Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 78 | 27

Episode Date: February 19, 2019

Special birthday episode! Sharing important life lessons I've learned and am learning. Copyright Blaze Media All Rights Reserved.

Hey guys, happy Tuesday. So full disclosure, Relatable, as you are watching it right now, it's the 19th, but as I am recording this, it is actually February 14th. So Relatable is being recorded the week before you're actually watching it because as you are listening to this, I am on my baby moon. You know, that thing like honeymoon, except before you actually have your baby. some people are very confused about that. But to be honest, it's not just a baby moon. It's also for my birthday, which was as you're listening to this yesterday, I turned 27 years old. And that's kind of going to be the theme for the podcast today. I'm going to talk about what I thought my life would look like at 27 years old, how it's different and what I've learned because you guys have asked me about that particular subject a lot. But also this trip is for Valentine's Day and just for fun. And we are in Colorado. living it up. I'm actually still working on my book while we're on our baby moon, but we are enjoying as much rest and relaxation as we can while we're here. So like I said, we are going to talk about my 27 year old perspective. Now, a lot of you listening to this might be older than me and

have so much more wisdom than I do, even if you're younger than me, you might have more wisdom than I do. But I get a lot of questions from you guys about personal advice and advice getting into doing podcasts or getting into political commentating or just professional advice in general, even if you don't want to be in this kind of media realm at all. And so I want to give you at least what I know and how I got to where I am. Now, I'm not speaking from someone who is like at the peak of my career knows everything about political media and is just on the very top of my game and so famous. I'm not talking from that perspective. I don't think that I'm any bigger or any more experience than I am. I'm just speaking from what I know. As a 27-year-old now,

that sounds really, really old saying out loud, a 27-year-old now in someone who has been doing this kind of thing for the past few years, I just want to give you a little hope, a little encouragement, and whatever wisdom I have been able to glean in this life and career of mine. So to be honest, life looks a lot different. Life looks a lot different at 27 than I thought that it would. So when I was 21, 22, I was finishing up college, finished college in 2014. I majored in communication studies. I decided to go into PR. I'm extremely grateful for the first job that I had. And I, looking ahead, I thought for some reason, I just had it in my mind that I would be married at 27, that I would get married at 27, thought I'd meet my husband

around 25. For some reason, I had it in my mind that I would be moving to Atlanta. in having like a corporate job there. I have no idea where that really came from. I lived in Athens, Georgia, right after college. And that's why I worked at a PR firm. And so for some reason, the thing that I thought that I was going to do was move to Atlanta, meet someone there probably who also had maybe a similar corporate job as I did when I was 25 and they get married at 27.

And I thought that I would never move back to Texas where I'm from. And I would just kind of do that forever. But I also had this underlying dream that I've had since I was maybe 12 years old to do three things. And that is to be on TV, to public speak and to write books. Those are the things that I've always wanted to do. My family and I would watch Fox News growing up. We would watch Hannity and Combs when I was young. I would watch Megan Kelly in high school.

And I just thought she was awesome. I thought all of the female guests that she had on were awesome. And even though I never thought I could do that, I never thought, oh, I have what it takes to get there. I just thought that would be awesome to do. So that's not really what I pursued, though. I knew that Megan Kelly had gone to law school. That was something that I considered when I was in college. But ultimately, even though I was decent at school, I didn't love school.

And so I did not want to go to three more years of school after I graduated from college. So didn't go to law school, went straight into PR. and I met my husband when I was 22. I ended up getting married at 23. As you guys know from what I said last week on the podcast, we dated, got engaged very quickly, fell in love very quickly, got married. I've never looked back.

I'm very thankful for that. But I got married at 23 and I was in my job in PR. And I was in our little one bedroom apartment that we had in Athens. And I was sitting there. I think I was still 23 at this point when I was having this kind of, I don't want to call it an epiphany or just just a thought that I was having. I was sitting in our apartment in Athens. And I was just like, what am I doing?

