Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 19, 2019


Ep 78 ｜ 27


Episode Stats

Length

41 minutes

Words per Minute

202.26552

Word Count

8,309

Sentence Count

491

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, happy Tuesday. So full disclosure, Relatable, as you are watching it right now,
00:00:07.760 it's the 19th. But as I am recording this, it is actually February 14. So Relatable is being
00:00:14.800 recorded the week before you're actually watching it. Because as you are listening to this,
00:00:20.520 I am on my baby moon. You know, that thing like honeymoon, except before you actually have your
00:00:27.480 baby. Some people are very confused about that. But to be honest, it's not just a baby moon. It's
00:00:32.520 also for my birthday, which was as you're listening to this yesterday, I turned 27 years old. And
00:00:39.100 that's kind of going to be the theme for the podcast today. Going to talk about what I thought
00:00:44.520 my life would look like at 27 years old, how it's different and what I've learned because you guys
00:00:49.200 have asked me about that particular subject a lot. But also this trip is for Valentine's Day and just
00:00:54.580 for fun. And we are in Colorado living it up. I'm actually still working on my book while we're
00:01:02.360 on our baby moon, but we are enjoying as much rest and relaxation as we can while we're here.
00:01:07.820 So like I said, we are going to talk about my 27 year old perspective. Now, a lot of you listening
00:01:13.880 to this might be older than me and have so much more wisdom than I do. Even if you're younger than me,
00:01:19.800 you might have more wisdom than I do. But I get a lot of questions from you guys about personal
00:01:24.760 advice and advice getting into doing podcasts or getting into political commentating or just
00:01:30.560 professional advice in general, even if you don't want to be in this kind of media realm at all.
00:01:36.660 And so I want to give you at least what I know and how I got to where I am. Now, I'm not speaking
00:01:42.080 from someone who is like at the peak of my career and knows everything about political media and is
00:01:48.120 just on the very top of my game and so famous. I'm not talking from that perspective. I don't
00:01:53.900 think that I'm any bigger or any more experienced than I am. I'm just speaking from what I know as a
00:02:00.520 27 year old now. That sounds really, really old saying out loud. A 27 year old now and someone who
00:02:07.720 has been doing this kind of thing for the past few years. I just want to give you a little hope,
00:02:12.500 little encouragement and whatever wisdom I have been able to glean in this life and career of
00:02:19.120 mine. So to be honest, life looks a lot different. Life looks a lot different at 27 than I thought
00:02:26.640 that it would. So when I was 21, 22, I was finishing up college, finished college in 2014. I majored in
00:02:35.640 communication studies. I decided to go into PR. I'm extremely grateful for the first job that I had.
00:02:41.380 Uh, and I looking ahead, I thought for some reason, I just had it in my mind that I would be married
00:02:48.080 at 27, that I would get married at 27, thought I'd meet my husband around 25. For some reason,
00:02:54.000 I had it in my mind that I would be moving to Atlanta and having like a corporate job there.
00:02:58.840 I have no idea where that really came from. I lived in Athens, Georgia, right after college. And
00:03:03.520 that's where I worked at a PR firm. And so for some reason, the thing that I thought that I was going
00:03:08.380 to do was move to Atlanta, meet someone there probably who also had maybe a similar corporate
00:03:14.220 job as I did, uh, when I was 25 and they get married at 27. And I thought that I would never
00:03:19.980 move back to Texas where I'm from. And I would just kind of do that forever. But, but I also had
00:03:27.920 this underlying dream that I've had since I was maybe 12 years old to do three things. And that is
00:03:34.400 to be on TV, to public speak and to write books. Those are the things that I've always wanted to
00:03:40.980 do. My family and I would watch Fox news growing up. We would watch Hannity and Combs when I was
00:03:46.080 young. I would watch Megyn Kelly in high school. And I just thought she was awesome. I thought all
00:03:51.000 of the female guests that she had on were awesome. And even though I never thought I could do that,
00:03:56.940 I never thought, Ooh, I have what it takes to get there. I just thought that would be awesome to do.
00:04:01.260 So that's not really what I pursued though. I knew that Megyn Kelly had gone to law school.
00:04:06.120 That was something that I considered when I was in college. But ultimately, even though I was decent
00:04:10.760 at school, I didn't love school. And so I did not want to go to three more years of school after I
00:04:16.740 graduated from college. So didn't go to law school, went straight into PR. And I met my husband when I
00:04:24.680 was 22. I ended up getting married at 23. As you guys know, from what I said last week on the podcast,
00:04:30.440 we dated, got engaged very quickly, fell in love very quickly, got married. I've never looked back.
00:04:35.900 I'm very thankful for that. But I got married at 23 and I was in my job in PR and I was in our
00:04:42.620 little one bedroom apartment that we had in Athens. And I was sitting there. I think I was still 23 at
00:04:47.560 this point when I was having this kind of, I don't want to call it an epiphany or just a thought that I
00:04:54.980 was having. I was sitting in our apartment in Athens and I was just like, what am I doing?
00:05:00.440 What am I doing with my life, really? Am I moving the ball in any direction that I really want to go?
00:05:07.700 Because I kind of feel like I'm just existing. I kind of feel like, OK, I'm just getting a paycheck.
