anything goes with emma chamberlain - standing up for yourself

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

for so long i struggled with being a pushover and a yes man. i hated conflict, i hated thinking people could be angry with me, and i let people walk all over me. it sucked, and i know a lot of people struggle with this too. finally i had enough and started standing up for myself, and all those fears i had about how people would react never actually happened. so i’m here to help you guys out with the confidence to do it too, and explain why it’s the best thing you can do for yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone. I hope you all are having a gorgeous day, a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous day. My drink of the day today is a bottle of water and a cold brew. Nothing, nothing crazy today. I made my cold brew using the Chamelink coffee, cold brew, elephant bags. They're like these massive bags filled with coffee that you throw into a mason jar, cover with water, put it in your fridge overnight, wake up and you have multiple cups of coffee in the morning, kind of a gorgeous thing. Why do I keep saying gorgeous today? That's my fourth gorgeous of the episode and we are 45 seconds in. You guys, this is scary. fourth gorgeous of the episode and we are 45 seconds in. You guys, this is scary. Anyway, those are my drinks of the day to day.

The reason why I have a bottle of water next to my bed is because I woke up this morning, it's severely dehydrated. And the reason for that is that I don't drink water. I don't know how I'm alive. I'm serious, I don't drink water. I don't know how I'm alive. I'm serious. I do not drink water. It's so weird.

I just don't drink water. I never think to do it. I always forget. I like drinking other things. I just don't drink a lot of water. And it's not good. But today I woke up and felt genuinely ill. And it only took me a moment to realize why. And it was because I hadn't consumed more than a glass or two of

water in the past two weeks. And so, you know, I'm just kind of hitting rock bottom a little bit, and I really need to prioritize my water consumption. Anyway, you don't care. You don't care. Let's get into today's topic, which is, how to be nice without being a pushover. How to stop being a yes man? How to stop letting people walk all over you? How to stand up for yourself without feeling guilty?

All of this, all of this is today's episode. I'm going to be giving some advice. I'm going to be telling you about my journey as to how I stopped being a pushover, yes, man. And why I think it's an important thing to work on. And we all are on different parts of this journey in life. You know what I mean? Some people were never a pushover. They always stood up for themselves.

They don't have an issue with this. Some people struggle with this severely on a daily basis and it controls their life and some people are a little bit in the middle. So, you know, take all of this advice with a grain of salt and let's discuss. Let's discuss. So, I want to start by giving some examples of how I used to be kind of a pushover and a yes man in my everyday life. A good example would be that I never used to enforce having people pay me back. Like let's say I had good to dinner with a group of people.

And we would agree that we were gonna split dinner. If somebody would forget their card or forget their wallet or something like that, I would always be the one that ended up paying. And they would always say, oh, I'll pay you back, I'll pay you back, I swear, I swear. And then they wouldn't. And when I was younger, I didn't have an income.

I was spending my parents' money when I would go out to eat with my friends or something like that. I didn't have a job. So I'm not spending my own money. And so when someone else doesn't pay me back, they're not paying my parents back. You know what I'm saying? Like, this wasn't my money to be spending, right? So my parents would be like,

hey, like, can we be paid back for this dinner that you paid for or whatever? And I would be too scared to ask my friends to pay me back. Even though, I know their family situation they could have paid me back. It wasn't like, because I'm not somebody who ever has been like, oh, I'm not paying for someone's meal, ever,

even if they need help. Like, no, if somebody needed help and they needed me to pay for their dinner and that was the situation, like I would do that in a heartbeat. Like I would do that in a heartbeat. My parents would do that in a heartbeat. No questions asked. But if somebody just isn't paying you back

just because they don't want to or they don't feel like it or they're too lazy or they forgot, that's not an excuse. You know what I'm saying? There's no excuse for that. And if it was a agreed upon, then that's a fully different situation. But I used to never ask anyone to pay me back.

And, you know, that didn't really directly hurt me and hurt my parents, which is shity or for them. But I just never could get myself to do it, because I was so scared that they were going to get mad at me, that they were going to think I was being annoying, that I was going to be that girl that asked to be paid back and I just like couldn't bear to do it. Another example of me being a pushover when I was younger would be, when I would be at a store, let's say a Barnes & Noble. And I would be picking up a few books for school.

