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00:00worry about it we're going to take this from the top okay um so first thing i want to say
00:06is hey
00:07family welcome back to the brown girls collective podcast where we turn conversations into connections
00:14and connections into culture from book club discussions to men on the street conversations
00:20to real dialogue between women this space is always about voice reflection and community
00:28and today we are diving into our march book club read which is year of yes by shonda rhimes
00:35through our women's history month theme built by her shonda rhimes is the powerhouse creator behind
00:43shows like gray anatomy scandal and how to get away with murder shows that change how powerful women
00:49show up on television but what makes this book interesting is that it isn't about the empire
00:54she built it's about the personal transformation behind it she realized she had been saying no
01:00to opportunities that pushed her outside of her comfort zone so she committed to saying yes to
01:05the things that scared her and that decision completely changed how she showed up in her life
01:10and that's why this month's theme built by her fits so well with this book because every woman has had
01:17to build something in her life sometimes with help and sometimes completely on her own
01:24so i want to say this just because of everything that has gone on today she talks about fear and
01:32what
01:33going live and all of this in her book and every time we get on here we have to face
01:40that fear head
01:42on head on like when you really sit here and think about the things like why you don't want to
01:48go
01:48live or what could happen going live and the fact that we're live and if people if 100 people were
01:54on here they would have just seen all of yes a hot ass it was a hot ass mess what
02:02the hell is going on
02:03i'm just so glad i'm so embarrassing but if y'all read the book you understand because she used poop
02:11like 40 times in that book i ain't gonna lie that is really one of her fears yeah um so
02:16we're going
02:17to actually move to our community segment i'm sorry to drop that in there um so we took a brown
02:23girls to soda city um this is what we're doing we're going outside and actually talking to the
02:27community this season and we asked them two questions um the first question was do you think
02:32fear holds more people back or comfort and then the second question is what's something you've
02:39been saying no to that you might need to start saying yes to you and we're going to roll those
02:44clips brown girls it's your girl jasmine back again in soda city this is for our book club so the
02:50book
02:51that we're reading currently is the year of yes by shonda rhimes so first i do want to ask what's
02:56your
02:56name where you from and if you don't mind answering how old are you um kasha i'm from columbia
03:02and 33 um i'm iman and i'm from here and um oh how old am i 32 okay um my
03:11name is whitney i am
03:12originally from myrtle beach south carolina and i live here now and i'm 35 all right do you think
03:20fear holds more people back or comfort comfort why do you think that um i feel like we don't move
03:29and make decisions when we are in our space of comfort it keeps us stagnant because we want to
03:37be we don't like to be uncomfortable so people don't like uncomfortable conversations uncomfortable
03:42experiences environments and i feel like in order to be to move forward to get better um you have to
03:51make yourself uncomfortable yeah definitely fear why do you think that because i don't think anybody that
03:57wants more is comfortable so i think fear is just like oh fear of failure rejection yeah and then
04:04like rejection is i feel like built into fear so definitely fears and hold people back what's
04:12something you've been saying no to that might that you might need to start saying yes to
04:28i don't know um i don't know um probably the only thing i can think of right off the top
04:32of my head is
04:33waking up earlier yeah get my get my day started earlier um i don't know um that's a hard question
04:47um something i've been saying no to that i should say yes to
04:55maybe i don't know i really
04:59hmm that's a hard question maybe just getting out more coming to stuff like this
05:03um because this is what time is it like 12 o'clock on a saturday i'll be in the bed
05:09exactly
05:09so uh maybe i should say yes to coming out more and networking to my community yeah well thank you
05:16again so much for stopping and talking to us make sure you follow us on social media y'all stay
05:21tuned
05:22brown girls all right so uh one thing that stood out to me and those answers was how a lot
05:29of people
05:29talked about fear without even realizing how much it shaped their decisions it was you know fear comfort
05:35um and a lot of times people don't do because of fear even in comfort people don't leave because
05:45because of comfort because they're so comfortable they don't feel like they the fear is easy like it's
05:52like okay i'm already i'm comfortable already right here so yeah i'm scared to not be comfortable anymore
06:03so that space where life is just working just enough that you don't have to push yourself to
06:08try or something new and that's essentially what shonda rhimes book was talking about in the year of