00:05:13.800 I have this nine to five job. It's fine. I'm using some of the strength that I feel like God has given
00:05:19.000 me. But what am what am I really doing that's purposeful? Am I using all of my talents? And I
00:05:25.740 thought about that dream that I once had to do something like what Megyn Kelly was doing. I thought
00:05:31.920 about, OK, I have always said that I wanted to do TV. I always said that I wanted to do something
00:05:39.220 in media. I always said that I want to write books and I'm not doing anything to move the ball in that
00:05:45.340 direction. I'm not doing anything to actually do that. And goals can only be considered goals for
00:05:52.380 so long if you're not actually working towards them. Then they're just fantasies. And I think I
00:05:58.340 realized that that day I was sitting on our couch. I think it was in the morning. I think I realized
00:06:02.700 that in my head I was entertaining a fantasy that I wasn't putting any feet on. I wasn't actually
00:06:09.080 working towards any goal. I just had it in my head that, OK, one day I'm going to
00:06:15.320 maybe pursue all of those things, you know, after I'm old and 27. I'll think about what it what it
00:06:21.120 might take to be on TV one day. And then I realized then when I was 23, well, OK, what am I
00:06:29.540 going to do to get there? I'm not doing anything to get there. And so it was probably a few months
00:06:35.280 after that that I was driving. I think I was actually driving from a friend's house in Atlanta
00:06:39.740 from or to a friend's house in Atlanta back back to Athens or from Athens. I don't remember. And I
00:06:44.640 called my mom and I just had this idea that just popped into my head. I said, Mom, I think
00:06:50.800 I want this was in 2015. So the primaries were happening, presidential primaries. And I said,
00:06:55.200 Mom, I think I want to tell young people, specifically college age women, why they should
00:07:01.600 vote in the primaries. And I'm not really sure what led me to to think about that, what sparked
00:07:08.600 that interest in me, because I've been marginally interested in politics, but I wasn't super
00:07:12.640 involved in college, should have been more involved. I wasn't particularly involved in
00:07:16.320 high school. I've just always kind of been marginally interested in that. And knowing I've
00:07:21.140 always kind of known what's going on. And I've always been a conservative, as I've talked about
00:07:25.400 in past podcasts. But whatever it was in the fall of 2015, I decided that, OK, I am going to tell
00:07:32.360 young people why they should vote in the primaries. I've got all these smart people around me because
00:07:36.220 I lived in a college town and I feel like they just don't know what's going on. There's no excuse
00:07:41.260 for their ignorance. They are educated. They have access to all this information.
00:07:45.720 Why do I feel like a lot of my friends, a lot of the people that I know aren't going to vote
00:07:50.740 and just don't care about what's going on? And so I decided that I was going to reach out
00:07:56.520 to college sororities and just ask them if I could give a nonpartisan presentation about
00:08:01.380 why you should vote in the primaries. And so I created what I thought was a really relevant
00:08:05.560 and fun nonpartisan presentation and asked different sororities. I just found the president's
00:08:12.840 email address online or something like that. Asked these sorority heads if I could come speak
00:08:19.380 to their group. And, you know, sororities are always kind of looking for for people to entertain
00:08:24.960 them during chapter or something like that. And I was like, it'll be 15 minutes. They can ask questions
00:08:29.760 after whatever. So came up with this presentation. A few sororities said, yes, I would go there.
00:08:34.740 I obviously wasn't getting paid. They were basically doing me a favor by giving me an
00:08:38.520 audience. And so I would just give these nonpartisan presentations and I loved it. I fell in love
00:08:43.880 with the idea of doing this. I loved interacting with an audience, especially a young female
00:08:49.160 audience that I've always felt like I relate to. At that point, I was only a year older than
00:08:53.440 the oldest of them. So I was close to their age. I felt like I understood the questions that
00:08:58.300 they had and the reservations that they had to get involved in politics. I started getting
00:09:02.200 emails from some of the girls asking me questions about what they're learning in class. And I was
00:09:06.200 like, yes, I love this. And I still had my full time job at the time in Athens. But I added this
00:09:13.140 on to that because I was like, oh, this is a hobby that I think that I really enjoy. And I started to
00:09:18.240 feel more like, OK, I'm not just a waste of space. I'm not just wasting my time. I'm actually moving the
00:09:25.560 ball forward in some direction in the way that I want to go. And I had no idea what that looked like.
00:09:30.720 I didn't have an end goal. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a strategy. I had no one behind me
00:09:36.220 telling me, Ali, you're good at this. You need to do this. This is something you need to pursue.
