't know.

Absolutely. And that goes for any situation. Theater aside. Um, if you're giving a speech, and you have to improvise then you improvise and you just make sure that you don't focus your entire speech on apologizing for a mistake that you made. I think, in the instance where you do make the mistake that you definitely need to apologize for, for sure, go for it but right now we're talking about kind of public speaking, and like you know this real delivery of making a mistake, kind of in a scripted setting. So again, you understand, y'all get the vibe I think. And I don't know, I just think it's, I think it's so interesting because, like you saying, like you were saying earlier, if you had a friend or, you know, somebody like a parent or a guardian nearby when you ended a show of course they're gonna be like oh my gosh, you are amazing, but there's always like that one person that I think you can trust where you can be like was I good, like, even though my voice cracked like, how was it, and I feel like you're my person for that we're like, in a performance, or in a delivery of something, if I asked you for your honest feedback, you would absolutely give you the answer straight up like you wouldn't B.S. me at all. And I think that it's very important to have somebody like that in your life to kind of like check you and your own confidence because you can think that you're doing amazing, amazing things but then maybe it's like missing the mark, and that's the one thing holding you back, so I always talk about doing self audits, whether that's with your social media or your confidence or your personal brand or whatever it may be, you got to do the audit frequently, because you need to continue to iterate, you can't do the same formula over and over again, there's a reason like iOS and Android has updates, frequently, right and apps have updates because they gotta iterate and they have to be better. And that is how I view confidence you need to recharge, refuel, update, move on, continue. Repeat. And I just think that you really helped me along with that journey so thank you so much. It's not often I bring people that I know, into, I think my personal world and in a way it just makes me much more vulnerable and excited to, you know, share such an amazing person with everybody so I wanted to ask you, on the note of self confidence: what have you really learned from every difficult thing that you've gone through and how is that really shaped who you are today? I know you mentioned a little bit of not having boundaries, do you want to elaborate a little bit on that story so that the audience members can understand better?

Yeah, absolutely. So, this might get a little deep but I don't mind, I'm a pretty open person when it comes to my story. But I think growing up, that I was not given a lot of boundaries, way out whether it was my parents or whatever you know I didn't have a really big curfew I sort of got to go out and do what I want, I didn't have the sort of strict parents structure that a lot of people have. And I think because of those lacks of boundaries. I, in turn, have trouble setting boundaries, whether it's for myself, whether it's with other people, and sort of inadvertently I really crave boundary. I mean if there's really no other explanation as to where I was at Tulane University when I... right out of high school, that's where I went to college and I, and I didn't do well, I mean, I thought that I could balance this party/responsibility life with no problem. And boy, was that a wake up call. I mean, and that is really, really a blow to the self esteem, it's like I couldn't do it, I failed. And I think that when I studied, when I really looked internally to say okay well I didn't have the boundaries to say oh well I'm not gonna go out to a happy hour tonight, I need to stay in and study, noticing that I didn't create those things for myself, now I needed it. Now I had to look everywhere for it. So if there is a real reason that I enlisted in the military, it's, it's to set those boundaries. It's like, what better place is there so much regiment and structure than the United States military. And I think because of that, I got stuck into an environment where I really knew how to thrive. It was a real clear set of goals for me, step by step of achievement, I gotta get to this. I got to get to this place, and I sort of backtrack on like you and I like talking about not taking the time to celebrate your wins, I think, you know, with all the things that you've been doing what you know, I tell you every single day that is amazing, and sort of all the milestones that I've reached in my career, we are so focused on the next step that we never have, or we don't often take that time to sort of turn around and say, wow, this... I've really come so far, you know, I always like to say like, you know your journey starts with baby steps, and it might be baby steps the whole way. But when you look back, you're going to see that you've come miles, and that is something that really, you know, pushes me every day. I really don't often look back to see how far I've come and I think that I should do that more often, that is something that I am still learning and working on.

