Embracing Our Differences

Welcome to Life,

Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello,

Welcome to the podcast.

This is Glenn Ambrose here with Ben.

Hey Glenn,

You just looked at me for a second like I was going to start.

It was weird.

You weren't going to start?

I wasn't going to start.

It's your show.

Oh yeah.

See,

Now I feel the pressure.

Good.

I like this.

So let's embrace our differences today.

That's what we're going to talk about,

Embracing differences.

How does that sound,

Ben?

It sounds scary.

I don't like talking about my differences.

No?

You like talking about your similarities?

I don't know.

I don't really like talking about myself at all.

Well,

Let's just talk about embracing differences anyway.

We're going to go there.

All right.

So basically how I'm going to start this off is first you need to understand that we are all different.

So fighting that is kind of futile.

You know,

That's just at the end of the day,

That's the truth of the matter.

So we are all different.

So we might as well start embracing it.

There is this need that we have to fit into society and it's just part of our makeup.

That's why we have societies.

So there is that pull to kind of be accepted and to fit in.

And that's natural.

So it's not that we need to avoid that aspect of ourselves.

There is going to be certain parts of that,

But we just don't need to change who we are to be accepted.

You know,

It feels like we need to change who we are and we need to be who people want us to be.

And at the end of the day,

It's actually people are going to connect with us better if we're just ourselves.

You know,

If we just act like ourselves,

Then people relax around us.

They feel like they can be themselves.

And that's when you actually start forming authentic relationships.

If you're developing relationships with people and you're not yourself,

Then basically you're just kind of developing a relationship that isn't real.

You know,

And at some point it's going to fall apart because you're not going to be able to keep up the facade or it's just it's never going to go anywhere.

You're never going to get anything out of it.

You might be able to see that person and just have a very surface conversation with them.

But it's never going to go anywhere because you can't be yourself.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I think that this is a big subject right now,

Especially because I feel like there's a lot of,

Well,

As you said,

Everyone's different.

So there's a lot of ways to be different.

So at some point everybody probably feels different.

Whether it's because of your race or ethnicity or because of your hair color,

Because you have glasses.

Little kids that get picked on and bullied.

The whole anti-bullying movement is a big thing.

And a lot of those kids feel different.

The kids that are getting bullied feel different.

But of course the kids that are bullying also feel different and probably is why they're lashing out in some ways.

Right.

And that's actually a really good point.

That's the reason that there is bullying and there is judgment out there.

It's because people don't feel good about themselves.

You know,

As soon as I can point the finger at somebody else and say there's something wrong with them,

Then my ego goes up.

I get a little ego boost.

I feel better about myself,

You know,

Because by just by me pointing out that there's something wrong with somebody else,

By default,

That means that I don't have that wrong with me.

So I must be better,

You know,

And it's subconscious.

It's just such a part of our society that we do it without thinking about it.

You know,

All complaining is like that.

If I complain about something by default,

I'm saying that I wouldn't do it that way.

So I'm better than you know.

And it's all it's all a false way to raise our self-esteem.

We we are craving to have good self-esteem.

So we do things like that that make us feel better about ourselves.

But the problem with it is it's just temporary.

It's just a temporary little fix and it's not real.

So we don't actually feel good about ourselves.

You know,

The are that self-esteem rise doesn't it's not really feeling good about ourselves.

It's our ego creating more of a separateness.

If I'm different than somebody else and I'm separate from them and,

You know,

It just makes the gap further.

So it never actually gets us anywhere.

Now,

You know,

Real self-esteem,

Real self-love is the opposite.

It actually does get us somewhere.

You know,

It does make us feel better about ourselves.

It makes us less judgmental towards others.

And when we're being our authentic selves and we're secure with that,

Then one people are just less judgmental towards us as a general rule because they don't there's not that energy.

There's not that that falseness around who you are.

And the other person feels more comfortable.

So so they don't you don't get attacked as much.

I mean,

I know with well,

What I'll call my former life.

You know,

When I was younger,

I was walking around angry a lot.

And when I was walking around angry,

There was an energy that I was putting off of that and and somebody else that was angry,

It would trigger something in them.

And I literally had people,

You know,

At least verbally attacking me for pretty much nothing.

But it was it was just an energy thing.

It was like I was walking around angry.

I got too close to them.

They're angry.

And if something was irritating them,

It tend to come out on me.

You know,

Now it's the opposite.

If I'm a lot more secure with who I am and very rarely does anybody come at me attacking.

