Episode 02: Troublemaker by Luvvie Ajayi-Jones

In this podcast episode, I delve into "Professional Troublemaker" by Luvvie Ajayi Jones. I connect the book's themes with my life, particularly my switch from biology to health science in college. I highlight the importance of thanking one's past self, confronting fear, and the impact of vocalizing your goals. I advocate for assessing progress over extended periods, and conclude by inspiring listeners to appreciate their growth and accomplishments. The discussion serves as an empowering reflection on personal development and overcoming challenges.

TRANSCRIPT

Amaka (00:00:14) - Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast The Biblio Therapy for Black Women podcast. I'm your host, Amaka, and I am very excited to talk about this book that I finished a few months ago by the author, Luvvie Ajayi Jones. I have been pretty familiar with Luvvie for a while, at least a couple of years. When she put out I'm judging you. I bought it and I read it. I remember being on a boarding line about to get on a flight, and I finished the book and I was like, it left a little to be desired for me. I think I had some expectations that were different from what I got from the book. It wasn't a bad book by any means. I enjoyed it, but I think I wanted a little more from it, and I think that's what I got. With her second book, Professional Troublemaker. I can see through her words how much she's grown. She's definitely not the person she was when she wrote her first book. And I took a lot of lessons from this new title, and I'm very happy to see the progress that she's made.

Amaka (00:01:47) - I think what I wanted from I'm Judging You, I got from Professional Troublemaker and, you know, that's that's just it just speaks to where she was in her life at that time and where she is now, and perhaps where she is now. I relate more to in terms of where I am in my life. So a couple of things I got from the book. Some things were reminders, but, you know, sometimes you have to be reminded of things. If you hear it once or even twice, it might not sink in. But a couple of times you'll be like, oh, okay, I get it now. So I loved when she talked about thanking yourself back then, the person you were back then, thanking them for who you are now, the moves that you made when you were younger, thanking yourself for making those decisions. And it brings me back to undergrad. When I was in college, I was a biology major and I wasn't happy. The expectation was that I was going to go to medical school, and I was pretty sure I did not want that for myself.

Amaka (00:03:03) - I got to fall semester of my junior year. I took physics, chemistry, and organic chemistry all in one semester. Why? I did that to myself, I do not know. It was not a good idea and it reflected in my grades for that semester. My GPA that fall semester was a 1.7, a whopping 1.7. I got C's and D's across the board. I even got a D in philosophy. I took one philosophy class that semester thinking, oh, it won't be too bad, it'll help bring up my grade. Nope. I got a D in philosophy that semester, probably because I was drowning in the other classes, and I thought I could kind of weasel my way out of a better grade without doing much work. But I was mistaken. So having gone through that fall semester and coming out with that GPA, I was like, I need to do something. I need to do something, I need to make a decision and I need to make it quickly. So I decided that that winter break that I was going to change my major, and I took the steps to switch my major from biology to health science.

Amaka (00:04:22) - I did all the background work, saw, looked through the courses that had already took that could apply to the major, and made a timeline and a plan for the last three semesters of my undergrad to be able to graduate with the Bachelor's in Health science and the Bachelor's in health science had different concentrations, I decided to go with the public health concentration. So with that, having made that decision for myself and not doing it because anyone was telling me I should go this route or I should go this route, I had that GPA in front of me. I said, I need to do something. I decided I was going to make that change for. My major and I did it. I did all the legwork. I had the meeting with my advisors and I switched. I started taking the courses for that specific major spring semester of my junior year, and starting that semester, I remember already feeling more optimistic because that biology major with the intent to enter medical school, that wasn't what I wanted for myself, so I wasn't really self-motivated within that major.

Amaka (00:05:43) - But having made this decision for myself to switch my major to this, doing this for me, I found some self motivation. So I had a lot more drive and initiative to make steps towards, you know, ultimately, graduation. I figured out what classes I needed to take spring semester. That junior year, I took a couple of electives of classes I thought were fun, and I started to bring up my GPA. I graduated from undergrad with a 2.75 cumulative GPA and a health science GPA of, I believe 3.5. And for my final semester in undergrad, I was on the Dean's list. So starting from my freshman year up until my fall semester of junior year, I had been kind of trudging along because I was still a biology major, doing what I felt I needed to do. But it wasn't until I made that switch and made that decision for myself that I kind of felt like a personal responsibility and put a 1,000% into my work. So because my GPA up until that switch was not that great, and then after the switch was great, amazing.