00:09:40.140 And here's your next step. I didn't have that. It was just like, oh, Ali's she's doing this fun
00:09:45.780 little thing off to the side. OK, great. I didn't really care. So I did that. And a few months after
00:09:51.500 after I started doing that and just really loving it, I started the blog, The Conservative Millennial,
00:09:55.940 obviously not nonpartisan. I would start writing like funny analyses of the debates and things like
00:10:03.140 that that got a tiny bit of traction. But mostly the people that followed the Conservative Millennial
00:10:07.800 Facebook page, I didn't have an Instagram. I didn't have Twitter or anything like that when I first got
00:10:11.600 started. This was now 2016. Most of the people that followed me were friends and family, maybe
00:10:17.820 like 300 total people that followed me. And a few months after I started that, I started making
00:10:23.420 videos. My first video was about Harambi, Harambi. And I didn't have any editing equipment. I didn't
00:10:29.540 have a Mac or I did, but I think it was just totally not working. I'd had it for so long that it just
00:10:36.140 I couldn't edit anything. And so I would take my iPad, sit in my living room with no lights on like
00:10:42.140 what? And why didn't I put makeup on or brush my hair? Guess I just haven't changed. And I would
00:10:47.740 just record my thoughts and it would take me forever because I couldn't edit them. So I had to make it
00:10:52.620 perfect all in one take. And those first few videos that I did, I mean, maybe they got 2000,
00:10:59.020 2000 views like they got nothing. And there was no one again, encouraging me and telling me,
00:11:05.800 you just got to keep going. OK, yeah, you're getting no traction. No one cares about anything
00:11:09.500 you're doing, but you just need to keep going. No one said that. I don't even think my husband said
00:11:14.100 that. And he wasn't discouraging. He just I think everyone just thought this is just a thing you're
00:11:18.520 doing for fun. And yet something in me, something was like, you got to keep going,
00:11:22.740 even though everyone probably thinks you're stupid. So a few videos after that, I did some
00:11:26.880 kind of video about Trump that ended up getting hundreds of thousands of views. And then after
00:11:32.500 that, my video started getting hundreds of thousands of millions of views, even though I was doing the
00:11:36.560 same thing. I was just saying random stuff. And some of my videos in there was still getting like
00:11:41.020 2000 views, but I just kept going. And then at the beginning of 2017, my husband
00:11:45.860 got a job that moved us to Texas, where I'm from. So now we are close to my family. And I've told this
00:11:54.460 story before, but they just still think it's amazing how God can work. So I quit my job that I
00:12:02.660 was in in Athens. And I knew I wanted to get into media somehow. And I thought for some reason that the
00:12:08.120 only route that I could take was radio. So I had a friend who did weather, I think weather and traffic
00:12:14.280 for a local radio station in Athens. And I had been asking her to connect me to her old boss named
00:12:19.680 Pete at this local radio station. And Pete wouldn't answer my calls. He wouldn't answer my emails. He
00:12:25.220 might've answered them, but I could tell he just wasn't interested in talking to me. I just wanted
00:12:29.160 to meet with him. I don't know if I could get some, you know, weekend radio slot or something like that,
00:12:34.140 then maybe that could be my big break. And so I really wanted to talk to him. But once I found out
00:12:38.700 we were moving to Dallas, I was kind of like, okay, there's no, there's no reason. There's no
00:12:43.120 reason for me to talk to this guy anymore because he can't help me. But for some reason, again, I was
00:12:47.840 driving this, these ideas always come to me when I'm, when I'm driving, I was driving one day and I
00:12:53.460 left him a voicemail and I said, Pete, this is Allie. And I know you're super busy, but I don't want
00:13:00.480 anything from you. I I'm moving to Texas. So I don't need anything from you. I'm just, I'm just hoping
00:13:05.920 that you'll be able to sit down with me for a little bit and have a conversation with me about
00:13:11.540 radio. He called me back immediately. I think once he realized I didn't, I wasn't asking for a job
00:13:16.880 that he was like, okay, I can spend some time on her without promising her anything. So I, uh, I met
00:13:24.660 with him in his office, this old, like cluttered office with like framed pictures of albums from
00:13:34.500 like 2002, like Britney Spears and NSYNC. I mean, it was just classic, small radio station producer
00:13:40.600 office and sat with him. He was so nice. I told him what I do and what I want to do. I didn't know
00:13:47.980 if he was a conservative or anything like that. And he was like, you know, the only person I really
00:13:52.080 know that does conservative radio is Dana Lash. And I didn't know who that was. I was like, okay,
00:13:57.660 great, whatever. And he was like, well, I have someone though that I can connect you to.
00:14:01.800 Um, and he lives in Nashville and he's a bigger part of this whole national, uh, radio network
00:14:08.780 than I am. So I'll connect you to this guy named Steve and maybe he can help you. Okay, great.
00:14:13.240 So on the day that we're moving, I'm in our one bedroom apartment with no furniture in it. I call
00:14:18.920 this guy named Steve. He is the nicest guy. I still remember the conversation. He was the kindest
00:14:23.080 person and long story short, he said, okay, I'm going to connect you to this guy in Dallas who
00:14:29.080 actually, uh, works for Dana Lash and, um, maybe he'll, maybe he'll be able to give you some advice.
00:14:36.760 So I emailed this guy and I said, Hey, I'm, I'm just hoping that you can, that you can give me
00:14:42.880 some advice. I'm, you know, wanting to break into media. I'm hoping you can give me some advice.
00:14:47.080 I'll be, uh, I'll, I'll be in the area sometime next week and maybe we can meet. And he said,
00:14:53.540 yeah, definitely. Sure. I'll show you around the blaze. And so I went to the blaze, met this person.
00:14:59.160 He was just kind of, kind of show me around and tell me about the radio show and things like that.