06:13yes she realized she had built an incredible career but there were still areas in her life where she
06:19was saying no because it felt safer and when she started saying yes to those uncomfortable opportunities
06:24that's when the real transformation started all right you guys so y'all know we like to play games
06:32and now we're going to play a little reflection game okay these aren't rapid fire but
06:40you know they're like kind of like reflections so cue the game
07:04so what does build by her mean for you i mean i feel like it's building something um and it's
07:13built by
07:13her like a home relationship business community what about you being built by her it's just that
07:23built by her something built by a strong woman period built by her
07:30yeah i gave it a minute so i don't know how else to expand on that i mean it's in
07:39it's in there
07:40it's still amazing um i know that you know built by her definitely wouldn't have heard this a long
07:48time ago so a lot of things were built by her honestly i mean yes but as far as like
07:52being
07:53celebrated though yeah um that's new so yeah i think i think it's a movement
08:02for her and what did you have to build on your own um i will say in my
08:11life i've had to build trust i've had to build friendships i've had to build community um and i
08:19had to build something like you know brown girls i'm not going to say that i built it by myself
08:26but i take the idea of what i wanted and kind of show people to a degree on what that
08:34looked like
08:34um so i'm still doing that um so you know it's a it's a growing it's a growing time so
08:44yes that's
08:44what i was going to do um confidence a lot of people don't um have that initially definitely
08:54didn't always have the best confidence growing up um and still working on it so i mean you definitely
09:02and i know a lot of people can relate to that uh definitely built my confidence all right so the
09:08next is this is in your sentence women are no longer waiting on a man to support them
09:18anything honestly like if i want to buy something i can buy it if i want to eat something put
09:23myself
09:23out to eat i can take myself out to eat if i want to go on a date i can
09:27take myself out on the date
09:28if i need to pump gas because i hate it so bad i just have to pump my own gas
09:33i mean like if it's
09:34something that i want to do like why who am who am i waiting on to do it for me
09:38what i've learned
09:39in this life is that you were brought in the world by yourself and you're gonna die by yourself so
09:47do things very bleak yeah yeah i mean it's true you gotta do stuff on your own oh yeah
09:55you can do those questions yeah all right so when the next one comes uh oh validation
10:02oh the producer person do you want to just say something women should stop
10:11i'm gonna say complaining um and i mean that in the sense of in the first couple of questions
10:21that we talk about how and what we're doing i mean if we're going to do it and we know
10:28that
10:29we can do it then i don't see why we should complain about people that people not do um or
10:36how
10:36people do it or or whatnot because if you want something or you want to allow them to do it
10:41just let them do it the way that they're going to do it um and if you don't like how
10:44they're
10:45doing it then do it and then just don't ask for that person to help anymore i don't know
10:51i think women should stop coming after other women who are trying to be successful just like
10:57them um i think women should definitely stop doing that and start uplifting each other more
11:04not to say that we don't at all but i i feel like it could be better
11:08we need to listen understand and comprehend and i think and i think this because i have
11:17conversations with men all the time and especially when it comes to women's views we think that
11:23it's an attack against them and it's not necessarily an attack it's the oh it's an opportunity to
11:27become aware and open and have that conversation um so i believe then we need to listen and
11:35comprehend what someone is saying and take notes um and thank you guys for tuning in and you know
11:42make sure y'all leave a comment and y'all can answer these questions right along with us
11:45we would love to see or hear or what you split your what your thoughts are
12:00um a lot of things i don't know um it's hard to nail down one thing um
12:08yeah i don't know honestly i i could go on and on i don't even want to get i don't
12:12want to get
12:13started all right well you can huh you said what we got enough time
12:20oh we go ahead be funny yeah so okay um you can remove the game off
12:29all right so one thing that comes up in conversations like this is how much women are redefining their
12:35erode and expectations and that's exactly what
12:40your version of herself
12:45so let's talk about the book
12:51what moment in the book stood out to you the most
12:58um i want to say when she was talking about um
13:05when she was talking about losing weight or or when she realized that she was saying yes but she
13:11thought she wasn't she was saying yes to the food um so she had been saying yes the whole time
13:18without
13:19realizing that she was saying yes and i feel like that's where i'm at right now
