speaker-0: welcome back to Live Chapters. My name is Luis Vega and today's special guest. she's the founder of Living for Liberation, director of liberation of the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. Dr. Michelle Sadrena Pledger Welcome to the show.
speaker-1: Thank you so much, Luis. I am so excited to be here. You already know I listen to your podcast and I have loved learning from all your guests. So it's great to finally be in the chair.
speaker-0: So we we've been chatting before we started and like time is running and running. We're just like talking and talking, but it's it's so great to have conversations with you. They always go in so many different directions. But can you just tell me a little bit about you and and what you do currently?
speaker-1: Yes. I in one word, I'm a liberator. Everything I do has to do with liberation. So I would consider myself a catalyst for other people's liberation. And I do that in a lot of different ways. you got to experience liberation coaching. So that's one-on-one coaching where folks come to me and there's usually some sort of internal dilemma, some life dilemma that they just need. support with and I love being able to get them in 30 to 45 minutes from like coming in stuck or blocked around something and then by the end of the session they know they're clearer, they have next right steps that they want to try out. So that's one form of liberation. I also work with organizations who let's say they have oppressive dynamics that they want to be liberated from, like oppressive ways of being, supremacy culture. ways of being that just don't allow the organization to be a place of joy and authenticity. And so I support them in disrupting that oppressive situation and creating more libertari liberatory structures. Cause a lot of times people can dismantle oppression, but if you don't have something to replace it with, then you're just gonna regress to the mean. So I do that kind of support. And then lastly I'll talk about interpersonal liberation. So when people have difficulty with generative conflict, right? They so they avoid it because there's a fear of open conflict with another person, a fear of letting people down. So really thinking about those interpersonal dynamics that are oppressive and how do we liberate people from that. So everything is about getting people free from liberation coaching to my freedom dreaming design sessions. I just want people to live
speaker-0: Let's
speaker-1: lives of authenticity, freedom, and joy because it's it's so much better than oppression.
speaker-0: That is very true. Now how'd you get into that?
speaker-1: I often say like my real true first tangible act of liberation was my divorce. I think that, well, I know for sure that that opened so many doors for me to be able to live the life of my dreams. And yes, it was a really traumatic and and sad experience. However, If that hadn't happened, I would not have started my company. I wouldn't have written my book. I wouldn't have traveled to at this point 38 countries. Like I just have so much freedom that I was not experiencing in that relationship. So that is really what what kicked it off.
speaker-0: No, who was Doctor Pledger before the divorce happened and all this liberation?
speaker-1: my gosh, you would not have even recognized her in some ways because I was definitely playing small, shrinking, not really exercising all of the gifts and talents that God has blessed me with and that have come from my ancestors. I was just not living a liberated life. And I was really unhappy. And so I poured myself into work. You know, sometimes when you're unhappy in a relationship. You you shift your energy somewhere else. Where can you get support, value, things like that? And so I was a workaholic big time. And that's where I just found my joy, my success, and my colleagues and all of those things. And I would say post liberation, I still, I'm still I love work. but it's because I love what I do. But I've also been able to now spend quality time with my friends, travel, just get to take up space. base and be unapologetically me because I was definitely internally oppressed for so many reasons. I had a lot of I grew up with a lot of internalized oppression around my race because I went to predominantly white schools. So you know grew up thinking like white is better. And so did my best to assimilate into those spaces. And that was just a lot of years of me assimilating to survive instead of being my authentic self and thriving. And so it wasn't until probably like my my thirties when I started to undo a lot of that damage of internalized oppression and self hatred and really like love who I am, my people, all of those things. And now in my forties, I'm just living my best life. I'm I'm about to be in my fifties soon. So who knows what the fifties have in store, but if they're if they're anything like the forties, I'll be in good shape.
speaker-0: That's great to hear. Now, you're talking about liberation, how you went from being oppressed right before the divorce, but after that, it's just like all these things that that you went through. What is the first thing that you did to start that journey of liberation?
speaker-1: Ooh, I I love this question because it makes me have to reflect on the first you have to grieve, like you have to grieve the loss of this old you, this old life, how you saw yourself in that particular situation, grieve that 10 years of being in relationship with someone, or 10 married years, but even more of that, prior to marriage. So I think for me personally, and everyone's liberation journey is completely different. That's why I hesitate to give like a prescrip prescriptive. Everybody defines liberation differently, but for me, it was having the space to just be. I was in a situation where if I shined or if good things happened to me, I didn't have a partner that was necessarily supportive of that. He was more jealous of that. So it felt like I couldn't really celebrate the good things that were happening to me. Or I would go celebrate them with my parents or my friends, but not with the person who in my mind is supposed to be like your cheerleader, your partner. and he was great at other things. He just was not great at that. And so that's where the shrinking came from. So when I finally didn't have to worry about handling someone else's feelings about my success, it was like, this feels this feels good. I can get an award and be happy about it and do my own dance because it's just In this house now, like or my dog Mamba at the time, and we would celebrate together. so I I didn't have to take care of someone else by just being it sounds weird, I don't mean to sound cocky, but like I was gaining a lot of success in in different areas of my life, and you want to be able to celebrate that with your partner. So that is probably the first thing is just being able to be who I I love hearing your dogs. It's like they're mourning that loss with me and then they're also excited about the liberation.
speaker-0: I think that was a a great response to what happened when you were having success and you were not being supported at the same time by that partner that for a lot of us, when we were having success, we want someone to celebrate with us. Like, yeah, you did it, good job, and you know, let's go to the next one and so on and so forth. Because when people become jealous Of that success, like you mentioned, we start shrinking. It's like, should I be doing this? Should I not be doing this? And once you let that go, and now you start celebrating with yourself and your dog mom by that time, it's like, yes, mommy, go ahead. You you did it, celebrate, and you can start dancing and doing all these things for yourself, traveling 38 countries. Why
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: 38 countries?
speaker-1: Because I don't have time to do more right now. But no, I started I started in college, you know, you start with like Mexico and then I studied abroad in Chile. nice and then I taught in Japan. And so while I studied abroad in Chile, I traveled around South America. And then I in between undergrad and my first round of grad school, I was like, I'm gonna go teach in Japan for a year, but I loved it so much. I ended up staying there for two years and traveling around Asia as well. And then most of My travels in Latin America, like Central, South, and the Caribbean, because como ya tu sabes, me encanta cultura Latina. so yeah, I just I just a huge part of my like social life is in the Latin community because of dance, music, things that I'm interested in, and I grew up speaking Spanish, so. And then I studied it through high school, studied it in college, got a Chilean boyfriend who didn't speak English. You know, they say the best way to learn a language is to date the dictionary. And so, and now Spanish is still a huge part of my life. Right now, I'll be going to Colombia soon to do, I wanna get better at my academic Spanish because I do a lot of public speaking in English, a lot of keynoting, workshop facil facilitation, all of that. And I wanna be able to do all of that in Spanish as well. Keynote in Spanish, workshops, series, everything in Spanish. So that's what I'm a goal I'm working on now. It's just my academic Spanish. Yeah.
speaker-0: And it's great. It's great to be able to say the same thing with the same passion, the same verbiage in English, in Spanish, maybe in I don't know if you learn Japanese to
speaker-1: Yeah, I do. I speak conversational Japanese. I did a keynote in Japan in January and it was awesome. And I did I opened speaking a little bit of Japanese, then I switched to English and then there was translation. But like one day to be able to full on do a keyno in Japanese would be amazing. And I just got accepted my proposal got accepted for speaking engagement in China. So I'm like, maybe I need to learn Mandarin right now. But I mean I love to talk in all the languages.
speaker-0: Im Mat ooh, that would be so cool.
speaker-1: How cool would that be? A black woman just like busting out a bunch of
speaker-0: You just show up to like, it's gonna be English. It just started Mandarin and then you go to another one's like, yeah, she speaks Mandarin and English, Spanish or you know, all those things.
speaker-1: It would be so much better 'cause I I make a lot of jokes in my speaking and so when there's a translation delay, it's like you have to like you make the joke, it's quiet, then the translator and then there's like a delayed laughter. I'm like, okay, it would be cool to just say the joke in Mandarin or Japanese and get the laughs right away.
speaker-0: Now Doctor Mesh Pledger, I was gonna say Michelle, right?
speaker-1: Doctor Michelle, Doctor Fredder, Diva, whatever works for you.
speaker-0: What's been an event in your life that challenged you and almost broke you? I know you mentioned your divorce.
speaker-1: Yes, and it wasn't when the divor when I filed for divorce, it I was also working on my dissertation and my mom was diagnosed with cancer. So it was like these three Ds that I I I talk about like divorce, dissertation, diagnosis. And it was a lot for I think any person to to navigate because I was serving as my own attorney in the divorce. So I was going to the courthouse, taking all these workshops to be able to do the paperwork, do everything. so that was that was a lot. But I think what was helpful was I didn't have any control over my mom's diagnosis as much as I wish I I could have. And I didn't have a lot of control over the events that led to the divorce. at the end, but I did have control over this dissertation. So that was kind of this anchoring of just writing it and spending so much I took myself to Cuba to to write it, process the divorce, and then finish writing the dissertation and just getting it out. But the beautiful thing that happened is I ended up Right, my book was inspired by my dissertation because I was like, no one's gonna freaking read my dissertation. I mean, a few people have downloaded it, like, yay, but nobody's like, I wonder what her dissertation's about. so I wrote a book for educators called Liberate Pocket Size Paradigms for Liberatory Learning, because I wanted educators to have a what, why, how guide to support culturally and linguistically diverse young people in the classroom so that they are experiencing an education. That they do not need to recover from because they're actually seeing themselves in the curriculum. They're valued, all of those things. So that book came out of that. And I had an opportunity, but while my mom was in hospice to read a good portion of the book to her before she passed. So it just, you know, God, God be up there gotten. And you just, we just have to and, you know, I'm a I'm a believer in in God and I believe that I just have to trust. have faith, you know, in what the path that he's shaped for me. It doesn't mean like it's easy. losing my mom was the hardest thing I've ever experienced in my life. Taking care of her in hospice was challenging because little by little she was losing everything that like made her have joy, like losing her ability to to taste, her ability to walk, losing her ability to eventually like hold things and to Be in a position, a reverse position, right? Like she, when she had me, I was a baby and she was doing all the things, feeding me, changing me, like giving me a bath. And now you have this complete role reversal where I'm feeding my mom, changing my mom, giving my mom a bath. And for her, because she was such like her work ethic was her main value and she was a service person and she was always doing, doing, doing, I knew how much it was. like hurting her to not be able to do for herself and have people taking care of her. And it was just it was just a hard time for everyone. But I'm so grateful that I had those those four months 'cause they had given her two weeks to two months to live and we got four months. So I I think of those as like two bonus months that we were given to just be with her, take care of her. but when she passed that was I never like let myself imagine what life without my mom would be like because she was my best friend. Like we talked every day, slumber parties on the weekends, the whole nine. She was my person. And I remember going to grief counseling afterwards and one of the prompts was, was this what you imagined it to be like? And I was like, I never even let myself imagine that this day would happen, which I know I maybe other people do, but yeah, I just could not think of a world. without my mom and didn't and for a while after didn't wanna be in the world without her. But thankfully like I have a therapist and grief counseling and my friends were super supportive. So I got through it.
speaker-0: So in those four months that that you had your mom, your book was was done and you were s you were reading some of it to her. What was her reaction when you were reading like your own book to her?
speaker-1: She really liked the cover of the book, which was illustrated by one of my friends, Chicle. He's like an amazing artist. And so the cover is this really beautiful phoenix, which has like a lot of symbolism. But so she loved the cover. And I mean the book is on like ed education and pedagogy, so it's not like this thrilling novel, but she, you know, she with what capacity she had at that time, you know, she ex expressed. like proud like she's proud of me for for finishing it. And I knew, she knew when I started the book, I knew when she was more coherent back then, like how proud she was. Like I was never in doubt of either of my parents of how they how they see me, how they value me. My mom used to always tell me, you are enough because she knew I struggled with enoughness that was based off of like societal message and and things like that. So she in every card, she would always say, You are enough, you are enough. And I just love that I get to carry so much of her with me in my work ethic and my compassion for people and my service from people. That all came from my mom. So even though she's not on this physical plane, people get to experience her through me every single day. And she's someone who didn't live life in a liberated way always because she was like shy, timid, grew up with a lot of fear based off of some things that happened in her childhood. And that's why she was always in awe of like when I'm like flying off to this country or going over here, like whatever. She's like, wow, because it's just not like how she grew up. But I I knew that she was extremely proud and like, I can't wait to see her in heaven someday. We're gonna party you know.