00:15:03.420 I had knew nothing about the blaze at the time. And then when I was there, someone stopped me,
00:15:08.020 a TV producer and said, Hey, you're the conservative millennial, which was an incredible
00:15:12.940 thing at the time, because I didn't think anyone really knew who I was. And he stopped me and he
00:15:19.400 introduced me to some more people and really long story short there about a week after I moved to
00:15:24.700 Texas, I got a full-time job at the blaze. I actually helped them with social media, but I
00:15:28.420 started making my own videos there that ended up, uh, becoming successful. And then I started getting
00:15:33.520 calls from, uh, Fox and other networks to be a guest. I think my first thing was on, on Fox and
00:15:39.780 friends. And, um, the, the longer I went, the bigger my videos got and I kept on writing and I kept on,
00:15:47.060 uh, speaking at organizations and at colleges. And at this point I could actually charge for that.
00:15:52.200 And so I felt like, okay, I'm actually making somewhat of a living from this. I'm actually
00:15:57.840 doing something that I want to do. I actually feel like I'm actually maybe moving the ball forward
00:16:04.660 just a little bit. Um, and then after almost a year of working at the blaze, I moved to CRTV,
00:16:10.700 which is now blaze TV. And that's where I started my podcast, which started almost a year ago.
00:16:16.660 In March. Um, and so I, I had no idea. I had no idea what it was going to be that actually got me
00:16:27.720 to in, got me to start in a direction of where I wanted to go of where I felt like I was actually
00:16:35.900 using my talents, uh, for the first time. And I'm telling you all of this, not because it's some
00:16:41.480 amazing success story. There are people who star has risen a lot faster and a lot higher than mine
00:16:47.700 has. But the truth is I, I don't envy those people one bit because the goal for me has always been
00:16:55.140 just to do everything I can to the best of my ability and feel like I'm maxing out my talent.
00:17:02.020 Uh, I have this fear, this just nagging fear of not using everything that God has given me in all
00:17:09.720 of the ways that he wants me to. I have a fear of, of doing something wrong so that I'm wasting time
00:17:17.340 spinning my wheels or treading water, not actually moving in any direction that God wants me to go.
00:17:24.200 Um, and I haven't always done that well. It's not like I've always abided in God's will
00:17:28.280 perfectly. Well, I have certainly made mistakes, but, but I remember, I remember now, and it took
00:17:36.560 me a while to actually remember this moment, but whenever I think about, okay, is this really
00:17:43.200 what I'm supposed to be doing? Of course, there's a lot of prayer, a lot of wisdom, a lot of reading
00:17:47.400 that comes along with making these choices. But what really reminded me in the beginning that,
00:17:52.800 okay, this is the direction that I want to go in. There's been only one time I've told you guys,
00:17:56.760 I, I really, uh, rely a lot on intuition and I'm kind of working through the biblicalness
00:18:03.600 of intuition and the Holy spirit and what all that exactly looks like from a theologically sound
00:18:09.620 perspective. But all I can say is there have been times where I felt just this strong pull,
00:18:17.140 the strong conviction towards what I'm supposed to do. I can't explain it. And again, I'm working
00:18:22.380 through exactly what that means and what it looks like, but it's just true. It's just happened. And
00:18:27.180 it's, it's just, it's, there have been poignant times in my life that I can look back to. And I've,
00:18:32.700 I've just felt that. And one of those times is when I was chosen to, uh, deliver the commencement
00:18:38.140 address in college, which I graduated with like a few thousand or a couple thousand people,
00:18:44.440 1000 people in my graduating class, maybe. So I had a, I had a small college. It's not like I
00:18:48.660 graduated from Princeton and gave the commencement address, but I gave the commencement address, the
00:18:53.120 only student to deliver the commencement address. And I just remember when I was doing that. And
00:18:58.360 when I was looking out into the crowd, having almost this, like what felt like an out of body
00:19:03.200 experience and this thought of like, yeah, this is what I'm supposed to do for the rest of my life.
00:19:06.960 Like, this is the only thing that I've ever done that has given me energy. That's quite like this
00:19:11.440 and given me the feeling of yes, I'm sure this is, this is what I'm supposed to do now. Uh, that
00:19:18.620 doesn't mean that everything falls to my career and everything succumbs to my career. Being a godly
00:19:26.200 wife and mother is far more important to me than any career thing that I ever do. But as far as my
00:19:31.780 career goes, I have felt confident from the very beginning that this is what I'm supposed to do.
00:19:36.800 And the steps that God has taken to get me there, I look back and I think that is not what I expected
00:19:42.140 at all. That's not what I expected at all. And there's no way that I would have gotten through
00:19:46.060 that on my own. And there's no way that I would have made that decision on my own. But God, uh,
00:19:51.140 had it not been for him and him guiding the steps along the way, they're just wouldn't, they're just,
00:19:56.080 there's no way that I would be doing what I want to do and what I feel like I should be doing and what
00:20:00.940 I feel like I'm good at doing. So I have some rules or not some rules. I guess I have some
00:20:06.500 tips that I have learned along the way that I hope help you. And this is not just for people
00:20:11.060 who are in media or who are speaking. Um, Oh yeah. Well, I didn't even say like where I am now.
00:20:16.880 I didn't even say, and it's not even like a destination, but where I am at 27 is so different,
00:20:23.180 but it is what I wanted to do. I am writing a book. I did speak 20 places last year. I do have a podcast.