And if they do.

It's OK.

It's OK.

Because,

You know,

My self-esteem has risen.

I mean,

I'm sure that I have further to go in that I'm sure I can increase my self-love even more than it is.

Definitely.

But it's it's to a point now that 90 percent of the time,

If somebody takes a stab at me,

It goes right through me.

It doesn't stick.

I know that there isn't truth to it.

I'm happy with who I am,

You know,

And I'm happy with the way I live.

So if if you can raise your self-esteem,

You know,

The actual your actual self-love and feel good about who you are and just be yourself more.

You get attacked less and there's there's less controversy.

And if it does come,

It floats right through you.

And that's you know,

I think that that personal self-esteem and like looking inward and and stuff as a way to feel good about your own differences is a fantastic start.

And that it kind of reminds me of like.

The whole I think we talked about this on the last episode or two episodes ago,

The be the change you want to see in the world.

Like if you have a problem with people treating you differently,

The best way for that to stop would be if everybody stopped treating,

You know,

People that are different in negative ways.

And,

You know,

For you to stop,

Because everybody that feels that way has some sort of way that they treat other people differently.

Also,

Right.

Like nobody,

You know.

Someone might be very sensitive about their weight,

But and they don't like when people attack or they don't like when they feel out of place because of that.

But then they might feel uncomfortable around someone that dresses with a lot of piercings or has a lot of piercings and tattoos.

And then that person feels uncomfortable because they're trying to be themselves.

And like,

You know,

Everybody is just kind of feeling awkward around each other and everybody feels isolated.

Yeah,

There's judgment.

There's judgment is judgment.

And it doesn't matter what flavor it takes.

It still does the same thing.

Yeah.

You know,

So so and it's true,

It's the more judgmental we are,

The more we feel judged.

You know,

It's it goes back and forth.

It's if I'm judging others,

Then,

You know,

A lot of time.

And I found that I found that when I was when I was judging other people and I made a conscious effort to stop doing that,

I noticed that my self-esteem rose.

I felt better about myself.

And I noticed the reason why was because I was judging myself less because I need to be perfect if I'm going to judge other people or as close to it as possible.

Yeah,

Because that's I am creating a judgmental existence.

I live in a judgmental world that I've created.

So I need to be as perfect as possible.

So therefore I can pick on other people as much as possible and raise my fake self-esteem.

You know,

I can feel better about myself.

Well,

That puts a lot of pressure on me to be perfect because because,

You know,

If I'm not perfect,

Then I can't say I'm better than somebody else.

You know,

So that's that's how it goes full circle.

The more I judge other people then and for the more different things,

I judge other people.

The more perfect I have to be.

So so when I do point my finger at them,

My self-esteem will rise when my well,

Not my actual self-esteem,

But my ego will rise,

You know,

And I'll feel better about myself momentarily.

And it's just it's it's not it doesn't get us anywhere.

No.

But when you were talking,

One thing popped into my head that's that's very important is we have more control over our reality than we realize.

And it's you know,

When when we feel better about ourselves,

We it affects people around us in more ways than we think it does.

It's just the energy we're putting out,

Just just the way we carry ourselves.

And I've seen it.

I've seen it with people,

With my life coaching clients that will that will have a problem with a family member or a mate or something.

And they'll have that problem and they'll get them to take the focus off the other person and work on themselves.

And as they get more secure with themselves and they just start sometimes they need to set healthy boundaries,

But as they work on themselves,

Do the inside work and they feel better about themselves.

All of a sudden,

The other person starts shifting and start seeing things in different ways.

And that's one of the very exciting parts about life coaching is very often,

Definitely regularly.

I will see I'll hear stories from my clients about how how either somebody in their family or somebody that they work with or one of their friends has come to a kind of a new awakening of happiness and really overcome a big obstacle in their own personal lives.

As a result of what my client was living the way they were living.

I wasn't even you know that that's fulfilling to me.

I mean,

I'm not I never even met this person and their life has been enhanced by the work that I'm doing with their coworker.

Yeah,

I mean,

That's neat.

Well,

I mean,

I know people that and this was very flattering that people that said because there was a story in the paper a few months ago about the things that I was doing with you.

Really?

Yeah.

I should read that.

Don't.

Don't.

It's a I don't like it.

But a lot of people like not a lot like not a ton,

But several people said that like they were inspired and stuff and wanted to like kind of follow a similar path or or go back to the gym or start,

You know,

Trying to do something do something in some way to change their life for the better and to start thinking more positively and stuff.