speaker-0: I I like how you light up when you talk about your mom, how you are carrying her legacy because she taught you a lot.
speaker-1: So much. Yeah.
speaker-0: And now people are seeing your mom through you. And then every person that is listening to you, that you're interacting with, that you have just sharing conversations with, you're sharing yourself to them. And they eventually gonna carry your own legacy in one way or the other. Yeah. And it's it's so much fun when you see it that way. Because a lot of times like, well, I wanna leave this, I wanna leave that. But if you just leave yourself who you are as a person and you have this impact on just another person, that's another another legacy that you leave. And that person is gonna have your legacy plus theirs, and you're just gonna keep on evolving and getting better and better and better. And that's the beauty of
speaker-1: Using the word legacy because that that word is in my mind often, like the legacy, because I don't have biological children, so I know I won't have like a biological legacy, but I plan to have a pedagogical legacy through all of like the keynotes, the publications, the interactions that we have with people every single day. So yeah, I feel I feel good. She was like a joyful, happy person too.
speaker-0: So you've been talking about your mom, the legacy that you're leaving through all the keynote speaker and through the book and just your conversations with every single person that you come in contact with, because that's how we share our knowledge. Because if we just keep our knowledge to ourselves, then what are why are we learning? Why are we studying? No, everything that we learn is to pass down and share everything with a little touch from someone else's legacy and just keeps on evolving. And that leads me into mentorship. Have you ever had any mentors that they know they're your mentors? Or perhaps you just see them as a mentor because of how they carry themselves.
speaker-1: I love this question. And I don't know if this is a blessing or a curse, but I literally see almost every person I interact with as some sort of coach or mentor. Because I feel like there is something I have to learn from every single human. So of course I do have specific mentors like Siomara Paramsi is my coach when it comes to technically, I guess you would call her like an equity coach or an executive coach, because I'm in leadership at my organization. And so she has. is I love her style of coaching because She actually asks, like, what do you need? Would you she'll say, like, would you like me to ask questions about this? Would you like me to weigh in? Like, and because sometimes you just want an answer. Like, just tell me what to do or tell me what you would do. But sometimes you really need to self-source. And so you're like, no, I want you to just ask me questions so I can like get there. So just depending on what state of mind you're in. And she's someone who Lives what she's coaching. And that's definitely something that I aspire to be. I would also say my dissertation chair, Alan Daly, he believed in me before I believed in myself because getting a a doctorate degree, especially as like a black woman grew up poor, all the things, you know, imposter syndrome. It's it's real and it's not real, right? It's it's a real phenomenon that phenomenon that people experience and it's BS because like who are you pretending to be? Like you're you. but he did an excellent job of because I was the only black person I was the only black person in my master's program for both years, and I was the only black person in my doctoral program. So it's easy to have those questions of like, do I belong here? Like, because I've had like belongingness issues since Childhood and him just being this person who believed in what I wanted to research, believed in who I was as a person, believed in my ability to do the work successfully, to be able to write academically, to be able to publish, all of those things has been amazing. Even at my job, the president of our graduate school, when he promoted me to a leadership position, you know, that's his him seeing something in me that he's like you you belong in this in this role and here's why so there's but then there's everyday people like I I'll just be in you're you know you and I we love to talk so we'll we'll talk to anybody and I'll just ask questions about their life, what they did and you get all kinds of tips and advice because they're just sharing their story. So I feel like everybody's my mentor in some capacity.
speaker-0: Mm-hmm. I love that because everyone has something, has their own story. No one can question their story, what they went through and how they got out of it. That's a different perspective in life that we can adopt the good and leave the bad. And that's what we can get better for ourselves and then share their tips blended with ours to someone else so they can also take the good and leave the bad.
speaker-1: Yes. And even if the person is, let's say, a horrible person to you, that's mentorship. It's coaching. Like I'm learning exactly how I don't want to be. Correct. Like I, for example, there's been this might be I don't know if this is a weird, but okay. I don't know if you've ever met your hero like somebody that you have a hero in in the real estate world or the finance world and for me majority of my work has been in education and so there have been times when I've met my education heroes who like I I love their work. I cited them in my dissertation. I quote them in my classes, whatever. I assign their their texts and then I meet them in person and the way they treat me is not wonderful and it's like, my gosh, but I like really value your work and you're not a kind person. And but that teaches even right there, it's mentorship that when people come up to me after a keynote, you better believe they're getting my full attention. When they're coming up to me to like get their book signed, I wanna know like what grade do you teach? Like what what's lighting you up about this school year? I want them to feel seen because I've learned from that. that other mentor that you know they didn't see me or didn't value my presence. And it doesn't take that much to just acknowledge someone's presence and like ask one question about them. Or they're so excited to meet you. So like it doesn't hurt you to like show love and grace. Like it's that like it's to me it's like harder to be rude. So so even like people who don't treat us well We can learn from that. Like everything is like you win or you learn. And learning is winning. So you just win either way. Exactly.
speaker-0: That's a that's a like a win win situation. Yeah. Now you mentioned your your first Siomara. I like the questions that he that she asked right before the conversation. And I think that could be applied in just any conversation that can avoid a lot of conflicts. Yeah. Because I say that in relationships, and I've been part of that as well. That when I'm, let's say you're you're sharing some your day with me, and if it's just a normal conversation, I'm gonna try to fix it. And maybe you don't want to fix, you just want to vent. You're like ask me questions so I can fix my own goddamn problem. And
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: if we just start the conversation, let's just say you ask me, hey Luis, can you can we just have a conversation? Before we start, would you like me to just listen? Ask you questions, weigh in, fix it. Like, what do you want? What kind of hat do you want me to wear? I just want you to listen.
speaker-1: Perfect. Yes. And I always have to do that with my my partner who is a fix it person. my gosh. And so sometimes I'll have to be like, listen, honey, I right now, I just need you to be on Team Michelle. Like, I don't want you to fix it. I don't want you to play devil's advocate and give me their side. I don't care about their side right now. I just want to vent and I want you to be like, you're right, let's go. And then there's other times it's just like, okay, I I'm seeing this this way. Can you help me? Like, are there is there a perspective that I'm not seeing and then you know he'll have one because that helped avoid because in the beginning he would just wanna fix everything and that would just like you said it's like no I'm not I don't I don't want to fix it right now. I wanna do this. Or maybe I do need your help. But just At like communicating, even like when you're giving feedback to someone, I always say, like, are you available for feedback? Because sometimes people are not available for feedback. And so it's just gonna like be a waste of both people's time because you they have to be in a space, like maybe something else happened that day, and they're just not in the headspace where they're gonna receive it well. And so they'll be like, No, not right now, but why don't you call me tomorrow morning because I'll be a little more free. And I appreciate when people, if they're gonna give me feedback, if they also say, like, are you available for feedback? And then I can do like Like this honest self-check-in, like am I right now? Yeah, my heart space is open. I feel good. Like go for it. What's up? Or like, ooh, mm-hmm, this thing just happened. So let me just take 10 minutes and then I'm gonna circle back or whatever.
speaker-0: It's a good practice to have to avoid future conflicts and start building all this resentment of I'm not being heard or you just want to fix it all or whatever the case is. I think it's very important to do that. And I've been practicing myself. And I say practicing because it's not a full habit yet, but I feel like catching it has been shrinking and shrinking and shrinking it. the time until I can catch it right before the conversation to get into it. Because right now I'm catching it as the conversation goes and I catch myself recommending or giving feedback and I'm like, wait, is that who you want me to be right now? Or you just want me to be a a listener? And like I just want you to listen. Okay.
speaker-1: And it's all take back practice. I love that you use the word practice because like Ever like we're all just walking each other through life and trying to figure it out together. And even liberation is a practice. Like just because I found a living for liberation doesn't mean I'm liberated all the time. I still overthink. I still have moments of like self-doubt. All those things still happen, but the the awareness piece of it, right, is quicker. Like I'm aware and then I can make a decision of how I want to navigate out of that. Like recently at I was at a salsa dance class. I won't Say the studio name, but I was at a salsa dance class, and you basically we high-five each other when you change lines, like where the instructors like rotate lines and you high-five each other. And there was this girl who just refused to high-five me every single time. But she would high-five the person on her other side, and like, when I tell you, Luis, I perseparated over this high-five situation for days. Just like my boyfriends had to just hear me be like, but I just don't understand why she didn't want to high-five me. I've never done anything to her, and I come to class very joyfully. Like maybe I'm too joyful. Like, like I'm just like in my head, and I was like, What are you doing? Who cares? This girl don't want to high five you. Let her not high-five you. Like it's okay. She's missing out on like a really cool fun person, and that's on her. And like you're also really good at giving high fives. And then you can high-five yourself. Like, I just had to. That's true. But so even like in the professions that we are or the journeys that we're on, it's all practice. Like we're all just working on it. I'm working on it. So I may be a bit further ahead than my clients. and that's why I'm able to support them. But we're all working on this liberation together.
speaker-0: That there's always someone ahead. There's others coming back from their journey. And those are the ones that we should be asking a lot of questions to because they want to share. But they already learned so much that they wanna share when they're being asked. They just don't wanna give feedback because people are like, Well, I didn't even ask.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And at the same time, people like us, we don't wanna ask questions. So it's like, you know, ask more questions. I've learned that. Ask questions to every single person about their life, about their journey, about how they do one thing versus the other. Maybe maybe you might learn something that might be better than than than your system, or it can make your system even better.
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Like I've been accused of asking so many questions that it sounds like an interrogation. So I actually need to pull back on my question asking. But even in our conversation earlier, when you're telling me about real estate and the things you've done with your home, like I'm learning from that conversation. Like, how did you do that? Who was your contractor? Like, how does this work? If I want to invest in property over here, like we only have like something to gain from asking the question. That's it. Otherwise, we're like leaving with regret. Like, I wish I would have asked the question.
speaker-0: And something that I've learned is going to every single conversation with catching things to improve on, learning from that person because everything is caught. Because the only time we can catch things is when we're open to it. Because we can have all this conversation at the end of the day, I'm like Nice chatting with you, but I didn't learn anything because I didn't feel like catching anything. But when we go with that openness to catch everything that you're saying, like, I can implement this here, I can teach this this way, or there's a good way of doing this, or liberating this, liberating that, writing books, etc. Now I'm learning a lot from you, who you represent, your character. There's so many different things because your smile, the way that you interact, you're very like open and flowy and everything. And how you focus and give attention to the people that come say hi to you after like a keynote speak. And that is very key.
speaker-1: And you just said a word right there, like not everything You didn't say it this way, but I'm gonna make it rhyme. Like, not everything that's taught is caught. Correct. Right. And so we're like we have agency over the catching of what that's why when people say like they're bored or they didn't get something out of we're at something, I didn't get anything out of that. And I I don't know about you, but like I can get anything out of anything. Anything and like it it could be the most boring talk. Then maybe I learned that that's not how I want to present a keynote. Like whatever. Like you there are always opportunities to say to be open to discovery and to learn from the interaction that you're in. So I don't know where we were headed with this but let's keep going. I love it.
speaker-0: So Dr. Pleasure, what's one lesson you've learned the hard way?