00:20:30.340 I am sometimes on TV and I'm learning all of those things. I'm still honing my skills and all
00:20:36.220 of those things. And I will be for the next 25 years, I'm sure. And there are so many things that
00:20:40.980 I'm just bad at that. I just need to get better at, but, but all that to say, my life looks so
00:20:46.360 different than I thought it would at 27. And I am extremely thankful that trusting in God is so much
00:20:53.420 better than trusting in our own plans because we have such a limited perspective on what is good for us
00:20:58.120 and what will be good in the long run. So here are my tips for you. Okay. So number one,
00:21:04.000 no matter what you're doing, whether it's PR, whether you are a janitor, whether you are a stay
00:21:08.200 at home mom, whether you host a podcast or you are a TV host, whatever it is, uh, stay close to God
00:21:15.040 and family. So this is true. Like I said, in no matter what career you're in, uh, I personally just
00:21:20.840 don't make a lot of friends in media in my realm. Now this isn't necessarily true in every single
00:21:26.600 industry, but in my realm, it is very difficult to be close friends with other people that are in
00:21:34.000 this same realm. And so the people that I am close to the circle of trust that I have is extremely
00:21:39.620 small. Now that doesn't mean that I don't love, and I'm not kind to people because I, I do, I am,
00:21:47.760 I try to, I try not to burn any bridges, although I haven't been perfect at that either. Um, and I try
00:21:52.460 to stay out of all of the drama and I really try hard to stay out of the gossip and the pettiness
00:21:58.000 again, probably haven't been perfect at all of that, but I try to stay grounded and stay close,
00:22:02.940 not just, uh, to God through, uh, reading his word and prayer and just communion with him,
00:22:09.140 but also to my family and the circle of trust that is really small. So I think it's extremely
00:22:14.560 important, uh, no matter what your career is, especially if you find yourself achieving any
00:22:19.400 level of success in your career, if you find yourself moving up at all and moving towards
00:22:23.880 your goals, it becomes more and more important, uh, to stay close to the people that you trust,
00:22:28.480 to stay close to the people who know you, who are going to remind you to, uh, live in a way,
00:22:35.160 uh, live in integrity and to have high moral character and remind you what your values are.
00:22:41.500 That's extremely important. Um, a lot of people outside of your circle of trust will do things
00:22:48.460 for you simply because they want something in return and they're going to demand things of you
00:22:52.880 that are not fair, especially just going to give you, I know in conservative world,
00:22:57.820 we don't talk about sexism and stuff, but especially if you are a young woman, you are going to have a
00:23:03.220 lot of people who are older than you, who think that they can pull one over on you, who think that
00:23:08.320 they can take advantage of you, who think that, and again, you're, y'all are going to think that
00:23:12.500 I'm like some lefty, but seriously, who think that you will take a lower paycheck. Now I already
00:23:18.440 don't believe in the gender pay gap in the sense that, uh, systemically women are paid less than
00:23:24.600 men. I think women sometimes don't demand what or ask for what they actually deserve and what they
00:23:30.680 are owed and a man does. And so I think that there is somewhat of a gap in that sense. Um, but just be
00:23:37.520 careful, be careful no matter what industry you're in, but especially if you're in media, who you
00:23:42.200 trust, uh, this is also just a sub point. If you can in a contract, hire an attorney or get the
00:23:50.380 advice of an attorney, just do that. It doesn't mean that you don't trust the person on the other
00:23:53.980 side. It doesn't mean you don't like the person on the other side of the contract. It doesn't mean
00:23:57.020 you don't like the company. Um, it just means that you want to be protected and you want to be safe
00:24:02.140 and that your interests are also met. Uh, you learn, you learn through experience and sometimes
00:24:08.300 through the hard way who you can trust and who you can't trust. Keep your circle of absolute trust
00:24:16.280 small and stay close to them and love them and allow them to love and affirm you as well.
00:24:22.200 And all of that, of course, is centered on your relationship with God, which is so important.
00:24:26.640 He makes sure he makes sure that your priorities are right, that your values are right.
00:24:31.960 And, um, he will, he will give himself glory. And so whatever that means, whatever that means
00:24:38.580 in your life, whether it hurts you or, or whether you feel like it hurts you or helps you, like he
00:24:44.680 is committed to his own glory. And that should be our goal as well. Um, it's really easy to allow
00:24:51.640 people to pull you down. It's a lot harder to pull people up, which is why you need to be selective
00:24:57.560 about the people that you trust, selective about the people that you invest in. I do not
00:25:01.860 suggest making friends simply because they are powerful or influential, or you feel like they
00:25:07.300 are going to help you be more famous. You can be kind to those people. You can be discerning,
00:25:11.360 um, about, you know, how they might be able to help you in a non sketchy way, but, but I do not,
00:25:20.140 I do not recommend making relationships strictly on that basis. It just doesn't seem, does not seem to
00:25:26.520 end well. Number two, know what you're good at and do it. So I'm going to start with the opposite
00:25:32.700 of this, know what you're not good at. I meet a lot of people who do not know what they are good
00:25:39.300 at and that's fine. There's some exploration in that. And I'm going to get to how you kind of decide
00:25:43.900 that, but I do not suggest spending all of your energy working on your weaknesses. There's a time
00:25:52.360 and a place for that. But I think the more efficient and the more productive thing to do is to work on
00:25:57.320 your strengths, to work on the good things God has given you. Some of us have in our minds, uh,
00:26:03.600 that in order to have an impact, we have to have a lot of followers or we have to be famous. If fame
00:26:10.380 is your goal, you need to get out of the fame game. You do because when your fame rises faster than
00:26:16.040 your character does, you end up crashing and burning. And we see that on a daily basis with people who
00:26:20.920 just wanted to be famous, but didn't actually believe what they said. And then they say something
00:26:25.060 really stupid because they didn't actually know what their beliefs are. Now everyone makes mistakes.