What am I doing with my life, really? Am I moving the ball in any direction that I really want to go? Because I kind of feel like I'm just existing. I kind of feel like, okay, I'm just getting a paycheck. I have this 9 to 5 job. It's fine. I'm using some of the strength that I feel like God has given me. but what am what am i really doing that's purposeful am i using all of my talents and i thought about

that dream that i once had to do something like what meg and kelly was doing i thought about okay i have always said that i wanted to do tv i always said that i wanted to do something the media i always said that i wanted to write books and i'm not doing anything to move the ball in that direction i'm not doing anything to actually do that and goals can only be considered goals for so long if you're not actually working towards them. Then they're just fantasies. And I think I realized that that day, I was sitting on our couch. I think it was in the morning. I think I realized that in my head, I was entertaining a fantasy that I wasn't putting any feet on. I wasn't actually, I wasn't actually working towards any goal.

I just had it in my head that, okay, one day I'm going to maybe pursue all of those things, you know, after I'm old in 27, I'll think about what it might take to be on TV one day. And then I realized then when I was 23, well, okay, what am I going to do to get there? I'm not doing anything to get there. And so it was probably a few months after that that I was driving. I think I was actually driving from a friend's house in Atlanta, from or two, a friend's house in Atlanta back to Athens or from Athens. I don't remember.

And I called my mom. and I just had this idea that just popped into my head. I said, mom, I think I want, this was in 2015, so the primaries were happening, presidential primaries. And I said, mom, I think I want to tell young people, specifically college age women, why they should vote in the primaries. And I'm not really sure what led me to, to think about that, what sparked that interest in me, because I'd been marginally interested in politics, but I wasn't super involved in college, should have been more involved. I wasn't particularly involved in high school. I've just always kind of been marginally interested in that and knowing, I've always kind of known what's going on and I've always been a

conservative as I've talked about it in past podcast. But whatever it was in the fall of 2015, I decided that, okay, I am going to tell young people why they should vote in the primaries. I've got all these smart people around me because I lived in a college town and I feel like they just don't know what's going on. There's no excuse for their ignorance. They are educated. They have access to all this information. Why do I feel like a lot of my friends, a lot of the people that I know aren't going to vote and just don't care about what's going on? And so I decided that I was going to reach out to college sororities and just ask them if I could give a nonpartisan presentation about why you should vote in the primaries. And so I created what I thought was a really relevant

and fun nonpartisan presentation and asked different sororities. I just found the president's email address online or something like that, asked these sorority heads if I could come speak to their group. And, you know, sororities are always kind of looking for, for people to entertain them during chapter or something like that. And I was like, it'll be 15 minutes. They can ask questions after, whatever. So came up with this presentation. A few sororities said, yes, I would go there. I obviously wasn't getting paid. They were basically doing me a favor by giving me an audience. And so I would just give these nonpartisan presentations. And I loved it. I, fell in love with the idea of doing this. I loved interacting with an audience, especially a young

female audience that I've always felt like I relate to at that point. I was only a year older than the oldest of them. So I was close to their age. I felt like I understood the questions that they had and the reservations that they had to get involved in politics. I started getting emails from some of the girls asking me questions about what they're learning in class. And I was like, yes, I love this. And I still had my full-time job at the time in Athens. But I added this on to that because I was like, oh, this is a hobby that I think that I really enjoy. And I started to feel more like, okay, I'm not just a waste of space. I'm not just wasting my time.

I'm actually moving the ball forward in some direction in the way that I want to go. And I had no idea what that looked like. I didn't have an end goal. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a strategy. I had no one behind me telling me, Allie, you're good at this. you need to do this. This is something you need to pursue and here's your next step. I didn't have that. It was just like, oh, Ali's, she's doing this fun little thing off to the side. Okay, great. I didn't really care.