Yeah, I really love that quote, and I think that when you have a future focused mindset, it goes hand in hand with uncertainty because what's the one thing we really don't know about? It's the future. We have everything that's been, you know, done in the past and that's happened to us as history it's, it's happened already. So what can you control moving forward? You can only control the way that you react to situations, and the way that you can invite situations into your life, and invite people into your life. One of the, like, our most favorite things that we always talk about is, you can't change the people around you, literally, like, I can't change inherently who my mother is or who my brother is or who Lindsey is at the core, but you can change the people around you, meaning if you need to put up a boundary with somebody in your life, then, you absolutely can. And that can in turn change your circle, which can help form any kind of future self that you're becoming. And a lot of times I see people that so focus on the now, which I think is amazing, live in the moment, appreciate all life has to offer, but also do not ever lose sight of your momentum. And, like I said, you have to keep iterating on yourself and your self confidence and your motivation, so that you can be focused on being persistent with what you want. Sometimes people just like to live in the moment and do things one way, and I think that those kinds of people are very awesome. That's not how I specifically have found success though I have found that the more that I write my goals down, and I kind of come up with like a lifetime itinerary. Of course I update this every year with things like New Year's resolutions and vision boards and if you don't have the paper to make a vision board or the magazines to make a magazine vision board collage, go on Pinterest. Pinterest accounts I believe are free to set up and see a bunch of different things that you could see happening in your life or that you would dream of having in your life. And from there, how can you achieve those goals? Dreams are really just goals that you can achieve. And you just need to make a game plan and a roadmap to do that. And I found it. Definitely, to, I found a proven way to make that work, but it comes with being okay if it doesn't happen in the way that I think I would want it to happen in my head. So an example of this is my journey to even getting to USC, for example, I was graduating high school and I was supposed to go to the University of Miami in Miami, and I set myself up to go there I that was my end all be all. It was like this what I'm going to do, I'm gonna live in Florida, it's just going to be my jam. And I'm going to be, you know, super happy and live my best life there.

Two weeks before I graduated high school, I got a notification that my tuition package updated, and it made it completely unaffordable for me to go, so I could not attend my dream school. Two weeks before I graduated, the week of prom. And you know I was crushed and because of that because of my insecurity and because of my kind of sadness, accepting the fact that I wasn't going somewhere that I had thought I was supposed to. I ended up missing out on like prom. And some of those key things that I think people do right before they graduate from high school which, looking back, in the grand scheme of things, am I really upset about it? Not really. I'm much more happy with where I am today and the journey that happened. But the point of this is you can have something planned so specifically in your mind, and have it come to blow up in your face, in a way, and you have to forge a new path for yourself. So, when I, I enrolled in FIT here in New York City, which is a state school, and I said you know what I am going here for a year. I really quite enjoy New York City, but I'm pretty sure that I don't want to stay here forever and I want to be able to have the opportunity to push myself out of my own boundary, to the point where I moved across the country to Los Angeles. That didn't go like that, that wasn't an easy process, that didn't happen overnight. When I was in the process of researching schools, I called every single art admissions board or admissions counselor that I could talk to. I'm also a very meticulous research oriented person, which it definitely makes sense that I ended up at USC because it's one of the top research universities in the United States and I think in the world, but because of that, I was very persistent again, you'll hear me say this word persistence. I use it multiple times in conversations today, actually, now that I think about it, but that's irrelevant. And I spent so much time, I kid you not, calling people, calling the financial aid office, making sure that I was so on top of it so that I could get myself farthest the farthest away that I could from my comfort zone, and that landed me in downtown LA, and once I got to USC, I actually the summer before I went to USC I went to a Tony Robbins event and for anybody here that has been to one of those or has heard of them, they're meant to kind of help you reframe and reshift your mindset before you, I think, embark on any life journey. Definitely don't approve of any of the allegations that have been made against Tony I, I stand with all like victims and survivors so I don't really know about that that's not the point of the show, I just wanted to say that because I don't want anyone to come for me, but I did find value in some of the teachings. Part of that was accepting your mistakes in the past, and one of the first episodes that I came on here and talked about was failure and embracing failure because I think failure is just a way to reframe a lesson, a tough lesson. And I think that the workbook that they gave us forced us to write down the things that we failed that are the things we are unhappy with in the moment now and kind of making those goals and affirmations, affirmations that would reinforce, I think ,change. The more you say something, the more you focus on doing something and the whole idea of where your where, where what is it where energy goes, energy flows something along the lines of that. I may not, I don't know, I go, tired at 8:30. I feel like an old person sometimes. But yeah, where energy goes, energy flows. Just, you focus your mindset and your energy on whatever you want to achieve, I, I promise you, it can happen. Last week's episode I talked about New York Fashion Week. And in the next episode, I have no idea what I'm talking about yet but I'm probably gonna announce a couple things which you'll just see in the future, but I wouldn't have ended up being able to, like, have the opportunity to walk in Fashion Week if I didn't have some kind of subconscious thought, or inclination to motivate myself to eventually be at a point in my life where that could become a reality for me. And I know it sounds kind of cheesy but like, literally, anything you want, can become a reality. Again, this comes with an immense amount of confidence, both in myself knowing that I can do and achieve anything that I want to, but also at the same time being okay if I fail, and being able to come up with a game plan. It's if something doesn't fall through. If something, if I'm pitching myself for something, and it ends up not happening or if you want even like go out on a date and shoot your shot with someone right, you're going to ask them the best case scenario, they say yes, then mediocre scenario is where they say maybe, and the worst case scenario they say no and you move on and you find something better, find another thing. And I think a lot of times people get so hung up on the one thing that they want out of life that they don't figure out how to actually achieve it by getting uncomfortable doing other things that will lead them there. So that was a lot. Everyone, please drink some water with me.