00:26:30.100 Everyone makes mistakes, but we see this in Congress. We see this in political media. We see this in
00:26:34.580 celebrities where people get ahead of themselves because they think, because they're so famous,
00:26:38.260 they're immune to any criticism. And then they say something really stupid because they didn't
00:26:42.000 actually ever know what they were talking about because they had the wrong motives from the beginning.
00:26:46.280 So allow your character to grow at the same time that your influence does and know this,
00:26:50.720 you can have influence without being an influencer. Okay. You can have influence without being a
00:26:57.400 social media star is what I mean by that. You can have influence on your little sphere of the world
00:27:03.940 or big sphere of the world that God has given you without being internet famous. I think a lot of
00:27:10.220 people think that that is the measure of success today. Like how many podcast subscribers you have,
00:27:14.220 how many followers you have on Instagram, how many YouTube views you have. And for people like me,
00:27:18.460 where that's my job, that it's good to measure that kind of stuff. But for people on the outside
00:27:23.020 looking in, know that that's not any more impressive than working hard in a job that
00:27:28.600 doesn't get any worldwide recognition. Um, and again, I don't want it to ever sound like I'm saying
00:27:34.060 that as someone who is like a superstar. I'm not saying that. I just know a little bit of what
00:27:39.220 it's like to be on the inside of this. And I'm telling you that it's not any more impressive
00:27:43.220 than anything that you do. Um, so self-awareness is really important. And that's something that we
00:27:50.480 all learn that I learn and that everyone learns on a daily basis. Uh, so here's how you kind of know
00:27:58.360 what you're good at and what you're not good at. I want you to think, I want you to think,
00:28:04.400 and I'm going to give a caveat to this. So don't freak out. I want you to think about the things,
00:28:08.600 uh, that other people have always affirmed in you. What is that thing that people have always
00:28:14.460 told you you're really good at that, or you have that. And you know, some people don't,
00:28:18.960 what do you feel truly confident in when you do a, what comes naturally to you that if you worked at
00:28:26.120 this thing, you would be really excellent at it, or you might even be the best at it. Now, of course,
00:28:32.020 there's a caveat to this. There are going to be naysayers. They are going to be haters everywhere
00:28:37.280 that you, maybe you truly are good at something, but you got a lot of people coming along saying,
00:28:41.720 oh, you're awful at it. You're awful at it. But, but you also need to use discernment.
00:28:46.420 Some criticism that people have, especially the criticism of the people that love you
00:28:50.520 might be legitimate. So for example, if you just feel like you were a great writer,
00:28:56.020 but you look back at your grades throughout school and you keep on getting a lot of criticism
00:29:00.460 from people, or you're not getting a whole lot of affirmation from other people that you're a good
00:29:04.480 writer and might even have gotten some passive aggressive suggestions to move in another
00:29:08.400 direction, you might want to start listening to that. Uh, same thing with making YouTube videos,
00:29:13.660 uh, same thing with doing anything in media. Eventually, eventually, unless this is just a
00:29:19.360 labor of love and you really don't care whether or not people follow you, eventually you do start
00:29:23.340 having to ask yourselves hard questions. If you are not growing in your, if you're not growing
00:29:30.160 and following, if you are not growing, um, in your influence in whatever it is you're doing,
00:29:36.500 if you are not getting any affirmation, if you're looking at other people and you're like, wow,
00:29:40.820 they are just way naturally better at this than me. I'm not saying it's not for you, but you do need
00:29:46.360 to have hard conversations with yourself where you ask yourself if this is really what you should do,
00:29:51.180 because I don't want you wasting time in something that you arbitrarily think is better than doing
00:29:57.640 something off the internet or doing something that doesn't get you any fame. Uh, you can have
00:30:02.720 influence without being a social media influencer. So I just want to remind you of that. If you are
00:30:08.240 in PR, if you are in marketing, if you are a journalist, if you are a stay at home mom, if you are an
00:30:13.940 accountant, if you are an artist, if you are a video editor, whatever it is, your job as a Christian
00:30:19.780 worker is to use the talents that God has given you for his glory to make people's lives better.
00:30:26.480 That doesn't necessarily mean that you're running a nonprofit. It doesn't necessarily mean that you
00:30:31.860 are, uh, right now freeing people from sex slavery. Those things are awesome, but don't discount the
00:30:38.660 gospel mission that you have as an accountant, the influence that you can have as an accountant.
00:30:43.420 Do not discount making your clients' lives better through filing their taxes or whatever it is.
00:30:49.600 Don't discount the importance of that. Don't discount the importance of what you're doing.
00:30:53.680 Work hard at what you're good at. Try to find the intersection of what you're good at
00:30:58.840 and, uh, what the world's need is and what God's will is. And you will be full. You,
00:31:05.520 well, I don't want to say you will be fulfilled because no one is fulfilled outside of Christ.