speaker-1: relationships. Y'all, I I let me tell you, Luis, I I don't know. I was very into my dad always says, you can't turn a project into a partner, Michelle. Because I was like I don't know if it was just like I would see the red flags, Luis, and I would just be like challenge option. Good project. Yeah. Like, I'm gonna overachieve my way to like greatness in this relationship. And I definitely accepted treatment and behavior that I was did not deserve, right? and I allowed just a lot of things that I shouldn't have. And I, you know, I used to pitch frame it like, this person like cheated on me, this person used me for money, this person whatever. But I was there too. And so there were things that I noticed and probably ignored, or in some cases did ignore, or didn't ignore, but didn't do anything about. So I always talk about being people being complicit in their own oppression. And in some of these instances I was very complicit because I didn't I could see, I could see the red flags. One time my niece said, Auntie Shell, these aren't red flags, they're sirens. Like even my nieces are like, what are you doing with this guy? Or whatever. And so it took me longer than it should have. Like while other areas of my life were getting liberated. This need for l I love love. I'm a like romantic comedy believing kind of love person. Like I just want the person who's like, they're your screensaver and you're wearing coordinated outfits and like just I love love. And so I would accept there's a saying from this movie like we accept the love we think we deserve and You know, when you're not in a place of high self-worth, then you you accept scraps, right? You accept pettiness, you accept cheating, you c accept lying, you accept a lot of things. well, I never accepted cheating. Once I found out cheating situations, they were always gone. But there were other things that I accepted until I got really clear on my own worth and my own ability to say, no, like I deserve, I deserve better and I don't need closure. Like the the best closure is knowing that I deserve someone better and just like closing that door. There's somebody who I I released from my life who still messages me, sends me songs that he wrote about me, all this stuff. And I do not respond at all. And there's something empowering about that, because some people are like, why don't you just block him? Because I want to prove to myself that even when the doors open, like I can say no to that person. It feels so good. I don't I don't know why, especially because this person like really did me dirty and now he's realized that mistake and doing everything like in his power to try to win me back. not everything in his power, but ever from time to time he's like sending something, whatever. And it just feels good to be like, no, I value myself. So go like great, you you think you changed? Awesome. That's gonna benefit somebody else, but this ship sailed. So that just took me forever to learn. But now that I've learned it and now that I am with someone who treats me really well, is very respectful, really cares about me, like treats me how I know I deserve to be treated, how I know God wants me to how I know my parents want me to be treated. my dad likes my dad is probably ready for us to get married already. I'm like, dad, we've only been dating three months. Let's just like everybody slow down.
speaker-0: That's a good sign. That's a green flag, right? It's
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah.
speaker-0: like auntie. That's a what would be like a green light, I'm assuming? Or like instead of a siren?
speaker-1: Yeah, it's such a it's such a green light. So like for and I know a lot of people, love and relationships is such a hard one, but the beauty of going through a lot of that is the people that I get to coach. Like so much of our trials and tribulations means that we get to support people who are going through that same process. So my my clients who are overthinkers, that was me, is me. I know how to support them. My clients who suffer from internalized depression, right? Not loving who they are either because of like Racialized things, homophobic things, whatever. I know how to support that. Workplace dilemmas. I know it's about relationships. So I just love how I think one of your guests in a previous episode was talking about making use of the pain or something. And like I always talk about like my pain being part of my purpose. Like be because I've been a I've gone through and and survived and and thrived through some of those things. It so it feeds my purpose and I'm able to support people in ways that I wouldn't have been able to if I hadn't have gone through those things, which I know you understand.
speaker-0: There's no wasted pain. No wasted pain through everything that we everything is a learning experience. Yeah. If you just want it to be a learning experience. And to some people, those experiences might keep them there forever. And they start blaming the entire world about what's happening. Because internally they don't want to admit of who they are as a person. to be able to grow from it, see their true worth, and keep on moving forward.
speaker-1: Yeah, because it's comfortable what they know. Like I I encounter people who are are married to this old story, married to this victimized story, married to this like pain story, when there's like a whole other story that they could be living out. Like you get to be like the leading lady, man, they of your own life. Like you get to do that instead of like being this side character or character where things are like happening to you, it's like Yes, these things happen and you have now and you have like the all you have right now that's promised to you. Like that's it. You can't undo the freaking past. You don't know what's ahead. You have right now. What do you want to do with right now? And the question I'm always like posing. In my Freedom Dreaming Design Day, so the this is one of my favorite things to facilitate, is a freedom dreaming design day. But one of the questions that I ask is what what do you want freedom from? And what do you want freedom to? And that really unlocks a lot for people because they start to think about all the things in their life that they want freedom from. And then also the things in and they're different. sides of the coin because your freedom from are things that are like oppressing you. And a lot of times it can be our own minds that are oppressing us. Oftentimes the p my clients, that is what it is. But there's also external forces. So you're wanting to get released from that. But that freedom too is so expansive. Like I want freedom to travel, freedom to fall in love, freedom to start a business, freedom to write a book or to write 86 books like one of your previous guests. I'll be listening. And just even that, like if they and then in in the session in my design day, then of course we have a whole from freedom dreaming to freedom doing framework because a lot of times people will just get stuck in the dreaming and the dreams like don't actually manifest if people don't have a clear plan. So we go through this whole framework. So they leave that design day super clear action items of what to do to actually manifest or manifest this dream later on. And then we have a reunion call just a few days later because I I there's like they have to do at least one step toward it by that reunion call and then we're gonna celebrate. Like it's all that part of keeping each other lovingly accountable because when we're in community. We can just do so much more. When we feel like we're alone in isolation, we don't have the motivation. it's just a different feeling than like, we're all working on our dreams together and we're all gonna be showing up at that reunion call and saying, This is the step that that I've done so far towards my dream. Let's celebrate that together, right? I feel like celebration throughout, not just at the end, is so important. Like having that joy throughout the journey is For me, like I will celebrate, you know, like when you're watched, my Apple Watch will be like, Yeah, you stood up. I'm like, I did stand up. I sure did. Why am I gonna celebrate myself for standing up? I'm gonna get some water, like I'm gonna hydrate, like whatever. Like there's so much oppression and like horrible things happen in the world. So it's it's it is an act of resistance for us to maintain our joy, maintain our peace, maintain our purpose that we have in life.
speaker-0: I like this framework of dreaming it, but also putting it into actionable steps and having that immediate reunion within like a couple days of leaving that event. Just do one thing. Like, what's the first step? Do that and then celebrate it. Because That first action is the hardest. But if you have a deadline, it's like, hey, in two days, do the first one and you celebrate it, whatever it was. Now they're like, I did it and I got celebrated. Let me do another one. Starts
speaker-1: Yeah, let's see the next one.
speaker-0: building and building and building. And that's when it comes to knowing what you want, but at the same time putting an action plan. Because a lot of times like, knowledge is power. And it can be, but if you never put an action behind it is just a dream. Yep. You're still at the same place. You just read a book, you just went to an event. And it's
speaker-1: No one. It's it is no one. Because a lot of people's dreams that they when they come, there are dreams that don't just impact them. Like what they're dreaming up is gonna have this positive impact on the rest of the community or the world in some way. So when they sit on those dreams, like they're cheating, yes, themselves, but they're also cheating the world out of this experience, this book, this community garden, whatever it is. I have one I had one Freedom Dreamer. Like her dream is to judge horse races. Like that is her dream. Okay, great. You know, and and the cool thing is I don't need to be an expert on their dreams. I'm an expert at like dream making. So like supporting the system for them to make it. But people come with all kind like one person, this last Freedom Dreaming wants to start a home for domestic violence like in her community because they don't have one and she has experienced a number of women needing that. And so that is her dream. Again, if she sits on that dream, like how many women are then staying stuck in these abusive situations. But once she like realizes, no, I'm not just gonna keep it in the dream space. I'm actually gonna go from freedom dreaming to freedom doing. Now we get to a place where these women are supported. So it's just like I said, a catalyst of liberation is just why I wake up every morning so happy.
speaker-0: I love it.
speaker-1: And it's not toxic positivity before someone like accuses me of that. Like I know that there's real pain in the world and I, you know, I experience it, I observe it. my choice to show up joyfully to alleviate that for people is not toxic positive. It's an intentional choice. Intentional.
speaker-0: Now what stage are are you currently in? Yeah.
speaker-1: Of my life? Yeah. And I knew this question was coming because I know you asked your your other guests. so my word for the year is sovereignty.
speaker-0: Why did you choose that?
speaker-1: Because it's about sovereignty is like a governance over like a territory or a place, like complete governance and rule over a territory or place. And I'm my own territory. And for me, sovereignty symbolizes not caring what people think. She posts too much. She her posts are too funny. Her posts are whatever. Like, who cares? She dances like She mixes her hip hop with her batata, like, like, no, this is my my body, my space, my energy. I get to like show up in the world the way I want to show up. If you think I post too much or you wanna unsubscribe from my newsletter because it's too inspirational. I don't know why someone wanna unsubscribe. That's fine. Like because Th my sovereignty is mine. Like, yes, I'm here to impact and love on and support others, but I can only do that as my authentic self. And my authentic self is silly sometimes. I have a post that's coming out this morning that is about this croissant bread that I discovered at Costco. Is it gonna get likes? I don't care. I'm excited about this Costco croissant bread. Like, so just being sovereign in in what I do in my career, in how I live my life. And just okay. And then, okay, I know I told you I'd love to talk, and you would have to shut me up. I talk to my clients a lot about what it means to be like a magnet as well. And it's something I learned from one of my business coaches. that w oftentimes we think of magnets as attracting and they also repel. Yes. And I I really appreciate that. So like when people are drawn to me because we share similar values or they s see something, you know, that we can gain from one another, whatever, that's magnetism. But when people are repelled, then they're not my people and that's okay because they're gonna be magnetized to someone else who is right for them. So when people subscribe to my L liberation love letter every week. That's great. That's like a magnetism where I I drew people in. If somebody unsubscribes, that was a magnet situation where I repelled them. Instead of being like, my God, why are they underscribe unsubscribe? Should I change my post so that no, no, no, they're just not my people. And that's okay. And it's just been so freeing to think about that. Like I'm gonna attract like like minded or like spirited or like energetic, whatever, and I'm gonna repel those who aren't ready yet. Maybe they'll come back later, you know. Maybe they're not in a liberate enough. Some people are so oppressed and so locked in and imprisoned, like our patterns become our prisons, right? And so some people are stuck in those patterns that they can't even see that they're not free. And so maybe something else is gonna happen and someone else is gonna water them down the line. And then maybe they they'll come back, you know? It just you never know. And so I just keep I keep the door open.
speaker-0: I I like what you said about people joining and once they see the content, maybe something attracted them, they're like, this is cool, let me subscribe. They're like, it's not for me yet. They leave. Maybe they need to hear what they need to hear from someone else. That it might be the same thing that you're sharing, just in a different way, and then they start shifting their mindset, their belief, and then slowly they're gonna come back.
speaker-1: Yeah, they might come back. And they might not and it is okay.
speaker-0: It's okay. And it's okay because they can get the same thing from someone else that they relate better with. Mm-hmm. That's it. Now, what would you like for the listeners to take away from your your story?
speaker-1: Do not be complicit in your own oppression. Choose to live for liberation. Right now, there is some area of your life where you are not feeling free. It could be your job, it could be your relationship, it could be your own mindset and your inner critic. And You have choices. So you can either choose to stay complicit in that oppression or you can choose to live for liberation. And there are ways for you to get there. Obviously, I would love to support you in getting there, either through liberation coaching, freedom dreaming. But I I just want you to get there. Like like Luis was just saying, it may not be through me. It may be some other person that you've heard of or seen that you feel like, okay, this is the person that I want to work with as I move towards liberation. But the important part is for you to get there because the more free you are, that's gonna have an impact on the rest of society. When people see you living in your audacious, like liberated life. They're gonna get to do the same. They're gonna wanna do the same. They're gonna ask you how how are you doing that? What supported you? What helped you? So that they can and that just imagine like people all walking around in life, living in authenticity, freedom, and joy on purpose, loving each other. my gosh. Like that's the kind of world I wanna live in, like a musical.
speaker-0: I like what you mentioned. There'll be your own complicit to your oppression. Because a lot of us are like that. And we create that environment. And then we welcome others that are doing the same thing. Until that one person starts being liberated. But if their liberation is not, they don't really believe it as much, and they're still within that environment, they can come back. To being complicit to their oppression. So it's important to find those groups that are like they don't have to be months or years ahead of you. They can just have the same mindset of wanting to be liberated from whatever oppression they had so you can stick with it. Yeah. Be accountable. And then slowly, yeah, you can still go back to that old environment. to help others and be an example for others but to also be liberated one at a time because you mentioned earlier we are the best person to help the ones that we used to be.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: But we gotta make that change. Yes. We gotta change our circles or our environment because we become that person.
speaker-1: Yeah, it's the self-work. Like there's no like I I can't teach or guide somebody through something that I have not experienced. I can't do it well anyway. So it's the self-work that's so important that people don't invest in. They don't give their selves enough time. And I love that you said it like the community piece of that, because in the support piece of it, I'm launching this Living for Liberation League that is a three-month community that has curriculum, coaching, and the whole point is that we have spent s decades of our lives in oppression, like systemic oppression, period. Right? Systemic oppression, institutional oppression, internalized oppression, all the things. It is going to take time to unlearn all of that, to get free. That's not something you do in like one workshop or one liberation coaching session. That is a daily practice, right? And so that's what I'm excited about this league is that we are going to be working for 90 days specifically on liberating our lives in a number of different areas. And once you have that 90 days of practice, it's gonna be easier for you to go back to that group. that is still in oppression and like you have results now. Like you'll you're gonna be a different person after those ninety days. So I'm excited about that.
