there's really nothing to lose in being yourself right it's really
not and there's everything to lose in the opposite
welcome to another episode of everyday badassery i'm your host christine lazada and today i'm
traveling in portland oregon i actually had the opportunity to be part of breaking the
world record for most number of dinosaurs in one place at a given time i was dinosaur number 316
but this is a traveling podcast meant to inspire you to be just one percent more badass today than
you were yesterday and today's topic is insanely important to me it's about being yourself in
other words authenticity and i'm traveling in this episode if you're watching on youtube
in bellevue washington and so you'll be seeing tons of amazing scenes of the awesome
trip i had here post tbex the travel bloggers exchange and i have the opportunity to meet
with somebody i've been fangirling for a long time chris aka the traveling mitch he's from
canada and he's someone i actually met on of all places on twitter to meet someone on twitter and
to feel like you authentically truly know who they are is very difficult someone has really got to
put themselves out there as their true selves to come through on a platform of very short amounts
of words at a time and i really feel like i got to know chris over the last few years on twitter
so so excited to bring him in to share his perspective on authenticity but there's
something you need to know i told him we were going to do this exactly 60 seconds before i
miked him up while we were late for breakfast and needed to walk across a lot of buildings to
get to said breakfast so that is the footage you will be hearing as we bring them in i don't want
to go from zero to a hundred here but i do that no let's go from zero i do that as well but i kind
of feel like that's the there's not enough time not to just go go for it and do your thing and
i think that should sort of permeate everything you do you know what i mean so i try to be fully
myself and whatever i'm doing so that if someone meets me online quote unquote and they meet me
in person they're not like i don't understand who this person is yeah um and also i mean i think you
realize after a certain period of time uh on this planet that you there's really nothing to lose in
being yourself right it's really not and there's everything to lose in the opposite that tell me
it has like where where did your sense of like this importance of authenticity come from
and has there ever been a time that you weren't as yourself as you are now so i i'd like to think
that if i'm doing things right every day that i wake up i'm becoming more myself i think that's a
process we've talked a lot on this trip about like the the idea that we're kind of always a work in
progress and i think that's a healthy way to think about life yeah um you know as far as uh when i
felt like maybe i had license to be more authentic i mean for me i talked to you about this you know
off the mic but i i lost a good friend when i was 21 years old and and quite honestly once i
understood i guess how short a period of time we could be on this planet yeah i understood that i
had to do everything i could to make every day here count and to me that meant that um
all the voices that i thought about of of uh you know people judging me for this for this that and
the other i realized that at the end of the day i you know at the end of the day it's really just
about whether or not i can be happy when i sit down to judge or reflect on myself so for me that
was everything i think you know the initial part of like grief or loss or something like that you
curl into yourself a little bit but then you hope that you kind of unfurl something stronger and so
it seemed easier it seemed easier than i thought to just sort of say [ __ ] it yeah you know and
just be who i'm supposed to be i mean i think it's i think it's harder some days but mostly it's
easier yeah just to be you i like this 0-100 hell yeah i think you can see why i really love chris
but i want to take a moment to remind you that there is a free journal download i would love for
you to take what you're hearing and put it into action and i'm actually going to take you through
the question that's in there for today which is i just want you to think for a second about the five
people in your life that you spend the most amount of time with this can be like your family or your
friends or even your co-workers who are the five people that you get to see or who get to see you
the most and now i want you to ask yourself how much are you yourself around those people how how
silly are you how weird are you or how serious are you or how introverted or extroverted or quiet or
whoever you truly are how much of yourself can you truly be around those five people and i'm
going to share a personal story which is it took me a long time to i love the book marie condo
the the joy of tidying up i may have butchered the title but link in the description below or in the
show notes if you want to find that book and yes a lot of people say oh it's about decluttering
your sock drawer and making sure everything's you know neat and orderly around the house but the way
i read that book was i tidied up the people in my life and the people that did not serve me and did
not give me joy but i am they were gone and the people who did i spent more time with those people
and there are definitely people who do not bring you joy that you cannot remove from your life but
you can change who they are to you in your life and how much time you spend with them in other
words i spent more time around people that i could truly be myself around my weirdest most authentic
self because here's a story i feel uncomfortable sharing in an old life i used to spend time
in places like you know i'm just gonna name it the jonathan club the jonathan club is an elite
social club in la and you have to dress a certain way we're talking sport coats at dinner with you
know i gotta wear my dress and my high heels and i need to speak a certain way and hold myself a
certain way and be polite in a certain way and be so stuffy in a certain way it was painful
to be in that environment and i don't ever want to go back to that life i used to be in i had to exit
through the back door and walk in through the back door because i'm oftentimes wearing yoga pants and
i don't like to be super dressed up all the time i like to be comfy and i do not wear things that are
not spandex around my waist so sorry jonathan club but i didn't feel like it was my authentic self
and i realized i needed to get the f out of that environment and not spend any more time around
people who love that environment because it's so not me so ask yourself about the five people
who get the opportunity to see you the most and are they the right people that you should be
spending your time with and you can be your most authentic self with or what shifts and changes can
you make in your own life to get to finding more joy in the people you spend time with where you
can really be yourself and make sure you check out if you haven't listened to the episode of
i was married he had a girlfriend and the rest is history that podcast episode link in description
below it's part of the reason why i truly love meatball he and i can really be ourselves our
true authentic selves together and really lift each other up find those people in your life
and hold on to them dearly all right let's keep it going actually how would you introduce yourself
how would i introduce myself yeah who are you so uh i'm christopher mitchell and um
do a lot of different things but i think i guess the best way to put it
i'll be around a few different websites and i run a blogging newsletter and perhaps most importantly
i run a blogging community based in toronto i think uh blogging or this