13:26i'm saying yes a lot to my food okay if you if you knew me from
13:32anytime in my 20s it early 30s and you see me now
13:40you can see the difference you know what i'm saying and i'm not to say
13:45that i hate it because girl getting sick but i i do need to um
13:57you know my my choices and not even necessarily my food choices but the times of day that i eat
14:05because that does matter um but yeah that that part uh i was like you know what you right girl
14:13so i did
14:13actually exercise today congratulations i'm gonna try to do it every day every morning i was
14:19going to tell you about it a little later but we'll talk later all right all right
14:24i think what stood out to me and i know i don't have to answer their question but it was
14:29literally
14:29the fact that she said poop so many times like her fears ended up like somehow poop was involved
14:43like so i realized that her ultimate fear was poop in her pants and i mean that's a genuine fear
14:49i mean
14:59because it's a genuine fear i don't i i understood her with i mean when she said i never personally
15:05thought about it that much but i mean that when you say it like you said it's kind of like
15:09well
15:09damn yeah yeah i would hate for that to happen to me like i've had close calls but not because
15:18i walked out on stage and tripped up over my feet and hit the side of the desk
15:26so i'm asking the next question have you ever realized you were saying no to opportunities
15:32because of fear um i don't think
15:43i don't think that i realized it honestly um maybe now when i think about on things that i probably
15:58said no to then yeah but in in that moment did i think that i was just saying no because
16:06of fear hell
16:07no i just was figured i was just saying no because i didn't feel like it or i didn't want
16:12to not because
16:14i was scared to do it and there are a lot of times i'm like damn i probably should have
16:20did that
16:20it like what what was an example i'm i'm nosy
16:27i don't know just certain things like in in the military look like certain opportunities that i had
16:32that i i just said no to because i just didn't want to like taking my culinary arts you know
16:38a little
16:39bit more serious i had i've had a couple opportunities to do stuff and i was like nah um
16:46um and i think it had it had a lot to do with fear but i also felt like and
16:52this is i just said
16:53you know people used to piss me off in the military so bad and and i was young and i
16:57used to just be
16:58like you can't wait to do that i know
17:06but um yeah just stuff like that my culinary stuff i definitely could have took a little bit uh
17:12bored i should have done that i definitely should have done that it's for real perfect the silliness
17:20okay um okay we gotta wrap it up the producer said oh
17:27what's something in your life that might require you to start saying yes
17:34hmm i was thinking about that earlier today um i feel like i don't show people my temper
17:41and at this point in time i like and i don't show people my temper because i'm like why do
17:47i need
17:47to do that like i want to live in a positive you know and because why and also because i
17:56know how i
17:57can get so confrontation is probably not the best thing but at this point i feel like a lot of
18:02people
18:03will take try to take advantage like and i it really is this tiktok that i saw that really put
18:09it into perspective for me is a lot of people will think because you you do not choose violence or
18:15you
18:15do not act violently that you're not capable of it and little do they know is that you had to
18:21manage you had to learn your how to treat your violence so that you will not no longer be violent
18:28so i feel like sometimes there might be times where you're going to have to let people know
18:34i'm not the one the two or the three and let me remind you who i can be
18:39but anyways bars for sure anyway so and then you know last question um
18:49do you think women sometimes shrink themselves once they reach success
18:57i think that it depends on the person
19:03um because i think that some women are
19:09already intentionally automatically self-aware um and they know they that bitch so they don't
19:17really feel like they need to do that um but yeah i do think that some women do some women
19:23who
19:24um you know are just doing what they feel like they have to do and not are and not are
19:32they're not
19:32necessarily doing it intentionally to be that they're just doing a job you know what i'm saying
19:39you know what i'm saying like they don't realize um the power that they have
19:44like i feel like shauna robs kind of was floating through her career like she didn't really realize
19:52how much of a badass she was until she started until she realized that she was a badass
19:59bitch i don't know where the headphones came from yes okay so our producer is telling us that we need
20:07to
20:07you know yeah wrap it up yeah but we're not we're still on as we have started over so
20:16and it's just reflecting on the book right so one thing that really stood out to me is that
20:21shauna rhymes had already achieved just like you said incredible success but still had to confront her
20:26fear um examples of her going on the tonight show or being out in public or you know going to
20:32events