speaker-0: Sounds very exciting because 90 days, it's a really good time to learn how to do it and live like that for the rest of our life. Because it's not just like that three-month process, yeah, I'm liberated. And they kind of forget how to be liberated. Because you can come back. Three months, cool, but slowly. You know, people when they see you being successful or changing in some way, you're different.
speaker-1: Yep.
speaker-0: Why are you different? And you're like, well, how am I different? Because you do this, this, and then you start coming back. Because it's either you change and stick with it. Because you feel that's like the thing that you want to do or you believe in the others that you did change and you're something wrong with you and you wanna come back because you wanna be part of the herd again.
speaker-1: Yeah, and that's why it's so important, like who you surround yourself with is like s key. I mean, we've all heard the saying, your like network becomes your net worth and and all of those things. And when you have the practices and tools to actually help you so that even after the 90 days, even day 91. You have everything it takes, right, to continue this journey. But then it still becomes that choice. Like, am I choosing an oppressive way of being or am I choosing a liberatory way of being? Like what do I want for myself? Because Mel Robbins always says people only change when they want to. Like there's nothing, there's no amount of like coaching and inspiration. At the end of the day, unless someone wants to actually change, they're not changing.
speaker-0: That is very true. Because a little bit about me. Three years ago, for example, and before that, I was called on many things. Like, you do this, you are like this, many things. And I'm like, okay. I didn't feel like accepting it or being aware that that was happening to me, or that's who I was showing up to others. But then three years ago, Environment change. Environment change. I started doing more research, more reading, more business, you know, getting around the people that are on a journey to becoming better and then impacting whatever their impact of choice is. That is when I started seeing what other people meant. And I'm like, And I'm addicted to change.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: It's like when you talk to someone that used to know you back in the day, and the person that I am now, they're like, You changed. This is different. This is good, and this and that, especially when the mom, when your mom tells you,
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: I see you interacting with the family. asking questions, chatting up with them, something that I never did. Yes.
speaker-1: they witnessed a transformation.
speaker-0: And then until you see that, you're like, man, this is this is fun. I want to do more.
speaker-1: Well I'm curious, how do you deal with like people who knew you as that other person and are refusing to acknowledge your change?
speaker-0: Very good question. Like you mentioned, I just show who I am now. And if they wanna believe who I am now, good, we can stay in touch. But if not, if they still want to tell me the person that I should be, based on who they knew, mm-hmm. I'm not interested in that. Yeah. Because yes, I was that person, and it's okay. Everybody has their own stage of life, and it's good to change and improve, you know, in whatever aspect, positive, negative, people change. But I choose me. I know my worth, I know my value, and I know the person that I have become because the new friends that I have, the new acquaintances, conversations that I have now, they say different.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And I choose to be that person that the new people are being a part of, knowing, instead of that other person that I used to be. And and it and it gives me chills to see that huge change. And it's it it's and it's
speaker-1: Congratulations.
speaker-0: awesome. And it does. And I wish more people Wanted to change sooner than later. I know there's no too soon or too late to change, but it's so rewarding and so freeing, so liberating to be different and start following the the journey that you were meant to to be a part of to impact truly people and and and start l building a legacy. for yourself and just passing it from another person to another person is is very fun. Now, I know we talked a lot about different things. Is there anything that I haven't asked that you believe you want to share?
speaker-1: Mm. I think we I mean we talked about a lot. I like I wanted to, you know, talk about my book Liberate. We talked about I wanted to talk about freedom dreaming, liberation coaching, and the Living for Liberation League, and then leaving your audience with that question of like what do they want freedom from? What do they want freedom to? I feel like we nailed it. I mean, I don't wanna like
speaker-0: I think we're yeah, I think that's good. Because you're gonna come back. You're you're gonna I wanna bring you back and we're gonna keep on on chatting because your current stage, I wanna know what the future state is later
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: on. And we're gonna fill those gaps, you know, from what is today. Yeah, we have so much
speaker-1: Yeah, like much more to talk about this is just like the tip of the iceberg.
speaker-0: Just like a quick intro. Now, Dr. Pledger, you know, I I I I love finance. I like I like educating a lot of people on what finance is, what it can do if you just are open to what it can do for you and for your family, and the legacy financially that you can build. Because a lot of the times we don't come from money, but we are okay. leaving our next generation without that legacy as well. Right? So if we didn't come from a legacy from you know generational wealth, let's try to start that generational wealth building for our next generation. So you know it can keep on expanding and expanding. But my question to you is what's a financial habit that has benefited you lately?
speaker-1: I was ready for this one. And I was like, my God, there's so many I want to share, but we don't have enough time. So the first the first sort of concept that I learned that has stuck with me is that there are three types of people: debtors, savers, and wealth creators. And growing up poor, and I knew that I never wanted to be in debt. That was like a goal that I had. I didn't want to be in debt, and so I worked really hard. In college, I was working like three jobs full, just because I did not want to have all these loans and all these things. So I became a saver after that. And then I was like, I ended up joining this Rachel Rogers Millionaires Club. And her whole Rachel Rogers' whole thing is about getting women of women, women of color in particular, and and queer folks. To be millionaires. Like she wrote a book called We Should All Be Millionaires. And so I joined her millionaires club. We're called Schmilles. And that is what sort of flipped me into being a wealth creator, right? Like it's not just about saving. Like, I'm gonna save by not. having Starbucks today. It's like, no, I'm gonna generate enough wealth that I could have, you know, maybe not Starbucks, I I actually don't want to support them. But the Blue Mug Coffee and Tea in Escondito is my favorite coffee spot. So instead of saving by not going to blue mug coffee and tea, no, I'm gonna create enough wealth that I could go there every day. And bring friends, you know what I mean? So like moving into wealth creation, because I do ultimately want to have a foundation and I want that foundation to start giving money while I'm alive, not when I'm dead. so though that thing, being a wealth creator, so once that flipped, like it's it's okay to want to earn money, especially because women of color in particular. Do more philanthropy with their money than let's say their male counterparts, right? So, and I know that I'm gonna, I am doing and will continue to do great things with my money in terms of supporting other people. So the book that I read though that really shifted how I break down my money is called Profit First. And it is this book that instead of thinking of I'm gonna spend and then whatever's left over I'll create revenue and then I have these costs and whatever is left is my profit, it it's a c you probably understand or be able to explain it to your listeners more, but you basically break it down differently. And in my case, 30% goes to operating expenses. So whatever I make, 30% goes to operating expenses. That means that if I'm designing something It needs to it can't go exceed over that 30% that is in the operating expenses. So that I will always leave with a profit. So the breakdown that I'm in because of the bracket that I'm in is 15% goes to taxes, 50% goes to owner's compensation, 30% goes to operating expenses, 5% goes to profit. Am I missing a percent 50? No, that's it, right? And it has been a game changer in terms of how like when tax time comes, I'm not stressed out because I have every time I get paid from like a keynote or whatever, 15% is automatically. in that tax one. I always have profit because I'm a even if it's just five percent of whatever it there's always gonna be profit and then of course owners compensation and I'm only spending what I have in operating expenses. So there's no way for me to go over. You use the rest of your budget wisely. It's it's I you'll have to read the book because I'm like butchering it because finance is your area of expertise. Mine is liberation. but this book or even if you just read a summary of it and get like the the spreadsheet to break down, it's been super helpful. So maybe you could explain it.
speaker-0: Better good because you have to allocate your money to the right expense and profit is also an expense that I believe you should pay yourself first. Because a lot of the times we pay for everything and we and whatever is left,
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: it's like, that is me. It's like, no, how much is your worth? That's what
speaker-1: Exactly.
speaker-0: it is. Because if your worth is, let's say five percent, I'm just whatever that is, right? That's good for you. But if at the end you're paying for everything and your last profit is like 1%, I mean, it's okay, but are you really worth 1%? And you're willing to pay your for your operating, go like 40%, going 50%, right? No, have like your set percentages.
speaker-1: So I get that fifty percent owner's compensation goes. Straight boom. Owner compensated. And then that profit, what's cool about that profit account, because you've already given yourself the owner's compens the compensation. The profit is like what you're keeping for the business. But you can do like fun things with that. Like some people will I don't know, take themselves on a little trip. Or some people will just let it build. Like my goal is to let that profit one build as I'm planning for this foundation. So I'm still getting my owner's compensation, still working towards the future of this foundation, still being able to cover taxes. Like it's it's brilliant. I can't remember the guy's name who wrote the book.
speaker-0: It's it's it's a great way of putting it because when you have your money allocated properly, there's no stress. Yeah. Operating, you got it. Your profit, you got it or the company's profit, your your fees, right? Because it's a fee because it's you're working for your company and all everything is taxes. Once tax season comes, here's the 15%, whatever that was, boom.
speaker-1: And there's always so far, there's always something left over in that tax account. Like it ends up being, I end up having to pay less than what I have saved for because I'm over overcompensating in that way. And then there's like this fun little chunk of change, like, okay, I'm going to Bali. Awesome. Just Bali
speaker-0: Bally. Right, I'm gonna ball and b
speaker-1: and Bali. And I'll be like thanking past Michelle for future Michelle's like eventual pleasures.
speaker-0: I like that. And I like that. That's a good way of saving by allocating on the right strategy. Now, like I mentioned you earlier at four in the morning, there's this question just came to me. And I'm like, I have to ask this question to Dr. Pleasure. Can you share, can you share with us like a time that you couldn't stop laughing at something that happened?
speaker-1: Yes. it involves New York and a rat. So I have an obsession. I love New York. It's like I definitely want to one day have a home there as well. And I always when I'm when I'm there, I feel like I'm not really here until I've seen some rats. Like that is just my thing. I have to eat a slice of pizza and see some rats. So I was like on the prowl for rats for a couple days and I'm like, my God, I haven't seen one. And then I saw one, so I got on my camera because you know I'm always like trying to post content, whatever. And I'm Filming this rat, he was like eating a Snickers or something. What? Yeah, it was like he was on the steps. He was on the steps of the subway, and I'm so intent on filming him, and I'm excited about it. And then all of a sudden, he just runs towards me, and I like freak out because, like, and it looks, I mean, I wish I could show you the video, but the rat like run toward me, and my friend, like there were two police officers there, and me and my friend, and like Like all four of us were just like laughing, laughing, laughing, belly. I try to belly laugh like as much as I can because it's just so good for you. But this this rat, like, you want content? Like, I'm gonna give you content. Just like, and they're big rats in New York, you know. Plus, he just got beefed out on the Snickers that like she ate, and like he just like boom, zoomed towards me. And I like dropped my phone or like like cut it off real quick and started running, and then we just we were. We're just laughing for like a couple of subway stops of just this rap.
speaker-0: Well thank you for sharing that. Now my last question comes from my previous guest. They'd have no idea who you were or who my next guest was. Okay. They said if you could make a change in the world, what would it be?
speaker-1: your last guest. Whoa. This is so hard because any question you any answer you give, someone's gonna be like, Why didn't you say this? But I think this one thing could impact everything else. I would Deepen and expand empathy in every single human. Because if you think about it, like empathy is that like that first step towards an equitable world. Like if we're if everyone has the ability to empathize with another person's plight, situation, life experience. then they're gonna be moved ideally to act accordingly or act differently. Like anytime we've done some sort of action of service or support, it's often stems from a place of of empathy, unless they're trying to be self-serving. But for most people, it stems from that. So if you can imagine a world where people on the right, the left, everywhere in between actually empathized with one another, Could could we, might we get further than we are right now? But that's just my first draft thinking. Probably three days later from now, I will have the most amazing answer that everyone in the world would agree with.
speaker-0: Can't wait.
speaker-1: I changed my answer.
speaker-0: You know, I I I can agree with empathy. A lot of things can be avoided. A lot of change would happen faster if people just saw that need and be empathetic to to people.
speaker-1: Yeah, the ability to understand what other people are going through. So let's work on it together.
speaker-0: being curious and asking questions. To see how the other person is truly doing, and at the same time, the other person truly answering that question without a surface level answer. Like,
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: I do that a lot. How you doing? I'm I'm good. Instead of truly sharing, am I happy?
