Welcome back to Raise Your Hand Say Yes with Tiffany Hahn, a podcast all about helping you have a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside. Find out more and dive deep into the archives at Tiffany Hann.com and make sure you're following me over on Instagram at the Tiffany Han. And now onto the show. Welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited to be here and I'm gonna be here in a different way than if you've been listening to the podcast in the past few episodes. It's gonna feel a little bit different. When I talk about why this is a very transparent meta kind of episode that we're doing, and I'm so excited for. The new season that we are ushering in. So thank you for being here. If you want the unedited version, hop over to YouTube. We'll have a link in the show notes for the podcast for that. So if you want to go and see all the behind the scenes of what happens, here are the outtakes, all of that, find them, get them messy, the messy real, all the real stuff. I mean, this is real, but even the real are real, the real are real, hop over to that YouTube link. OK. Hi y'all. What are we doing here? What are we doing here? What do you mean we're doing things different? Tiffany, you're changing stuff. What's happening? Here's what's happening y'all. Today's episode is about, I'm calling it what to do when you hate, all caps hate are the right way. And we are talking about the quote, right way to do things, trademark, right? The right way to do things, the the way that they say things should be done. Listen y'all, this could be about podcasting, it could be about YouTube, it could be about running a business, but it could also be about parenting. Living your life, being a professional, being a woman, being a human in the year of our Lord 2025 could be about just existing in this world. And there are so many right ways that we are handed. There's the right way to eat, the right way to move your body, the right way to read, the right books to read, the right way to be creative, the right way to meal prep, the right way to take care of your pet, the right way to be in a Relationship with someone, whether it's romantic or a friendship or a family member. Oh my God, like family stuff in the right way. Whoa, y'all, y'all. And I wonder if anybody listening to this is like, I can feel all the pressure of the right ways to do things, right? And I know y'all, I, I know, I am 100% certain if you do not fall under this pressure, please email me because I actually suspect that 100% of you listening right now have tried at some point in your life, and maybe even now have tried sticking yourself into the cage of the right way. And thought this doesn't work. I don't like it. It doesn't feel good, but because everybody else in the world says this is the right way to do things, you stay there, you stay in that cage. And even though it feels like a case to you, you stay there, and then you do the work of like convincing yourself that you are wrong for not liking it. Anyone, anyone? Again, I believe 100% of those of us, of everyone listening, 100% have experienced that or are actively experiencing that and have experienced that multiple times. But if you are that one, if you are that person who hasn't, please reach out, let me know. And that's what I want to talk. Talk about today is what happens when you hate the right way. And spoiler, the answer and the advice that I'm gonna give has nothing to do with staying there as long as you can, convincing yourself that you are wrong and that your brain is a problem, and just sucking it up and dealing with it. Never y'all, never is Tiffany Hahn going to tell you to suck it up and deal with it. Never. That is not how we raise our hands and say yes to the things that we want. That is not how we raise our hands and say yes to ourselves. So, a little bit of background about my thinking that I was trying to do things the right way has everything to do with this podcast and my YouTube channel. So I don't even remember. When, when it was, I believed that it was over a year ago, I was like, I'm gonna start YouTube. YouTube seems great. It's great for search. It feels like it has a different longevity than podcasting, right? We can go listen to podcast episodes from 8 years ago, but we're not necessarily going through the archives. Whereas YouTube, I will routinely get videos from years ago and watch them and be like, I learned a great deal of information about that video and How to hang paintings easily, right? Or whatever. So I was thinking, great, I'm gonna go and do YouTube. At the same time though, I didn't want to have like the podcast and the YouTube and the newsletter and the social media and all the different pieces that as a creative business owner. We are told to have, feels like a lot. It feels like a lot for me to manage, but it also feels like a lot for you if I'm always kind of sharing the different places. I don't want you to be like, Tiffany, oh my God, I'm busy. I can't do all this and eat dinner. Gotcha. So my thinking was, OK, great. Let's just do the YouTube. Can we combine the YouTube and the podcast? That would have been a great place to stop. Like, yes, we can do that, just do that, don't do anything else, right? Great. But my brain didn't think that was good enough because I started thinking more about it. Watch out, y'all. Watch out with all the thinking, because the thinking can often be, should I learn more? Is there more that I need to know about this? And that can often create this like very fear driven, I don't know enough way of being. Like, we're gonna talk later about the radical self-belief