The School of Greatness - 797 Jameela Jamil: Be Courageous by Being You

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

LET'S PUT AN END TO SELF-HATE. Shame takes on many forms. We can feel shameful about our race, our gender, about aging, and so much more. Shame makes us stay small. What if instead of feeling shame about our insecurities, we celebrated every aspect of ourselves? What if we learned to think independently instead of listening to what the media says about us? To become the powerful confident person you are meant to be, you have to identify your shame and work hard to eliminate it. It won’t just disappear on its own. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about shame with an actor who has made body positivity her mission: Jameela Jamil. Jameela Jamil is an actress, model, presenter, and body positivity activist. Following a breast cancer scare in 2016, Jamil moved to America to become a screenwriter. She is known for playing Tahani Al-Jamil on the hit TV show The Good Place. Jameela is a big proponent of therapy as a way to move past our shame. She says mental health should be a top priority for all of us despite the stigma around it. So get ready to learn how to stand up to the harmful messaging we receive from the media on Episode 797. Some Questions I Ask: How much did you shame yourself growing up? (6:30) Do men or women shame women more? (9:00) What was the biggest insecurity you’ve had? (16:00) Do you think you’d be able to make the impact you’re making if you weren’t on tv? (29:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: The difference between Brittish and American cultures (4:00) The types of shames that Jameela has “killed off” in herself (11:00) What led Jameela to come to America (24:00) How to combat inequality in the workplace (37:00) The wrong messages that men are taught by the media (42:00) Follow me on: Instagram @LewisHowes Twitter @LewisHowes Facebook @LewisHowes

This is episode number 797 with the inspirational Jamila Jamil. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Renee Brown said, courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen. I am so excited to show up today with Jamila Jamil to talk about unlocking the real you and showing all of yourself.

Now, for those that don't know who Jamila is, she's an actress, writer, DJ, model, and radio host who currently stars opposite Kristen Bell and Ted Danson on the television show The Good Place, which is a mega hit. She first started in media as a presenter and was recruited by BBC Radio 1 to host her own show where she made history as the first woman to host the network's show official chart. As a fashion model, she has been featured on the covers of Vogue and The Cut. And Jamila is also a social activist and philanthropist, having founded Why Not People, an event and membership company focused on making live entertainment venues accessible and comfortable for disabled people. Most recently, she started the movement, which has been taking over the online world and Instagram account at I underscore way for women to celebrate themselves, feel valuable and fight toxic beauty standards. And in this interview, we talk about how she overcame feeling ashamed of her race and her body, how being injured for a very long time when she was younger

helped shape her future and the lessons she learned during that injury, acknowledging privilege and using it as a key to open doors for others, the importance of mental health, therapy, and staying content, no matter what you have going on in your life, that and so much more. This is a powerful one.

Make sure to share with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 797. Let me know what you think at lewishouse on Instagram. Tag me and tag Jamila, Jamil as well, and let her know that you're listening and the part you enjoyed the most. Be a hero for someone today, a friend, a family member, someone online that you admire. Send them this link so they can be inspired in their day as well. Send it out right now. I am so excited about this interview. I hope you enjoy this one. I think it's

an important conversation that everyone needs to hear. Make sure to share with your friends as you're listening. Tag me. Let me know what you're thinking. Tag Jamila as well. Without further ado, let me introduce to you to the inspiring Jamila Jamil. Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Jamila Jamil in the house. Good to see you. Rocking and rolling. You're taking over the world right now. We met four or five years ago, roughly, through a mutual friend. And you've taken off since then. You just moved to LA. You were a big radio star in the UK, doing radio show and hosting events and things like that. And you have an amazing story. I've learned more about you in the last couple weeks

since I've been preparing for this. But can you share about, you had a really interesting childhood. And I read that you were bedridden for a year. You got in a car accident. You were bedridden for a year or recovering for a year. Is that true? You're 17.

You just told me before the interview, you taught yourself how to act by watching TV. Not intentionally. I just learned how to act and host and learned how to be around people from watching television. Everything I know is from TV. Because you just got your first show a couple years ago, and you never acted before, right?

No, I know. It's crazy. Yeah, it's very strange. I've had a generally, I mean, a truly bizarre trajectory after a very tricky beginning. a truly bizarre trajectory after a very tricky beginning. And so I think I'm having to constantly adapt myself to my ever-changing surroundings. But I think I am an adaptable human being.

I think we probably all are. But I don't... Can I swear? Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. I don't really... Shame and fear are not things that I resonate with any longer. And I think that's been the key to my success.

How much did you shame yourself growing up? Oh, a lot. I mean, I'm Pakistani and a woman and from Britain. So, I mean, that's the, I think the holy trifecta almost of shame, of different people's ways to shame themselves. There's a lot of Pakistani women in London and the UK, right? Every time I go to London, it's very diverse. There's people from all over the world.

But women get very shamed within that culture, and it's a very narrow parameter within which you are able to live freely without being judged and shamed. Really? Yes, of course. How are they shamed in that culture, just so I'm aware? Well, I mean, I'm not trying to stereotype or bring any further negative connotation towards Muslim people. I'm not a Muslim myself.

Just because I don't practice any religion, I'm agnostic. But I am potentially actually atheist. But it is definitely a culture that still controls women quite a lot. And in many parts of the less developed cities within the Muslim countries, women really don't, I mean, a lot of them aren't allowed to drive or read or go to school or leave the house unaccompanied.

And so, you know, and we're shamed about sex and shamed about what we wear and shamed about how we behave. And so there's a lot of shame within that culture, a lot of shame within Britain. Shame is almost a badge of honor in Britain. The more you shame and flagellate yourself, the better a person you are. Really?

They only respect the hustle. They do not respect the win. They actually genuinely disrespect the win. And as soon as you win, you are no longer a member of the society and you are pushed out as a leper who is. So don't be successful. No, don't be ambitious. Don't be too successful. Don't get't be ambitious. Don't be too successful.

Don't get ahead of yourself. Don't treat yourself. It's a very common thing within British culture to if you compliment any woman on what she's wearing, any woman, she would immediately tell you how cheap and old and shit the thing that she's wearing is. It's instant.

It's a really bizarre thing. I feel like I've been... I love to acknowledge people. I love to acknowledge them for the person they are and the humanity I see in them and the love. It's also very American to compliment people, which is lovely. Is it? Yeah.