So I did that. And a few months after I started doing that and just really loving it, I started the blog, the conservative millennial, obviously not nonpartisan. I would start writing like funny analyses of the debates and things like that. That got a tiny bit of traction. But mostly the people that followed the conservative millennial Facebook page. I didn't have an Instagram. I didn't have Twitter or anything like that when I first got started. This was now 2016. Most of the people that followed me were friends and family, maybe like 300 total people that followed me. And a few months after I started that, I started making videos. My first video was about Harambe. Herambi. And I didn't have any editing equipment. I didn't have a Mac or I did. But I think it was just totally not working. I had it for so long

that it just, I couldn't edit anything. And so I would take my iPad, sit in my living room with no lights on. Like, what? And why didn't I put makeup on or brush my hair? Guess I just haven't changed. And I would just record my thoughts. And it would take me forever because I couldn't edit them. So I had to make it perfect all in one take. And those first few videos that I did, I mean, maybe they got 2,000, 2,000 views. Like they got nothing. And there was no one, again, encouraging me and telling me, you just got to keep going. Okay, yeah, you're getting no traction. No one cares about anything you're doing, but you just need to keep going. No one said that. Now, I don't even think my husband said that. And he wasn't discouraging. He just, I think everyone just thought, this is just

a thing you're doing for fun. And yet something in me, something was like, you got to keep going, even though everyone probably thinks you're stupid. So a few videos after that, I did some kind of video about Trump that ended up getting hundreds of thousands of views. And then after that, my video started getting hundreds of thousands of the millions of views, even though I was doing the same thing. I was just saying random stuff. And some of my videos in there was still getting like 2,000 views. But I just kept going. And then at the beginning of 2017, my husband got a job that moved us to Texas where I'm from. So now we are close to my family. And I've told this story before, but they just still think it's amazing how God can work. So I quit my job that I was in an

Athens and I knew I wanted to get into media somehow and I thought for some reason that the only route that I could take was radio. So I had a friend who did weather, I think, weather and traffic for a local radio station in Athens. And I had been asking her to connect me to her old boss named Pete at this local radio station. And Pete wouldn't answer my calls. He wouldn't answer my emails. He might have answered them, but I could tell he just wasn't interested in talking to me. I just wanted to meet with him. I don't know if I could get some weekend radio slot or something. like that, then maybe that could be my big break. And so I really wanted to talk to him. But once I found out we were moving to Dallas, I was kind of like, okay, there's no,

there's no reason for me to talk to this guy anymore because he can't help me. But for some reason, again, I was driving. These ideas always come to me when I'm driving. I was driving one day and I left him a voicemail and I said, Pete, this is Allie. And I know you're super busy, but I don't want anything from you. I'm moving to Texas. So I don't need to, anything from you. I'm just, I'm just hoping that you'll be able to sit down with me for a little bit and have a conversation with me about radio. He called me back immediately. I think once he realized I didn't, I wasn't asking for a job that he was like, okay, I can spend some time on her without promising her anything. So I, uh, I met with him in his office, this old, like cluttered office with

like framed pictures of albums from like 2002, like Britney Spears and in sync. I mean, it was just classic small radio station producer office and sat with him. He was so nice. I told him what I do and what I want to do. I didn't know if he was a conservative or anything like that. And he was like, you know, the only person I really know that does conservative radio is Dana Lash. And I didn't know who that was. I was like, okay, great, whatever. And he was like, I have someone, though, that I can connect you to. And he lives in Nashville, and he's a bigger part of this whole national radio network than I am. So I'll connect you to this guy named Steve and maybe he can help you.

Okay, great. So on the day that we're moving, I'm in our one bedroom apartment with no furniture in it. I call this guy named Steve. He is the nicest guy. I still remember the conversation. He was the kindest person. And long story short, he said, okay, I'm going to connect you to this guy in Dallas who actually works for Dana Lash and maybe he'll, maybe he'll be able to give you some advice.