and how to bring that into the picture. And it's not that we can't always think, but it's like, I started thinking. And I'll tell you, I didn't realize it at the time, but that thinking was definitely driven from, oh, what else do I need to know? What do I not know? What else do I need to know? Now, y'all, I've been podcasting. Since my children who are about to graduate from 5th grade, were like, Infants, I don't know at what age we stopped being an infant, but they were like babes, right? They were born in February, I think I started podcasting in June or July, right? Babies in diapers. These children are graduating from 5th grade and starting middle school. I've been podcasting a long time, right, hundreds of episodes. Thank you to those of you who've been here from the beginning. Thank you to those of you who are just now joining us. I love you all. I know a thing or two about podcasting, but YouTube is its own, its own beast. So I started thinking, what do I need to do? And then I started watching the YouTube videos and gathering the data, doing all of that research and y'all, we can just exhaust ourselves with research, and here's what I decided. I decided that in order to be strategic with YouTube, I needed to do something different than just record a podcast. That I needed to create content that was definitely and directly focused for YouTube. And then what I would do is take that YouTube content and just publish it on the podcast, which is a very different way of showing up than I am used to podcasting. And y'all listen. Part of what allowed me to continue podcasting for as long as I did, is that I didn't force things and I didn't make myself script out an episode. And And I kept things loose and scrappy and casual and conversational, which hopefully, if you're here listening to this, you're like, Oh yeah, yeah. I like that way. I like that way that you do things, right? Instead of me being like, Hello, today I'm reading from a script. I once watched a live podcast. I'm not gonna name names, but it's somebody who is a very well known podcaster. And I didn't realize this at the time. I was like, oh, we're going to a live taping. This is gonna be so interesting, and it was just reading from a script. I almost fell asleep. I say that with love. It's not for me. I'm so glad it works for that person. And this audience was like going gaga over it, not mine, not my way, right? And I forgot about that when we started the YouTube. So, Long story short, I hated. The right way to do the YouTube videos. I hated prepping for it. I hated trying to come up with the perfect hook and make it sound right and da da da da da. I didn't like the recording of it because I was trying to like work against my rhythms. Then it was the whole editing thing. I was, I was trying so hard. I was trying so hard, y'all. And I didn't love it, nor did I love it for the podcast end either, right? Because I was like, so people would be like, oh, I listened to your recent podcast. Great, people were still listening, but I was like, oh, I wish I'd done that differently. I wish that I had been more open and sharing and scrappy and conversational and like, I hope it was OK. A spoiler, pay attention to things that make you kind of cringe. That's information. So what am I doing now? And then we're gonna get into like all the learning. So I went back to, I don't wanna do it like this. Like, I wanna just go back to what feels easy. I wanna lead with what feels easy because I believe that what feels easy is what I can continue, and that is where the magic is gonna be. And y'all, honestly, I miss podcasting. I miss just like hitting record and getting out there and making a podcast and not worrying about my messy background or if I'm wearing mascara or the lighting. It's like a super cloudy day out there, and here we are. I don't even have my ring light on. It's fine, right? You're listening on podcasts, you're like, it's fine. I don't even care about your lighting, Tiffany. And then what I've done is said, OK, well, if YouTube feels like something I want to do, how can I then make it? Like, work with the way that I want a podcast, right? So I looked at the right way and I like flipped it and I was like, how can I apply that to what I'm already doing instead of completely rearranging what I'm doing to go put myself into this cage of the right way. Now, So get ready, gonna be back. My plan is every other week with the podcast, but there might be times that I've got some things I want to pop in. We'll see what happens. Now what I want to talk about is I want to zoom out and make this more universal because this is about me and podcasting and YouTube and it's also Not. Because like I said before, we all have felt this and some of you might still be trying to fit yourself into the right way. This is why I joined and then quit the PTA, um, at my kid's school, cause I was like, well, this is the right way to show up and support the school and be a parent. No, because it made me like kind of a stress ball at home. Um, it actually made me a worse parent to show up and do that than to just have more time for my children. So what was going on, and I want you again, we're listening for, I want you to listen for two things. Number one, is, are, are you trying to do any of these things right now? And number 2, I want to just plant these seeds in your head so that when you find yourself doing them later, because you will, because the world loves to tell us that there is a right and a wrong, well, the world loves to tell us that there is a right way to do things and that every other way is wrong. So we exhaust ourselves