00:31:09.560 But my guess is that you will feel like you are using your talents to actually move the ball forward
00:31:16.120 in some way. I do not want you wasting time on the things that you are not good at. I want you to
00:31:21.280 free your mind of this idea that you have to be YouTube famous in order to be successful. Okay.
00:31:26.700 Um, that's just, it's one of my peeves, not necessarily when I see people pursue it, but when
00:31:33.380 I see people not bat down that lie who are doing podcasts and things like that, you, we need to
00:31:40.000 bat down that lie that this is somehow better or more awesome than anything else or harder than
00:31:46.700 anything else. I frequently tell you guys, it's a lot easier for me to be a Christian conservative
00:31:51.140 and talk about the hard stuff than it is for you guys who are in everyday jobs, nine to five jobs,
00:31:56.620 because I'm not going to get fired for talking about it, but you might like, I am not in school.
00:32:02.560 And so I don't have to worry about saying something to my professor and not getting a good grade.
00:32:06.220 Like this is what I've chosen to do as a career. So I'm not going to get fired,
00:32:09.000 but you guys might, you guys might be punished for it. It's a lot harder to do what you guys are doing
00:32:14.060 and stick up for your values than it is for me. And so I just don't want you to discount the
00:32:18.820 importance and the influence of whatever position that you are in and your potential and ability to
00:32:25.260 glorify God through beautifying and nurturing and cultivating whatever small or large sphere of
00:32:30.840 influence, whatever small or large plot of earth God has put you on. In reality, we are all just tiny
00:32:38.700 blips on the span of eternity. And we are tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little microscopic bumps on the
00:32:47.480 road of world history. Every single one of us is. And so our job is to make life better through
00:32:55.860 whatever we're doing, whatever we're good at, whatever God's will is, whatever glorifies God the
00:33:00.000 most, make the world better around us through those things. So know what you're good at.
00:33:07.760 Know what you're not good at. Be brave enough to be honest with yourself and know that your
00:33:12.620 confidence and your identity comes from Christ. If you are a Christian and not how many followers
00:33:18.600 you have or having the right career. And by the way, you could, it's not that people just kid
00:33:24.160 themselves when, because they want to be famous. Some people kid themselves that they're good at
00:33:28.900 accounting when they're not like some people kid themselves that they're a good doctor when they're
00:33:32.880 not, whatever it is, don't kid yourself. Don't waste your time. Don't waste other people's time.
00:33:37.460 Like life is really short and don't try to fix your weaknesses. Try to hone your strengths.
00:33:45.980 Number three, be willing to do the things that other people aren't. So what I did when I first
00:33:51.280 started my career is I would speak for free. Also like in this, know where you are in your career.
00:33:59.040 Like if you are an intern, you don't get to go demand things. If you are starting out and you don't
00:34:04.480 have any influence, you can't demand to be paid more than it's worth. Like that's just how the
00:34:09.340 market works. People are willing to pay you how much you're worth. And if you, if people are
00:34:13.440 consistently telling you, I'm not going to pay that much, then you might just not be worth that
00:34:17.760 much at that point. And in the beginning I was not worth anything. And so I would write for free.
00:34:22.620 I would speak for free. I would talk to pretty much anyone who reached out to me. I didn't stay
00:34:27.700 connected to anyone who reached out to me, but I would take a lot of advice, take a lot of
00:34:31.920 opportunities that people don't. I get a lot of questions from people saying like, how can I write
00:34:36.360 for such and such huge magazine or, or a huge outlet, or how can I do what you're doing? I want
00:34:41.840 to start a podcast. I don't recommend starting a podcast. If you don't already have a following,
00:34:46.820 I recommend starting out doing the things that other people won't do. That is writing for free
00:34:52.420 without recognition, speaking for free without recognition, doing all the things that most people just
00:34:57.460 won't do because A, they're too embarrassed and B, they're too lazy, be confident and be hardworking
00:35:02.260 again in the things that you are good at. And this goes for any industry, have a good attitude in what
00:35:10.160 you do, take feedback. Well, work on those things and go above and beyond that goes a long way. And
00:35:17.640 we millennials, we can be extremely entitled, extremely self-centered. I definitely have been like
00:35:23.740 my first job. I probably, I thought that I was a lot bigger than I was, that I was a lot more
00:35:29.860 important than I was, didn't take feedback. Well, was extremely sensitive, had no incentive whatsoever
00:35:36.220 or no motivation in my heart whatsoever to go really above and beyond, except for maybe a few
00:35:41.760 times. And so I've completely been there, but I've also been on the other side of it, realizing that
00:35:47.420 when you want to do something, you're not just going to drift there. You got to get there.