So I emailed this guy and I said, hey, I'm, I'm just hoping that you can, that you can give me some advice. I'm, you know, wanting to break into media. I'm hoping you can give me some advice. I'll be, I'll be in the area sometime next week and maybe we can meet. And he said, yeah, definitely sure, I'll show you around the Blaze. And so I went to the Blaze, met this person, he was just kind of kind of show me around and tell me about the radio show and things like that. I had knew nothing about the Blaze at the time. And then when I was there, someone stopped me a TV producer and said, hey, you're the conservative millennial, which was an incredible thing at the time because I didn't think anyone

really knew who I was. And he stopped me and he introduced me to some more people and really long story short there about a week after I moved to Texas. I got a full-time job at the Blaze. I actually helped them with social media. but I started making my own videos there that ended up becoming successful. And then I started getting calls from Fox and other networks to be a guest. I think my first thing was on Fox and Friends.

And the longer I went, the bigger my videos got. And I kept on writing and I kept on speaking at organizations and at colleges. And at this point, I could actually charge for that. And so I felt like, okay, I'm actually making somewhat of a living from this. I'm actually doing something that I want to do. I actually feel like I'm actually maybe moving the ball forward just a little bit. And then after almost a year of working at the Blaze, I moved to CRTV, which is now Blaze TV.

And that's where I started my podcast, which started almost a year ago in March. And so I had no idea. I had no idea what it was going to be that actually got. got me to start in a direction of where I wanted to go, of where I felt like I was actually using my talents for the first time. And I'm telling you all of this, not because it's some amazing success story. There are people who star has risen a lot faster and a lot higher than mine has. But the truth is, I, I don't envy those people one bit because the goal for me has always been just to do everything I can to the best of my ability and feel like I'm maxing out my talent.

I have this fear, this just nagging fear of not using everything that God has given me in all of the ways that he wants me to. I have a fear of doing something wrong so that I'm wasting time spinning my wheels or treading water, not actually moving in any direction that God wants me to go. And I haven't always done that well. It's not like I've always abided in God's will perfectly well. I have certainly made mistakes. But, but I remember now, and it took me a while to actually remember this moment. But whenever I think about, okay, is this really what I'm supposed to be doing? Of course, there's a lot of prayer, a lot of wisdom, a lot of reading that comes along with making these choices. But what really reminded me in the beginning that, okay,

this is the direction that I want to go in. There's been only one time. I've told you guys, I really rely a lot on intuition, and I'm kind of working through the biblicalness of intuition and the Holy Spirit and what all that exactly looks like from a theologically sound perspective. But all I can say is there have been times where I felt just this strong pull, this strong conviction towards what I'm supposed to do.

I can't explain it. And again, I'm working through exactly what that means and what it looks like. But it's just true. It's just happened. And it's, it's, it's, there have been poignant times in my life that I can look back to. And I've, I've, I've just felt that. And one of those times is when I was chosen to, uh, deliver the commencement address in

college, which I graduated with like a few thousand or a couple thousand people, one thousand people in my graduating class, maybe. So I had a, I had a small college. It's not like I graduated from Princeton and gave the commencement address. But I gave it. the commencement address, the only student to deliver the commencement address. And I just remember when I was doing that and when I was looking out into the crowd, having almost this like what felt like an out of body experience and this thought of like, yeah, this is what I'm supposed to do for the

rest of my life. Like this is the only thing that I've ever done that has given me energy that's quite like this and given me the feeling of, yes, I'm sure. This is what I'm supposed to do. Now, that doesn't mean that everything falls to my career and everything succumbs to my career. Being a godly wife and mother is far more important to me than any career thing that I ever do. But as far as my career goes, I have felt confident from the very beginning that this is what I'm supposed to do. And the steps that God has taken to get me there, I look back and I think that is not what I expected at all. That's not what I expected at all. And there's no way that I would have gotten through that on my own.

there's no way that I would have made that decision on my own, but God, had it not been for him and him guiding the steps along the way, there just wouldn't, there's no way that I would be doing what I want to do and what I feel like I should be doing and what I feel like I'm good at doing. So I have some rules, or not some rules, I guess I have some tips that I have learned along the way that I hope help you. And this is not just for people who are in media or who are speaking. Oh, yeah. Well, I didn't even say like where I am now. I didn't even. say, and it's not even like a destination, but where I am at 27 is so different, but it is what I wanted to do. I am writing a book. I did speak 20 places last year. I do have a podcast. I am sometimes on