And I would be checking out and purchasing the books. And the cashier checking me out would say, hey, do you want to sign up for a Barnes & Noble credit card, you'll get 10% off of your purchase now and moving forward, you'll get coupons in your email every week, whatever. I literally did not know how to say no to these things when I was younger. If somebody would ask me that, I would not know what to do. And half the time, I would use the excuse that my mom didn't let me sign up for promotional deals. But if that wasn't flying

and the cashier wasn't taking no front answer, I would end up like signing up for things and then having to like make my mom cancel the membership so the credit cards or the loyalty programs later. Because I could not say no. Could not say no. I felt too bad and I was scared. I was like, well, what if like, what if, you know, this cashier like makes a commission off of this and what if they're really struggling and I don't know and like blah blah You know, and I was stressed out and I would feel so bad and so I'd end up just signing up for shit and then canceling it a week later.

I also feel like I used to let people take advantage of my kindness a lot when I was younger. Like, people would go out of their way to ask me for a ride somewhere or ask me to cover their dinner or ask me to let them borrow clothes that me to, you know, let them borrow clothes that they were never going to return back to me or anything in that sort. Like, I think a lot of people used to kind of prey on me a little bit, not

intentionally. I'm not saying like, everybody was out to get me, but I think that subconsciously, when I was younger, a lot of people would take advantage of me without even realizing that they were doing it because they were like, well, Emma says yes to everything. So let's just use that to our benefit. Like, see how far we can test the limits. I don't think anybody meant to do it.

I'm not saying that because I don't think that anybody meant to do it. But I think that it happened just because people knew that I was such a pushover and such a yes man, and I could not say no. And I would do whatever I could to just please everybody because I just didn't want conflict, I didn't want drama, I wanted everybody to be happy.

And, you know, I'd rather inconvenience myself or put myself out than to have any kind of drama, right? The reason why I was so adamant about being as accommodating to everybody as possible was because I was living in fear of people being angry at me. And I don't know why that is, but I had this genuine fear growing up of people being angry at me. I was constantly avoiding anger at all costs. And I also was living in constant fear of people turning on me as well. Now again, I don't know what that stems from either, but I was living in this never-ending prison in my mind where I felt like I couldn't stand up for myself.

I couldn't say no to anything. I couldn't say no to anything. I couldn't make a selfish choice every once in a while because if I did, then people would be angry at me, people would turn on me, people wouldn't wanna be my friend anymore, people wouldn't wanna hang out with me anymore and I would be alone, surrounded by people who are angry at me.

And that was so scary to me that I just refused to even try to stand up for myself or try to say no every once in a while. It was also one of those things where I had lived my whole life as a pushover, just letting people push me around, walk all over me, you know, take advantage of me if they want, whatever. I had lived like that for my whole life. So I didn't know what would happen if I tried to say no. I didn't know what would happen

if I tried to stand up for myself because I genuinely had never done it before. So I was like, this is an unknown. And in my imagination, I've convinced myself that if I shift my behavior in a way that's a little bit more self-serving, I'm going to be screwed. Like my life will be ruined. And I will regret it, right? I think it also kind of relates to the

confidence and self-respect that I had as a child. I think that I felt very unworthy as a child. Just in general, I think a lot of children feel like that, but I just always felt like I needed to earn love and respect, right? like I needed to earn love and respect, right? Like I needed to earn kindness towards me and respect and love towards me. Like I needed to earn that. And in my mind, I felt like, okay, in order to earn that, I need to be the most

agreeable, easygoing, yes, yes, yes person on the planet. I didn't feel confident that I had enough to offer to be able to say no every once in a while. I felt like I wasn't good enough to say no. I was like, oh, I'm not a valuable enough person to be able to say no if I want to. And I don't know why. I think most young people don't think of themselves

as like the most amazing, perfect person on the planet. I think most young people feel really uncertain of who they are and really uncomfortable in their own skin. And I think that's a common issue, right? So I'm not saying that like this is like a very unique to me sort of situation. I think a lot of people can probably relate to that. But I think that for me personally, that's why I was such a pushover.

But after years of being a pushover and just saying yes to everything and just trying to please everyone and living like this, I found that it had some negative effects on me personally. For one, it made my confidence plummet even more because as I continued to be a pushover, people kept pushing me over and every time somebody would take advantage of me in some way, or I would say yes, and inconvenience myself, my confidence would drop a little bit. I felt like there was a direct correlation between my confidence and whether or not I told the truth when somebody asked me,

hey, can you do this for me? Or, hey, can you sign up for this membership at our store so that we can make more money? Like, every time I lied to those people, and I said, yes, I can do this. Yes, I can do that for you. Yes, I can sign up for your scam of a membership. Sure, yes, I can do that.