I like to take these little breaks here.

As we say in the Navy.

So on that note, Lindsey, what do you think is the best thing that somebody struggling with self confidence can do to manage their expectations when they're setting boundaries? I know you said a lot about the way that you weren't able to set boundaries early on in your professional life and academic life, so much so that you enlisted in the military where everything is regimented and all about boundaries. And whether that's in conversation or in your work quite literally so what would you tell somebody struggling to manage their expectations?

So I think self confidence, and this is something that I really struggle with still and need to work on every single day, I think that with self confidence and boundaries sort of go hand in hand. I think that, you need to work on setting boundaries for yourself and not seeking, you know the, there are certain things that make everybody feel confident, confident. So telling you, oh my God, you look really pretty today or all these things like those things tend to make people feel confident and you need to be able to give that to yourself. So in setting boundaries and help managing those expectations and helping with your own self confidence, you need to not go and seek that validation from other people, because in seeking that validation from other people, you blur those boundaries, and it ends up being more detrimental to your confidence than it is helpful because you're going to forever be searching for someone else to give you what in reality you can 100% give yourself.

Right, aka codependency, which we don't like that here. We are not, I don't know, would like a kangaroos baby be considered codependent relationships that the baby kangaroo is codependent on it's mother right. Am I getting that right or am I like, so not into like basic biology?

I don't know about the whole kangaroo scenario, but I know that codependency sort of comes along with making sure that the people around you are okay. So that, in turn, you can be okay. In reality, you'd like to get rid of that you need to be okay without anybody else.

Right. And that can be very difficult. I have also talked about, I think, how being alone in the past year, being involved with I think being isolated the past year and having a chronic illness really put me in a position to be okay with being okay. Actually before the pandemic, even I mean I started in the fall of 2019, when I got really, really sick around like September/October, that was when I kind of started my self isolation, and that was way before the pandemic was a thing over here in the United States, and I found that to be really difficult at first but over time I realized that, unfortunately, if people weren't going to be there for, for me, I had to be there for myself, and I guess you could say that I learned it the hard way and I certainly know that from some of your journey so did you. And, and the reasons why you, you know, stopped going to Tulane, and ultimately enlisted like that had to come from a place of self awareness and motivation from within to better yourself, and to do something that would actually make an impact not only in your life, but in other people's lives. So I think that that is just like an excellent kind of little anecdote and like note to think about.