TV. And I'm learning all of those things. I'm still honing my skills and all of those things. And I will be for the next 25 years, I'm sure. And there are so many things that I'm just bad at that I just need to get better at. But, but all that to say, my life looks so different that I thought would at 27. And I am extremely thankful that trusting in God is so much better than trusting in our own plans because we have such a limited perspective on what is good for us and what will be good in the long run. So here are my tips for you. Okay. So number one, no matter what you're doing, whether it's PR, whether you are a stay-at-home mom, whether you host a podcast or you are a TV host, whatever it is. Stay close to God and family. So this is true, like I said,

and no matter what career you're in, I personally just don't make a lot of friends in media in my realm. Now, this isn't necessarily true in every single industry. But in my realm, it is very difficult to be close friends with other people that are in this same realm. And so the people that I am close to, the circle of trust that I have is extremely small. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't love and I'm not kind to people because I do. I am. I try to. I try not to burn any bridges, although I haven't been perfect of that either. And I try to stay out of all of the drama. And I really try hard to stay out of the gossip and the pettiness. Again, probably haven't been perfect at all of that. But I try to stay grounded and

stay close, not just to God through reading his word and prayer and just communion with him, but also to my family and the circle of trust that is really small. So I think it's extremely important, no matter what your career is, especially if you find yourself achieving any level of success in your career, if you find yourself moving up at all and moving towards your goals, it becomes more and more important to stay close to the people that you trust, to stay close to the people who know you, who are going to remind you to live in a way, live in integrity and to have high moral character and remind you what your values are. That's extremely important. a lot of people outside of your circle of trust will do things for you simply because they want

something in return and they're going to demand things of you that are not fair, especially just going to give you, I know in conservative world, we don't talk about sexism and stuff, but especially if you are a young woman, you are going to have a lot of people who are older than you who think that they can pull one over on you, who think that they can take advantage of you, who think that, and again, you're, y'all are going to think that I'm like some, lefty, but seriously, who think that you will take a lower paycheck. Now, I already don't believe in the gender pay gap in the sense that systemically, women are paid less than men. I think women sometimes don't demand what, or ask for what they actually deserve and what they are owed

and a man does. And so I think that there is somewhat of a gap in that sense. But just be careful, be careful no matter what industry you're in, but especially if you're in media, who you trust. This is also just a sub point. If you can in a contract, hire an attorney or get the advice of an attorney. Just do that. It doesn't mean that you don't trust the person on the other side.

Doesn't mean you don't like the person on the other side of the contract. It doesn't mean you don't like the company. It just means that you want to be protected and you want to be safe and that your interests are also met. You learn. You learn through experience and sometimes through the hard way who you can trust and who you can't trust, keep your circle of absolute trust small and stay close to them and love them and allow them to love and affirm you as well. And all of that,

of course, is centered on your relationship with God, which is so important. He makes sure, he makes sure that your priorities are right, that your values are right. And he will, he will give himself glory. And so whatever that means, whatever that means in your life, whether it hurts you or whether you feel like it hurts you or helps you, like he is committed to his own glory. And that should be our goal as well. It's really easy to allow people to pull you down. It's a lot harder to pull people up,

which is why you need to be selective about the people that you trust, selective about the people that you invest in. I do not suggest making friends simply because they are powerful or influential or you feel like they are going to help you be more famous. You can be kind to those people. You can be discerning about, you know, how they might be able to help you in a non-sketchy way. But I do not, I do not recommend making a relationship strictly on that basis. It just doesn't seem, does not seem to end well.

Number two, know what you're good at and do it. So I'm going to start with the opposite of this. Know what you're not good at. I mean a lot of people who do not know what they, are good at. And that's fine. There's some exploration in that and I'm going to get to how you kind of decide that. But I do not suggest spending all of your energy working on your weaknesses. There's a time and a place for that. But I think the more efficient and the more productive thing to do is to work on your strengths, to work on the good things God has given you.