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Am I sad? I was sad, but now I have you know that. Because it it it allows other people to also be authentic. Mm-hmm. But someone has to do it first.
speaker-1: Yeah, you know, when people ask me that question, because I definitely was prior pre-liberated Michelle was very much fine, fine, fine, I'm fine. Liberated Michelle is at first I say, let me check in. Sometimes I'm moving so fast I like don't even know how I'm feeling. And then and I'm like, how am I? And then I answer honestly. And sometimes they probably do wish I just said fine, because they don't really care.
speaker-0: I think that's a problem. Yeah. Because if you are just asking how are you just to say how are you? I mean
speaker-1: Yeah, it's just so it's a waste. Let's get into it. Yeah. Like, how are you really? Yeah. And when you do ask and people know they're asking genuinely and they have that space to share, it it's like so freeing for them in that moment. Not that you're about to solve whatever they say, but just that act of them like getting it out is like it's helpful for them. It's expressive. Yeah. You know.
speaker-0: I've had such a a great conversation with you, Doctor Pledger. It's sweet. You're gonna come back. And and I'm sure we always have something to to talk about anywhere that that we meet.
speaker-1: A hundred percent.
speaker-0: For the listeners, thank you for thank you for staying here and and listening to to the stories. If you have any questions, you guys wanna subscribe to the newsletter, follow her on LinkedIn, Instagram, anything. All her information is gonna be on the description. So make sure that you go check it out. And then the she's gonna have the curriculum, the three-month curriculum. If you wanna be a part of it, you know, check it out. It might be for you now, later, but at least give someone the opportunity that is ready now to be a part of it. Remember to pay yourself first, and I'll see you next chapter.
speaker-1: Thank you so much, Luis. I am so excited to be here. You already know I listen to your podcast and I have loved learning from all your guests. So it's great to finally be in the chair.
speaker-0: So we we've been chatting before we started and like time is running and running. We're just like talking and talking, but it's it's so great to have conversations with you. They always go in so many different directions. But can you just tell me a little bit about you and and what you do currently?
speaker-1: Yes. I in one word, I'm a liberator. Everything I do has to do with liberation. So I would consider myself a catalyst for other people's liberation. And I do that in a lot of different ways. you got to experience liberation coaching. So that's one-on-one coaching where folks come to me and there's usually some sort of internal dilemma, some life dilemma that they just need. support with and I love being able to get them in 30 to 45 minutes from like coming in stuck or blocked around something and then by the end of the session they know they're clearer, they have next right steps that they want to try out. So that's one form of liberation. I also work with organizations who let's say they have oppressive dynamics that they want to be liberated from, like oppressive ways of being, supremacy culture. ways of being that just don't allow the organization to be a place of joy and authenticity. And so I support them in disrupting that oppressive situation and creating more libertari liberatory structures. Cause a lot of times people can dismantle oppression, but if you don't have something to replace it with, then you're just gonna regress to the mean. So I do that kind of support. And then lastly I'll talk about interpersonal liberation. So when people have difficulty with generative conflict, right? They so they avoid it because there's a fear of open conflict with another person, a fear of letting people down. So really thinking about those interpersonal dynamics that are oppressive and how do we liberate people from that. So everything is about getting people free from liberation coaching to my freedom dreaming design sessions. I just want people to live
speaker-0: Let's
speaker-1: lives of authenticity, freedom, and joy because it's it's so much better than oppression.
speaker-0: That is very true. Now how'd you get into that?
speaker-1: I often say like my real true first tangible act of liberation was my divorce. I think that, well, I know for sure that that opened so many doors for me to be able to live the life of my dreams. And yes, it was a really traumatic and and sad experience. However, If that hadn't happened, I would not have started my company. I wouldn't have written my book. I wouldn't have traveled to at this point 38 countries. Like I just have so much freedom that I was not experiencing in that relationship. So that is really what what kicked it off.
speaker-0: No, who was Doctor Pledger before the divorce happened and all this liberation?
speaker-1: my gosh, you would not have even recognized her in some ways because I was definitely playing small, shrinking, not really exercising all of the gifts and talents that God has blessed me with and that have come from my ancestors. I was just not living a liberated life. And I was really unhappy. And so I poured myself into work. You know, sometimes when you're unhappy in a relationship. You you shift your energy somewhere else. Where can you get support, value, things like that? And so I was a workaholic big time. And that's where I just found my joy, my success, and my colleagues and all of those things. And I would say post liberation, I still, I'm still I love work. but it's because I love what I do. But I've also been able to now spend quality time with my friends, travel, just get to take up space. base and be unapologetically me because I was definitely internally oppressed for so many reasons. I had a lot of I grew up with a lot of internalized oppression around my race because I went to predominantly white schools. So you know grew up thinking like white is better. And so did my best to assimilate into those spaces. And that was just a lot of years of me assimilating to survive instead of being my authentic self and thriving. And so it wasn't until probably like my my thirties when I started to undo a lot of that damage of internalized oppression and self hatred and really like love who I am, my people, all of those things. And now in my forties, I'm just living my best life. I'm I'm about to be in my fifties soon. So who knows what the fifties have in store, but if they're if they're anything like the forties, I'll be in good shape.
speaker-0: That's great to hear. Now, you're talking about liberation, how you went from being oppressed right before the divorce, but after that, it's just like all these things that that you went through. What is the first thing that you did to start that journey of liberation?
speaker-1: Ooh, I I love this question because it makes me have to reflect on the first you have to grieve, like you have to grieve the loss of this old you, this old life, how you saw yourself in that particular situation, grieve that 10 years of being in relationship with someone, or 10 married years, but even more of that, prior to marriage. So I think for me personally, and everyone's liberation journey is completely different. That's why I hesitate to give like a prescrip prescriptive. Everybody defines liberation differently, but for me, it was having the space to just be. I was in a situation where if I shined or if good things happened to me, I didn't have a partner that was necessarily supportive of that. He was more jealous of that. So it felt like I couldn't really celebrate the good things that were happening to me. Or I would go celebrate them with my parents or my friends, but not with the person who in my mind is supposed to be like your cheerleader, your partner. and he was great at other things. He just was not great at that. And so that's where the shrinking came from. So when I finally didn't have to worry about handling someone else's feelings about my success, it was like, this feels this feels good. I can get an award and be happy about it and do my own dance because it's just In this house now, like or my dog Mamba at the time, and we would celebrate together. so I I didn't have to take care of someone else by just being it sounds weird, I don't mean to sound cocky, but like I was gaining a lot of success in in different areas of my life, and you want to be able to celebrate that with your partner. So that is probably the first thing is just being able to be who I I love hearing your dogs. It's like they're mourning that loss with me and then they're also excited about the liberation.
speaker-0: I think that was a a great response to what happened when you were having success and you were not being supported at the same time by that partner that for a lot of us, when we were having success, we want someone to celebrate with us. Like, yeah, you did it, good job, and you know, let's go to the next one and so on and so forth. Because when people become jealous Of that success, like you mentioned, we start shrinking. It's like, should I be doing this? Should I not be doing this? And once you let that go, and now you start celebrating with yourself and your dog mom by that time, it's like, yes, mommy, go ahead. You you did it, celebrate, and you can start dancing and doing all these things for yourself, traveling 38 countries. Why
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: 38 countries?
speaker-1: Because I don't have time to do more right now. But no, I started I started in college, you know, you start with like Mexico and then I studied abroad in Chile. nice and then I taught in Japan. And so while I studied abroad in Chile, I traveled around South America. And then I in between undergrad and my first round of grad school, I was like, I'm gonna go teach in Japan for a year, but I loved it so much. I ended up staying there for two years and traveling around Asia as well. And then most of My travels in Latin America, like Central, South, and the Caribbean, because como ya tu sabes, me encanta cultura Latina. so yeah, I just I just a huge part of my like social life is in the Latin community because of dance, music, things that I'm interested in, and I grew up speaking Spanish, so. And then I studied it through high school, studied it in college, got a Chilean boyfriend who didn't speak English. You know, they say the best way to learn a language is to date the dictionary. And so, and now Spanish is still a huge part of my life. Right now, I'll be going to Colombia soon to do, I wanna get better at my academic Spanish because I do a lot of public speaking in English, a lot of keynoting, workshop facil facilitation, all of that. And I wanna be able to do all of that in Spanish as well. Keynote in Spanish, workshops, series, everything in Spanish. So that's what I'm a goal I'm working on now. It's just my academic Spanish. Yeah.
speaker-0: And it's great. It's great to be able to say the same thing with the same passion, the same verbiage in English, in Spanish, maybe in I don't know if you learn Japanese to
speaker-1: Yeah, I do. I speak conversational Japanese. I did a keynote in Japan in January and it was awesome. And I did I opened speaking a little bit of Japanese, then I switched to English and then there was translation. But like one day to be able to full on do a keyno in Japanese would be amazing. And I just got accepted my proposal got accepted for speaking engagement in China. So I'm like, maybe I need to learn Mandarin right now. But I mean I love to talk in all the languages.
speaker-0: Im Mat ooh, that would be so cool.
speaker-1: How cool would that be? A black woman just like busting out a bunch of
speaker-0: You just show up to like, it's gonna be English. It just started Mandarin and then you go to another one's like, yeah, she speaks Mandarin and English, Spanish or you know, all those things.
speaker-1: It would be so much better 'cause I I make a lot of jokes in my speaking and so when there's a translation delay, it's like you have to like you make the joke, it's quiet, then the translator and then there's like a delayed laughter. I'm like, okay, it would be cool to just say the joke in Mandarin or Japanese and get the laughs right away.
speaker-0: Now Doctor Mesh Pledger, I was gonna say Michelle, right?
speaker-1: Doctor Michelle, Doctor Fredder, Diva, whatever works for you.
speaker-0: What's been an event in your life that challenged you and almost broke you? I know you mentioned your divorce.
speaker-1: Yes, and it wasn't when the divor when I filed for divorce, it I was also working on my dissertation and my mom was diagnosed with cancer. So it was like these three Ds that I I I talk about like divorce, dissertation, diagnosis. And it was a lot for I think any person to to navigate because I was serving as my own attorney in the divorce. So I was going to the courthouse, taking all these workshops to be able to do the paperwork, do everything. so that was that was a lot. But I think what was helpful was I didn't have any control over my mom's diagnosis as much as I wish I I could have. And I didn't have a lot of control over the events that led to the divorce. at the end, but I did have control over this dissertation. So that was kind of this anchoring of just writing it and spending so much I took myself to Cuba to to write it, process the divorce, and then finish writing the dissertation and just getting it out. But the beautiful thing that happened is I ended up Right, my book was inspired by my dissertation because I was like, no one's gonna freaking read my dissertation. I mean, a few people have downloaded it, like, yay, but nobody's like, I wonder what her dissertation's about. so I wrote a book for educators called Liberate Pocket Size Paradigms for Liberatory Learning, because I wanted educators to have a what, why, how guide to support culturally and linguistically diverse young people in the classroom so that they are experiencing an education. That they do not need to recover from because they're actually seeing themselves in the curriculum. They're valued, all of those things. So that book came out of that. And I had an opportunity, but while my mom was in hospice to read a good portion of the book to her before she passed. So it just, you know, God, God be up there gotten. And you just, we just have to and, you know, I'm a I'm a believer in in God and I believe that I just have to trust. have faith, you know, in what the path that he's shaped for me. It doesn't mean like it's easy. losing my mom was the hardest thing I've ever experienced in my life. Taking care of her in hospice was challenging because little by little she was losing everything that like made her have joy, like losing her ability to to taste, her ability to walk, losing her ability to eventually like hold things and to Be in a position, a reverse position, right? Like she, when she had me, I was a baby and she was doing all the things, feeding me, changing me, like giving me a bath. And now you have this complete role reversal where I'm feeding my mom, changing my mom, giving my mom a bath. And for her, because she was such like her work ethic was her main value and she was a service person and she was always doing, doing, doing, I knew how much it was. like hurting her to not be able to do for herself and have people taking care of her. And it was just it was just a hard time for everyone. But I'm so grateful that I had those those four months 'cause they had given her two weeks to two months to live and we got four months. So I I think of those as like two bonus months that we were given to just be with her, take care of her. but when she passed that was I never like let myself imagine what life without my mom would be like because she was my best friend. Like we talked every day, slumber parties on the weekends, the whole nine. She was my person. And I remember going to grief counseling afterwards and one of the prompts was, was this what you imagined it to be like? And I was like, I never even let myself imagine that this day would happen, which I know I maybe other people do, but yeah, I just could not think of a world. without my mom and didn't and for a while after didn't wanna be in the world without her. But thankfully like I have a therapist and grief counseling and my friends were super supportive. So I got through it.
speaker-0: So in those four months that that you had your mom, your book was was done and you were s you were reading some of it to her. What was her reaction when you were reading like your own book to her?