Yeah, did you have like a moment of awareness or an epiphany that told you? I know that I did, and I think mine was really funny, but I wanted to know if you had one too. So not to get into a lot of detail because some of it I can't speak about, but, um, after I left Tulane, I became homeless. And I was working every day. And, but I didn't have anywhere to sleep. And I thought, you know, okay, I'm doing something productive every day, I am, I'm happy because I was productive. And I was sitting around with some friends we were talking about our, our dream cars. My dream car is a Aston Martin Vanquish so sort of in that moment for me, it was like, well, what I'm doing working at a pizza shop, not living anywhere, this is not really going to get me an Aston Martin. Granted, a military salary is also not going to get me an Aston Martin, but I thought that it was a step, and I think it's really funny that that was sort of like my aha moment that I really needed to change the trajectory of my life in order to sort of set myself up for the successes that I do want.

Yeah, I love that story never gets old. I actually did not know about the pizza part of it, but that's a whole different story.

I think my moment was, was, I feel like it was back in high school, where I... okay, well it's kind of hard because I've been doing art for a very long time, and in my first introductory episode which I promise I will release soon, I talked about the journey of how people don't really know that I'm an artist and like how I came to be the Gigi I am today. And part of that is because a teacher of mine, somehow saw some creative spark within me, despite how shy I was, she saw something. So she submitted my artwork into a city wide competition called PS art, it's unique to New York City, and the public education system that they have in the winners art gets displayed in the Euris Education Center of the Arts inside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, which is like, obviously one of the most famous museums in the frickin world. So, from a young age, I had achieved that, but I also wasn't even in the place to really acknowledge it like I went there I have the pictures but like, I don't know it doesn't fully... that wasn't my moment. I think the moment where it really became real was when it happened three other times in my time in high school. And that was kind of crazy to me that somehow people out there, whether it had to do with me being a persistent, young adult, going for something and shooting my shot, or if it just had to do with like the work that I was creating one of the pieces that was in the MET was a night photograph that I had shot with a bunch of strobe lights and a long exposure so it just took a lot of effort and I think it was something fresh, especially in an urban city like New York to see a starry sky was, you know, very jarring to them. The other piece was a, a photograph of the climate march in 2015, and for some reason, I am... oh that and then the third one was another starry sky, kind of, photograph, and all of those were unique photos that had a bunch of different memories and purpose behind. But I think having my work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art was like a wake up call that I had some kind of bigger purpose, even though I was not sure what it was, even though my dream of going to U Miami, didn't happen. Somehow everything unfolded how it was supposed to, my chronic illness got worse while I was in LA thriving to challenge me, I believe, in a way, like maybe I was working so hard that it made me a little sick. Not gonna lie. That sometimes happens and I need to have better boundaries with my specific health, and the way that I navigate my own personal life and making sure that I'm getting enough sleep and drinking enough water that's why I always do water reminders in this show is because I spend all day doing, doing, doing that I forget to do the basic things that I really need to do to thrive, and I made myself so sick in college by burning myself out and always trying to email the professor's to get Office Hour help and to, you know, meet other photographers and artists to get critiques and to learn and to assist and to do, you know I did 10 internships in college, I did 12, you know, brand ambassador roles aside from that, and I was doing my own freelance business on top of being a full time student, and a full time chronically ill patient. So I was burning myself out to the point where I couldn't do anything, basic, and because of that, I had to take a pause, like a big pause in my life. Whoa whoa whoa whoa Gigi. You can't go too far ahead, because you're not living in the moment, you're doing everything that you can to work towards this goal that you want to, you know, make it, make a change somehow, what's the change I want to make? Like at first for a long time it was wanting to be a photographer on and have my images up in Vogue and in Elle one day. And I just think that I was so focused on achieving that, but I didn't take care of myself and the second that I did take care of myself, the entire narrative shifted, for me, away from how I could, I think, do something that in my opinion was like kind of like egocentric of like wanting my pictures to be on a magazine for whatever reason, to now creating purpose driven where that actually makes a difference for people and can help people and inspire people based on the journey so that I can coach them through and help them kind of like shift really shift their own narrative of what it means to be successful, and what it means to be uncertain and how you can really find, find it fun and thrilling. So, yeah, I mean that was quite the ramble tangent, but I'm like the CEO of that so it's like okay.

