And also I can walk my ass away from that too. You know what I mean? Like I don’t have to be in the middle of the conflict.   too. I don’t, I can be the one that is affirming myself, the one that is validating myself. Like I don’t need to find that in the relationship, you know? But I definitely think that that totally resonates with me just on lots of levels. From friends to sisters, to spouse, to all those things I can see that common thread.

Dana: Yeah. I mean, I think for me, like I really early on, like in my marriage, I struggled with that and I think it’s because it’s like, it was almost the opposite where like, Sam has always like, adored me, always felt like the sun like rose and sat with me.

Right.   and so I always felt like I was failing. Like I was failing his idea of me.   and that I wasn’t good enough or that he had it wrong or that, or I was constantly striving to be this perfect person. And even to the point where I wanted, where I, I struggle with trying to like change parts of who I am, like even down to, like, he likes weird ass music.

Like he just likes weird stuff and there’s somethings I like that he likes, but math of it, I don’t like   and it took me a long time to speak and be like, I really don’t wanna listen to this. Like, this sounds like a person’s talk singing. And I don’t like talk singing. I like real voices. It’s like, you know that they talking, but singing. I hate it. I literally hate it. And now 

Courtney: you’re like, what skill does this take? Honestly, I know. I was like, I can 

Dana: do that., anyways, but 

Courtney: you’re now worthy to be a singer.

Dana: Yeah. but I made it, but then it struggled too, like, like with, like, with the business. For me a lot of it, because I felt so responsible for our financial situation and how, like it was, I wasn’t bringing in money.

I wasn’t bringing in a paycheck. And so like I was, I never felt worthy enough to spend our money. Like, even though, like, it was a joint decision, even when I was staying home and there’s all these things, there’s like, I was like, oh, like a domestic partner makes, should make blah, blah. Like I’m like, that’s fucking bullshit.

You don’t make anything.   I understand. It’s what we feel like we should make. I understand there’s money you’re saving on childcare and daycare, whatever. But at the end of the day, I’m the one that’s home. He’s the one that’s making the money and I’m the one that’s spending it. And there’s all the guilt associated with it, that I’m not pulling my weight. And it took a lot and he, and he was great through it. He was like, you don’t like, you don’t need to feel guilty about this.

You don’t need to feel like you’re unworthy of all these, of wanting to buy something or to spend money on the kids or to go shopping or whatever. Like, you don’t need to feel that way. Like, you know, like that’s not how I feel about it, but, and I think that’s what it comes down to is a lot of times like to her point that like, it’s not how the other person feels about you.

It’s how you feel about yourself and being able to get to a point of understanding who you are and convincing yourself that you are worthy of whatever is going on in your life, success, relationship Whatever.

Courtney: I think even when you’re the person who’s being treated badly in a relationship, right? Like you’re in a contentious situation and you’re being treated badly. I think even that comes down to your feeling of worthiness. Oh yeah. Because you’re only staying in a conversation or staying in a situation because you feel like you deserve it, you know what I mean?

And then once you realize, cuz I mean, I’ve been in that situation too. Once you realize like, hey, like you are not speaking to me in a way that I deem worthy for me.   like conversations end, you know what I mean? like that strife, those things end and cuz you’re training and letting people know how you wanna be treated and what your standard is.

Right and so I think even on those levels, I think it comes down to your feeling of worthiness and, and worth   in those situations. 

Dana: Yeah, I think it’s just very personal Like I think it’s, I think that’s why it’s so hard sometimes to look into someone else’s relationship and say like, I don’t understand like, like why, like that was me, blah, blah, blah.

Well, if it was you, yeah, it would be different because you, you have different standards, like, right. 

but, but it’s not even, I don’t even think it’s that. I don’t think it’s meaning like the way your standard is better or higher, their standard is lower. It’s just that, that, that’s what that person, to them it’s not that you’re looking at that conversation and you, and you may be thinking like, oh my God, that’s so disrespectful, but to them that may not be disrespectful. Do you know what I mean?

Cause you don’t know all the nuances of what’s happening. Like you’re, you’re not in their marriage. You’re not in their relationship, you know, so I think it, and I think for me that’s hard and I think it’s hard as any person. And it’s like, and I think that honestly, like technology makes it so much worse is because all you’re seeing is something through a lens.