20:33and you know being having the the spotlight on her um it was very uncomfortable for her and i can
20:39say
20:40i think we both can say that we're we can relate to that in the sense that we're literally having
20:45to
20:45come on live and not saying that we have to but we're choosing to and that is a fear that
20:49a lot of
20:50people have especially what just happened earlier today this i think had been the worst
20:55the worst one i don't know maybe not the worst one but at the end of the day it's been
21:01we've
21:02had so many issues but we continue to bring ourselves on here and i don't know if it's embarrassing
21:08ourselves or maybe maybe i'm not really embarrassed but you know some people be like dang you know what
21:15i'm saying that's y'all opinions this is going to get done everybody got one i don't get to that
21:27i don't know y'all i'm glad y'all can't see her
21:36and that reminds us that growth doesn't stop once you reach a milestone so we're going to actually go
21:41to uh we're going to go ahead and pick out our next book club so if you can um go
21:49ahead and roll
21:49the clips so we can find or help let the you know show what the book club choices are basically
21:55what's
21:56up brown girls it's your girl jasmine back again this month's theme is her body her voice her choice
22:03we're going to select a book that we're going to read for this month y'all ready to help us
22:08out okay
22:09so first i do want to ask what's your name where you from and if you don't mind answering how
22:15old are
22:15you um casia i'm from columbia and 33 my name is ayana i'm from new jersey i'm 28 years old
22:24my name is
22:25whitney i am originally from myrtle beach south carolina and i live here now and i'm 35 i'm jessica i
22:33am 25 and
22:34i'm from columbia okay all right so again we're going to be picking the books first okay i do want
22:42to just remind you again the theme is her body her voice her choice okay so the first book is
22:48sister
22:49outsider by audrey lord this book is a powerful collection of essays explores race gender power
22:58and the importance of speaking truth all right the next one is push by sapphire this is a novel that
23:06follows precious a young black girl navigating abuse poverty and trauma while discovering her voice
23:13through education and storytelling that might sound a little bit familiar precious um and then the last
23:19book is pleasure activism by adrian marie brown this book explores the radical idea that joy pleasure and body
23:28autonomy are essential parts of liberation so again the theme is her body her voice her choice so what
23:36book do you think should be the selection for the month um precious precious precious i do kind of
23:43want to read that yeah me too yeah yeah yeah i feel like sister outsider should be the book okay
23:48being
23:48that it explores multiple options and understanding of like you know just it just covers everything i feel
23:55even females or even males why so i feel like that's the book that should be okay um for the
24:02book hub i
24:02feel like the last one seems to be the most aligned to that but um i would personally pick the
24:08first book
24:09okay um because that just is more in alignment with like my preferences as it relates to like reading
24:14and stuff like that okay honestly i was gonna choose the same one same one so okay i saw the
24:19movie so i'm just
24:20like i feel like i feel like i need to yeah and i was when i was overseas i was
24:24like addicted to the
24:25movie and my friend used to be like why do you watch that like every day i don't know why
24:30yeah so maybe
24:31i need to read the book and try to yeah and again i do want to thank both of you
24:35ladies for stopping
24:36and talking to us if you like to read please join our book club we do it every month again
24:41thank you so
24:41much y'all enjoy the rest of your evening y'all stay tuned brown girls okay so you guys we
24:50now want
24:50to hear from you drop your vote in the comments and help us choose the next brown girl book club
24:57read
24:57all righty so now we're moving on to the deeper reflection of the book um and we're basically almost
25:05done so y'all just bear with us because we're really going to dig in deep because you know we
25:10don't do
25:10surface level um where in shandra ryan's story did you see yourself oh i told you when she was saying
25:18yes so that's that's where i'm at that's exactly where i'm at with it um i don't feel like i
25:24i
25:25definitely don't feel like i need to have a year yes but uh get to but um definitely not comfortable
25:37with where i'm at although i do love food um you know i i have a decision to make i
25:45could either
25:45work out harder yeah do do better um or you know shut the hell up because that's what she said
25:52you i need to either accept the fact that i'm gaining weight and love the weight that i'm gaining or
25:58do what
25:59i need to do to lose it oh that's where i'm at how about you work out harder yeah i'm
26:04just gonna work out
26:05but where do i see myself in and her story well i was that where i found myself was more
26:10so
26:11i like being behind the scenes like if i could get two or three people to just sit here and
26:16do the
26:17book club and interviews and then all the things that require other people to be in the forefront i
26:22would not mind it and i'm sitting there doing the producing and all that um i personally just like