Some of us have in our minds that in order to have an impact, we have to have a lot of followers or we have to be famous. If fame is your goal, you need to get out of the fame game. You do. Because when your fame rises faster than your character does, you end up crashing and burning. And we see that on a daily basis with people who just wanted to be famous but didn't actually believe what they said. And then they say something really stupid because they didn't actually know what their beliefs

are. Now, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. But we see this in Congress. We see this in political media. We see this in celebrities where people get ahead of themselves because they think because they're so famous, they're immune to any criticism. Then they say something really stupid because they didn't actually ever know what they were talking

about because they had the wrong motives from the beginning. So allow your character to grow at the same time that your influence does and know this. You can have influence without being an influencer, okay? You can have influence without being a social media star, is what I mean by that. You can have influence on your little sphere of the world or a big sphere of the world that God has given you, without being internet famous. I think a lot of people think that that is the measure of success today. Like how many podcast subscribers you have,

how many followers you have on Instagram, how many YouTube views you have. And for people like me where that's my job, that it's good to measure that kind of stuff. But for people on the outside looking in, know that that's not any more impressive than working hard in a job that doesn't get any worldwide recognition. And again, I don't want it to ever sound like I'm saying that

as someone who is like a superstar. I'm not saying that. I just know a little bit of what it's like to be on the inside of this. And I'm telling you that it's not any more impressive than anything that you do. So self-awareness is really important. And that's something that we all learn, that I learn and that everyone learns on a daily basis. So here's how you kind of know what you're good at and what you're not good at. I want you to think, and I'm going to give a caveat to this, so don't freak out.

I want you to think about the things that other people have always affirmed in you. What is that thing that people have always told you you're really good at that? Or you have that. And, you know, some people don't. What do you feel truly confident in when you do? What comes naturally to you that if you worked at this thing, you would be really excellent at it or you might even be the best at it. Now, of course, there's a caveat to this.

They're going to be naysayers. They are going to be haters everywhere. That you maybe you truly are good at something, but you got a lot of people coming along saying, oh, you're awful at it. You're awful at it. But you also need to use discernment. Some criticism that people have, especially the criticism of the people that love you, might be legitimate. So, for example, if you just feel like you were a great writer, but you look back at your grades throughout school and you keep on getting a lot of criticism from people or you're not getting

a whole lot of affirmation from other people that you're a good writer and might even have gotten some passive aggressive suggestions to move it another direction. You might want to start listening to that. Same thing with making YouTube videos. Same thing with doing anything in media. Eventually, eventually, unless this is just a labor of love and you really don't care whether or not people follow you, eventually you do start having to ask yourself hard questions. If you are not growing in your, if you're not growing and following, if you are not growing in your influence in whatever it is you're doing, if you are not getting any affirmation, if you're looking at other people and you're like, wow, they are just way naturally better at this than me.

I'm not saying it's not for you, but you do need to have hard conversations with yourself where you ask yourself if this is really what you should do because I don't want you wasting time in something that you arbitrarily think is better than doing something off the internet or doing something that doesn't get you anything. You can have influence without being a social media influencer. So I just want to remind you of that. If you are in PR, if you are in marketing, if you are a journalist, if you are a stay-at-home mom, if you are an accountant, if you are an artist, if you are a video editor, whatever

it is. Your job as a Christian worker is to use the talents that God has given you for his glory to make people's lives better. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're running a nonprofit. It doesn't necessarily mean that you are right now freeing people from sex slavery. Those things are awesome. But don't discount the gospel mission that you have as an accountant, the influence that you can have as an accountant.

Do not discount making your client's lives better through filing their taxes or whatever it is. Don't discount the importance of that. Don't discount the importance of what you're doing. Work hard at what you're good at. try to find the intersection of what you're good at and what the world's need is and what God's will is. And you will be full, you, well, I don't want to say you will be fulfilled because no one is fulfilled outside of Christ. But my guess is that you will feel like you are using your talents to actually move the ball forward in some way.