Like you see a video and you wanna comment on it, you see someone on, on social media and you wanna comment on it. But all you’re seeing is like this small snippet, this small glimpse of it, and you don’t have actually any like knowledge behind it, you know? but like we, now we get to weigh in on people’s lives all the time.

So that’s what we do now all the time. We weigh in on everybody’s life You know? And you’re like, it is just, it’s hard because I just think it’s so much more, like, so much more nuanced than that. And there’s so much more that you don’t see that you don’t know, 

And I think that about when I, you know, to her point, when you’re, she’s telling the story about like, oh, she felt so guilty about being successful after this thing failed. Maybe because other people lost money, even though she never took any money. And she’s like telling us this thing. And like, as the outside perspective, I could be like, that’s why would you feel that way?

Like, you’re the one that did all the work. You’re the one that pushed through. You’re the one that, you know, did the TV interviews. You’re the one that had the idea. You’re the one, you’re the one, you’re the one. But what I don’t know is everything else, like, I don’t know all the whole story behind it I don’t know why she had that feeling and like that there was other reasons why she felt that way. You know what I mean? 

Courtney: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s natural for people to feel beholden to somebody who gives them money for an idea or a company. I would hope anyway, right that you’re gonna do right by them. You’re going to try your best to make sure that that was a great investment and it’s profitable. And then I think that her on the back end of that, being able to basically build her brand, that in her mind started out as this failed company    I think it. What was so hard for her is like she did end up profiting from that idea, even though it wasn’t necessarily that particular idea, but all the press surrounding it allowed her to catapult her career.

Dana: Well, yeah, I know. And, and that’s my point is that like we can, on as an outside perspective, you can look at it and say, oh, you shouldn’t have felt guilty about that But I think it takes so much like internal work in order for you to say, I don’t feel guilty about that. Like, and it’s not gonna be someone saying, oh, you shouldn’t feel guilty about that and be like, oh yeah, you’re right. Great. move on. You know, done with that now Like I just check it off my list. 

I just think it’s so easy for all, all of us to like weigh in on somebody’s life and tell them how they should feel or that they should be worthy or they should feel this, or they should have these things or feel these things or whatever. And what you don’t know if you don’t know everything else behind it. You’re just seeing like a snippet of it. You. 

Courtney: Yeah, I, and I think you talked about it a little bit in the podcast with her that when we felt that like, as our roles changed and evolved in business, it became less about the day to day, but more about building a brand and managing and whatnot, that it was really, really hard to feel. I guess it might have been worthy or like that you deserve the differentiation, or that it was okay to not relate to people that we employed by doing the same thing as them   do you know what I mean?   like, it was that mindset of like, I’m now hiring a janitor, not because I am above cleaning, but because literally my time is best served everyone’s paycheck and everyone’s profitability will be best served if my time is spent doing something else   do you know what I mean?

But it felt like really hard to say, I’m gonna do this, and you’re gonna do that because I don’t have time for that anymore. And it makes you feel like you’re saying, oh, because what I’m doing is more important and it’s just not the case. Do you know what I’m saying? So I think that there was a piece of, of our journey in there that dealt with, I’m not worthy of the differentiation, or I’m trying to make myself appear more worthy by not doing these things. When actually you just are doing a disservice to your business by continuing in that way. 

Dana: Yeah. I mean, I think that it is, I guess, a natural progression from an entrepreneur. I think someone who, especially who start, who starts off in the trenches and then slowly hires the team to get yourself out of the trenches.

It’s hard to not, like I said, it’s hard not to be a martyr at the end of the day And I think that’s just so hard in so many ways. Like, and that’s what I think about when she kind of touched on it with 2020 is, you know, I can look at the pandemic and I can certainly spout off all the really hard things.

And there were some really hard really dark days for sure There was a lot of tears. There was a lot of fear. There was, 

Courtney: it was a lot of hard conversations. 

Dana: Yeah. It was hard but when I look at it overall, it isn’t an overly negative two years. and it’s like that the one upper, right? Like, it’s like you, you find yourself in these things and these conversations and either are you gonna be the one upper that is one upping the great, how great things are, are you gonna be the one upper that one ups how terrible your life is?

And you get stuck with these people sometimes. Right? And so you you’ll get these conversations and someone will talk about COVID and something, and they’ll be like, oh my God, I did blah, blah. And you wanna relate to them soon and be like, oh, but let me tell you how terrible it was for me. And there’s like this guilt slash like shame associated.