And yeah,

That's a that's a direct result of work that you have done.

Not and you've never met those people.

Right.

And that's that's awesome.

Yeah,

It's and you know,

And at the end of the day,

It's,

You know,

I just kind of feel like I need to say this.

I don't really take the credit for it.

It's it's just it's fulfilling.

You know,

I do just the best I can at being me.

And that's kind of what this podcast is about.

I like doing this stuff.

When somebody comes to me with an issue,

May it be in a gym or maybe in their personal lives.

To me,

A lot of times people get worried like,

Oh,

Glenn,

I'm is it OK,

Really,

That I'm dumping this stuff on you?

And to me,

I've already been through the darkness.

I've already been through all that stuff.

So when people come to me with their difficulties,

It doesn't feel difficult to me.

It feels like I'm already look I already got my eyes on a prize.

I already see them coming out of this and how wonderful things are going to be when they get there.

So it's not that heavy.

So it's it's not you know,

This isn't this isn't work for me.

So I can't feel like I can take any credit.

But it's you know,

I know that's not the point what we're talking about.

It's the dynamic of how how it spreads.

Yeah.

And it's it's awesome to see that how it spreads.

And it's just the when you do good and you feel good,

You know,

It's we can get stuck in our heads and be like,

Oh,

This really isn't doing anything.

But it does.

It affects people and it affects people in ways we don't even know.

You know,

My my friend Paul that I grew up with and worked with lost his leg and became a very successful disabled athlete.

And I've been reading his I read his first book,

One Man's Leg,

And I'm reading his second book,

Drinking From My Leg.

I think that's what he did.

He did that when he celebrated.

I think he actually drank beer out of his leg.

But his fake leg,

Not the real one.

Okay.

All right.

I was like,

I was like,

What do we get done with this podcast?

You're going to have to explain that.

You know,

And one of the things that he did is he he did a lot of speaking gigs,

Too.

And when you're reading his books,

That's one he puts in there different ways of how,

You know,

Either people saw him on TV or he he spoke with somebody that just had an amputation or he went to a school and spoke with a bunch of kids.

And you don't know what you know how that's going to affect people.

But he he's regularly getting letters after those types of things and telling people how he inspired them and how much that means to him.

You know,

So now if he's going out there,

If he was living his life going,

I'm going to go inspire people like that's my job.

You know,

It wouldn't it wouldn't come across anywhere near as well as it comes across.

He goes out there being the best him that he can be.

He's being true to himself,

You know,

And in that that course and telling his story,

There's people that are getting inspired by his story,

You know,

All over the country and all over the world.

I mean,

He literally traveled the world competing.

So it's you know,

It's one it just reminds me of one of my a really good quote I like.

It's something to the effect of be yourself.

Everyone else is taken.

You know,

Everyone else is taken.

I mean,

You can only be the best you that you can be.

So it's just,

You know,

Being being the best and it's constantly evolving.

The best Glenn that I can be is constantly evolving,

You know?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So it's it's time for a question portion.

Question time.

And can you tell the listeners at home or in their car or wherever they are?

Can you let them know where they can send questions if they want something discussed on the show?

I could let them know.

That would be nice.

OK,

I will then.

You can send questions to me.

And I'll tell you where you're really trying to stretch this out.

I feel like being silly.

So,

Yeah,

You can send questions to life dash enhancement dash services dot com.

That's that's the Web site.

And there's a link there that you can contact me and also on the Facebook page,

Life enhancement services and my personal Facebook page.

Glenn Ambrose.

That's me.

So you can reach me on all those channels.

Very nice.

And our question today is,

How do you deal with feeling different when you are isolated from everyone around you?

Well,

You know,

The when you're isolated from everyone around you,

It's it's the good news is the work that you need to do is all internal work anyway.

So it's it's got to start within and it's got to happen within all work is internal work.

All love is self-love.

So you can't give away what you don't have.

You need to you need to start doing the work on the inside first and,

You know,

To build that self-esteem.

The this is going to sound crazy,

But the best way to do that is to do a steamable things.

Please,

Just please explain.

Believe that to build self-esteem,

You would do a steamable things.

Wow.

Amazing.

I think we should do a whole podcast on that.

Yeah.

Well,

That's that's how long it would be,

Though.

Yeah.

Five seconds.

So what what like let's give a specific situation.

So let's say what's a good.

All right.