style of it's content careers in general sometimes it can be such a space where we're all
off on our own islands and so yeah i'm trying to do my best to plant a flag in other islands
and be like hey you can come here we can be a bit of a community yeah and i think also i
talk a lot about the idea of collaboration over competition because i think the reality is that
you know when you put your guard down for a second you realize like actually there's way
more power in us working together and there's enough space and room for us all to be able to
it's so true to thrive right and i think the world needs all of our voices that's right yeah and
also all of our voices are extremely different right um and i think that comes with time too
like you know the initial stage of of creating i think you're you're you're emulating right
you've read something or you've seen someone you thought maybe i can do that and then
and then later you hope the tables are turned and someone else comes to you and says hey i
really like what you're doing and you think maybe i failed my voice right and then you double and
triple down on it yes i was actually talking to kenya about this last night how it took me
time to really lean into who i am me too and you have to practice that voice and you don't have it
right right away from the beginning it's exactly what we're talking about it's always a work in
progress high it this way it's always a work in progress and even my voice now
is still shifting like i i really thought i would be weirder yesterday than i was
i didn't really deliver the way i thought i could i thought you delivered very well
but i think you know we're talking a lot about voice i think it's like you just try to work
harder every day to have your voice be stronger than the voices in your head that used to tell you
that you shouldn't use your voice yeah um and that's like and that takes practice i mean and
it's not always like a perfect science right some days you say something or you do something and
you're like i know you're like oh gosh i'm gonna like i'm gonna over examine this i'm going to
something and then you hope that you can sort of back out and continue to back out and realize like
it doesn't matter you know and and um if you think of yourself
as somebody who is only going to be striving to be perfect then you're never going to reach that but
you can strive to be great but understand that we can only do our best yeah i want to be vulnerable
and put myself out there and offer you one more story which is actually this kind of ties to this
morning when i was in that dinosaur suit which by the way my dinosaur suit deflated on me the fan
that keeps the whole thing blown up i stopped working and was only like 25
of the amount of normal fan speed so the whole dinosaur became extinct around me
but i still kept fighting on anyway any uh it was it was pretty miserable actually to be honest
but i i wanted to do this thing because well one i i truly love dinosaurs and i thought it
would just be a really fun and funny thing to do and i realize as i am going to post about this
on linkedin i when i do this i often get a lot of messages from people who used to be old colleagues
of mine or even friends who knew me when i used to be a corporate professional whatever the heck that
means and i often get messages that sounds like this wow christine i saw you in a picture recently
and you you wear a lot of weird things these days or wow i saw you talking on your podcast and i
can't believe you would dare talk about a topic like that and the way i think about it is twofold
one yeah i'm gonna talk about it because that's who i am and it has not been easy for me to talk
about until and i'm still working on it over time in other words it's not a natural thing to
over share or a natural thing to talk about these difficult topics sometimes and not everyone thinks
this topic is difficult and some others might find it very difficult to be themselves but that's just
it for the person that i am truly going to help that this message will speak to i will all day
sacrifice myself to the judgment that i get from a lot of people on a daily basis
to enable other people to find their voice to find their authentic selves and to lean in to who they
truly are because there's no better person to be in this world than you so let's take it back to
that original og question i asked about the five people who get the opportunity to see a lot of
you on the daily basis and ask yourself are these the five people that really bring you up and bring
out you and the best you possible because that is so important and i have made choices in my life
to get out of the corporate world to get a divorce to change who i spend my days with because this
time on earth is really short and don't waste it but that's another thing the more time i
spend away from the corporate world away from the life i should have been living away from the life
that i did not feel myself in the more me i bloom into and that voice is still coming out i'm still
testing the edges you heard me talking to chris about this my word for 2022 each year i have a
single word for the year it's kind of like my theme or like the one thing i go to in addition
to all the you know reflections and blah blah blah and the new year's resolutions but my word
for 2022 was weird i wanted to see how hard i could lean into being the weirdo that i totally
am i'm a freaking weirdo i love to be silly i love corny jokes i like to laugh obnoxiously
i like to do silly things and i it's just me and i wanted to see how much i could push that this year
i to be honest in hindsight i don't think i pushed it enough but ask yourself about those five people
and about maybe just set up one word for yourself around as you become your most
authentic self what's that one word you want to call upon when you need to reach deep down
and find more of yourself in that moment and one of the things i love to do is try very
hard here on this podcast and in all the content i make to be the most me that i could ever be
and when it comes to meeting people i meet people all the time whether i want to or not whether i'm
traveling with people or i'm traveling and people recognize and find me or whatever it is
and i always like to ask people this question am i am i what you expected me to be in other words
after watching all of my content is the person that you're experiencing right now who you thought
you you would meet or who i would be and i will be honest the answer in over a hundred instances
of this has been yes and that's super important to me because i want to show up as myself every
single day because and this is for you show up as yourself there's no other person you ought
to be than they're your best self possible all right let's ask chris the signature question
hell yeah last question are you a badass i mean am i allowed to self-appoint myself
yes you know i guess it depends on your definition of badass but i feel like i feel like i'm living
my truth as best i can right now um and you know enough so that um i grabbed a cup of coffee
i had one minute to prepare to come and chat with you and it wasn't hard for me
to get on that track because um you know i think perhaps the most badass thing you can do is to be
feeling like what you're doing is aligned with who you are and here i am i shall knight you a badass
thank you let us begin beautiful good morning
i think you can see why i love chris the traveling mitch find him info in the show
notes below as well as the really sweet video of traveling around bellevue washington it's
actually a pretty freaking cool place i enjoyed it i hope you enjoyed this podcast please
share it or leave a review it really does help to distribute it download your free
badassery journal journal along with us in this go forth be badass be your most
badass self that you can be and we'll see you in the next adventure ciao