It’s like, actually, we did great.   actually for the one, one time in our life, our timing of building something worked out, it did. The one time, like it worked out more beautifully than we ever, ever could have.

Courtney: I’m glad the universe saved it for this time, 

Dana: but you know what I’m saying? But like, how would an asshole to say that to somebody else? So I think there’s also like, again, it goes back to that empathetic thing. Like, hey, we wanna empathize with them. But at the same time, I have a hard time being in those groups of people, especially the ones that are like, oh, my life is so terrible. It’s just so terrible. Let mean, oh, well my lives more terrible.

Oh my life’s more terrible. You know, you see a lot in mom circles, like, oh, like, you know, John didn’t sleep the night too was 12 months old and I’ve said this to her. It’s like, oh, Ada never slept at night until, she was 15 months old consistently, you know, like, and it’s like, I, you want, you want someone to like give you like, oh, you, you made it, you survived it to validate how hard it was, because all you can remember in the moment is how hard it was.

I don’t know if it’s like a desire to connect. I don’t know if it’s a desire to, to be seen. I don’t know what the reasoning behind it is, but you see it in the entrepreneurial world, you see it in the parenting world. I’m sure you see it everywhere.

You see it with teachers, you see it really in any industry of people trying to prove that they’ve earned this purple heart almost Do you know what I mean?, like, as opposed to the saying like, well, I, 

Courtney: cause I think that people wanna be validated. 

Dana: I know, but it’s, to me, I see more of the, how hard and terrible everything is and let me like, get this badge of honor that I survived this awful terrible thing, as opposed to, with her saying like, okay This business failed and it fucking sucked a lot. but because of it, I have this beautiful thing and I like, thank God it failed Because put you on a different path.

It put me on a different path and then put me on the right path and then look at all this amazing stuff that happened because it failed. Right? Like, and it’s, and you, I, I wanna medal for that. I want a medal for taking this really terrible thing and turning it into something great. You know, like it’s just, that’s never the conversations we have because I don’t know if it’s maybe what she was talking about. You’re afraid to toot your own horn. You’re afraid to like, you know, not seem like a bragger. I don’t know. 

Courtney: Yeah, well, I think to me, a lot of that success can be attributed, she was talking about how she never second guessed her moves and she would just deal with the fallout if it was the wrong one 

Like being able to go into a situation in a bold determined way   I think makes people more successful.   I mean, and, but I think those people also fall really hard too.   like, you’re when you go in that kind of I’m all in right. Jumping in two feet first, you know, I think it sets you up for great success, but that it, it also can set you up for great failure too.

Right. And like not being afraid of that and trying new, big things, I think is really commendable but if you’re gonna try big things, you’re opening yourself up for big failures.

Dana: Yeah. So like to get serious, what’s one thing you feel like you’re not worthy of 

Courtney: I mean, I sometimes struggle with feeling of feeling worthy of where we’re at. I know logically that everybody’s invested a lot of blood, sweat, tears, all the things to get to where we are. But then sometimes I feel like in the day to day, I’m not the most productive person, you know what I mean? So sometimes I struggle with that.

I do see a lot of my value. Like not, I have a very practical part of my value with, with like the numbers, like. Very practical that way, but I think everything else I’m much better at making connections and building business and not being afraid to ask big things and try new things, you know, that I think doesn’t necessarily sometimes have a bottom-line ROI. What about you? 

Dana: I don’t know. I mean, I think for me, like the hardest, the hardest thing this past year has necessarily been business. I think sometimes I don’t feel worthy of like being labeled like a thought leader, like, or like, being in. The realm of, you know, speaking places and stuff. Like, I struggle with that some, that’s normally just right before I’m about to do something.

Cause I get really nervous about it. And I just want someone to have so much value. Like I want them to feel like they sat through an hour and it was valuable and that not a waste of my time. Cause I’ve sat through things that were time like, cause you value your hours. Cause I value my time, so I think sometimes I struggle a little bit with that, 

but I think I’ve always struggled with. Just feeling worthy of like relationships in general, just like, like just being who I, who I am really like how many, and I think about how many people do I sit on a couch with a cup of coffee or a beverage, and genuinely just say what I wanna say when I wanna say it and be who I wanna be without fear of being ostracized.