You know I like to talk about the ideologies of success. And I think that the biggest thing is, obviously, of course 100% taking care of yourself, but I think of like the idea of who you want to be, what is success to you, and showing up as that person, tomorrow morning when you wake up, the most successful version of yourself, what do they do during the day? Do that tomorrow. and I think that doing that helps self confidence as well. Absolutely, I am. Yeah. Sorry, and almost like takes you away from that uncertainty. Right, I think it all ties in.

Yeah. Another thing about daily affirmations, which I feel like I've said this before, whether that's on Instagram or Tik Tok or on my previous live shows that I have mirrors everywhere, whether that's a pocket mirror in my backpack or curse or makeup bag, whether that's a small mini mirror on my, my desk where I'm sitting right now, whether that's a vanity mirror, a mirror on my closet, or even looking at myself and my camera phone if I'm very desperate and don't have a mirror on hand, I usually have my phone. I will honestly stare myself dead in the face and just tell myself how proud I am and how amazing it is to, like, be my own best friend sometimes and be confident knowing that at the end of the day like I have myself. I, I mean something. At the very least to myself and hopefully one other person. I'm not including my mom because obviously like she likes me a lot. But that's, that's the goal, and I really found that making sure that I can look at myself dead in the face and say like, are you proud with what you've done today to be a better person tomorrow? Something my dad always says to me is: do today, what others won't so that tomorrow you can do the things that others can't. And that mantra has been so helpful to me on my worst days, I think of the days where I don't want to do anything, and I'm so down and I'm beating myself up because I'm not achieving what I want to achieve and nothing's going, well, I reframe that narrative, again, how can I do things today to make tomorrow better. If there's a bunch of other people living in the moment today doing the exact same thing as me, not really being persistent and being okay being lazy and not interested in moving forward in a positive way that's going to work towards whatever goal that is tomorrow, they're going to be stuck a day behind. So, yeah, just focus on, focus on that and write. Write that down. I would encourage anyone listening to write that down and figure out what those things are for you tomorrow. Go into thinking about all of the things that you can do so that you can work towards whatever goal it is in the future. I have a couple more questions for you before I'm going to open the floor to people that might have questions, but the title of the show is Everything You Need is within. Tell us what your mantra is that keeps you going.

So obviously I really believe I mean I follow you obviously that everything you need is listen. But for me, the word can't isn't in my vocabulary. Yeah, there is nothing that I can't do, and that's the only thing, telling yourself that every single day is the saying that has pushed me to achieve my goals. I mean, I failed at completing college and I enlisted in the military, wanting to complete college and here I am, through a program in the military, going back to college, so I can finish college. No, I thought that that was something that everybody did. Right, right, and I recognize the privilege.

Yeah, I, I used to think like, oh, like why would I have a show like I don't think I could ever be a podcaster, like, I can't be a podcaster like why would I want to do that but I realized through this show that the, the topics, especially coming from like a Gen Z perspective can sometimes be a little bit... I don't know how to say this... more spontaneous and a little bit reckless maybe at times and fearless, but I'd like to calculate my spontaneity, honestly. And that's what helps me get comfortable within the uncertainty, and just being okay knowing that if I fail at something, it's not something I I couldn't do. It was just that I needed a lesson to be able to do it in the future. So I think that, yeah, that's, that's all my little moment on that, um, does anyone have questions or want to come up and ask me or Lindsey anything?