So British people don't compliment people? Oh, no. No, no. No, you have to self-deprecate until you explode. But it's just like you're, it just shows you have a lack of self-worth when you can't receive the acknowledgement. And just say thank you, you know, or a simple like nod. But to us it feels like a lack of conceit.

And I don't applaud this way of being. I think it's held us back tremendously. And sometimes I wonder where it comes from. And I have a very far-fetched theory about it. Which is that I wonder if because the Brits went to try to, I mean, colonise and take over so many countries and then were slowly told to bugger off by all of those countries and now we have been left as this sort of tiny, pathetic little island. After having tried to be this empire, I think that's why we've had to extra self-deprecate in order to,

I mean, almost like lie down on the floor so you can't really kick us. I think that in compensation for the loss of that empire that we strive towards, or they strive towards, because I'm Pakistani and from a country that they colonized and lost. I think that might be where it comes from, perhaps, that just the self-flagellation is because of the shame of striving and failing. Wow. Now, who do you think shames more to women? Men shaming women or women shaming women? Men shaming women and men pitting women against one another.

And there is still, of course, an oppressive patriarchal institution that runs Hollywood. It runs media. It runs most of the big corporations in the world. I mean, something in the 90%, I believe. And so it means that we are, we're being hazed from every angle, women, by different outlets and different ways and different forms. And so I think that, unfortunately, this does come from male shame that has been ingested by women

and we've started to use it against ourselves. And so what I'm trying to do is empower women to stop, rather than wait for men to stop shaming us'm trying to do is empower women to stop, rather than wait for men to stop shaming us, I think it is more empowering to say, why don't we now try to take agency over our own sense of self and our own sense of shame and kill it ourselves. So kill it so it doesn't matter what someone says to you. Yeah, I just don't care. Like, I don't care now. I used to care so much about what people thought about the way that I looked. I was anorexic. I cared about the way that people perceived me. I was a

very socially anxious person. And now I just, I don't feel that way. I don't mind getting up on stage in front of a hundred thousand people and talking. I'm not self-conscious. I try jobs that I'm fully in equipped for. And I, I often make an ass of myself publicly. I speak straight from my mind onto Twitter, which is a very public forum, and I don't ever edit myself. And I write blogs that are unedited, and I'm willing to go back on what I've said and apologize publicly. I don't feel shame anymore.

I have murdered my shame. How does someone murder their own shame? It's a very long process of dividing all of your different types of shame up, especially if you're a woman, especially if you're a woman of color, there are so many different forms of shame that you are having to navigate through all of the time. And so you isolate each one and then you go after which of the different things in your life you need to eliminate in order to rid yourself of that. Can you share some of the shames that you've murdered off and kind of the process for eliminating each one and which one was the easiest, the shames and the hardest of the shames? I mean, they've gone

anywhere from the way that I look because growing up, I only saw thin white women glorified as beautiful. So body image shame, of course, which I mean, it's not hard to figure out where that came from. And that was pre-social media where it didn't come to find me. I had to go and seek it out. Thank God I was born in the 90s, otherwise I would definitely be dead now. I don't know how teenagers are struggling. I was born in the end of the 80s and I was a teenager in the 90s. So I think that had I not grown up then, if I'd grown up now in this current time where you are hunted almost by shaming brands, it really feels like that, that I don't know what I would do. I don't know how teenagers are coping at all.

In fact, they're not. The numbers are the highest they've ever been of teenage cosmetic surgery, eating disorders, self-harm and depression and anxiety. Loneliness, yeah. And depression and anxiety. Loneliness, yeah. I mean, the suicide rates in teenagers have just accelerated so fast that I'm afraid of having children because I don't know what I'm bringing them into.

It feels irresponsible currently to not do everything in my power to clean up this dirty world before I bring a child into it. Wow. So the body image was the first. I felt shame about my race because I grew up in a time where there was no representation of my people. You have white people playing my people. Wow. Peter Sellers or like numerous other people browning up, white people browning up and playing us and always only portraying us as the terrorist who kills white people or as the stereotypical, embarrassing, socially inept,

unattractive, unsexy, pathetic boon, I guess, always playing the fool. I never saw women who looked like me being seen as the strong one or the object of desire. And that definitely harmed me and made me internalize a lot of self-hate about my race for a really long time. And that's what that does. That's what a lack of representation does. Because you didn't have any positive role models on TV or media.

Yeah, and so you naturally internalize that as there must be something wrong with me if nobody is ever glamorizing or glorifying that. Like, I'm never the hero, so there must be something wrong with me. There's no Brown Barbie. There's no this, that, and the other. I'm talking about when I wasifying that. Like, I'm never the hero, so there must be something wrong with me. There's no brown Barbie. There's no this, that, and the other. I'm talking about when I was coming up. Yeah, of course. And so I had huge shame around my culture,

and there's still so much shame around being brown. I mean, bleaching creams, like Fair and Lovely and all these different things are still being sold en masse in countries where you have a lot of brown people, both within the brown and black community. Like, bleaching is still huge it's still a thing which is so bizarre because you have now white people trying to make themselves look brown and exotic and and of a different race and yet you still have this

self-hating aspect within darker skinned cultures why is that if if whiter people want to be more exotic looking well it's always beige no one ever wants to be no white whiter people want to be more exotic looking? Well, it's always beige. No one ever wants to be, white people aren't looking to be very dark skinned. So I think that's, you know, there's sort of like a soft caramel that everyone's going for. So I think those of us who have like natural melanin in our skin, it's also very different cultures. So over there, you're seen as like, it's seen as almost like kind of, I think one of the historical references of it is that if you are seen to be dark-skinned in my country it means that you are working outside and so it's a sign of poverty and low class yeah i can't speak to other cultures yeah and so you know i think that was part of the thinking in like glorifying wealth right and uh and so and but then

it kind of has now become a way of like, I think, within Japanese culture as well, there's a lot of trying to achieve a Eurocentric appearance. And so that still is something that exists, and it is because of lack of representation. And so, again, that's something that I'm trying to be the change that I want to see in the world, the change that I didn't get to see. And it's cool that I don't airbrush myself. I don't use filters. the change that I didn't get to see. And it's cool that I don't airbrush myself. I don't use filters. I make sure that I am open about wanting to tan and I'm very like anti-bleaching creams in order to try and look at Eurocentric. I've never changed my ethnic features. And I speak out a lot about this because I want to be proudly part of my ethnicity now so that young Asian kids can see,

South Asian kids can see me and feel proud of who they are, hopefully. What was the biggest insecurity you had that you've moved past? Or are working on still? No, well, weirdly it's being a strong, outspoken female. That's an insecurity? Yeah. It's not an insecurity now. It's one that I've had to move past.