People that feel different sometimes say that they feel like a redheaded stepchild.

Please explain what you would tell a legitimate redheaded stepchild that feels isolated.

One,

Obviously,

You know,

They're probably the only redhead around.

This is such a crappy example.

And two,

There's this whole other rest of the family.

They don't.

So what would you tell that person?

Well,

Who feels different?

Well,

To be honest with you,

Like a stepchild in this day and age is probably the norm.

So we're just going with the list.

But I mean,

To somebody,

Somebody that's feeling different.

I mean,

It's you know,

One thing that that I try to to show people is how to learn to listen to themselves like they're everything we need to know.

We already know it's already within us,

You know,

So it's when you're getting closer to your truth and loving yourself.

You know,

What you're doing is just kind of removing some of the baggage that society's put on top of of who you really are.

So there's when when you're talking,

Most people have experienced this on some level,

When somebody is talking about something,

A particular subject,

And all of a sudden you feel something click inside your chest.

And it's it's not like an intellectual.

Oh,

Yeah,

I know what you're talking about.

It's it's something that just you feel a little feeling in your chest and you go,

Oh,

That that just struck me.

You know,

That's you remembering something about your truth,

You know,

And that's something that we need to cultivate.

We need to learn to be honest with ourselves and go inside and actually find out how we feel about things.

You know,

I think that that would be a first step is learning,

Asking like a lot of time.

Here's an example that I hear regularly is somebody will be like,

Especially with couples,

What do you want to eat?

I don't care.

What do you want to eat?

I don't care.

Well,

You know what?

They actually both do want something to eat.

They're just not conscious of it.

They're so out of touch with what they want that they're actually not able to access the answer to that question.

It's a very simple question.

You know,

You can do little exercises like that to start getting in touch with yourself.

What do I feel like eating?

Something simple as that.

And what do I really feel like eating?

And then just kind of try to feel the answer in your chest instead of thinking up the answer in your head.

And if you start connecting,

That's the first step is just connecting with who you are inside and learning to kind of hear that inner voice a little bit and to learn how to follow that a little bit.

Does that make sense?

Yeah,

Definitely.

So I think that like a lot of it is just the if you're feeling different,

Then there's something that you're insecure about.

And even if people are making you feel insecure about that,

You're allowing them to.

Absolutely.

Everybody's you know,

That's the biggest one of the biggest tools in growing is understanding that other people are your mirror.

You know,

Years ago,

I remember somebody was something had happened and I was I was coming across as nice as I could be in a situation and they were so defensive and it was driving me crazy.

And I was like,

Why are they so defensive?

Why are they so defensive?

I'm not attacking.

Why are they so defensive?

And then all of a sudden it dawned on me.

I'm recognizing it.

They're my mirror.

I've been very defensive in my past and I bet you I still am to some degree.

You know,

So as soon as I did that,

I felt that that little click inside my chest that I was talking about earlier and the light bulb went off and I went,

Oh,

My God,

This person is just a wonderful teacher for me.

They're showing me that I am still defensive and I need to do some work on that.

So I started working on that.

And then the situation got better with them.

The less defensive I was,

The less defensive they became.

You know,

And I mean,

Sometimes there's people that are so stuck in their patterns is absolutely nothing you can do.

And they're going to stay there no matter what you do.

But as a general rule,

The people that are in my life now,

I don't attract people that are real defensive because I've done a lot of work on that.

And I don't I don't really need to see that mirror that much anymore.

So I think that it's because obviously,

Like the the term feeling different is is talking about in a negative way,

Because everyone's different and there are a lot of positives that are different and people aren't insecure about those,

But they need to focus on those.

And if there's something that makes you feel different and isolated,

That is a negative thing.

For example,

If you are feeling different because you're overweight,

You're insecure about that.

You're not happy because of that.

So you need to do the inner work to figure out what you're going to do to make yourself happy and less insecure about that.

If you're.

I'm trying to if you're.

I know someone that feels like they are not as intelligent as the rest of their family,

But they are I mean,

Just because somebody's book smart and some,

You know,

Everybody has different levels.

So why are you insecure about this?

What can you do to fix that,

To be happy?

Well,

Right.

And the first thing that that we need to do to to move beyond anything is to accept it.

Yeah.

You know that that's the the first.

What we do is we fight against things that that we might not like or we might deem inappropriate.

And there's nothing inappropriate about what's going on.

It's just going on.

It just it is,

You know,

To to fight against what is is the cause of all suffering,

You know,

The cause of all suffering is resistance to what is life is happening.