speaker-1: She really liked the cover of the book, which was illustrated by one of my friends, Chicle. He's like an amazing artist. And so the cover is this really beautiful phoenix, which has like a lot of symbolism. But so she loved the cover. And I mean the book is on like ed education and pedagogy, so it's not like this thrilling novel, but she, you know, she with what capacity she had at that time, you know, she ex expressed. like proud like she's proud of me for for finishing it. And I knew, she knew when I started the book, I knew when she was more coherent back then, like how proud she was. Like I was never in doubt of either of my parents of how they how they see me, how they value me. My mom used to always tell me, you are enough because she knew I struggled with enoughness that was based off of like societal message and and things like that. So she in every card, she would always say, You are enough, you are enough. And I just love that I get to carry so much of her with me in my work ethic and my compassion for people and my service from people. That all came from my mom. So even though she's not on this physical plane, people get to experience her through me every single day. And she's someone who didn't live life in a liberated way always because she was like shy, timid, grew up with a lot of fear based off of some things that happened in her childhood. And that's why she was always in awe of like when I'm like flying off to this country or going over here, like whatever. She's like, wow, because it's just not like how she grew up. But I I knew that she was extremely proud and like, I can't wait to see her in heaven someday. We're gonna party you know.
speaker-0: I I like how you light up when you talk about your mom, how you are carrying her legacy because she taught you a lot.
speaker-1: So much. Yeah.
speaker-0: And now people are seeing your mom through you. And then every person that is listening to you, that you're interacting with, that you have just sharing conversations with, you're sharing yourself to them. And they eventually gonna carry your own legacy in one way or the other. Yeah. And it's it's so much fun when you see it that way. Because a lot of times like, well, I wanna leave this, I wanna leave that. But if you just leave yourself who you are as a person and you have this impact on just another person, that's another another legacy that you leave. And that person is gonna have your legacy plus theirs, and you're just gonna keep on evolving and getting better and better and better. And that's the beauty of
speaker-1: Using the word legacy because that that word is in my mind often, like the legacy, because I don't have biological children, so I know I won't have like a biological legacy, but I plan to have a pedagogical legacy through all of like the keynotes, the publications, the interactions that we have with people every single day. So yeah, I feel I feel good. She was like a joyful, happy person too.
speaker-0: So you've been talking about your mom, the legacy that you're leaving through all the keynote speaker and through the book and just your conversations with every single person that you come in contact with, because that's how we share our knowledge. Because if we just keep our knowledge to ourselves, then what are why are we learning? Why are we studying? No, everything that we learn is to pass down and share everything with a little touch from someone else's legacy and just keeps on evolving. And that leads me into mentorship. Have you ever had any mentors that they know they're your mentors? Or perhaps you just see them as a mentor because of how they carry themselves.
speaker-1: I love this question. And I don't know if this is a blessing or a curse, but I literally see almost every person I interact with as some sort of coach or mentor. Because I feel like there is something I have to learn from every single human. So of course I do have specific mentors like Siomara Paramsi is my coach when it comes to technically, I guess you would call her like an equity coach or an executive coach, because I'm in leadership at my organization. And so she has. is I love her style of coaching because She actually asks, like, what do you need? Would you she'll say, like, would you like me to ask questions about this? Would you like me to weigh in? Like, and because sometimes you just want an answer. Like, just tell me what to do or tell me what you would do. But sometimes you really need to self-source. And so you're like, no, I want you to just ask me questions so I can like get there. So just depending on what state of mind you're in. And she's someone who Lives what she's coaching. And that's definitely something that I aspire to be. I would also say my dissertation chair, Alan Daly, he believed in me before I believed in myself because getting a a doctorate degree, especially as like a black woman grew up poor, all the things, you know, imposter syndrome. It's it's real and it's not real, right? It's it's a real phenomenon that phenomenon that people experience and it's BS because like who are you pretending to be? Like you're you. but he did an excellent job of because I was the only black person I was the only black person in my master's program for both years, and I was the only black person in my doctoral program. So it's easy to have those questions of like, do I belong here? Like, because I've had like belongingness issues since Childhood and him just being this person who believed in what I wanted to research, believed in who I was as a person, believed in my ability to do the work successfully, to be able to write academically, to be able to publish, all of those things has been amazing. Even at my job, the president of our graduate school, when he promoted me to a leadership position, you know, that's his him seeing something in me that he's like you you belong in this in this role and here's why so there's but then there's everyday people like I I'll just be in you're you know you and I we love to talk so we'll we'll talk to anybody and I'll just ask questions about their life, what they did and you get all kinds of tips and advice because they're just sharing their story. So I feel like everybody's my mentor in some capacity.
speaker-0: Mm-hmm. I love that because everyone has something, has their own story. No one can question their story, what they went through and how they got out of it. That's a different perspective in life that we can adopt the good and leave the bad. And that's what we can get better for ourselves and then share their tips blended with ours to someone else so they can also take the good and leave the bad.
speaker-1: Yes. And even if the person is, let's say, a horrible person to you, that's mentorship. It's coaching. Like I'm learning exactly how I don't want to be. Correct. Like I, for example, there's been this might be I don't know if this is a weird, but okay. I don't know if you've ever met your hero like somebody that you have a hero in in the real estate world or the finance world and for me majority of my work has been in education and so there have been times when I've met my education heroes who like I I love their work. I cited them in my dissertation. I quote them in my classes, whatever. I assign their their texts and then I meet them in person and the way they treat me is not wonderful and it's like, my gosh, but I like really value your work and you're not a kind person. And but that teaches even right there, it's mentorship that when people come up to me after a keynote, you better believe they're getting my full attention. When they're coming up to me to like get their book signed, I wanna know like what grade do you teach? Like what what's lighting you up about this school year? I want them to feel seen because I've learned from that. that other mentor that you know they didn't see me or didn't value my presence. And it doesn't take that much to just acknowledge someone's presence and like ask one question about them. Or they're so excited to meet you. So like it doesn't hurt you to like show love and grace. Like it's that like it's to me it's like harder to be rude. So so even like people who don't treat us well We can learn from that. Like everything is like you win or you learn. And learning is winning. So you just win either way. Exactly.
speaker-0: That's a that's a like a win win situation. Yeah. Now you mentioned your your first Siomara. I like the questions that he that she asked right before the conversation. And I think that could be applied in just any conversation that can avoid a lot of conflicts. Yeah. Because I say that in relationships, and I've been part of that as well. That when I'm, let's say you're you're sharing some your day with me, and if it's just a normal conversation, I'm gonna try to fix it. And maybe you don't want to fix, you just want to vent. You're like ask me questions so I can fix my own goddamn problem. And
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: if we just start the conversation, let's just say you ask me, hey Luis, can you can we just have a conversation? Before we start, would you like me to just listen? Ask you questions, weigh in, fix it. Like, what do you want? What kind of hat do you want me to wear? I just want you to listen.
speaker-1: Perfect. Yes. And I always have to do that with my my partner who is a fix it person. my gosh. And so sometimes I'll have to be like, listen, honey, I right now, I just need you to be on Team Michelle. Like, I don't want you to fix it. I don't want you to play devil's advocate and give me their side. I don't care about their side right now. I just want to vent and I want you to be like, you're right, let's go. And then there's other times it's just like, okay, I I'm seeing this this way. Can you help me? Like, are there is there a perspective that I'm not seeing and then you know he'll have one because that helped avoid because in the beginning he would just wanna fix everything and that would just like you said it's like no I'm not I don't I don't want to fix it right now. I wanna do this. Or maybe I do need your help. But just At like communicating, even like when you're giving feedback to someone, I always say, like, are you available for feedback? Because sometimes people are not available for feedback. And so it's just gonna like be a waste of both people's time because you they have to be in a space, like maybe something else happened that day, and they're just not in the headspace where they're gonna receive it well. And so they'll be like, No, not right now, but why don't you call me tomorrow morning because I'll be a little more free. And I appreciate when people, if they're gonna give me feedback, if they also say, like, are you available for feedback? And then I can do like Like this honest self-check-in, like am I right now? Yeah, my heart space is open. I feel good. Like go for it. What's up? Or like, ooh, mm-hmm, this thing just happened. So let me just take 10 minutes and then I'm gonna circle back or whatever.
speaker-0: It's a good practice to have to avoid future conflicts and start building all this resentment of I'm not being heard or you just want to fix it all or whatever the case is. I think it's very important to do that. And I've been practicing myself. And I say practicing because it's not a full habit yet, but I feel like catching it has been shrinking and shrinking and shrinking it. the time until I can catch it right before the conversation to get into it. Because right now I'm catching it as the conversation goes and I catch myself recommending or giving feedback and I'm like, wait, is that who you want me to be right now? Or you just want me to be a a listener? And like I just want you to listen. Okay.
speaker-1: And it's all take back practice. I love that you use the word practice because like Ever like we're all just walking each other through life and trying to figure it out together. And even liberation is a practice. Like just because I found a living for liberation doesn't mean I'm liberated all the time. I still overthink. I still have moments of like self-doubt. All those things still happen, but the the awareness piece of it, right, is quicker. Like I'm aware and then I can make a decision of how I want to navigate out of that. Like recently at I was at a salsa dance class. I won't Say the studio name, but I was at a salsa dance class, and you basically we high-five each other when you change lines, like where the instructors like rotate lines and you high-five each other. And there was this girl who just refused to high-five me every single time. But she would high-five the person on her other side, and like, when I tell you, Luis, I perseparated over this high-five situation for days. Just like my boyfriends had to just hear me be like, but I just don't understand why she didn't want to high-five me. I've never done anything to her, and I come to class very joyfully. Like maybe I'm too joyful. Like, like I'm just like in my head, and I was like, What are you doing? Who cares? This girl don't want to high five you. Let her not high-five you. Like it's okay. She's missing out on like a really cool fun person, and that's on her. And like you're also really good at giving high fives. And then you can high-five yourself. Like, I just had to. That's true. But so even like in the professions that we are or the journeys that we're on, it's all practice. Like we're all just working on it. I'm working on it. So I may be a bit further ahead than my clients. and that's why I'm able to support them. But we're all working on this liberation together.
speaker-0: That there's always someone ahead. There's others coming back from their journey. And those are the ones that we should be asking a lot of questions to because they want to share. But they already learned so much that they wanna share when they're being asked. They just don't wanna give feedback because people are like, Well, I didn't even ask.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And at the same time, people like us, we don't wanna ask questions. So it's like, you know, ask more questions. I've learned that. Ask questions to every single person about their life, about their journey, about how they do one thing versus the other. Maybe maybe you might learn something that might be better than than than your system, or it can make your system even better.