Yeah, just a quick sort of touch on it, get comfortable being uncomfortable that way that you can change the narrative and get places. Uncertainty, failure, those are the stepping stones to confidence and success. So get comfortable being uncomfortable. I implore you now to get uncomfortable and come up here.

Yeah, seriously, I mean there's like a bunch of you in here, so now's your time to shine. And for those of you tuning in for the first time welcome up to the stage. If you want to come up, you just have to press the little request hand button to raise your hand and you can ask me a question or you know talk about something you're uncertain about and maybe I can help guide you through that process of kind of shifting your mindset about that. I know in the beginning of the episode I asked some of you what you're proud of, does anybody have something that they're uncomfortable with or they're not proud of that, has, has helped them something or if not, no worries, I'm going to close it out but in the future if you come into my shows they are 8pm on the 8pm Eastern on Fridays, and I absolutely love doing this and spending my Friday night like this, and serving all of you lovely people and you lovely listeners. I also think that in the future if you got more comfortable. You want to raise your hand and ask questions, that's fine, but you will be featured on my podcast because this is a live recording of that, if I could tell, which would be kind of funny but anyway. Going once, going twice at 8:55 I'm gonna probably wrap this baby up if there aren't any questions. Also Lindsey, feel free to like ask me a question, you know, throw me a curveball. People can see how I act under pressure, or give me like, oh wait, somebody. Somebody's asking. Oh, he means, I think it's. Hello, I believe, Amber, am I saying that right?

Close, close GG, you can try it one more time before I give you my real finance.

Maybe it's just Amber, and I, the Q is silent,

Not at all. Q is ...you could call me Q if that's easy for you. Okay. Got it, okay. Yeah, you weren't here, you did better than most people so good for you.

Awesome. So tell us, are telling me what is something that I can help you out with today?

Well first of all, I came in and listen the, the little bit of you and Lindsey talking about confidence and how Lindsey has in her brain, her dictionary she doesn't have a word "can't", right, I love that it is that that is the attitude that will definitely take you places that you never thought you could, right? So, that is amazing. So yeah, what you can help you with it's just like, I'm, I find myself a confident person, but I do have know that I'm scared or, I don't know if it's fear or not but the social media aspect of, you know I always being myself in person. I have no problem speaking in the crowd or in person work, per se, but when it comes to social media, going live or having, you know, videos or posting, I don't know what it is but I never really grew up with that attitude, so it's very difficult for me to, to do that so I checked out your social media years and Lindsey I mean you guys are amazing on it by the way. Yeah, so to me, I think what I'm asking is for someone who's been living in the cave and or jungle as a Tarzan and now is coming into the world of today, what's happening in the world, what would you recommend in order to succeed on social media and be more comfortable and you don't I mean like I hope yow understand what I'm asking.

Um, yes. well thank you so much for being vulnerable and coming up here, I really appreciate it, and I'm more than happy to dive right into that because I think a big amount of the pressure that we feel around posting on social media has to do with our fear of being judged by others on social media. And at the very least, judged by the people that know us, that will be following us and seeing it. Oh, what is Susie May gonna think of my IG live if I post it or what is Mr Daniel gonna think if I, you know, post this crazy photo that I feel super amazing in but maybe it's a little quirky, like why... ask yourself why that bothers you and why that makes you uncomfortable because at the end of the day, the people that actually care about you are going to be cheering you on. And the people that don't care about you are honestly just going to be sitting back watching you, until it pisses them off to the point where you know they they may be so frustrated with your success but also the haters opinions are none of your business. So that's the first thing. The second thing I would encourage you to get comfortable with is just, just starting. Everyone always asked me like, how do you start self advocacy? How do you start a brand on social media? How do you start public speaking? Quite literally, one day I just rolled my sleeves up and I said you know what, I want to change the way that I'm actually working. So I did just that. I remember I texted Lindsey I was like we're going live on Instagram together like, let's go and she's like, why why would I go live like there's nothing to live about and I'm like, at the very least, like, it's you and me like we can just have a conversation about clean beauty or hair, hair or makeup like those are things that we like relating to the climate that the world is in right now. Regarding the pandemic, regarding the Olympics, regarding the injustice happening in the world, I think it's important to acknowledge a number of things, the first being that it's not your burden or responsibility to tackle every single one of those issues. And if there's a purpose or a calling that you really feel drawn to making content about on social media, that is what I would try to focus on. Another exercise which Lindsey's very familiar with and I do this with all of my clients so you're getting the special Gigi experience tonight, is when you, like, I guess I can ask you like, what what's important to you about social media or like why do you want to start posting on social media?