Amaka (00:07:02) - I graduated with, you know, a cumulative GPA of 2.75, taking into consideration my GPA while I was still a biology major, which with those GPAs, probably I wouldn't have even been able to go to medical school, or I would have had to do like a post-baccalaureate program, redo the sciences, you know, before even thinking of being a viable candidate. But that was no longer my problem. That was no longer my issue. I made the decision that I wasn't pursuing medical school. I didn't really know what I was going to do, but I was like, I'm not going to do this, and I like this. So in the meantime, I'm going to pursue this. I'm not going to worry too much about what the future holds. I will figure it out some way. I ended my undergrad career on a high note, and I did that because I had enough sense at that point when I was staring at those seasoned eyes to know that I had to do something and I did it.

Amaka (00:08:06) - So what I think about where I am today, and when I think about what the turning point was, I always go back to that semester where I finished that fall, I had that dismal grade point average and I switched my major. That was kind of like my bottom academically. So in my mind, after making the switch, I could only go up. And ultimately that was the case. I am who I am now professionally, and I don't think I could have gotten there if I didn't take that step. So I really appreciated her talking about that in the book. You know, sometimes we kick ourselves for the mistakes that we've made in the past, but we've also made great decisions in the past, too, and we're still reaping the benefits from those decisions that we've made. So we ought to thank our past selves. We we a lot of times we talk about forgiving our past selves for the mistakes that we made, but we ought to take a second to think about the good decisions we've made in our life in the past that are propping us up and supporting us now, and thanking our past self for making those decisions.

Amaka (00:09:21) - I loved how she talked about not letting fear cripple you. You know, if you have something in your mind or your heart that you want to do and endeavor that you want to embark on, it's scary. You don't know what's going to come from it. Like recording this podcast right now. I've been thinking about it for a really, really long time, and it's one thing to think about things and plan and mull it over and wonder this and wonder that it's another thing, you know, talking in my case, to buy the microphone and download the program and prep the material, read the books, write the notes, and then sit down and hit record as I speak. Right now, I there is some nervousness in me. I am just speaking through it. So that's one of the things in the book that I would say was a reminder for me. It was a lesson that I learned, like from my mid to late 20s, if you have something in your heart you want to do, if you have an idea but you're scared, scared as hell, like just do it anyway.

Amaka (00:10:36) - Do it anyway. Do it. Work through the fear. Work amidst the fear. Don't let it stop you. Because a lot of times what we fear is not what's going to happen. A lot of times. Like she said in the book, the fear is worse than what the ultimate outcome is going to be. So keeping that in mind for me now in my adult life, I am more likely to pursue things I want to pursue because I know the fear is there, but I work through it, I push through it, and I just keep going. And the fear may never go away. It might dissipate, it might become a little less, but it might always be there. And you just have to be comfortable in the discomfort. So I appreciated that reminder from that, from that part of the book, too. You know, sometimes you just get so bogged down in the day to day and you, you know, lose sight of the bigger picture. And it helps to hear or in my case, read these reminders and they help me to keep going.

Amaka (00:11:48) - I want to talk about a final point that I took from the book. I took a lot from the book, but I tried not to give too much away. There is a lot in this book that I haven't even scratched the surface, but these are like my. Major takeaways. I would recommend reading the book or listening to the book however you prefer to consume books, I would recommend it. but just my final point in terms of my takeaway from the book is speaking things out loud, even if it's just to yourself. Things that you want for yourself in life, no matter how big, no matter how seemingly ridiculous they sound to you. It doesn't have to be to anybody else's hearing. It can just be you in the shower, speaking out what you want for yourself. It can be you in your room, speaking out what you want for yourself. It can be you, or in my case, me. Because I'm a big journalist. It could be me writing in my journal what I want for myself to nobody's hearing or knowledge.

Amaka (00:12:55) - Because a lot of times we need to breathe through our voice, energy and life into what we want and it can start, which is speaking it out loud and just putting it out there into the universe and just letting it exist, and then letting whatever happens happen, you know, you speak it out and then you work towards it. But some of the work just by speaking it has already been done. We sometimes or not even sometimes, I would say a lot of the times we limit ourselves. Nobody limits us. We limit ourselves more than anyone out there could limit us, because we are usually the first people to tell ourselves no before anyone else has the chance to tell us no. We're usually the ones that tell ourselves no. So I'm challenging anyone listening to this episode who is under the sound of my voice. If you have something in your mind, in your heart, that you want to do an idea that you want to pursue, don't be the one to tell yourself no. If there's an opportunity you want to go for, don't be the person that tells yourself no.