And I lied to them. I would end up feeling like shit about myself because I started to see myself as someone who was almost dishonest because I was saying yes to everything when my real answer was no, I can't do that. Well, I could, but no, I don't want to do that. You know, I don't want to do that. That's not something I want to do. That's something that's very inconvenient for me and something that I don't want to do. Every time that I wouldn't say that, which was my truth, right,

I would feel really bad about myself. So that wasn't very good. On top of that, I started to notice that every time somebody would ask me for a favor or something like that, and I would lie and say that it was something that I wanted to do. And then I would do that favor for that person. I would end up feeling angry at the person. Let's say for example my friend and I are going to a party and my friend says, hey can I borrow a pair of pants from you for this party? I don't want to let my friend borrow that pair of pants because those are my favorite pants. And if my friend wanted to wear any other pair of pants in my closet, sure, but not

that pair because that is my favorite pair of pants. But let's say I said yes anyway because I just wanted to take the path of least resistance and I wanted to be easy going and I wanted to be a yes man. And let's say I said yes. And then my friend wore those jeans, those pants, whatever, to the party that night. Even though I'm the one that let my friend wear those pants, for whatever reason, I would still find myself being angry at the friend. Which is actually unfair, right? Because my friend asked and said,

Hey, can I wear these pants? I said yes. As far as they know, those are just any other pair of pants my closet. They don't mean anything to me. And then all of a sudden, my friend notices, why is Emma kind of being weird?

Like, why is she kind of like angry at me or annoyed with me? I don't know, like, what could it be? Like, I don't think anything's going on, like, what's going on? In my head, I'm all pissed off, then I'm letting my friend wear my pants because I didn't want that to happen. But yet, this was a whole self-inflicted issue.

I could have just said, hey, you know what? Those are my favorite pants. I don't let anyone wear those, but like, you can wear this pair. I could have just said that in the moment. And then I wouldn't be resenting my friend and my friend would still have a great pair of pants for the party.

You see what I'm saying? By me being a pushover, I was then getting angry at others because I said yes when I didn't want to. And that's not fair because that's not their fault. I felt very out of control as well because I I mean, obviously, I felt like a spineless idiot. I felt like I could just be pushed around, you know, in any which way, and I didn't have control over it because if somebody were to ask me if they could borrow a thousand dollars, you know, I might say yes, even if I don't have a thousand dollars to give.

And that's, and feeling like I'm out of control of my own responses made me feel very scared because I was like, I don't know how to handle these situations that are uncomfortable. I don't know how to say no, so I feel out of control. I also felt like I didn't know how to protect myself. I didn't even care to protect myself. I just let people do whatever they wanted to me. You know what I mean? Like, use my money, use my belongings, use my shoulder to cry on,

whatever it may be. And whether I wanted to do it or not, I was going to do it regardless. And that was unsettling for me because it almost felt like I was living robotically and just doing whatever other people told me to do. And it just was not good. Because in a way, I think that humans, or at least some humans, kind of have a split brain. One side of your brain is your emotional side of your brain.

And one side of your brain is your more logical side of your brain, right? And a lot of times your emotional side will say, well, I just want to help everybody and be nice to everybody and do nice things for everybody. But then the logical side of your brain says, no, you can't always do that. Sometimes you need to prioritize yourself. Sometimes you need to put yourself first, period. And you know, you might have to say, no, every once in a while. You might have to say, that's not gonna work for me every once in a while.

You might have to say, no, thank you. I don't wanna do that every once in a while. And that's okay. But for majority of my life, I didn't listen to the logical side of my brain as much as I should have. In majority of the time, I was listening to, you know, the more emotional side of my brain that just wanted to help people and avoid any conflict or drama. The moment that I realized that something needed to change was that number one, I found

that I hated almost everyone. I still struggle with this now. I don't hate people, actually hate is, I don't know, hate's not a good word, but I didn't really like many people. So I found myself in this period of my life where number one, I didn't like very many people. Number two, I avoided as many in-person contacts as possible. Like for example, if I could order something to be delivered to my front door, I'm going to do that instead of going into a store.