trying to like fit these ridiculous standards that are created by Patriarchy and misogyny and white supremacy culture and all of those, those things that are not serving anybody, and we run ourselves dragged, and then we wonder why we're not getting anything done and why we're so tired all the time. So if you find yourself wondering that, like, plant these seeds in your head and maybe you'll hear my voice. So the first thing that was going on, y'all, is that I was trying to be quote strategic. Oh, now, If you have ever dipped your toe in online business, You will know that one person could literally spend the rest of their life trying to be strategic. But getting nowhere because literally 1 million people are selling the strategy of how to be successful in online business, marketing, sales, copy, blogging, social media, blah blah blah blah blah, and they are doing great. And the more they talk about it, the more money they make. And OK, I'm also not knocking those people. Sometimes we can, I'm gonna get to that, right? Hm, y'all, again, we have to start from a place of like I know my brain and I know what my own flow feels like. And if you are just trying to be strategic air quotes strategic for the sake of being strategic. The lull of these people is strong, right? It's like I want to believe that if I just follow this formula, everything is gonna be OK. And what I know for me, what I suspect for you is that sometimes The strategic completely dams up your flow, right? Because we take the way that I work and it feels very like loosey goosey or those things at the car wash, those blow up things that dance. It feels very loosey goosey and the strategy is like not loosey goosey, it is rigid, it is follow this no matter what, do it this way, but I'm meant to be loosey goosey. So as soon as I try to put that strategy code on, it's like a straitjacket. The second thing that often happens is there is so much I'm using so many air quotes, so y'all who are watching live get to see them. There is so much simple advice out there. Simple doesn't mean easy. And part of why part of why it feels simple when we receive the advice is because people are trying to package it into a 6-minute YouTube video and a 32nd reel, is that this stuff, this simple advice is being doled out in ways that our attention span can handle it, but that doesn't mean that it's complete, nor does simple mean that it's easy. So what we have to really watch for is that we don't continue to make ourselves wrong. For there being a mismatch or disconnect. Or for being like, learning more information. Also watch out for when something just seems really simple, which is part of how it gets sold. For me, simple just means I totally stay in my head trying to do things right. This is why I'm not reading from a script right now, because if I was reading from a script, I would be talking like this. No matter how much I tried to stay in the energy, but I can either be in the energy or I can be reading from a script or trying to like be having something memorized. Improv, baby, that is the kind of person that I am. I show up like improv and it works for me. But one other thing on this too. And those of y'all who are here live, like, if you, if you have any thoughts or questions, or you're like, oh my God, this is me, put it in the chat, just like proof of life. Pay attention to when you are doing something in your life and you're staying up in your head and you're worried, am I doing it right? Am I, um, are you tense? Are you tight? Like, is there a lack of flow? This happens for me a lot in tap dancing. So I've been taking tap for a couple of years. Previously in my life, I danced in like elementary school, but I didn't tap. I did maybe a year of tap in my twenties in San Francisco, and now I'm back. It is very easy for me to get in my head when it comes to tap dancing because you're like trying to get your body to do things it doesn't normally do. You're trying to stay on rhythm, you're trying to remember the choreography. Yeah. And then often you're like, and I need to smile. And there are times when my tap instructor will say, we'll stop everybody and be like, you're all in your head, I can tell, let go, loosen up, have some fun. And when you do that, it's actually easier to work through the steps. It's like this muscle memory kicks in and you're like, oh right, I am doing this. I didn't have to be like so tense and rigid and in my head, right? Pay attention to when you are gripping something tightly, and are you gripping it tightly because somebody else made you the promise that it's super easy peasy, and only if you try harder, you'll be able to get it. The 3rd thing that's happening here is that I really wanted it to work. I wanted it to be successful. I care deeply about my business. I care deeply about my podcast. I care deeply about every single one of you who's listening, whether I have met you or not, whether you have emailed me or left a comment or left a review or not. I care deeply about you. I care deeply about. This entire life that I have, um, of which my business and my work is a huge part, right? And because I care deeply, I wanted the promise of the strategy to work for me. And what happens is that my desire for success led to trying. Now, there's showing up, and then there's trying, which can be very trying to us, right? Like, I just need to try harder. Maybe you don't need to try harder. The trying led to stagnation, frustration, resentment, that lack of flow, staying in my head. And y'all, the road to success, the road to the life that you want. Is never going to be paved with stagnation, frustration, and