But when you are bright and if you are funny, that is something that hasn't really been liked or celebrated or really acknowledged in the world as a good thing for a woman. And I was actively told that I wasn't smart or funny by male writers back in the United Kingdom. And I was really, my only value was in my appearance. And I was just to stand there and look attractive while the boys did all of the funny things. And the writers rooms were all predominantly male. And I was just never really given a chance. And having to, and also dealing with a lot of masculine insecurity. I'm not saying all men do this. There are lots of secure, wonderful ally men who are great. I'm

not all manning this. But there are also a lot of men who are very threatened by an intelligent woman and by a powerful woman and by a woman who's willing to speak out and not. And this fear of not being liked is so prevalent in the female psyche because we're told that we must be likable. We must not be seen as problematic in any way. We mustn't be difficult. We mustn't be bossy. We have all these extra fun words that are thrown at us. And I think no longer being afraid of people thinking I'm unlikable or

difficult has been something very, very exciting to embrace. I'm not here to be anyone's friend. I'm here to educate people and wake people up and stop them from making all of the mistakes that I've made that lost me 30 years of my life. Wow. You lost you 30 years? I was so mentally ill for so long in my life. Not now. I don't consider myself mentally ill. I've done a lot of work to come out of it. But I had a rough childhood with no money and lots of emotional problems due to circumstances that I won't go too far into because of a very, very difficult and traumatic childhood. And then I was deaf on and off until I was 12. I think they noticed I

was deaf at about one and a half. And so I would have to have, I had maybe seven operations until we were able to restore just half of my hearing back. I still only have partial hearing now. And I'm thinking about getting a hearing device at the moment because it gets worse as you get older. But I think that was a really difficult thing to overcome. And then I got bullied at school for my colour and for my size because I was chubby and because I went to an all-girls school and that can be brutal.

And then I was hit by a car into another car and hurt my back so badly that I couldn't walk for over a year and a half without crutches or a walking frame. And was pulled entirely out of like the social, socialising and the social growth of being a teenager learning how to acclimatise to other people. I was just this little sort of like isolated weirdo who had no one come to visit me, no one spending time with me. Yes. And so I spent sometimes sort of a whole week entirely on my own

without any real human interaction other than my brother, who himself was incredibly sick at the time, who would take me to the toilet. But other than that, I had no real interaction with anyone. So I would watch television from the second I woke up into the second I went to sleep. And watching television and daytime TV, so we're talking Dr. Phil, Oprah, Maury, Ricky.

Springer, Joey Springer. Yeah, Springer. Like everything, weirdly, this is, and then all of like NBC's shows, like Friends and Frasier and- Seinfeld. Yeah, Seinfeld, everything I watched. And so those characters became my friends and those people became how I learned social norms. And the TV shows that I was

seeing, the daytime TV shows were helping me understand that my trauma that I'd gone through up until then emotionally and psychologically. And so I genuinely, weirdly, I owe a lot to daytime TV because it helped me identify the evils in my life and start planning how to get away from them. Wow. So everything I know, I own to a television. And now you're on TV. And now I'm on TV. I'm full circle. Yeah. I want to take a moment from this interview and share with you guys about my Inner Circle program. Now, imagine what would happen if you had every resource you could need all in one place to help you grow your business, to help you grow your audience online, to help you generate more leads, more sales for your passion, for your coaching, for the offerings you have. your passion, for your coaching, for the offerings you have? What if you could have the top experts every single month teach you their strategies behind the scenes in a two-hour live training

and have coaching from me and a panel of my inner circle team coaching you on your specific needs to help you build your business and live the life of your dreams? Well, you can get that each month inside the inner circle. Now, the inner get that each month inside the Inner Circle. Now, the Inner Circle is a group with thousands of entrepreneurs from around the world who are learning, who are getting coaching, who are being held accountable to their business goals and their dreams. Each month, we help you unlock more potential for your business and your growth. If you want to be a part of this incredible community, then I want you to join the inner circle today by going to lewishouse.com slash inner circle. Again, check it out right now,

lewishouse.com slash inner circle. And now let's get back to the scene. Do you feel like your character is empowering people watching you to break through certain norms or beliefs? Probably not my character, but I think the fact that, as in Tahani, the character I play on the show, yeah, I think it's just great to see a South Asian woman whose main storyline isn't about being a South Asian.

It's just sort of, it's not really important to my character, and I think that's really brilliant, and I love that about Mike Schur, that he doesn't tokenize ethnicities. He just wants to show on screen what we see out in the world and you see that within all of his work everything is very diverse and just very normal and people respond to that because they can actually identify with it we've seen we have categorical proof of how much success you have when you include the people that we have disregarded for so long look at Black Panther look look at crazy rich asians look at bridesmaids and the good place like all these hits yeah are happening

because people are denying most of the world of representation just means you're denying yourself a huge spending power because people can't relate to the stories anymore so they've stopped going and they've stopped paying to see storylines that they can't relate to. It's just dumb. It doesn't make sense. It's like when you deny yourself, when you deny women their rights in certain countries in this world, and then you wonder how you're still a third world country. It's like, we've denied yourself half a workforce. Why are you giving yourself all this extra homework? Let the women work. And then you will no longer be a third world country because you will have a double the size of a workforce. Everybody wins. And so it's cool to be a part of a show that definitely it runs

throughout all of it. I think there could still stand to be more disability representation and more LGBTQ plus, IA. I don't know. I think that's right. I think Glee did a great job with that five years ago when I remember this was. I remember I watched this show all the time. It was kind of my guilty pleasure. That and Nashville because I like singing shows because I can't sing. So I'm like, I like what I can't do. And, you know, they had someone in a wheelchair. They had some, you know, people of all races and colors. And look at this success.

Yeah, it was a huge hit. It was super cool. It was very inclusive. Now, how did you get this role in the first place? Because you came here to be a screenwriter, isn't that right? I did. So you're just like writing and then someone said audition for this or what? Well, if we go back 10 years, I was an English teacher who was approached by a producer in a pub who said that he thought I was, like, we started a conversation.