26:28being behind the scenes i like to edit or or create something so i felt myself there when she was
26:36talking about um uh you know people asking her to do these shows or show you know this that and
26:43the
26:43other showcase her for her to get more visibility and stuff like that and she was like well i don't
26:49want visibility like i want to do my job and go home to my kids like that's all i want
26:54to do um i don't
26:55have no kids but you get what i'm saying um so i felt like that's kind of like where i
27:01saw myself
27:02in the story um and then moving on to the next question um what fear has been shaping your decisions
27:08lately and don't you say food again um lately um just the fear of failing because i have a couple
27:22of
27:23things that i've been um trying to get together and i don't like to talk about a lot of stuff
27:29i feel
27:29like as soon as i start talking about it start fucking up so i'm trying to get as far in
27:33the
27:33process as i possibly can um before i say anything when and get as much information but definitely um a
27:43thousand and one percent terrified um yeah i i i'm definitely shaking my boots just to keep it vague
27:57i know it's very vague but i mean well you know what and that's really kind of what you say
28:02is when you
28:03know you're supposed to do it it's because you are so afraid of it but then you have to ask
28:09yourself and
28:09what am i really afraid of is it it happening and not but in order for you to figure out
28:18it's
28:18going to happen i gotta do it you gotta do it yeah yeah definitely been working on it though
28:25well congratulations because i'm going to speak that it is done all right um
28:32oh what does um saying yes to yourself look like right now um honestly i've been last year
28:41was the start of my year yes i mean and i you know in the sense of the story the
28:46grand scheme of things
28:47i've been saying to my yet saying yes to myself since 2020 2019 2020 um i've had this fear of
28:54business
28:55i've had the fear of starting something i've always wanted to do something and not knowing what it was
29:01but like she said in her commencement speech is just start doing something i never imagined that this is
29:08something that i would have done i never thought that i would be uh doing you know it half of
29:15what i'm
29:15doing but because i just said you know what if i feel afraid to do it i'm now i'm going
29:20to do it because
29:20now it's like it's me against me um and if i'm and if i'm afraid now i gotta do it
29:27one of and i will
29:28tell you guys out here one of my fears that i still have not overcame because i do have a
29:32freaking fear
29:33of heights is like uh bungee jumping jumping out of a plane like anything that requires that now
29:41and there's this one thing that's so scary it's so silly but it's so for real though it's like this
29:47rope
29:47like when you're climbing it's like a a rope that kind of like i don't know how to describe it
29:52but
29:52you can go a really high and you can just hold on to the rope and it'll bring you down
29:56like kind of
29:57like at a speed i'm still terrified of that but i am going to overcome that fear so uh maybe
30:04that's what
30:04i will accomplish this year yeah you will yeah you will um and what is something that you've built that
30:11you're proud of something that i'm proud of um i don't know that's our question i don't feel like
30:25i've really done what i wanted to do yet um i've accomplished a lot of things but i don't feel
30:34like i've
30:35built anything really i mean i built a body i guess my child a whole human that is a big
30:47i mean i
30:47definitely did that but um i mean outside of that yeah nothing and that's why i'm working so hard on
30:56the producer is amazing i'm just this girl over here i'm sorry
31:06well you know sometimes the life we want isn't waiting on the opportunity it's just waiting on
31:13us to say yes yeah it definitely is um so if this conversation resonates with you read with us
31:21grow with us and join the brown girls collective book club every second monday of the month we'll be
31:28back next month in the month of what is this i'm gonna say june girl what is this april yeah
31:36uh next
31:37month of april is we are gearing up for a sexual assault awareness month so we'll say essay assault
31:43awareness month in case they try to kick us off um and our theme for that month is her body
31:49her voice
31:49and her choice um we already have content geared up for you guys next month um so make sure you
31:55are
31:55following the brown girls collective on facebook instagram and tick tock and youtube subscribe to
32:00our youtube channel and watch our interviews on the ctr media network and also also before you go
32:08also if you are in soda seating and you see us we are there asking questions so you know
32:17you know we don't want to be on tv but we would love to hear from you because we want
32:24to ask everybody
32:24questions and we would love to meet the people who are following us say yes don't be afraid come and
32:31speak to us just don't walk in front of the camera just don't walk in front of the camera
32:34and as always this is community culture and conversations see you later brown girls
32:48you
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