resentment. Never, never, and so if you are currently doing something that feels like the right way, but you are sitting in that stagnation, frustration or resentment, let this be the sign that you have been waiting for to stand up and get out of that pool. There are other pools available that that are going to feel so much more true to you, and from there you will be able to grow anything y'all, anything. OK, so that was what was happening. This is why we're changing things. This is why I'm trying a new way. I want you to think about right now if you have been in this place for yourself, right? What was your wake up call? What got you out of that place? What got you into the other place, or if you are here now and you're in the cage, I want you to think about. Oh, I wish I could do it this way. What is this way? And again, this is not just about productive creativity, right? This is, this could be anything. It could be the way that you approach journaling, right? It could, it doesn't, it, it doesn't have to be anything like life. Changing, it's just, is, is there a part of you that's like, oh, I just wanna do this. There's such beautiful information just in that statement, right? What are our takeaways here? What do I want you to walk away with? Um, but Yeah, it's just like seeing yourself reflected in all of this and knowing that it's not just you, because it's not just you. I have got 4 takeaways. We'll see if any others come out. OK. Number one, and this is big. Please, please like, uh, can we all get this tattooed on our face or our neck, or where, wherever on our hand. The world doesn't need you to be perfect and strategic. It needs you. To be truly you. Like it needs you to show up as you always first and foremost. Then, then we can add the strategy later. To you, right? We can strategize the magic that is you, and if you're like, I don't know where my magic is, oh my God, let's find it, right? Please come over to the Bold Collective. I would love to help you uncover that because oh my God, it's just, that's amazing. So we want, we can strategize magic instead of expecting the strategy to be. The magic. And do you see where if you're selling the strategy, then you say the strategy is magic, but y'all, no, no, no, no, no, the strategy is not the magic, you, you are the magic. You, the things that you want and the things that you know and the things that are like in your heart and they bubble up and they bubble out of you and you can't help but say it and then you're like, oh my God, did I say that out loud, and other people in the world are like, who are you? And maybe some people in your life have judged you and then there are these other people that when you're around you like feel more like yourself and you're lit up and you're like, oh my God, I could have spent all of that time with you. That, that. That is you. That is your magic. We, the world needs that magic. The world needs your magic. This world needs more of us living out loud, being who we are on the inside, out loud on the outside. That is what, that is what we're after here. But we're raising our hands and saying yes to ourselves, not waiting to be chosen by the masses because, oh God. I don't wanna be that no, that's no fun, right? And #2 takeaway. And I'm also gonna say, right, even what I said before about like things being simple, Everything I'm saying here y'all is, is maybe simple, not easy. And this is why we need to practice showing up as ourselves over and over again and letting the life that we want to live be a muscle that we're, that we're working, right? We're practicing it. It's a practice rather than a destination. The world says it's a destination, it's not, because nothing, nothing, y'all is static. Absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing, nor do we want it to be, even though uncertainty and change so dang uncomfortable. OK, #2 thing that I want you to take away. If it's not working for you, It's not working. OK, even if you think that it should be, that doesn't mean, and I'm trying to, I feel like there are gonna be like some yeah but it's about like, yeah, but I'm working with my therapist on how to figure out da da da da. Sure, let's bring some discernment in there, right? And that is still getting help and support you need. So fantastic, but for a lot of these things that we're talking about for ways to apply the strategy or the shiny ways that the world tells us to live on the covers of the magazines and yadda yada yada, y'all know the ones. It's not working for you, it's not working even if you think it should. Try another way. How do I find the other way? Listen, you may know the other way right now, it might just be like, here's what I really wanna do. You may not, because here's what I really wanna do is just quit. Cool, let's start there, right? Let's start there, what great information, and then what happens when you stop exhausting yourself trying to do it the right way. Amazing things happen. You start telling the truth about what you want for your life, and from there, anything is possible. Number 3, take away y'all. It's OK to try it their way, right? It's OK to try it the strategic way. Just don't make yourself live there if it's not working for you. So if you feel like you're banging your head against a wall, the answer is never to bang it harder in order to get to the other side. That is not what we're doing here. You don't have to stay there. And the 4th takeaway, and this has everything to do with everything I've said thus far, we can, this is like the wrap up. Don't forget about your radical self-belief and your DF stag. What's DF