Then he said he thought I was funny. And there was this huge national audition going for this big hosting job in the UK. And I was like, oh, no, thank you. I'm happy in my career. Teaching high school English? I was teaching English as a foreign language. And I was teaching high school English. Okay.

So in two separate schools I was working at the time. And I was like, oh, no, thank you. I think show business is a bit trivial and pathetic and full of boring, strange people. I wasn't entirely wrong. Some of it, some of that is true. But then he said it was £1,000 a day. And as a young English teacher, you don't, like,

you barely make £1,000 a month. Right. And so I just went for the audition for the sort of why the f**k not of it all um I'd read this book by Danny Wallace called the yes man about a depressed man who decides to say yes to absolutely everything in life and uh and he documents how it changes his world and I decided to say yes to everything going to that audition was kind of like part of that experiment. And so I owed Danny Wallace probably quite a lot of money for writing that

book because that has led to every decision I've ever made. So I got the gig where a week later, I was live on television, not knowing myself, how I knew all of the cues, how I was able to read a teleprompter. It felt so natural to me. And I had never done anything like that before. And it was because of all of the television, the inhuman hours I'd put into studying television without realizing it. I had almost via osmosis ingested the ability to perform on camera. It's so weird. And so that led to a radio career. After I'd done that kind of for a couple of years, I decided I wanted to step away from the camera because I was tired of being reduced to nothing more than my aesthetic. So I moved on to the radio where I would be able to

prove that I can actually be a broadcaster and that went really well and I made history as the first woman to ever be given the official chart which is our billboard 100 which has been on air for 60 years and never been given to a woman which is so weird but thanks I did that for a couple of years that went really well and I really enjoyed it and I have. I did that for a couple of years. That went really well, and I really enjoyed it, and I have huge respect and love for the BBC, but I was still restless. I still had more that I wanted to do, and in the United Kingdom, especially even six years ago,

I mean, still now there isn't much, but diversity is still such a problem, and female interesting roles and jobs for women are still few and far between, and we still have a competition called Rear of the Year in England. Rear of the Year. Rear of the Year. Yeah. And, you know, you've got a woman like, women of all ages, 16, 60, like showing off their bum. And these are broadcasters who've worked really hard to get to where they are being reduced to their buttocks, which, you know, maybe that's your vibe. That's

cool. I'm not judging that, but that wasn't for me. And I didn't want to have to become a reality TV star and go on like a dancing show. I didn't want to do any of those things for me personally I wanted to be able to have the career that I deserved and every time I'd come over to America I turn on the television and you had curvaceous African-American women in their 50s hosting huge good morning shows and you had people of all race and color and and uh sexuality on these big mainstream shows. And so my heart was calling for America. And also I wanted to be a writer.

And in England, you're very much so told to stick to your lane. It's like either you're a host or you're an actor or you're a writer or you're a DJ. You can't be a multi-hyphenate. Whereas in America, they hear multi-hyphenate and they just start seeing dollar signs everywhere. And I like that and respect that about America. I think that's great. Yeah, that's fine. And you are an example of kind of building your own empire

in all these different ways, which I think is hugely inspiring. Thank you. And so I was toying with the idea of leaving, but I also had that typical fear, which I think especially hits women, of like you're lucky to be in any room that you're in there's only room for one and you are the chosen one and if you give it up someone else will take your spot and then you are buggered and so I had not been honoring that on that feeling of unrest in me and a lack of stimulation. And then I found, a doctor found a lump in my breast. It was huge.

And I had a week to find out whether it was cancer or not. I kind of get these every decade. I get a huge health scare that kicks me up the ass. So the car accident had been the one 10 years ago. Then this one was, you know, 10 years later. And in that week, I made a list, a bucket list, later. And in that week, I made a list, a bucket list, a bucket list, if you will, you can bleep that out, of everything that I would do if it turned out not to be cancer. And the number one thing was move to California. And I had no plan, no visa, no agents, no nothing. And I'd lost all of my money trying to set up a, well, just try, I'd basically given a lot of my money away to charity. And so I really didn't have a lot going for me at this time, other than the profile that I'd built up in the United Kingdom. But a week later, I found out I did not have

cancer. I had to have an operation and six weeks to that date, you can fly. So that was the day that I flew out on a one-way ticket to America with all of my bags and no idea what I was going to do, nowhere to live. And this was what, a couple years ago? Four years ago. Four years ago. Yeah, that's around the time that we met. 2015, is that right? Yeah.

Okay. And I'd written this pilot that got sent to Three Arts by a friend just to see if anyone would want to represent me. And they did. And they signed to me as a writer and we started developing this project. And then this audition for The Good Place came up and I was kind of out of cash at this point so sort of looking to host or do something I didn't think it would be acting but I was you know I was kind of pressured by my agents and managers to go for this audition. I'll do radio, I'll do anything. Yeah and so my my agents and

managers forced me to go to this audition for The Good Place even though I was so certain that I couldn't act. Because I'd never tried before and didn't think I deserved to be in that position. But I went. And Mike Schur is a very strange man. And he gave me a complete novice the job. Wow. So now I am an actor on The Good Place.

Amazing. And I've almost kind of completed all of my multi-hyphenates now. I've added an extra slash. Do you think you'd be able to make the impact you're making without being on TV? No. Really? Yeah. And that's the gross, sad thing about it. And I think that when people don't acknowledge their privilege, it's really depressing. Like I have my looks, even though 10 years ago, my looks were considered not attractive because ethnicity was not in. And I used to be called a monkey on Twitter every single week. Now my looks are more in.

So I therefore can say that I have whatever they would describe as sort of, I have a societally conventionally attractive aesthetic. So they call that pretty privilege, I believe. That's what that's referred to. I'm also slender. So I have slim privilege. I'm also wealthy now. So I have that pretty privilege, I believe. That's what that's referred to. I'm also slender, so I have slim privilege. I'm also wealthy now, so I have that privilege. And I have a huge platform. So I am bursting with privilege.