Whatever's going on at this particular moment is going on at this particular moment.

However,

I am right now,

It's just how I am.

Period.

I need to accept that and not think that there's something wrong with it.

Now,

That doesn't mean that I can't change things and move towards evolving into a better me.

But to but to spend energy resisting the reality of where you are,

That's that's where we get stuck.

I shouldn't be like this.

I shouldn't.

And we beat ourselves down and lower our self-esteem.

And then we're not empowered to go change ourselves.

That's why I was saying earlier to to do something that's esteemable,

Do esteemable acts,

You know,

Do anything that's going to make you feel good about yourself.

Go hold a door for somebody leaving the grocery store.

You know,

Go shovel somebody's sidewalk,

Go do anything,

Just absolutely anything.

Go volunteer at a soup kitchen.

You know,

Anything that's going to make you feel good about yourself is going to make you feel good about yourself.

And then you're going to want to continue doing more,

You know,

And that's how you can raise your self-esteem.

Be the person,

Like you said,

Be the person you want to be,

Be the change you want to see in the world.

You know,

It starts with you.

So whatever you want to change,

You know,

Just because we accepted where we are.

People think that that means that we agree with where we are and we don't want to change it.

That's not the case.

You can accept if you're stuck in the mud the best.

If you're just flailing and trying to get out of it,

You know,

You're probably not going to get out of it.

But if you just accept that you're in it and you go,

OK,

Let's see,

I'm in the mud.

I'm stuck here.

OK,

Got it.

I accept that.

I don't want to be here.

OK,

What's the best way to get out?

Then you can look for action to take to get out and you move out.

Do you think that that feels like a hard thing to take for someone that is feeling different and isolated and maybe slightly persecuted for being different?

Do you think that that's telling them that,

Well,

You're the you're the person that has to change?

Yeah.

Oh,

Yeah.

Like that's a that sounds like tough love,

Like a hard thing to.

But it's not like if you listen to the whole.

Right.

And to me,

This is this is how I was fortunate enough to to kind of get both sides of the coin at the same time.

And it helped me to change a lot of things that I needed to change.

And it's as I as I was understanding,

As it was clicking inside of me that I was responsible for my life and all the destruction that I had caused.

And everything that was wrong with my life was my fault as that was clicking with me at the same time.

It was also clicking with me that if I was responsible for all the detriment that happened in my life,

Then I was also capable of choosing differently.

And doing whatever I wanted with my life,

And that was very empowering.

So it was so,

You know,

I didn't I didn't get hung up on the.

You know,

The negative aspect of it,

It helped that that's a big pill to swallow that you you are responsible for what's going on in your life,

Good or bad,

Especially when you're focused on the bad.

But if you can take that in and own that and accept that,

As I said before,

Accept it,

Just accept it.

It just is then empower yourself to make different choices.

You can make whatever life you want,

Because we didn't we didn't get ourselves into a negative position in our lives because we wanted to.

It was because we didn't know any better.

So now,

You know,

Better now you get to choose a different path.

And of course,

The last thing I really want to say that I think I mean,

I don't know if we've touched on is sometimes that change that you have to make is getting away from the people that are isolating you sometimes.

If it's a,

You know,

But it depends on the I mean,

It depends on the situation.

Just yeah,

It all starts with the inside work.

But yeah,

I mean,

You know,

As you grow as a person,

It's going to become a little bit more obvious.

I mean,

People,

A lot of times people naturally fall away.

A lot of people that can't handle a conversation about the truth don't spend a lot of time with me.

They feel uncomfortable because generally I'm trying to talk about as much truth as possible.

So they just don't find themselves around me,

Which is fine.

You know,

That's OK.

And but yeah,

Sometimes you have to take some steps and just stand up for the person you want to be because you are responsible for your own life,

You know.

And if that means,

You know,

Having certain negative people fall out of your life or at least distance yourself a little bit,

Then then so be it.

You know,

There's there's more wonderful people that will that will fill in that space for sure.

Anybody who's healthy for you and loves you will support your growth.

And sometimes people fall away and then they'll come back in after a while once you know what,

Because that shift is very uncomfortable.

So once they get used to it,

Sometimes they come back.

So I think that's going to do it on our self-esteem action today.

Thanks for listening and we will see you next time.

This podcast is presented by New Shore Productions,

Executive producers Glenn Ambrose,

Benjamin Barber and David DeAngelis.