Amaka (00:14:16) - First, let it be an outside entity, but don't let it be you. And in the grand scheme of things, just with life, if there's anything you want for yourself, just speaking it out can sometimes be the first step. Breathing life into that reality and those words with the breath of your voice can sometimes be the first step to get things going. You might not see the wheels start turning, but you have propelled that energy forward. So those are the three big things I got from her book. Like I said, a couple of them were just reminders for myself, but big ones, things that I remember and they just helped me, you know, day to day with things that I want for myself and my future. So I, I say all that to say, I would recommend the book Love It Way More Than I loved. I'm Judging You, and I think that it's worth reading and you could take something away from it too. There's so much I haven't even talked about, but I don't want to give away too much.

Amaka (00:15:28) - It's been out for a while, but it's still, you know, time doesn't really dictate, especially with timeless lessons, lifelong lessons. It doesn't really matter how long a book has been out, it can still resonate time and time again. So with that, I just want to talk quickly about something that has been helping me as of late in terms of not getting bogged down with little things. I am beginning to train myself by reminding myself on a regular basis to not measure progress from day to day. When I do that personally, I find that I might start to get down or discouraged because I feel like things are not progressing. But when I zoom out and start looking at the bigger picture, I see that I am progressing when it comes to the longer timeline. Are things the same this week the way they were last week? Have things progressed? Have things moved forward? Have you seen a change from last week to this week, no matter how small? Do you see progression from last month to this month? Do you see progression from last year to this year? I've been telling myself, don't measure progress day to day.

Amaka (00:17:00) - Don't sweat the small stuff. Don't obsess over the little things. Yesterday I went out. I did a bunch of errands for myself. I went grocery shopping. I got a pedicure. I did a couple of other things to. I went to goodwill to donate some items. I came back and I realized I didn't wash my car. It's due for a wash and I didn't get to it. And I started to be like, oh dang. Like I didn't wash my car. I really wanted to do it today. And then I stopped myself. I was like, but you did A, B, C, D, and E, you didn't wash your car. So what? You can do it tomorrow. You can do it next week. It's not the end of the world. As far as yesterday goes, washing my car was a blip on the radar. I got so much other stuff done, and I really want us to remember that more. We get so fixated on the things that we did not do, the things we did not complete, the things we quote unquote failed on, and we forget so easily the things that we did, the things that we completed, the things that we were successful in.

Amaka (00:18:10) - So as I am working to switch my mindset with that, I encourage my listeners to also work on making that switch to focus more on what you have accomplished. Use that as momentum to keep going the things that you didn't complete. It's okay. You can do it tomorrow. You can do it next week. Add it to your to do list for the future. But do you see progress from last week to this week? Do you see progress week to week? Do you see progress month to month, year to year? You know, sometimes, especially when my birthday rolls around, I get really reflective and I start to ask myself, am I where I want to be at the age that I am turning? Especially the last couple of years, and it has really helped me keep things in perspective by chronicling back year by year where I was summer 2017. When I moved from DC to Philly. I was starting my program at Penn Summer 2018. I was moving from Philly to Connecticut to restart my journey towards becoming a nurse practitioner at Yale summer 2019.

Amaka (00:19:33) - I had finished my first year, was studying for the NCLEX, and past summer 2019 I became a nurse. Summer 2020 was the height of the pandemic. I was just trying to stay sane and find happiness in the little things, and I consider that a success. Also, I successfully transitioned to zoom and online classes for that school year and still finished summer 2021. I graduated, took my boards, and now my dream has been realized. So all those days in between where things seemingly felt like they were going wrong, you know nothing was going as it should. Focusing on those little things, I wouldn't be able to keep in perspective the progress that I was making on a much larger timeline. So where I am now, it helps to always remind myself, if I don't have a great day, that's okay. How are things now compared to last week? How are things now compared to last month? How are things now compared to last year? A lot of times when we ask ourselves those questions will find that things are better, that we're in a better place, that we're better people.

Amaka (00:20:57) - I know I am not the same person I was last year. I would venture to say I am in a much better place mentally. Everything is better with the lessons I've learned and the steps that I've made in many aspects of my life. So. If I were to ask you guys to take anything away from this episode, it would just be to ask yourselves those questions. You know, if you're having not the best day. See if overall from a bird's eye view, are things better overall? Are things progressing overall? Are you a better person now than you were then? So with that, I want to thank you guys for listening to this episode, for listening all the way to the end. If you want to reach out to me, send me an email to BT bw podcast at gmail.com. If there's anyone out there who you think would benefit from this episode, please share it, recommend it. And yeah, that's it. Thank you guys again. The next episode I'll be talking about the book What Happened to You by Bruce D Perry and Oprah Winfrey.

Amaka (00:22:22) - I really enjoyed that book and I learned a lot. So until then, guys. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.