Unless it's a store like Whole Foods that has self-checkout, I would prefer to avoid human-to-human contact. And last but not least, people in my life were starting to say to me, Emma, you need to stop saying yes to everything. Like people in my life were starting to be to me, Emma, you need to stop saying yes to everything. Like people in my life were starting to be like, this is actually a problem, and they were bringing it up to me. And that was embarrassing to me. And those three things combined made me have this realization

that I can't be living like this anymore. And something's got to change. I would say that like the first few months of really trying to be true to myself and tell the truth about what I want to do and what I don't want to do was the hardest because it was like trying something completely new. I had never said no when it was uncomfortable to say no. I'd always said yes. And so I didn't really know what was going to happen,

right? When I would tell somebody that I couldn't really know what was going to happen, right? When I would tell somebody that I couldn't help them out with something or that I needed them to pay me back for that vacation we went on or that dinner we went to or that pair of shoes that I let them borrow and they never gave back. Like when I'd be asked to be paid back, when I would tell somebody that I was too tired to go to dinner and I needed to cancel, whatever it may be, my first few months of saying no finally for the first time in my, was very scary for me because I expected people to be angry at me every time I would do it.

And every time I would do it, I was scared. I was like, this is the time that someone's going to get mad at me. But you know what I found? No one got mad at me. Nobody got mad at me when I would ask somebody to pay me back when I would tell somebody that I'm too busy to hang out when I would say that I don't have time to help them move this week because I have too much work to do.

When I would say that I just don't have it in me emotionally to talk on the phone at a certain given moment. Like, when I started saying, no, nothing bad happened. Everybody would just be like, oh, okay, no problem. Every time. I can't even one time when I've stood up for myself or asked for something or said no to something where someone's been angry. I can't name one time. Nobody got angry. Nobody's ever gotten angry. And that gave me confidence. I was like, wait a minute. People still want to be my friend. People still want to hang out with me. People still like me. People still think I'm a valuable person in their life, even when I say no.

Or even when I'm Not a pushover. And in fact what was crazy was people actually started to respect me more And they started to one hang out with me more and people just generally liked me more and It was beautiful and my confidence grew because I was like, you know what? I'm a valuable person in people's lives, even when I don't say yes to every single thing that they asked me for.

Even when I stand up for myself and I don't always let other people get their way, they still like me. Even if they don't get their way with something in regards to me Because I didn't want to do something. They still like me, you know I'm not just a valuable person in people's lives because I'm a pushover. Holy shit. Wow. This is awesome and It was a beautiful beautiful thing. It was a beautiful thing. I was like, wow, I mean, it was life changing for me.

And I think really what it all comes down to when it comes to standing up for yourself in life is delivery. How do you stand up for yourself in a way that is respectful and kind and rational, it's all about the delivery because let's use an example here. Let's say your friend didn't pay you back for dinner and you want them to pay you back. You have two ways of going about getting this money. One way, we'll make your friend angry

and one way, we'll make your friend feel neutral and they'll just be like, oh, okay, yeah, sorry, I forgot to pay you back. Okay, here's the money. You know what I mean? If you wanna make your friend angry, approach them with a frustrated tone. Be like, okay, dude, you didn't pay me back.

It's been a week and you told me you'd pay me back the night that we went to dinner. You never paid me back. What the fuck? Okay, now your friend's gonna get defensive and be like, whoa, they're gonna feel attacked and then they're gonna get angry and then there will be an argument. But if you go to your friend and you say, like, hey, I haven't seen the Venmo payment come through for dinner last week, comma,

it's no worries, just let me know. I mean, that's so chill. That's a text message version. Or in person, just be like, hey, by the way, like, no rush on pay me back for dinner, but just, you know, wasn't sure if like you forgot or the payment didn't go through or whatever, you know.

You can go about it in a way that's like nice, you know what I'm saying? My favorite thing to do is be like, Hey, like no worries at all, but like, I just want wanna make sure that you didn't send the payment to the wrong person. Like I'm looking out for you, but I didn't get paid back at, so I'm just like wondering if you like paid back the wrong person

cause that would be so bad. And like you need to check up on that because you don't want your money in some random person's bank account. That would be so bad, right? Like I'm just looking out for you. But yeah, it doesn't show that you paid me back. So you probably accidentally paid back someone else. Oh no, wait, that's so bad. You're going to need to get that money back. I'm, you're welcome for helping, though, helping you notice that. Like I still kind of like beat around the bush a little bit. Sorry, sorry, but