00:35:53.160 Number four, be able to withstand criticism and hate. To stand out in what you do, you have to put
00:35:58.700 yourself out there. You just have to do the things and say the things that other people are too
00:36:04.220 embarrassed to do. And you're going to get told that you look stupid or that you're being extra or
00:36:08.520 that you're going too far or whatever it is. When I first started doing my videos and I was getting
00:36:14.840 a thousand views each, of course, I had people telling me, stop doing this. Gosh, you're not
00:36:20.560 good at this. You're embarrassing, whatever it is. And of course, I still get people that
00:36:25.360 probably think I'm horrible. There's plenty of people who think I'm horrible at what I do and
00:36:29.260 probably think that I'm just in this for fame or whatever it is. But one thing on that, I recently
00:36:36.140 realized that if you honestly think that I'm doing this for fame, I either wouldn't be talking about
00:36:41.240 the controversial Christian topics I'm talking about, or I wouldn't be talking about the
00:36:44.360 controversial political topics I would talk about. I would pick one because I've narrowed
00:36:48.580 down my audience so much to only conservative Christians that are willing to talk about hard
00:36:53.640 theological and hard political things that if I wanted a wide reaching audience, I would
00:36:57.300 cut one of those things out. Anyway, there are plenty of people who still criticize me and
00:37:00.920 hate me. But if you can get past the initial embarrassment and almost the initial shame that it feels
00:37:06.520 sometimes of people just telling you how awful you are, how not funny you are, and all of
00:37:12.680 those things, of course, taking those criticisms with discretion as well and taking legitimate
00:37:18.460 criticism well, then you can do it. You can do it. You have to be able to withstand criticism
00:37:24.660 and knowing who you are in Christ and whatever purpose he has for you is great. I don't know
00:37:30.060 why I said that. It is really important to being able to brush off criticism. You have to be able to
00:37:34.420 brush off criticism and praise in equal amounts and also take it when it's legitimate. So take the
00:37:40.380 praise that you feel like is legitimate. Again, some of it's just manipulation. And you have to
00:37:44.720 take the criticism that is also legitimate and you have to use discretion and wisdom to be able to
00:37:49.380 apply that. You cannot let the hate get you down. You cannot let the affirmation puff you up. You
00:37:54.140 have to be confident in what you know you're good at. You have to be aware of the weaknesses that you
00:37:58.040 have and just move forward to the best of your ability and work to be the best that you possibly
00:38:02.340 can. I still have a lot of work to do. And sometimes it takes reminders for me to remember
00:38:07.040 that, okay, a lot of my haters and a lot of my critics just don't like what I'm saying.
00:38:13.760 It really has nothing to do with how I am. But then you get other criticism, like I'm writing a
00:38:18.960 book and all of the feedback that I get from my publisher, my editor is extremely fair. And it's
00:38:24.960 extremely like, you need to work on this. You need to do better. And if I never listened to her,
00:38:29.460 then the book that you guys are going to read next year would probably be bad. So it's important to be
00:38:35.220 able to balance that. And that confidence comes from who you are in Christ, not from self-love,
00:38:39.320 not from pep talks, looking in the mirror. We already know that, but from who God says that you
00:38:43.200 are. And to remember that your purpose that God has for you is not thwarted by his purpose for other
00:38:48.360 people. And so you looking to someone else's career or someone else's path is really useless
00:38:54.840 because God might make that other person successful that you're jealous of, but that doesn't
00:38:59.000 detract from how successful you might be. Other people's success or failures don't determine your
00:39:06.200 success or failure. So it's really stupid to fixate on them. And just remember, just remember a lot of
00:39:11.720 the people who are criticizing you, a lot of the people who are criticizing you, especially if you
00:39:15.920 make any steps forward, they really are not all of them, but a lot of them really are just jealous.
00:39:21.380 They really are just envious. You've got the people. Do you all remember that meme of Michael Phelps
00:39:26.060 from a couple of years ago when he was swimming and in the Olympics, obviously, and the guy next
00:39:32.200 to him was like looking at him and Michael Phelps was looking forward. And the caption was like,
00:39:38.820 losers focus on winners, winners focus on winning. Well, I think there is probably a lot of truth to
00:39:44.940 that. You focus on what God has called you to do and you don't worry about what everyone else is
00:39:50.440 doing. There's going to, the people, I think back over the past three or so years, there've been,
00:39:55.240 I think about the people that I thought, who's, who I, like the opinion that they had, I thought
00:40:01.400 mattered. Like I thought those people were influential. I thought those people mattered.
00:40:05.080 I look back, I'm like, I don't even know what they're doing. I don't even fully remember their
00:40:08.460 names. Like their criticism actually didn't matter and great. I've proved them wrong. And so you kind
00:40:14.480 of do just have to brush that off. And I regret getting caught up in a lot of that criticism early
00:40:19.800 on and thinking that those people's opinions mattered. And I'm like, they're literally going to be a
00:40:23.680 footnote in my autobiography one day. I'm not even probably going to mention them because I won't
00:40:27.140 remember. So you just have to have some kind of perspective, not only with who you are in Christ,
00:40:31.060 but also the length of life and the length of your career. Those people just aren't significant.
00:40:35.500 And if they want to waste all of their energy worrying about you, that's fine, boo. You fixate
00:40:40.700 your energy on worrying about what's got, what God has called you to do. And if they want to waste
00:40:45.680 their time doing that, that's fine. Okay. I hope this got this hat, this guys, I don't know.
00:40:50.360 Uh, this has helped you guys a little bit. I hope that you've enjoyed it. Happy birthday to me.
00:40:55.920 I will see you guys back here on Thursday where I will be answering a lot of your questions.
00:41:00.380 We'll also be talking about God is gray just a little bit. Okay. Bye.