Just because I have been through a lot and I've been subjected to a lot of racism and all these different things, it doesn't mean that I do not now have privilege. And it's interesting because some people, not many people, most people support all of my activism, but some people say that I'm too privileged to speak out for the underprivileged. And it's in some way comes across as hypocrisy. No matter how much you try to serve or help, you're always going to be judged. Yeah. But it's also like quite a clever way to, or a stupid way to silence everyone because we don't listen to the underprivileged. We don't listen to fat people. We don't listen to dark skin people. We don't listen to disabled people or trans people. We don't listen to anyone.

don't listen to disabled people or trans people. We don't listen to anyone. And so we kind of just step on them and push their voices out. And so you're either to, let's say with the attractive debate or the fat debate, like you won't listen to fat women and you silence them and you say that they're bitter and jealous. So then a slim woman speaks out about fat phobia and you say, she's too slim to speak out about it. No one is then able to speak out about it. And so therefore we are all muzzled. And then the conversation never gets had. So I've broken through that and taken a lot of risks and lost a lot of money in doing this. But I'm determined. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But I'm determined to use the key of my privilege to open the door for other people. And more people need to do that. It's a shame that so many people with power and privilege way more power and privilege and influence than i have congratulate me privately but don't stand alongside me for fear

of losing money or platform likeability yeah followers yeah and in particular women don't want to be seen as difficult or outspoken in this industry and we need to be we have to be and yes you do lose money and yes you do piss people off and you do incur some negativity, but it's worth it for what you are doing to change the world. Like New York Congress are now taking a certain diet tea brand and making it, they're trying to make it illegal for minors to be able to buy these diet products because of my campaigning. And they've specifically shouted me out the fit teas and the black tummy teas and all these different things that I have exposed as having, basically just being laxatives, the glorified laxatives that are being sold to very young people that make you poo a lot for one day. And that's why you have a flat stomach. And then

you don't poo again for many days afterwards. Really? Yeah. I used to do all of this stuff. I was a teenager who had an eating disorder and anything a celebrity would recommend that they attributed falsely to how they kept their physique, because I didn't know that everyone here has an eating disorder, I would buy. I remember even just like Oprah used to be big in the game of recommending weight loss stuff. And if Oprah was like, I drink oolong tea to lose 60 pounds, then I was drinking 10 cups of oolong tea a day that I didn't know was like the most caffeine you can ingest. And so I was there just shaking and having palpitations and unable to sleep for months at a time. We're not given any information when we're young about these things.

And we don't know what we're taking. We also don't know the lies behind it, like, you know, the Kardashian family or all the celebrities and the influencers out there who have trainers and, you know, often nutritionists and chefs and plastic surgeons and beauticians and Photoshop to achieve the aesthetic that we see on screen. And then they attribute it to some dodgy powder that isn't FDA regulated and approved. Right. And so kids believe that and they buy it because they're gullible, because they're innocent. And women, grown women and grown adults and grown men are buying this stuff that they think will make them look like the sort of superhero aesthetic we see on Instagram and I'm just basically pulling down the trousers and lifting up the skirts of this industry to show everyone that it's all bullshit

and I try to walk the walk I make sure that no one's ever allowed to photoshop me I I am very open about my lifestyle and I'm very, very, very conscious to make sure that I always tell the truth about what I'm seeing around me. Wow. And you started this account, was it a year ago, I think, IWeigh? IWeigh, yeah. I kept on seeing pictures of women, famous women. Like Kardashian? Kardashians, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, all these people who are worth like tens of millions, sometimes a billion. And their weight would be written across their bodies on Instagram. Their weight? Their weight is in kilograms or pounds.

They would put their weight. So like 53 kilograms would just be written across each of their bodies with their height. Really? So that you could compare your weight to their weight. And we do this with all female celebrities. My false weight is somewhere on the internet. I've never given anyone consent to do that. It's also not my real weight. I think I weighed more than that when I was born,

whatever number is written across my body. But we do this to terrify women into losing weight. And then they have to go and buy all these quick fix weight loss products in order to do that. And they panic about it and think about it all day, which I feel like is almost either deliberate or non-deliberate, but I think it might be more deliberate, brilliant tactic to slow women down, is if we're always being neurotic about our appearance and worrying about time and worrying about gravity and wrinkles and all these different things that are coming to us all. We celebrate wrinkles in men and we think that gray hair and wrinkles in men are sexy and dignify and we shoot men in high def on magazines and we

don't airbrush them and and uh and whatnot on on screen we we always show the older man with the much younger woman like we really value an older man but an older woman has to be sort of airbrushed to the point where she looks like an emoji on the front cover of magazines and we even do that on screen they spend millions making someone making a look younger, even though she's playing opposite an appropriately aged man. So if you haze people with this much misinformation about what is completely natural and you shame them about it all the time, then what happens is that they spend time that they could be spending on growing their business, their mind, their mental health, their family, their social circle. They're not growing anything because they're consumed with this sort of evil, pointless, nonsense thought pattern of self-hatred.

And it wastes time and it wastes a lot of my time. And now that I don't really spend a lot of time, I sort of look in the mirror once in the morning, put on a bit of makeup if I feel like it, and then I get out of the house and I'm not worrying about it or thinking about it all day. I consider every inch that my thighs and my arms grow to be a little act of resistance against an industry that taught me that I have to be thin and I have to take up as little space as possible in order to be deemed

valuable. What are the biggest lies that we're told right now, the toxic lies that just aren't true? Oh, I mean, where do we start? There could be an encyclopedia of lies. Almost everything we're being told is lies because we're being sort of fed constant fear about one another. And for those who are privileged, we're kind of, the people at the top are kind of teaching them

that equality would be oppression for them. And so privileged people are afraid of extending their privilege to other people and sharing their privilege with other people because they're thinking only about what will be taken away from them rather than what other people have been denied all of this time and we don't we're not taught to share we're taught to fear sharing and we're taught greed is a good and fair right thing and we demonize people who don't have privilege and say it was their fault. And I think part of that comes from, there's a woman called Your Fat Friend on Twitter who once told me that she thinks that our fear, I'll just use this as an example, she said our fear of obesity and the reason that we're so

fatphobic and so rude about fat people is that it's our own fear of becoming fat ourselves that makes us blame and shame them and be like, you caused this. This is all your fault. You're lazy and stupid and uneducated and greedy. And we demonize them because then it makes us feel separate from them. Be like, that could never happen to me. There's something wrong with them. And we do the same thing with poor people. We do it with a lot of marginalized people. And so fear. We fear women. We fear monger women about the way that they look. We fear monger women about what their value is in this world. We fear monger women about the way that they look. We fearmonger women about what their value is in this world. We fearmonger women about asking for more money or asking their male colleagues what they earn.