I still kind of like beat around the bush a little bit. Sorry, sorry, but yeah, as long as you deliver things with kindness and rationality and peace, nothing bad's gonna come of it. And you standing up for yourself is only going to help others respect you even more. And also help people understand what you are willing and are not willing to do. If you're constantly lying to yourself and to others about things that you're willing to do, then other people are gonna start to think, oh, well, Emma doesn't mind driving me

to and from work every day, because my car's in the shop. Like, Emma doesn't mind doing that. It's not an inconvenience, because she keeps saying yes, so it's probably fine. When deep down, you're like, this is a huge inconvenience in my day. I don't have the time to be driving this person

to and from work every day while they're cars in the shop, but I'm doing it because I don't want to say no, and it's really inconveniencing me and I've been late to work three times this week because of, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you're honest with yourself and everybody else, good things will come. And there's only good that can come from it. I think especially in relationships, this is huge because I know that it's one thing to stand up for yourself in real life with your friends, with your family, with strangers on the street. But it is the hardest to stand up for yourself in relationships, in my opinion.

Because when love enters the equation, you turn a little bit softer than usual, a little bit more vulnerable than usual, a little bit more agreeable than usual, a little bit more vulnerable than usual, a little bit more agreeable than usual, especially in the beginning of a relationship. I would say this applies in the beginning of a relationship for some, throughout an entire relationship, it just depends on you. But I know that for me, I was such a pushover in my first few relationships.

I said yes to everything and anything and everything. I would help them out, do things I didn't want to do. Agree with things that they would say that I didn't agree with. Blah, blah, blah. Just because I wanted them to continue to like me, and I felt like if I wasn't on the same page as them saying yes to every thing that they would ask me to do for them, that they would no longer like me, and everything would go in the trash can. But the funny thing was, is that in my first few relationships,

the guys did not respect me, like at all. And you know, they should have anyway, you know, like it's like one of those things where I was kind of at fault, but also they were kind of at fault in a way. They were at fault because you should just respect people, no matter what, period. But I was at fault because I wasn't being honest with them. And I was, you know, constantly agreeing with everything, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That doesn't demand respect. When you stand up for yourself and you say, you know what, No, I'm not going to do that. And you make them work around your schedule and your life like you do for them. Then that makes them respect you because not only did I use to say yes to everything in relationships. But I also would go out of my way to schedule my life around whoever I was dating. So like, if a guy would say to me, hey, can we hang out on Friday? I would look on my calendar and see,

oh God, I have a meeting on Friday for work. And I would reschedule that meeting just so that I could respond to the guy at the time and say, yes, I'm free on Friday. I'm just so that I wouldn't have to say, can we maybe like, hang out another day? I don't know what was wrong with me, you guys. I mean, listen, nothing was wrong with me. I was just scared of rejection and people being angry at me and people hating me.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. But I mean, like living like that is not good. Living like that is not good. And I know that, you know, when you're in a new relationship, especially, or you're just in a relationship in general and you just happen to be more of a yes man type of person, it can be really exhausting to keep up the yes man persona in a relationship

and you're gonna end up finding yourself frustrated and exhausted and it's just not a good thing. A person that you're dating is not gonna stop liking you because you say, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna help you with that right now. I'm busy that day. Blah, blah, blah. It's just not going to happen. Like, unless you're being out of line genuinely in some way,

chances are nobody's going to get mad at you. And that applies to relationships and the rest of life. Relationships just being the rest of life. Relationships just being the hardest of them all. In my opinion, once you learn how to stand up for yourself, you truly do feel liberated. And it's an amazing, amazing feeling, just to feel like you're only doing stuff that you really want to do in life, and you're never inconveniencing yourself beyond what you're capable of. And you have more time for yourself at the end of the day. You know, you have more time to focus

on you when you're not saying yes to every little thing that everybody else is asking you to do all the time. And your confidence will naturally grow from it as well. And you'll just feel more true to yourself and confident in your own skin. Now all of this is to say that we all have moments when we don't have the courage to stand up for ourselves. I still have moments like this. There are still moments when I'm in a store and the cashier asks me if I want to sign

up for their membership program where I get 20% off a month and free coupons in my email every single week where I have to literally force the word no out of my mouth. There are still days when it's tough. There are still days when somebody will ask me for a favor or will ask me to go to dinner and I won't be feeling it. And I'll say yes because I just feel bad. There are still times like that. I still have moments like that, but they're far and fewer between.