Right, and there’s very, very few people in my life. Like I like very few people in my life that I can, I can be that way with. And because I just don’t think that who I really am deep down and what I really think and what I really feel and who I am is necessarily like worthy of, of connecting with other people.

You know what I. that’s a very deep thing to say, but it, but I think yes and no, but I think it comes from a lot of experience. Like it comes from a lot of likes being squashed as a person   like, like, I don’t wanna hear your opinion. You just need to be quiet and get along. Like, you just need to pretend everything’s fine.

Like you just need to like, Be the get along person that I know you can be because I can be, I can get along with anybody and get along with the fricking brick wall.   like, I can talk to anybody. It is one of my great skills, but because I’ve lived like that for so long, I don’t know who I truly am or I don’t know how to be who I truly am.

And I just find that who I truly am it’s not worthy to be around people because all I’ve ever been asked is to be someone I’m not around people 

Courtney: Mikael said this to me, the other day. Like we had a whole conversation. He’s like, I just feel like, like when I’m feeling good and I’m, and my full personality, you don’t like it.   and I was like, that’s probably accurate. 

Dana: that’s terrible, 

Courtney: but it’s true. Like there’s some aspects of his personality that I do not like   and I think that doesn’t make it, that’s not labeling it good, bad, right? Sure, it’s just is what it is. There’s like aspects of his personality that make me uncomfortable.

  and I’m sure there’s aspects of my personality that make him uncomfortable You know, and I think that like coming to terms with that   and I think I’m not saying you should change your personality. I obviously those conversations take someone unpacking for sure. But there’s definitely like aspects of your personality that make me uncomfortable.

  and I’m sure there’s aspects of my personality that make you uncomfortable And I think that there are very few people that you can like sit and literally feel like you’re gonna just be your whole self around   like, for me, like, I I’m probably most compatible in my personality, the way that I think and can just say my stream of consciousness, thoughts with my friend, Krista.

Yeah. Cause she thinks very similar to me, we’re both Virgos. Like we both have the same astrological signs. We have similar interests. We have similar states in our life   and so it’s like just this kind of lining up of things and it, but I think that that is super, super rare.   where you, that, where you feel like you can totally be yourself.

and I mean, I’m not totally myself, but I’m also not a tone down version of myself for anybody else’s sake in a lot of ways. Right? Yeah. Because I. I’ve done that I’ve been there and I’ve done that. And I realized how detrimental my thought was and what actually what I was not what I was leaving off the table.

Right.   like what I can contribute and what I can give to people. And what my benefit is to society is not by me, making myself smaller in squashing my personality, you know, it’s taking up all the space and if I’m not for everybody, I’m not for everybody and that is fine. And I’m not saying like, you know, to the point.

And I STR I honestly like, that was like one of the things that I was thinking about, even with like the podcast and like hustle and gather and like the, all of the things is. even, I’m not even putting enough of my authentic self into that And I think how much more impactful it would be to put all of myself into that.   like even all of like the messy, messy shit, cause like I’m a messy person.   like I don’t have it all together. Literally. I don’t, you know, I think I fed the kids leftover sandwiches from the open house yesterday for dinner.

Cause like that’s what I had time to do, like that’s okay. Do you know what I mean? But I think that there’s so many times, I think even getting back to this personality comment that we just have this need to be perceived by other people as X, because we think that that’s how they wanna perceive us or we think that’s how they’re gonna be the most comfortable. I don’t think it’s because I think that it’s because I’ve been told. 

Courtney: I felt that way too. 

Dana: No, it’s not, it’s not a feeling. It’s not like I feel this way. It’s because I’ve literally been told that way Like there are boundaries in how I interact with people and it is very boundaried. There certainly there’s some people that I act in a way that I have not, they like, I don’t, this is how we need to interact with each other to be successful. Like that is the truth of it. But, and I’m not even saying, like, I don’t think we need to all go around being our true, authentic selves all the time, because I think that when you do that, it’s a very selfish way to look at life and you can’t see other people’s perspectives. 

And I can, and I think it’s, I think it’s a valuable tool to be in a conversation with somebody. And even though you wanna make a joke, even though you wanna say something that’s funny or sarcastic, you’re reading the room and saying, ah, it’s not gonna land well, it’s not really like maybe it’s gonna hurt their feelings and making the decision to say my true, authentic self. Would’ve just tried to ease attention, but I’m gonna, it’s not what’s best for this   interaction right now. I’m not talking about that. Like, that’s just being a human, that’s just being a nice, normal, empathetic human. Right, right. But it’s more of just like, being so different than like the way you would react, the way you would react to something or the decision to just, you know, not say something or to like not stand up for what you really believe in or what you really think is right.