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Like I've been accused of asking so many questions that it sounds like an interrogation. So I actually need to pull back on my question asking. But even in our conversation earlier, when you're telling me about real estate and the things you've done with your home, like I'm learning from that conversation. Like, how did you do that? Who was your contractor? Like, how does this work? If I want to invest in property over here, like we only have like something to gain from asking the question. That's it. Otherwise, we're like leaving with regret. Like, I wish I would have asked the question.
speaker-0: And something that I've learned is going to every single conversation with catching things to improve on, learning from that person because everything is caught. Because the only time we can catch things is when we're open to it. Because we can have all this conversation at the end of the day, I'm like Nice chatting with you, but I didn't learn anything because I didn't feel like catching anything. But when we go with that openness to catch everything that you're saying, like, I can implement this here, I can teach this this way, or there's a good way of doing this, or liberating this, liberating that, writing books, etc. Now I'm learning a lot from you, who you represent, your character. There's so many different things because your smile, the way that you interact, you're very like open and flowy and everything. And how you focus and give attention to the people that come say hi to you after like a keynote speak. And that is very key.
speaker-1: And you just said a word right there, like not everything You didn't say it this way, but I'm gonna make it rhyme. Like, not everything that's taught is caught. Correct. Right. And so we're like we have agency over the catching of what that's why when people say like they're bored or they didn't get something out of we're at something, I didn't get anything out of that. And I I don't know about you, but like I can get anything out of anything. Anything and like it it could be the most boring talk. Then maybe I learned that that's not how I want to present a keynote. Like whatever. Like you there are always opportunities to say to be open to discovery and to learn from the interaction that you're in. So I don't know where we were headed with this but let's keep going. I love it.
speaker-0: So Dr. Pleasure, what's one lesson you've learned the hard way?
speaker-1: relationships. Y'all, I I let me tell you, Luis, I I don't know. I was very into my dad always says, you can't turn a project into a partner, Michelle. Because I was like I don't know if it was just like I would see the red flags, Luis, and I would just be like challenge option. Good project. Yeah. Like, I'm gonna overachieve my way to like greatness in this relationship. And I definitely accepted treatment and behavior that I was did not deserve, right? and I allowed just a lot of things that I shouldn't have. And I, you know, I used to pitch frame it like, this person like cheated on me, this person used me for money, this person whatever. But I was there too. And so there were things that I noticed and probably ignored, or in some cases did ignore, or didn't ignore, but didn't do anything about. So I always talk about being people being complicit in their own oppression. And in some of these instances I was very complicit because I didn't I could see, I could see the red flags. One time my niece said, Auntie Shell, these aren't red flags, they're sirens. Like even my nieces are like, what are you doing with this guy? Or whatever. And so it took me longer than it should have. Like while other areas of my life were getting liberated. This need for l I love love. I'm a like romantic comedy believing kind of love person. Like I just want the person who's like, they're your screensaver and you're wearing coordinated outfits and like just I love love. And so I would accept there's a saying from this movie like we accept the love we think we deserve and You know, when you're not in a place of high self-worth, then you you accept scraps, right? You accept pettiness, you accept cheating, you c accept lying, you accept a lot of things. well, I never accepted cheating. Once I found out cheating situations, they were always gone. But there were other things that I accepted until I got really clear on my own worth and my own ability to say, no, like I deserve, I deserve better and I don't need closure. Like the the best closure is knowing that I deserve someone better and just like closing that door. There's somebody who I I released from my life who still messages me, sends me songs that he wrote about me, all this stuff. And I do not respond at all. And there's something empowering about that, because some people are like, why don't you just block him? Because I want to prove to myself that even when the doors open, like I can say no to that person. It feels so good. I don't I don't know why, especially because this person like really did me dirty and now he's realized that mistake and doing everything like in his power to try to win me back. not everything in his power, but ever from time to time he's like sending something, whatever. And it just feels good to be like, no, I value myself. So go like great, you you think you changed? Awesome. That's gonna benefit somebody else, but this ship sailed. So that just took me forever to learn. But now that I've learned it and now that I am with someone who treats me really well, is very respectful, really cares about me, like treats me how I know I deserve to be treated, how I know God wants me to how I know my parents want me to be treated. my dad likes my dad is probably ready for us to get married already. I'm like, dad, we've only been dating three months. Let's just like everybody slow down.
speaker-0: That's a good sign. That's a green flag, right? It's
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah.
speaker-0: like auntie. That's a what would be like a green light, I'm assuming? Or like instead of a siren?
speaker-1: Yeah, it's such a it's such a green light. So like for and I know a lot of people, love and relationships is such a hard one, but the beauty of going through a lot of that is the people that I get to coach. Like so much of our trials and tribulations means that we get to support people who are going through that same process. So my my clients who are overthinkers, that was me, is me. I know how to support them. My clients who suffer from internalized depression, right? Not loving who they are either because of like Racialized things, homophobic things, whatever. I know how to support that. Workplace dilemmas. I know it's about relationships. So I just love how I think one of your guests in a previous episode was talking about making use of the pain or something. And like I always talk about like my pain being part of my purpose. Like be because I've been a I've gone through and and survived and and thrived through some of those things. It so it feeds my purpose and I'm able to support people in ways that I wouldn't have been able to if I hadn't have gone through those things, which I know you understand.
speaker-0: There's no wasted pain. No wasted pain through everything that we everything is a learning experience. Yeah. If you just want it to be a learning experience. And to some people, those experiences might keep them there forever. And they start blaming the entire world about what's happening. Because internally they don't want to admit of who they are as a person. to be able to grow from it, see their true worth, and keep on moving forward.
speaker-1: Yeah, because it's comfortable what they know. Like I I encounter people who are are married to this old story, married to this victimized story, married to this like pain story, when there's like a whole other story that they could be living out. Like you get to be like the leading lady, man, they of your own life. Like you get to do that instead of like being this side character or character where things are like happening to you, it's like Yes, these things happen and you have now and you have like the all you have right now that's promised to you. Like that's it. You can't undo the freaking past. You don't know what's ahead. You have right now. What do you want to do with right now? And the question I'm always like posing. In my Freedom Dreaming Design Day, so the this is one of my favorite things to facilitate, is a freedom dreaming design day. But one of the questions that I ask is what what do you want freedom from? And what do you want freedom to? And that really unlocks a lot for people because they start to think about all the things in their life that they want freedom from. And then also the things in and they're different. sides of the coin because your freedom from are things that are like oppressing you. And a lot of times it can be our own minds that are oppressing us. Oftentimes the p my clients, that is what it is. But there's also external forces. So you're wanting to get released from that. But that freedom too is so expansive. Like I want freedom to travel, freedom to fall in love, freedom to start a business, freedom to write a book or to write 86 books like one of your previous guests. I'll be listening. And just even that, like if they and then in in the session in my design day, then of course we have a whole from freedom dreaming to freedom doing framework because a lot of times people will just get stuck in the dreaming and the dreams like don't actually manifest if people don't have a clear plan. So we go through this whole framework. So they leave that design day super clear action items of what to do to actually manifest or manifest this dream later on. And then we have a reunion call just a few days later because I I there's like they have to do at least one step toward it by that reunion call and then we're gonna celebrate. Like it's all that part of keeping each other lovingly accountable because when we're in community. We can just do so much more. When we feel like we're alone in isolation, we don't have the motivation. it's just a different feeling than like, we're all working on our dreams together and we're all gonna be showing up at that reunion call and saying, This is the step that that I've done so far towards my dream. Let's celebrate that together, right? I feel like celebration throughout, not just at the end, is so important. Like having that joy throughout the journey is For me, like I will celebrate, you know, like when you're watched, my Apple Watch will be like, Yeah, you stood up. I'm like, I did stand up. I sure did. Why am I gonna celebrate myself for standing up? I'm gonna get some water, like I'm gonna hydrate, like whatever. Like there's so much oppression and like horrible things happen in the world. So it's it's it is an act of resistance for us to maintain our joy, maintain our peace, maintain our purpose that we have in life.
speaker-0: I like this framework of dreaming it, but also putting it into actionable steps and having that immediate reunion within like a couple days of leaving that event. Just do one thing. Like, what's the first step? Do that and then celebrate it. Because That first action is the hardest. But if you have a deadline, it's like, hey, in two days, do the first one and you celebrate it, whatever it was. Now they're like, I did it and I got celebrated. Let me do another one. Starts
speaker-1: Yeah, let's see the next one.
speaker-0: building and building and building. And that's when it comes to knowing what you want, but at the same time putting an action plan. Because a lot of times like, knowledge is power. And it can be, but if you never put an action behind it is just a dream. Yep. You're still at the same place. You just read a book, you just went to an event. And it's
speaker-1: No one. It's it is no one. Because a lot of people's dreams that they when they come, there are dreams that don't just impact them. Like what they're dreaming up is gonna have this positive impact on the rest of the community or the world in some way. So when they sit on those dreams, like they're cheating, yes, themselves, but they're also cheating the world out of this experience, this book, this community garden, whatever it is. I have one I had one Freedom Dreamer. Like her dream is to judge horse races. Like that is her dream. Okay, great. You know, and and the cool thing is I don't need to be an expert on their dreams. I'm an expert at like dream making. So like supporting the system for them to make it. But people come with all kind like one person, this last Freedom Dreaming wants to start a home for domestic violence like in her community because they don't have one and she has experienced a number of women needing that. And so that is her dream. Again, if she sits on that dream, like how many women are then staying stuck in these abusive situations. But once she like realizes, no, I'm not just gonna keep it in the dream space. I'm actually gonna go from freedom dreaming to freedom doing. Now we get to a place where these women are supported. So it's just like I said, a catalyst of liberation is just why I wake up every morning so happy.
speaker-0: I love it.
speaker-1: And it's not toxic positivity before someone like accuses me of that. Like I know that there's real pain in the world and I, you know, I experience it, I observe it. my choice to show up joyfully to alleviate that for people is not toxic positive. It's an intentional choice. Intentional.
speaker-0: Now what stage are are you currently in? Yeah.
speaker-1: Of my life? Yeah. And I knew this question was coming because I know you asked your your other guests. so my word for the year is sovereignty.
speaker-0: Why did you choose that?
speaker-1: Because it's about sovereignty is like a governance over like a territory or a place, like complete governance and rule over a territory or place. And I'm my own territory. And for me, sovereignty symbolizes not caring what people think. She posts too much. She her posts are too funny. Her posts are whatever. Like, who cares? She dances like She mixes her hip hop with her batata, like, like, no, this is my my body, my space, my energy. I get to like show up in the world the way I want to show up. If you think I post too much or you wanna unsubscribe from my newsletter because it's too inspirational. I don't know why someone wanna unsubscribe. That's fine. Like because Th my sovereignty is mine. Like, yes, I'm here to impact and love on and support others, but I can only do that as my authentic self. And my authentic self is silly sometimes. I have a post that's coming out this morning that is about this croissant bread that I discovered at Costco. Is it gonna get likes? I don't care. I'm excited about this Costco croissant bread. Like, so just being sovereign in in what I do in my career, in how I live my life. And just okay. And then, okay, I know I told you I'd love to talk, and you would have to shut me up. I talk to my clients a lot about what it means to be like a magnet as well. And it's something I learned from one of my business coaches. that w oftentimes we think of magnets as attracting and they also repel. Yes. And I I really appreciate that. So like when people are drawn to me because we share similar values or they s see something, you know, that we can gain from one another, whatever, that's magnetism. But when people are repelled, then they're not my people and that's okay because they're gonna be magnetized to someone else who is right for them. So when people subscribe to my L liberation love letter every week. That's great. That's like a magnetism where I I drew people in. If somebody unsubscribes, that was a magnet situation where I repelled them. Instead of being like, my God, why are they underscribe unsubscribe? Should I change my post so that no, no, no, they're just not my people. And that's okay. And it's just been so freeing to think about that. Like I'm gonna attract like like minded or like spirited or like energetic, whatever, and I'm gonna repel those who aren't ready yet. Maybe they'll come back later, you know. Maybe they're not in a liberate enough. Some people are so oppressed and so locked in and imprisoned, like our patterns become our prisons, right? And so some people are stuck in those patterns that they can't even see that they're not free. And so maybe something else is gonna happen and someone else is gonna water them down the line. And then maybe they they'll come back, you know? It just you never know. And so I just keep I keep the door open.
speaker-0: I I like what you said about people joining and once they see the content, maybe something attracted them, they're like, this is cool, let me subscribe. They're like, it's not for me yet. They leave. Maybe they need to hear what they need to hear from someone else. That it might be the same thing that you're sharing, just in a different way, and then they start shifting their mindset, their belief, and then slowly they're gonna come back.
speaker-1: Yeah, they might come back. And they might not and it is okay.
speaker-0: It's okay. And it's okay because they can get the same thing from someone else that they relate better with. Mm-hmm. That's it. Now, what would you like for the listeners to take away from your your story?
speaker-1: Do not be complicit in your own oppression. Choose to live for liberation. Right now, there is some area of your life where you are not feeling free. It could be your job, it could be your relationship, it could be your own mindset and your inner critic. And You have choices. So you can either choose to stay complicit in that oppression or you can choose to live for liberation. And there are ways for you to get there. Obviously, I would love to support you in getting there, either through liberation coaching, freedom dreaming. But I I just want you to get there. Like like Luis was just saying, it may not be through me. It may be some other person that you've heard of or seen that you feel like, okay, this is the person that I want to work with as I move towards liberation. But the important part is for you to get there because the more free you are, that's gonna have an impact on the rest of society. When people see you living in your audacious, like liberated life. They're gonna get to do the same. They're gonna wanna do the same. They're gonna ask you how how are you doing that? What supported you? What helped you? So that they can and that just imagine like people all walking around in life, living in authenticity, freedom, and joy on purpose, loving each other. my gosh. Like that's the kind of world I wanna live in, like a musical.
speaker-0: I like what you mentioned. There'll be your own complicit to your oppression. Because a lot of us are like that. And we create that environment. And then we welcome others that are doing the same thing. Until that one person starts being liberated. But if their liberation is not, they don't really believe it as much, and they're still within that environment, they can come back. To being complicit to their oppression. So it's important to find those groups that are like they don't have to be months or years ahead of you. They can just have the same mindset of wanting to be liberated from whatever oppression they had so you can stick with it. Yeah. Be accountable. And then slowly, yeah, you can still go back to that old environment. to help others and be an example for others but to also be liberated one at a time because you mentioned earlier we are the best person to help the ones that we used to be.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: But we gotta make that change. Yes. We gotta change our circles or our environment because we become that person.