And I hope to eventually reach a point where I only do things that I truly want to do in life. Because I think that by doing that, it just creates a happier life. Being a pushover is only saying yes when you want to say no. There are gonna be a lot of times in life when somebody asks you for a favor.

Somebody asks you, if you like something or not, someone asks you for a favor. Somebody asks you if you like something or not. Someone asks you if you want to sign up for their membership at their store, there are maybe moments where you want to say yes. So, you know, it's not like now that you're no longer a pushover, you say no to everything. No, not at all. There are still endless opportunities to say yes, to help people, to be agreeable in many ways. But it's just about being a little choosier about when those moments are. Putting yourself first is very different from being selfish. Being selfish is being careless. It's rooted in anger a little bit more.

It's rooted in ego a little bit more. It's rooted in maturity a little bit more. Being selfish is not helping others because you're too hyper focused on yourself and you see yourself as the most important person on the planet and nobody else matters, blah, blah, blah. That's being selfish.

But putting yourself first is just making yourself a priority instead of making everyone else a priority. It's kind of like splitting the difference. It's like, now you give yourself the same attention that you give everybody else. Instead of you giving yourself no attention and giving everybody else all the attention. Being selfish is like only giving yourself attention and then not giving anyone else any attention.

Like almost not even seeing other people, being almost oblivious to other people. That's being selfish, but putting yourself first is kind of putting everybody on an even playing field. You and everybody else, and on a case by case basis, choosing what's best for you and the other people. You know what I mean? I don't know.

Sometimes I go into these metaphors and it gets so abstract that like I even start to lose what I'm like, what am I even really going for here? What does this mean? You know, like whatever. All right, to wrap up this episode, I thought we would do a little Q&A about standing up for yourself. So I asked you guys on the Twitter at AG podcast to ask me questions about how to stand up for yourself,

et cetera, et cetera. So let's get into it. How to know if you should stand up for yourself or if you're just being too sensitive slash defensive? This is such a good question because there have been many times in my life when I've been upset about something and I've almost brought it up. But then I've taken a second to sit back and really think. Am I upset because this person did something wrong to me? Or am I upset because I got my own issues going on?

And if I sit back, give myself a few hours, maybe even sleep on it for 24 hours. And I revisit the situation and I'm still angry, then I'll bring it up. But more often than not, if I sleep on it, I might wake up the next day and say, you know what, I'm not really angry anymore. Actually, I was just taking out my anger on this person and my frustration on this person so that I didn't have to address the real issue, which could be a number of different things in my personal life.

You know what I'm saying? So I do think that it's important when standing up for yourself to make sure that you're coming from a place of calm as much as possible. Obviously, if your boyfriend cheats on you, you can go bang on his door and scream at him. I give you permission to do that because that's like the ultimate betrayal. Or if your best friend like spreads a really evil rumor about you around the school and you know for certain that she's the one that did it again, you have permission to approach that with anger. But with something that is a little bit less evil like forgetting to pay you back for dinner, or

something of that sort. It's good to sleep on it. And try your best to approach it with a cool, calm, and collected headspace, because not only will that be received the best by the other person, but also you can be more certain that you are Acting out of rationality rather than anger. You want to be rational in as many areas of your life as possible It just is it's better. It's better to be rational than emotional in most scenarios, I would say. Yeah, I think I stand by that claim.

Again, I'm just a child when we really look at it. I'm just 20. Okay. Sometimes I'm in the middle of giving advice and I'm like, who is listening to me? Do I even know what I'm talking about? I think I do. I hope so. Whatever, listen, all of this is a legend.

All of my advice is a legend, but also I mean I stand by it. I would say subject to change though, you know, you never know. Anyways, okay, moving on. Somebody said, I have a friend who shared stuff with my ex that I didn't want her to,

and is now acting like it was what was needed. How do I tell her it really wasn't without hurting her feelings? I say, you know, you just need to have a conversation with her. Maybe it's even shooting her a little text, depending on how deep of a situation this is. I'm not sure. And just say, listen, I know that you had my best interest at heart, but I just want you to know that the way

that you handled this situation hurt me. And it didn't make me feel good. And I want your loyalty to be with me, rather than my ex, boyfriend, because that makes me feel the most comfy in our friendship. And I totally forgive you for this, but I just wanted you to know that it made me upset so that we can just avoid this happening again, period.