Because you’re trying to just be this person that somebody else like thinks you should be, or maybe you should wanna create conflict. I don’t really know. But yeah. I mean, I think, I think there is a lot of that, but I think for me, like, those sometimes get me down, but it is not a driving force in how I feel all the time.

Like, I, I recognize that when I’m around those kinds of people that make me behave that way and I’m around them for long periods of time is when I see like my mental health declining drastically and it’s not good for me. It’s not. And you know, and I know that, so, and I can recognize that more now than I probably did last year.

To be able to know when that’s gonna, when those kinds of dips are gonna happen and be able to prepare for them accordingly., whether that’s with having my Xanax prescription refilled or whatnot, but. 

Courtney: like gotta use your Xanax prescription on our, some of our flights here recently. 

Dana: I know, but I mean, so I mean, I think it’s just, I think it’s a struggle for everybody. Like there’s, I think there’s always something in your life that you just don’t feel worthy of. And she said, you know, you have to unpack it. And I think like unpacking things are just so messy and it’s so hard because I can unpack how I feel about this. And I know like, okay, I, that, because I feel this way.

I know why I feel this way. I can give you points in history of what happened and why they happened. And I can tell you exactly when this thought pattern started, but for me, and I’ve had this conversation with Sam, like a lot of it like surrounding like his, his parents. And like, they make me feel unworthy about a lot of things in my life, all the time.

Courtney: they’re just jealous of your hair 

Dana: and he’s like, either you need to figure out how to just deal with it.   or you need to address it. He’s like, you have got to deal with like, either you deal with it by you just let it go. And it’s just how you interact with them or you need to actually call out the elephant in the room and just deal with it.

 And I, so I said, okay, like, this is what I would say. This is how I would handle it. And it’s not emotionally based. Its very fact based. It’s like, when you said this this is how I perceived it.. And when you did this and when you make this decision and when you decide to do this and this, and there’s like a whole list of it, and I was like, you want me to say that to your parents?

Like, you want me to say that to them?   to fix it because the truth is, if I say that, all I can think of is it’s going to make them really upset, and not upset, mad. Like it’s gonna make them really sad.   because I don’t think inherently they’re terrible people. and so I don’t wanna be responsible of making anybody feel terrible, but at the same time, they make me feel terrible all the time You know, so it’s just like this, do I really wanna do that? Like. 

Courtney: Was there a conclusion to this? 

Dana: No, there was no conclusion to it. 

Courtney: Oh, still open ended.

Dana: Yeah. He was just like, he, he was just basically like, whatever decision you make, like I’ll support you in. And, and it has been great. I mean, we’ve created, I’ve had spent very little time with them. He’s created lots of boundaries with them He’s, you know, put his foot down on things that he, that I didn’t have to, like, he’s taken the brunt of a lot of stuff and that I used to take before and you know, and it’s been fine, you know, like he, I think he finally saw it for himself and like recognized the damage of it all.

Like, and, and he finally started looking at it through my eyes and was like, oh, well, that makes sense Like I can see this because I think before he’s like such a, like he has a block when it comes to his family, you know? 

Courtney: Yeah. A lot of people do. 

Dana: They do. Yeah, yeah. 

Courtney: But thought that was a great episode. 

Dana: Yeah, I really enjoyed it 

Courtney: But that was good, thanks for your vulnerability. in the, podcast here. 

Thanks everyone for gathering us today to talk about the hustle. For our episode with Rachel, we are drinking a Guinness, and we hope you get the chance to drink it this week and cheers to being relatable. To learn more and connect with Rachel, you can visit her business on Instagram at racheldealto or visit her website racheldealto.com. 

Dana: To learn more about our hustles, you can check us out on the gram at canddevents at thebradfordnc and at hustleandgather. If you’re interested in our speaking training or consulting, please look us up at hustleandgather.com.

Courtney: And if you love this show, we would be more than honored if you left us a rating and review, 

Dana: This podcast is a production of Earfluence. I’m Dana 

Courtney: and I’m Courtney, 

Dana: and we’ll talk to you next time on Hustle and Gather.