I always ask my male colleagues what they earn because I think it's insane that that's a taboo conversation. Why is it weird to ask someone else what they earn? Why is that a rude question? I ask it all the time. Yeah, I love asking people what they earn, especially men, so I know that I'm getting what's fair. I can compete intellectually with my peers, with my male peers, and I know that now. And so there's no reason that I should be paid less. I'm bringing

enough people to the table. I have a higher social media following than a lot of people, and that was purely for intellectual property. I'm not putting first traps on my Instagram or Twitter, which is fine, a fine thing to do, but that's not personally how I operate my social media. And so I believe that we all deserve to be equal. And I think making that subject taboo has been a brilliant way of making sure that everyone's in the dark about inequality. It's also weird to not be able to ask a woman how old she is.

It's not weird to ask a man how old he is. Why is that a rude question? Yeah, I'm 33. I love getting older. But guys feel like they can't ask. I know. Because they feel like, oh, how dare you? No, I know. But isn't that so interesting? I'm not blaming men for that fear. I'm saying that why have we made that a weird thing? Why is surviving a really long time something to be ashamed of? How absurd is that? Why is looking like you laughed or lived why is that something to be

embarrassed of it's brilliant there's nothing sadder than someone who dies looking young what a sad like waste of a life i don't want to see a young person dead i want to see someone old wrinkled and wrinkled and nulled i'm gonna be nulled when i'm older i'm gonna be Wrinkled and shriveled and used up. Wrinkled and nulled. I'm going to be nulled when I'm older. I'm going to be wrinkled. It's going to be all over my face. I'm going to look like a giant testicle. And that's fine with me because I'm going to be a testicle that lived without worrying and laughed and loved and didn't spend too much of my life thinking about these things that are fundamentally unimportant. Amen to that. I love that. For the women out there, or the men out there,

who feel like they don't value themselves, they've got all these insecurities, they've been brainwashed through family or social norms or media, whatever it may be. And competition porn. Competition, everything. Competition porn, yeah. How am I ever going to perform like that?

How did you start to let go of that and value yourself, your self-worth? And what would you recommend to someone listening who's really struggling with that? Oh, therapy. Jesus Christ, therapy. It's so ridiculous that, again, that has become a taboo thing. That's a very clever way to control all of us. If we're not mentally well and as strong and sound as possible, how can we ever exceed and how can we ever be successful because if we are happy and content and successful or doesn't even success can be in any way like me like being a happy person

can be a form of success but if we are if we are weakened and we are suffering then we are more likely to be uncontent and if we are uncont uncontent, discontent. Which one is it? Not content. Not content. Yeah, yeah. Not content. And so if we aren't content, then we are more likely to consume. So a world that operates consume anything, cars, products, media, and clothes, and all of these different things. Consumerism relies upon our unhappiness. And so therefore, it's very clever to then make it something to be ashamed of having therapy. Whereas therapy is just going and talking to someone about your secrets that isn't going to hold,

that person isn't going to hold those secrets against you later down the line. They're not going to take them personally. You just have an outlet to vent at someone. It's the best thing in the world and we should all be doing it. And it's not a sign that there is anything wrong with you. It is the best thing in the world and we should all be doing it. And it's not a sign that there is anything wrong with you. It is the surest sign that there will not be anything wrong with you going forward. But you won't bottle something up.

Yeah. And explode on people later. Yeah. And it comes out either in your health. Yeah. And, you know, repression. Or addiction or whatever. A lot of people say that depression is repressed rage. And I really believe that for myself. I had so much rage bottled up in me because of how hard my life has been up until, you know, the last couple of years, really. And that came out as depression. And I really believe that a lot of my repression came out in that hard lump in my breast that I had to have removed.

I really believe that there was a strong… You bottled it up and it manifested in your body. Yeah. That's what I looked at that as. And, you know, you look at the links between someone's lifestyle, the cancer they have. And that's not to blame the person. Also, there can be many things and hereditary things that cause cancer, but there is a huge link between certain cancers and someone's state of mind. And so it's really important just to get all of this toxicity

out of you. That's the only elimination diet worth doing as a psychological one. What advice do you have to men about moving forward from where we are now to having a more peaceful living environment for decades and centuries to come? What can men do to... Well, there's things that men can do for women, but there's also things that men can do for themselves. Men are also subjected to so much toxicity and so much shame. And they are taught that they cannot be sensitive and they cannot be soft because soft is associated with weakness for some reason even though soft being soft can often lead to great strength and mental health and clarity so i think men need to acknowledge all the ways in which they're being constantly fed misinformation from the minute they're born you know all the like the masculine toys and then all the the hero movies and

all of the princes and all of the responsibility they feel on the fact that they always expect to be to chase the woman the woman is not supposed to chase them and so then and they they're taught bad things from porn not all porn but most porn isn't is it the best in educating men about sex and how to approach a woman we don't see great examples of sensitivity or being careful or consent or any of these different things within film and media so men are just sort of sold these lies about what they are supposed to be. And I think actually once you see it, you can't unsee it and you look at all the signalling and the messaging for you as a young man or as an old man, whatever.

As a man in this world, you have to look at all the things you're being told and then register how those things actually make you feel. Male suicide is the highest it's ever been. Male impotence is the highest it's ever been. Something's wrong. There's something going on here that we need to identify. And I have a lot of sympathy towards men. I don't deny that they haven't been hugely problematic.

And part of this, I mean, the oppression of women comes from their direction. But I also register that a lot of men grow up indoctrinated into this society that teaches men to be unhelpful to women. Just like women aren't allowed to be a certain way, men aren't allowed to be a certain way. And I think men are sort of like taught to fear women's strength. I think that maybe there's perhaps an insecurity on like a sort of deep, almost cellular level that makes some men afraid, on like a sort of deep, almost cellular level that makes some men afraid, especially in certain countries more than others, that they're redundant beyond their seed.

And I think that's a really sad way to look at our relationship because women are now able to make the person in our body, we then feed the person with our body, now we can go out and we can work, we don't have to fight saber-tooth tigers in order to go and get food. We have Postmates. You know, Postmates really made men redundant. Game changer.