stag DF tag are the five pillars of radical self-belief. There is an episode about that, discernment, faith, spirit attending, acceptance, and grace. So when in doubt, when you aren't sure, when you're like, I don't know, am I trying to do it the right way? Is this the right way? This is a strategy or is it what I really want? I don't know, Tiffany I'm all confused. How do I proceed? What is your discernment want you to know? What is your faith? I want you to know. What is your acceptance? I want you to know my acceptance wanted me to know? Girl, it does not matter if all of these ways of doing things work for all of these YouTubers. It doesn't work for you, so you need to stop doing it. I just was like, girl stop. Great. OK. And faith was like, Your way is fine. Your way is totally fine. And Grace was like, oh my God, it's OK though that you did it that way. And acceptance was like, let this be true. This is true. You don't need to fight it, y'all, I fought it for so long by trying to make myself just like buckle down. Listen, anytime Tiffany Hahn is telling herself to buckle down, There's a tourniquet being applied to flow, when that happens, and my spirit tending was like, Don't forget about your soul. Don't forget about like, like we've got the head, right? But then there's all of his body down here and spirit attending was like, you don't like this. This is like, this is like killing your your life force energy. It's not fun. And it wasn't said, we're not judging, we're not shaming. It's just like, oh hon, this isn't you. What you doing? What are you doing? And we, I want you to play with really letting yourself. Hold it that lightly. Whatever, whatever, uh, whatever it is that isn't working for you, just like oh. No, it's OK. Let's just change it. Let's try a different way. Let's try something new. And have faith that that trying something new will help us see, will help us get to where we need to go. Am I gonna record every podcast episode on YouTube Live forever and ever? I don't know. I mean, maybe, maybe not, because again, showing up this way is a practice, not a destination, so As much as I want to know the capital A answer for all of my business questions and how to have sustainable success and work what I want to work and make the money that I want to make and do the things that I want to do in my work, have the impact that I want to have and feel great about all of it. Do I, is there a part of me that's like, oh, maybe recording the podcast on YouTube Live is going to be the answer. I mean, sure, wouldn't that be great? And also like I'm certain it's not the answer because there is not a single answer here that we're after. What I know is that I get the opportunity as much as possible to show up as myself and to do the things like letting my magic out. Is going to be what what works, what's effective, what connects with people, what enrolls people into this conversation, what gets people to be like, yes, I wanna say yes, I wanna say yes to myself and do this. Great. And it might happen now somebody might listen to this next week and be like, oh yeah, that, or somebody might find this in 4 years. I don't know. Cool, but hopefully 4 years from now I'm still showing up, right? And I'm remembering that I don't have to be strategic, that there is no one right answer, and that stagnation, frustration, and resentment are never gonna take me. To where I want to go. There's just not. Therefore, I can come back. And I remember that the world needs me to be who I am, perfectly me, not be strategic, not be strategic and buttoned up and all of that, right? The world just needs me to be truly me, and then we can strategize that instead of the other way around. Remember too, if it's not working for you, it's not working. Trust that. Don't make yourself live in their way, even if you wanna try it. Great, let's try it. Let's get some more information. Fantastic. Sometimes the, the right step is still the right step, even if it, you realize I didn't, I shouldn't have taken that step. Great, because sometimes you need to take that step to know that you shouldn't have taken it, right? But if we're just staring at the step trying to figure out if it's right or not, but we never take a step. Do you see it? Do you see where that never gets us, we never get to get to go on the hike. I go on the hike. Finally, y'all forever and ever, don't forget about your radical self-belief and those five pillars, the discernment. The faith, I'm like saying it in my head, DF sag, the discernment, the faith, the spirit attending, the acceptance, and the grace. When in doubt, come back to those, I promise they are not going to steer you wrong. Thank you everyone for being here, whether you're listening or watching on YouTube. If you have questions or comments or thoughts, please let me know. Don't be shy. If there is something else that you would like to see on the podcast, let me know that. I will be back soon in 2 weeks and um. I can't wait. It's gonna be great. Don't be late. Or be late. Who cares? There is no late. You're right on time. Bye everyone. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoyed the show. Raise Your Hand Say Yes is a production of Say Yes Creative LLC. If you like what you hear and want to support this work, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. Leave a rating and a review, and tell a friend. We couldn't do this without you, and honestly, we wouldn't even want to. For archives show notes, and to take the quiz, go to Tiffanya.com. You can go behind the scenes with me on Instagram over at the Tiffany Hahn. Thank you again and I'll see you next week.