I do not want you wasting time on the things that you are not good at. I want you to free your mind of this idea that you have to be YouTube famous in order to be successful. okay um that's just it's one of my peeves not necessarily when i see people pursue it but when i see people not bat down that lie who are doing podcasts and things like that you we need to bat down that lie that this is somehow better or more awesome than anything else or harder than anything else i frequently tell you guys it's a lot easier for me to be a christian conservative and talk about the hard stuff than it is for you guys who are in everyday jobs jobs, nine to five jobs, because I'm not going to get fired for talking about it, but you might.

Like, I am not in school. And so I don't have to worry about saying something to my professor and not getting a good grade. Like, this is what I've chosen to do as a career, so I'm not going to get fired, but you guys might. You guys might be punished for it. It's a lot harder to do what you guys are doing and stick up for your values than it is for me. And so I just don't want you to discount the importance and the influence of whatever position that you are in and your potential and ability to glorify God through beautifying and nurturing and cultivating whatever small or large sphere of influence, whatever small or large plot of earth, God has put you on. In reality, we are all just tiny blips on the span of eternity.

And we are tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little microscopic bumps on the road of world history. Every single one of us is. And so our job is to make. life better through whatever we're doing, whatever we're good at, whatever God's will is, whatever glorifies God the most, make the world better around us through those things. So know what you're good at. Know what you're not good at. Be brave enough to be honest with yourself and know that your confidence and your identity comes from Christ if you are a Christian and not how many followers you have or having the right career. And by the way, you could. It's not that people just

kid themselves when because they want to be famous. Some people kid themselves that they're good at a county when they're not. Like some people kid themselves that they're a good doctor when they're not. Whatever it is, don't kid yourself. Don't waste your time. Don't waste other people's time. Like life is really short and don't try to fix your weaknesses. Try to hone your strengths. Number three, be willing to do the things that other people aren't. So what I did when I first started my career is I would speak for free. Also, like in this, know where you are in your career. Like, if you are an intern, you don't get to go demand things. If you are starting out and you don't have any influence, you can't demand to be paid more than it's worth. Like, that's just how

the market works. People are willing to pay you how much you're worth. And if people are consistently telling you, I'm not going to pay that much, then you might just not be worth that much at that point. and in the beginning, I was not worth anything. And so I would write for free. I would speak for free. I would talk to pretty much anyone who reached out to me. I didn't stay connected to anyone who reached out to me. But I would take a lot of advice, take a lot of opportunities that people don't.

I get a lot of questions from people saying, like, how can I write for such and such huge magazine or a huge outlet or how can I do what you're doing? I want to start a podcast. I don't recommend starting a podcast if you don't already have a following. I recommend starting out doing the things that other people won't do. That is writing for free without recognition, speaking for free without recognition, doing all the things that most people just won't do because A, they're too embarrassed and be they're too lazy.

Be confident and be hardworking. Again, in the things that you are good at. And this goes for any industry. Have a good attitude in what you do. Take feedback well. Work on those things and go above and beyond. that goes a long way. And we millennials, we can be extremely entitled, extremely self-centered.

I definitely have been. Like my first job, I probably, I thought that I was a lot bigger than I was, that I was a lot more important than I was, didn't take feedback well, was extremely sensitive. It had no incentive whatsoever or no motivation in my heart whatsoever to go really above and beyond, except for maybe a few times. And so I've completely been there. but I've also been on the other side of it, realizing that when you want to do something, you're not just going to drift there. You've got to get there. Number four, be able to withstand criticism and hate.

To stand out and what you do, you have to put yourself out there. You just have to do the things and say the things that other people are too embarrassed to do and you're going to get told that you look stupid or that you're being extra or that you're going too far or whatever it is. when I first started doing my videos and I was getting like a thousand views each, of course, I had people telling me stop doing this. Like, gosh, you're not good at this. You're embarrassing, whatever it is.