We have so many different ways in which we are liberated that men seem to have not been taught the value of the companionship between the genders. Yeah. And the joy of our and and also how sex is lovely with a man if you are straight and so is spending a day and listening to a man's experiences and thoughts like i love all of them and i'm definitely not a feminist who hates men i also don't know how feminist that is because feminism is just supposed to be a quality of the social and economic you know equality of the sexes and i don't think that's that is because feminism is just supposed to be equality of the social and economic

You know equality of the sexes and I don't think that's a good way to go about things. It's not helpful I really love and value the men in my life and I would think my life would be worse without them And I wish that more men In a deep sense of the world around the world could understand that that there's something so wonderful to be had in that Dynamic that goes so far beyond your seed. Yeah. It's interesting. If men only knew, like I just started seeing someone recently and I asked her, I said, what's something you've enjoyed about our time together the most? You know, we've done lots of different activities and experiences and had fun and, you know,

it's been amazing. I was like, what's a moment you've enjoyed the most that you appreciate the most? And she said, the moment you really opened up up and like I cried one time and she was like when you cried with me it was like it just showed me who you really want really are and it made me love you more make someone feel safe yeah and I was like if men knew that showing emotion not like you have to cry every day or anything like that. But showing emotion when emotion is had, it is such a powerful thing. But it speaks to sincerity. Absolutely. And when someone is bravado and machismo

and all these different fronts up, we can sense that and we don't like it. And those of us who think we like it have often been conditioned by Hollywood to think that that is, and by literature, to think that that is a real man. So what I was trying to say about men is basically just like,

identify what you think actually defines your masculinity and investigate each of those things and see which of those actually rings true with you and which of those things actually oppress you. Because they will be a huge key in unlocking the real you and the real you is likely, without all of these sort of hyper-normalised bullshit traits, would probably be someone who is able to relate more to women

and to start to look at women as a great, of great value in your life, who can be great allies and great friends and nurturers and sounding boards and we have great ideas and we are intelligent. Not all of us, but not all men either. Exactly. Not all men either. And to find power and solace and love in the opposite gender. Yeah, yeah.

I think that's what they could do. And then support us and speak to other men that you see treating women badly. Absolutely. Make sure that you aren't just not being part of the problem. Make sure that you're actively tackling the problem with us. Otherwise, you are part of the problem. If you watch and let something happen, you become complicit in the crime. So it's very important to take what you know and what you're learning to educate your sons, your brothers, your friends. This is called the three truths. I ask everyone this at the end. So imagine it is your last day, 100, 200, 300 years away. You've

extended your life as far as you want it to be. Okay. But you're fully used up. You're that testicle at the end of the day. It was wrinkly and you've given it all. And that drained ball sack. I'm hanging. No juice left. You're just like. I'm seedless. Squeezed it all out. Yes. And it's your last day and you've accomplished or gone after everything you want. You've created everything, everything that you want to achieve, the dreams, they've come true. But for whatever reason, you can't leave any of it behind. You've got to take it with you when you leave.

Right. Okay? So no one has access to your information anymore. And you get to leave behind, on a piece of paper, or digital or whatever it may be at the time. An Instagram post. Yeah, an Instagram

post. If that's around. Three things you know to be true about all of your lessons from your life that you would then share with the world. Three lessons that you would leave behind. And this is all you could leave behind. These three truths. What would you say are yours? Do everything in your power to ensure your mental health. That is your number one priority in this world because with that mental health, you will be able to not only empower yourself, but you will be more valuable to other people

because you will be stronger. I think that's my number one piece of advice to anyone in this world. Do not allow shame and guilt to be weaponized against you. These are non-things that have been, that are almost man-made, that have been created to keep you in submission, and you must banish those things immediately in order to live happily. And make sure to be affectionate. Because physical affection to me is the number one favorite part of my life. All of the money, all of the success, all of the attention, fame,

and celebrity that I get to enjoy, none of it means anything more than waking up in the morning and having a coffee and a cuddle with my boyfriend. And that is truly like of everything that I achieve. I love the activism. I'm very proud of everything that I've achieved, but truly like the relationship that I've worked really hard to build with a loved one and with my friends and being affectionate. I think affection is something that we are so starved of in this generation

because of this online dating. Even if we're getting a bang, a sex from someone, people are just meeting up and having sex and they're not really holding each other in the morning and there's no intimacy. I've got amazing friends who are going years now without having their hands held or their arms held and without being embraced by other people. We started to fear intimacy. Why do we fear it? We fear it because we've stopped, because it's become foreign to us, because everything's so digital

and everything's so desensitized and we're so desensitized and dehumanized because of these apps and because of these phones and these computers. We're all sort of like, we're the most connected we've ever been, but we're the most disconnected we've ever been because we stopped engaging physically.

And so physical affection is something that you really must actively seek out in your life. And these things kind of all fall under the umbrella of your mental health and strength. But if I could have a fourth, not that I'm allowed one, but gratitude. Really, really, truly. I know that sounds like a very LA thing to say, but if you are grateful and you are content, then you have beat the system. You have. And you will prevail. It's hard to be angry and grateful at the same time exactly but if you are if you are grateful and content then they haven't managed to control you yeah and you are no longer yeah and you are no longer uh uh sort of a

pawn in the game of consumerism yeah a pawn. No. For those who couldn't understand the accent. So imagine it's your last day still. We're still in the theme. Ball sack on legs. Ball sack on legs, yes. No hair, everything. And imagine. No disrespect to ball sacks, by the way, man. They're all great.

I love them all. Imagine the greatest regret that you don't want to have. Imagine it's that day and you didn't do something or you didn't go after something or you didn't say something or you didn't let go of something that you wish you would have done. What would that regret be that you never want to have? I hope this doesn't come across as hugely conceited, but I can't even fathom one of those

because there's nothing that I have yet to look back on. But you mean what I can't imagine? Now moving forward that you don't do, like with everything that you know now, let's say, oh, I didn't go after making that movie, I don't know, or I didn't continue the activism because I got scared, or I didn't do this and I regret that. So what would I be most ashamed?