Really good question. Just a little bit of history, I've been in a supply chain for almost 18 years so very private sector, what with a, you know, just the private company for quite a long time. So I am getting out of that corporate world into real estate world so I am getting my license as a realtor. So as a realtor, I think I have to have a presence in their social media so everybody knows what I'm doing. I have to market myself.

Yeah. Okay, so, so pausing right there. First things first, you think that you have to have a presence online because of what other people do. First of all, I think it's amazing that you're doing what you're doing. Think about how many different stories you're going to be able to tell about the process of leaving corporate and going into real estate, right, that's a whole thing that you can create content on, in and of itself. Another reason is you think that creating social media around real estate is going to be helpful because of what other people's social media accounts, look like right now, right, ask yourself, why that's important to you. After you've done that, ask yourself again, quite literally write it down on a piece of paper until you've done it seven or 10 times. And by the end, you'll have a list of different things that are telling you exactly what you need to do to create content online.

Yeah, I call it finding your why, you know, like why do I need to post this online and when you get that answer, ask why, why is that the answer, and you keep doing that like Gigi said like seven to 10 times. That way you're gonna have the most in depth reasons for why you're doing what you're doing, whether it goes all the way down to something personal. The part that is very misconstrued and still is on social media, is that a lot of the time, it's not the truth. I mean, Gigi knows that I will spend a certain amount of time trying to pick the best photo when, you know, I don't always look the way that I do that I post on social media so I think breaking through that boundary of being vulnerable on social media. So, and then that will allow you to connect with other people, and in turn make your brand so much better.

Yeah. And one last note on that. Before I invite somebody else up. If anybody else has other questions just please feel free to raise your hand, by the way, is the only thing getting in your way of starting is you not starting. Just go live on Instagram and tell your story, tell everybody what you're doing and why, and tell everyone the journey that you're embarking on why that's so important to you and from there, you'll be able to fuel your momentum. So thank you so much Q, I appreciate you being up here.

I just wanted to just end it on. If you wouldn't take advice from certain people, then you definitely should take their opinions and criticism. Don't take criticism from people, you wouldn't trade places with.

You guys are dynamite, love it, thank you.

Thank you. If anybody else wants to come up with... Going once, going twice, you're going to be gone and in a little bit so if you do want to come on up. Now's your chance. Anyone? Um, all right, well, I guess with that... I assure everyone, okay. With that... with that said, thank you all so much for joining into this week's episode of Everything You Need is Within. In the future, I want to get more people up here being as vulnerable as they can be and, you know, sharing the wisdom and the love and the guidance that I can with you from, you know, a slightly younger and more childish, but just like a little fun, quirky youthful edge to whatever kind of situation you're in right now, and whenever I can't do it, just let me know so thank you so much when we before we go, tell everyone there where they can find you on social media.

Gigi, thank you so much for having me, everyone, thank you for listening to my story in this episode. I really appreciate you guys sticking around. If you go to my profile on greenroom, I have my Instagram linked, it's just my name @LindseyCrowe, so I'm looking forward to getting in touch with a bunch of people and connecting so thank you guys again.

Thank you so much everyone. I love doing this episode, and I can't wait to see you all next week for another exciting episode of everything you need is within with Gigi Robinson. Over and out. Good night