And of course, I still get people that probably think I'm horrible. There's plenty of people who think I'm horrible at what I do and probably think that I'm just in this for fame or whatever it is. But one thing on that, I've recently realized that if you honestly think that I'm doing this for fame, I either wouldn't be talking about the controversy. Christian topics I'm talking about, or I wouldn't be talking about the controversial political topics I would talk about. I would pick one because I've narrowed down my audience so much to only conservative Christians that are willing to talk about hard theological and hard political things, that if I wanted a wide-reaching audience, I would cut one of those things out. Anyway, there are plenty of people who still criticize me and hate me.

But if you can get past the initial embarrassment and almost the initial shame that it feels sometimes of people just telling you how awful you are, how not funny you are, And all of those things, of course, taking those, taking those criticisms with discretion as well and taking legitimate criticism well, then you can do it. You can do it. You have to be able to withstand criticism and knowing who you are in Christ and whatever purpose he has for you is great. It is great. I don't know. I said that is really important to being able to brush off criticism. You have to be able to brush off criticism and praise in equal amounts and also take it when it's legitimate. So take the praise that you feel like is legitimate. Again, some of it's just manipulation. And you have to take the criticism that is also legitimate. And you have to use discretion and

wisdom to be able to apply that. You cannot let the hate get you down. You cannot let the affirmation puff you up. You have to be confident in what you know you're good at. You have to be aware of the weaknesses that you have and just move forward to the best of your ability and work to be the best that you possibly can. I still have a lot of work to do. And sometimes it takes reminders for me to remember that, okay, a lot of my haters and a lot of my critics just don't like what I'm saying. It really has nothing to do with how I am. But then you get other criticism like I'm writing a book and all of the feedback that I get from my publisher, my editor is extremely fair. And it's extremely like,

you need to work on this. You need to do better. And if I never listen to her, then the book that you guys are going to read next year would probably be bad. So it's important to be able to balance that and that confidence comes from who you are in Christ, not from self-love, not from peptox looking in the mirror. We already know that, but from who God says that you are. And to remember that your purpose that God has for you is not thwarted by his purpose for other people. And so you looking to someone else's career or someone else's path is really useless because God might make that other person successful that you're jealous up, but that doesn't detract from how successful you might be.

Other people's success or failures don't determine you. your success or failure. So it's really stupid to fixate on them. And just remember, just remember a lot of the people who are criticizing you, a lot of the people who are criticizing you, especially if you make any steps forward, they really are not all of them, but a lot of them really are just jealous. They really are just envious. You've got the people, do you all remember that meme of Michael Phelps from a couple of years ago when he was swimming in the Olympics, obviously? And the guy next to him was like looking at him and Michael Phelps was looking forward and the the caption was like losers focus on winners winners focus on winning well I think there is probably a lot of truth to

that you focus on what God has called you to do and you don't worry about what everyone else is doing there's going to the people I think back over the past three or so years there have been I think about the people that I thought who I like the opinion I that they had I thought mattered like I thought those people were influential. I thought those people mattered. I look back. I'm like, I don't even know what they're doing. I don't even fully remember their names. Like, their criticism actually didn't matter. And great, I've proved them wrong. And so you kind of do just have to brush that off. And I regret getting caught up in a lot of that criticism early on and thinking that those people's opinions mattered. And I'm like, they're literally going to be a footnote in

my autobiography one day. I'm not even probably going to mention them because I won't remember. So you just have to have some kind of perspective, not only with who you are in Christ, but also the length of life and the length of your career, those people just aren't significant. And if they want to waste all of their energy worrying about you, that's fine, boo. You fix it your energy on worrying about what God has called you to do. And if they want to waste their time doing that, that's fine. Okay. I hope this guy, this has helped you guys, I don't know. This has helped you guys a little bit. I hope that you've enjoyed it. Happy birthday to me. I will see you guys back here on Thursday where I will be answering a lot of your questions. We'll also be talking about.

God is gray just a little bit. Okay, bye.