Somebody said, how do you get your point across in a way that it actually gets understood? I think that this circles back to approaching a situation in a rational, calm way rather than in angry, emotional way. Because angry conversation never leads to any sort of solution. I know personally when I'm being yelled at, I immediately stop listening or absorbing information immediately because I just go into defense mode. When somebody comes at me in a calm and rational way and explains something to me, whether it's a really good thing or it's a really bad thing, I'm able to fully absorb what they're saying

because they're approaching me in a way that does not feel like I'm being attacked. So my defense doesn't go up. I am receptive to information when somebody approaches me in a cool, calm and collected way. Also, when you're cool, calm and collected and you're relaxed and you're honest and you're cool, calm, and collected, and you're relaxed, and you're honest, and you're rational, whatever, you're better able to organize your thoughts.

When you're angry, your brain is like a jumbled mess. So, that's what I would say about that. Somebody said, literally, why is it so hard to stand up for myself? I honestly think it's hard because it's scary. Most people don't like conflict. They don't like drama. And saying no or disagreeing or standing up for yourself is something that has the potential to cause conflict for

sure. And if done correctly, most of the time it won't, but even if done correctly, it can still cause conflict. There is potential for conflict with every disagreement, with every no, with every instance of standing up for yourself. But what it really comes down to is that short-term saying yes and being a yes man is the safest bet. But long-term, it's not. Long-term, you'll lose respect for yourself.

Other people will lose respect for you. You'll grow resentment towards people. It's not worth it long term. Short term, it's easy. Long term, not so good. Somebody said, are you standing up for yourself if you're standing up for your ideas? I would say yes. All ideas, all creations that come from you are an extension of you, and standing up for your ideas is very much standing up for yourself. Somebody said, how to stand up for yourself in a work environment while still trying to

remain professional. Again, I think that this really comes down to delivery. I think in a work environment, you need to approach it in an even more rational way than you do in your personal life. Like imagine how you approach a confrontation with your friends in an ideal way, which would be cool, common collected. Now imagine that, but times 10, you're even more cool, common collected. You're even more rational. You've thought about it even more.

You've, you know, marinated in it even more. Maybe you've written down some notes in a journal about what you wanna say when you stand up for yourself in this work environment. Maybe you sat in the bathroom and took deep breaths and thought about it. Maybe you write it all out in an organized email instead of going in and directly confronting the situation.

Whatever it may be, I think that the best way to handle standing up for yourself in a work environment is to just prepare yourself even more. And I think that that preparation will make you feel more confident. If you have something planned, if you have what you wanna say planned out, and you're in a headspace where you feel as cool, calm, and collected as you possibly can be, then I think you're in a great spot.

Somebody said, how to stop feeling guilty when I stand up for myself? I think you need to remember that you are a valuable and amazing human being yourself, because I know it's easy for some of us to put other people on a pedestal around us, and we see ourselves as below everyone. We see ourselves as less important. But that is not true. We are just as important and special and awesome, I don't know, as everyone else. And so we don't need to feel guilty for putting ourselves first sometimes because sometimes and for some

of us most of the time we put everybody else first. Every once in a while it's our turn to be first in line to get what we want, to have our voice heard properly. Every once in a while we deserve that. As much as possible we deserve that. You know what I'm saying? And so you shouldn't feel guilty about standing up for yourself, we deserve that. You know what I'm saying? And so you shouldn't feel guilty about standing up for yourself because you deserve it. Just like everyone else that you know does. Okay, you guys, that's all I got for today.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you enjoyed. I loved hanging out with you per usual. Can't wait to talk again next week again per usual. If you want to subscribe to anything goes or follow anything goes you can do so on any place that you stream this podcast. You can also follow anything goes on Twitter at AG podcast or Instagram at anything goes. What else? You can check out my coffee company, Chamberlainarmelingcoffee.com.

We have a lot of fun stuff over there, including the cold brew bags that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode. If you've stayed this long, I love you so much. Here's my cat. She's not making sounds. So sorry about that. You do not get cat purring sounds in today's episode. Unfortunately, maybe next episode, stay tuned for that. You do not get cat, cat purring sounds in today's episode. Unfortunately, maybe next episode stay tuned for that. It's possible. It might happen in the next episode.

And what else? That's all I got. I appreciate you guys so much and I hope you all have an amazing rest of your week. We will talk soon. Bye. And I hope you all have an amazing rest of your week. We will talk soon. Bye.