Moving forward. Is there anything I don't want to regret? If I don't manage to kill shame en masse, then I will really regret that because I believe I have the tools, the platform and the ability to do that. I can't think of it, I can't fathom it because I'm so aggressively in beast mode at the moment. I can't think of it. I can't fathom it because I'm so aggressively in

beast mode at the moment. I hopefully will not have something that I look back on and regret. But I think actually, no, you know what? I'm wrong. I'm wrong and I'm stupid. I will regret if I spend all of my life just working because currently I just work 24 hours a day and I don't have a social life. And it's very exciting what I get to do and very stimulating but I also I'm not taking care of myself appropriately and so if I achieve all of this success and I save all of these other people and I make all of this money and this empire that I'm trying to build but I didn't also take the time out to enjoy my life and stop and look around I think I will really regret that and so I have that in the back of

my mind all of the time, the concept of balance, because that'll be sad. I don't want kids who are just proud of me. I want kids who, if I choose to have children and if I choose to stay with one person, I want that person to have remembered my love, not just my achievements. Yeah, I like that answer.

That's great. Thanks. And I've got two final questions. If we could go back to the 17 year old who was, had no interaction with people for weeks at a time, only watched TV, wasn't sure if you were to walk, wasn't sure if people were to like you or talk to you, insecure, all these things. What would you say to yourself now, back then, if you know everything now? I would say... If you walked into the room at 17, those weeks when no one came around except for to take you to the bathroom,

what would you sit by the bed and say to that person? That if you turn all of this trauma that's happened to you into something good and you help other people, then it will have been for something. So get up and get better and go out there and help people. I think that's truly how I think teaching people to not look at themselves just as victims, they can acknowledge their victimhood, but imploring them to take that struggle and turn it into gold of some sort,

be that emotional or financial gold, I think can be very, very empowering. And so to not look at it, to look at it, to try to see the benefit of it. And those years of mine, those first 20 years of my life that was so difficult and such a hell sort of dumpster fire of psychological trauma and damage, I would look at those years as the reason that I am now an empathetic, emotionally intelligent and driven, generous person. And I would not be this person. I would be a complacent emptier person without all of that struggle so I am grateful for it I would do it all I'd walk in

front of that car again I think it was one of the best things that ever happened to me and they have contributed to my superpower in my opinion wow I think trauma is something that can it can hurt you but it can also like, truly chisel you into something interesting and strong and durable. I love that. Thanks. That's a good answer to her. I'm sure she would appreciate that. Well, I want to acknowledge you for the courage you have to constantly do the things that are unpopular.

Thanks. that are unpopular. And to constantly do things that maybe pull you away from friends or family or people you've known for a long time that are saying, why are you doing this? Why are you trying to make a fuss? Yeah, no one understands why I'm doing this. Why don't you just go work and- Get off your soapbox and go make millions selling fake gummies that don't do anything. Exactly. So I really acknowledge you for showing up and taking the leap across the world to come to a new place when you didn't have anything.

You keep stepping into new opportunities where you're not skilled at necessarily, where you don't have the experience or the confidence necessarily. And you're taking the leap and you're constantly using the platform for good, which I really acknowledge. Because you could be doing it just to make money and be famous and things like that. But you're doing it to serve people. And I think that's a great quality to have. Thank you. I am also still ignorant and problematic and stupid in many ways. This is the brand new.

But. This is the brand new. You've got to receive. You've got to receive. Don't go back to the British ways. I just want to make sure that we don't like just saint me up too hard. Oh, that you're not perfect? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can understand. Let's just be real for a second. No, I get it. But that doesn't discourage me from knowing that I can do better. Of course. We're all learning and growing. Yeah, yeah.

I'm ignorant in my ways. Don't worry. I'm more yank in that way. I respect the win and the hustle. That's good. How can we support you moving forward? We can follow you on Instagram. On at I underscore way, W-E-I-G-H, which is the platform I built to empower people to

measure themselves and value themselves via their attributes, their contributions to society, the things that they mean to people, how they make people feel, the things that they have overcome, the things that they are still currently struggling with. It's an incredible platform that is at 650,000 followers already with no social media team. I don't know what an algorithm even is because I am old and for this generation, but it just happens so organically, which is so cool. So follow us there. You can follow me on my Instagram and my Twitter if you would like to see a radically inclusive feminist in progress who is very willing to learn so publicly and embarrass myself so frequently. But you can come to my space and feel like it's okay to have ignorance as long as you're willing to try to do better.

We're turning our way into... Twitter and Instagram. It's at Jamila Jamil. On both. And I think I'm at Jamila Jamil official on Instagram because a little boy in Sri Lanka decided to steal my name on Instagram, which is fine.

And I will be putting a book out next year. I am on The Good Place this year, which is a wonderful comedy about moral philosophy. Amazing. And I will be turning iWeigh into a business. So if you want to come and work with us, you can always find me on my social media. We are looking for people who are true allies to all people.

So on iWeigh, they can create a post as well. They can see an example on iWeigh and then share the tag iWeigh. Absolutely. You guys reshare some of those sometimes, I see. I'm going to do one of those too now I'm inspired. Thank you. I would love that. Thank you.

I really want more men involved in my activism and in what I say about feminism and stuff. I really believe in the potential of our future as a... A humanity? A humanity and as an allyship. Yeah, of course. This is the final question. It's what's your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness is happiness. That to me is the hardest thing to achieve in this world, more and more so with every single year and everything else that comes in our way of it. Happiness to me is the greatest sign of success. And it's very rare to find successful, happy people. So if I manage to achieve both, then I will be truly the great success that I hope to be. Yeah. Thank you, Jamila. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this interview. Such a powerful message. Make sure to follow her over on Instagram, Jamila Jamil, and also the I underscore way account on Instagram, which is all about how women to celebrate themselves, feel valuable and fight toxic beauty standards. Make sure to check this out. Super inspiring. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Share with a friend, lewishouse.com slash 797, or you can just text them a link from this podcast app where you're

listening and be a hero and a friend for someone today by spreading the message of this podcast and the message of greatness. You can really impact people's lives when you share valuable resources with them, such as this or a book or a video that inspires you to help people improve their lives. That's our mission here at the School of Greatness is to impact people's lives, to improve, to grow, to find peace, to find love, to find harmony. And I hope you got a piece of that today with this interview. And as Brene Brown said in the beginning, courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.

What part of your life have you lacked the ability to show up? What part have you been closing off, hiding, projecting, and not revealing your true self? Are you hiding in things that you're ashamed of? Are you hiding back on what you're guilty of? Are you hiding your gifts and talents to other people around you and to the world? How are you hiding? Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen. Let yourself be seen today with a friend, with family, with your friends online, friends in real life. You deserve it and they deserve to see you. I love you very much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you. you