speaker-1: Yeah, it's the self-work. Like there's no like I I can't teach or guide somebody through something that I have not experienced. I can't do it well anyway. So it's the self-work that's so important that people don't invest in. They don't give their selves enough time. And I love that you said it like the community piece of that, because in the support piece of it, I'm launching this Living for Liberation League that is a three-month community that has curriculum, coaching, and the whole point is that we have spent s decades of our lives in oppression, like systemic oppression, period. Right? Systemic oppression, institutional oppression, internalized oppression, all the things. It is going to take time to unlearn all of that, to get free. That's not something you do in like one workshop or one liberation coaching session. That is a daily practice, right? And so that's what I'm excited about this league is that we are going to be working for 90 days specifically on liberating our lives in a number of different areas. And once you have that 90 days of practice, it's gonna be easier for you to go back to that group. that is still in oppression and like you have results now. Like you'll you're gonna be a different person after those ninety days. So I'm excited about that.
speaker-0: Sounds very exciting because 90 days, it's a really good time to learn how to do it and live like that for the rest of our life. Because it's not just like that three-month process, yeah, I'm liberated. And they kind of forget how to be liberated. Because you can come back. Three months, cool, but slowly. You know, people when they see you being successful or changing in some way, you're different.
speaker-1: Yep.
speaker-0: Why are you different? And you're like, well, how am I different? Because you do this, this, and then you start coming back. Because it's either you change and stick with it. Because you feel that's like the thing that you want to do or you believe in the others that you did change and you're something wrong with you and you wanna come back because you wanna be part of the herd again.
speaker-1: Yeah, and that's why it's so important, like who you surround yourself with is like s key. I mean, we've all heard the saying, your like network becomes your net worth and and all of those things. And when you have the practices and tools to actually help you so that even after the 90 days, even day 91. You have everything it takes, right, to continue this journey. But then it still becomes that choice. Like, am I choosing an oppressive way of being or am I choosing a liberatory way of being? Like what do I want for myself? Because Mel Robbins always says people only change when they want to. Like there's nothing, there's no amount of like coaching and inspiration. At the end of the day, unless someone wants to actually change, they're not changing.
speaker-0: That is very true. Because a little bit about me. Three years ago, for example, and before that, I was called on many things. Like, you do this, you are like this, many things. And I'm like, okay. I didn't feel like accepting it or being aware that that was happening to me, or that's who I was showing up to others. But then three years ago, Environment change. Environment change. I started doing more research, more reading, more business, you know, getting around the people that are on a journey to becoming better and then impacting whatever their impact of choice is. That is when I started seeing what other people meant. And I'm like, And I'm addicted to change.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: It's like when you talk to someone that used to know you back in the day, and the person that I am now, they're like, You changed. This is different. This is good, and this and that, especially when the mom, when your mom tells you,
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: I see you interacting with the family. asking questions, chatting up with them, something that I never did. Yes.
speaker-1: they witnessed a transformation.
speaker-0: And then until you see that, you're like, man, this is this is fun. I want to do more.
speaker-1: Well I'm curious, how do you deal with like people who knew you as that other person and are refusing to acknowledge your change?
speaker-0: Very good question. Like you mentioned, I just show who I am now. And if they wanna believe who I am now, good, we can stay in touch. But if not, if they still want to tell me the person that I should be, based on who they knew, mm-hmm. I'm not interested in that. Yeah. Because yes, I was that person, and it's okay. Everybody has their own stage of life, and it's good to change and improve, you know, in whatever aspect, positive, negative, people change. But I choose me. I know my worth, I know my value, and I know the person that I have become because the new friends that I have, the new acquaintances, conversations that I have now, they say different.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And I choose to be that person that the new people are being a part of, knowing, instead of that other person that I used to be. And and it and it gives me chills to see that huge change. And it's it it's and it's
speaker-1: Congratulations.
speaker-0: awesome. And it does. And I wish more people Wanted to change sooner than later. I know there's no too soon or too late to change, but it's so rewarding and so freeing, so liberating to be different and start following the the journey that you were meant to to be a part of to impact truly people and and and start l building a legacy. for yourself and just passing it from another person to another person is is very fun. Now, I know we talked a lot about different things. Is there anything that I haven't asked that you believe you want to share?
speaker-1: Mm. I think we I mean we talked about a lot. I like I wanted to, you know, talk about my book Liberate. We talked about I wanted to talk about freedom dreaming, liberation coaching, and the Living for Liberation League, and then leaving your audience with that question of like what do they want freedom from? What do they want freedom to? I feel like we nailed it. I mean, I don't wanna like
speaker-0: I think we're yeah, I think that's good. Because you're gonna come back. You're you're gonna I wanna bring you back and we're gonna keep on on chatting because your current stage, I wanna know what the future state is later
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: on. And we're gonna fill those gaps, you know, from what is today. Yeah, we have so much
speaker-1: Yeah, like much more to talk about this is just like the tip of the iceberg.
speaker-0: Just like a quick intro. Now, Dr. Pledger, you know, I I I I love finance. I like I like educating a lot of people on what finance is, what it can do if you just are open to what it can do for you and for your family, and the legacy financially that you can build. Because a lot of the times we don't come from money, but we are okay. leaving our next generation without that legacy as well. Right? So if we didn't come from a legacy from you know generational wealth, let's try to start that generational wealth building for our next generation. So you know it can keep on expanding and expanding. But my question to you is what's a financial habit that has benefited you lately?
speaker-1: I was ready for this one. And I was like, my God, there's so many I want to share, but we don't have enough time. So the first the first sort of concept that I learned that has stuck with me is that there are three types of people: debtors, savers, and wealth creators. And growing up poor, and I knew that I never wanted to be in debt. That was like a goal that I had. I didn't want to be in debt, and so I worked really hard. In college, I was working like three jobs full, just because I did not want to have all these loans and all these things. So I became a saver after that. And then I was like, I ended up joining this Rachel Rogers Millionaires Club. And her whole Rachel Rogers' whole thing is about getting women of women, women of color in particular, and and queer folks. To be millionaires. Like she wrote a book called We Should All Be Millionaires. And so I joined her millionaires club. We're called Schmilles. And that is what sort of flipped me into being a wealth creator, right? Like it's not just about saving. Like, I'm gonna save by not. having Starbucks today. It's like, no, I'm gonna generate enough wealth that I could have, you know, maybe not Starbucks, I I actually don't want to support them. But the Blue Mug Coffee and Tea in Escondito is my favorite coffee spot. So instead of saving by not going to blue mug coffee and tea, no, I'm gonna create enough wealth that I could go there every day. And bring friends, you know what I mean? So like moving into wealth creation, because I do ultimately want to have a foundation and I want that foundation to start giving money while I'm alive, not when I'm dead. so though that thing, being a wealth creator, so once that flipped, like it's it's okay to want to earn money, especially because women of color in particular. Do more philanthropy with their money than let's say their male counterparts, right? So, and I know that I'm gonna, I am doing and will continue to do great things with my money in terms of supporting other people. So the book that I read though that really shifted how I break down my money is called Profit First. And it is this book that instead of thinking of I'm gonna spend and then whatever's left over I'll create revenue and then I have these costs and whatever is left is my profit, it it's a c you probably understand or be able to explain it to your listeners more, but you basically break it down differently. And in my case, 30% goes to operating expenses. So whatever I make, 30% goes to operating expenses. That means that if I'm designing something It needs to it can't go exceed over that 30% that is in the operating expenses. So that I will always leave with a profit. So the breakdown that I'm in because of the bracket that I'm in is 15% goes to taxes, 50% goes to owner's compensation, 30% goes to operating expenses, 5% goes to profit. Am I missing a percent 50? No, that's it, right? And it has been a game changer in terms of how like when tax time comes, I'm not stressed out because I have every time I get paid from like a keynote or whatever, 15% is automatically. in that tax one. I always have profit because I'm a even if it's just five percent of whatever it there's always gonna be profit and then of course owners compensation and I'm only spending what I have in operating expenses. So there's no way for me to go over. You use the rest of your budget wisely. It's it's I you'll have to read the book because I'm like butchering it because finance is your area of expertise. Mine is liberation. but this book or even if you just read a summary of it and get like the the spreadsheet to break down, it's been super helpful. So maybe you could explain it.
speaker-0: Better good because you have to allocate your money to the right expense and profit is also an expense that I believe you should pay yourself first. Because a lot of the times we pay for everything and we and whatever is left,
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: it's like, that is me. It's like, no, how much is your worth? That's what
speaker-1: Exactly.
speaker-0: it is. Because if your worth is, let's say five percent, I'm just whatever that is, right? That's good for you. But if at the end you're paying for everything and your last profit is like 1%, I mean, it's okay, but are you really worth 1%? And you're willing to pay your for your operating, go like 40%, going 50%, right? No, have like your set percentages.
speaker-1: So I get that fifty percent owner's compensation goes. Straight boom. Owner compensated. And then that profit, what's cool about that profit account, because you've already given yourself the owner's compens the compensation. The profit is like what you're keeping for the business. But you can do like fun things with that. Like some people will I don't know, take themselves on a little trip. Or some people will just let it build. Like my goal is to let that profit one build as I'm planning for this foundation. So I'm still getting my owner's compensation, still working towards the future of this foundation, still being able to cover taxes. Like it's it's brilliant. I can't remember the guy's name who wrote the book.
speaker-0: It's it's it's a great way of putting it because when you have your money allocated properly, there's no stress. Yeah. Operating, you got it. Your profit, you got it or the company's profit, your your fees, right? Because it's a fee because it's you're working for your company and all everything is taxes. Once tax season comes, here's the 15%, whatever that was, boom.
speaker-1: And there's always so far, there's always something left over in that tax account. Like it ends up being, I end up having to pay less than what I have saved for because I'm over overcompensating in that way. And then there's like this fun little chunk of change, like, okay, I'm going to Bali. Awesome. Just Bali
speaker-0: Bally. Right, I'm gonna ball and b
speaker-1: and Bali. And I'll be like thanking past Michelle for future Michelle's like eventual pleasures.
speaker-0: I like that. And I like that. That's a good way of saving by allocating on the right strategy. Now, like I mentioned you earlier at four in the morning, there's this question just came to me. And I'm like, I have to ask this question to Dr. Pleasure. Can you share, can you share with us like a time that you couldn't stop laughing at something that happened?
speaker-1: Yes. it involves New York and a rat. So I have an obsession. I love New York. It's like I definitely want to one day have a home there as well. And I always when I'm when I'm there, I feel like I'm not really here until I've seen some rats. Like that is just my thing. I have to eat a slice of pizza and see some rats. So I was like on the prowl for rats for a couple days and I'm like, my God, I haven't seen one. And then I saw one, so I got on my camera because you know I'm always like trying to post content, whatever. And I'm Filming this rat, he was like eating a Snickers or something. What? Yeah, it was like he was on the steps. He was on the steps of the subway, and I'm so intent on filming him, and I'm excited about it. And then all of a sudden, he just runs towards me, and I like freak out because, like, and it looks, I mean, I wish I could show you the video, but the rat like run toward me, and my friend, like there were two police officers there, and me and my friend, and like Like all four of us were just like laughing, laughing, laughing, belly. I try to belly laugh like as much as I can because it's just so good for you. But this this rat, like, you want content? Like, I'm gonna give you content. Just like, and they're big rats in New York, you know. Plus, he just got beefed out on the Snickers that like she ate, and like he just like boom, zoomed towards me. And I like dropped my phone or like like cut it off real quick and started running, and then we just we were. We're just laughing for like a couple of subway stops of just this rap.
speaker-0: Well thank you for sharing that. Now my last question comes from my previous guest. They'd have no idea who you were or who my next guest was. Okay. They said if you could make a change in the world, what would it be?
speaker-1: your last guest. Whoa. This is so hard because any question you any answer you give, someone's gonna be like, Why didn't you say this? But I think this one thing could impact everything else. I would Deepen and expand empathy in every single human. Because if you think about it, like empathy is that like that first step towards an equitable world. Like if we're if everyone has the ability to empathize with another person's plight, situation, life experience. then they're gonna be moved ideally to act accordingly or act differently. Like anytime we've done some sort of action of service or support, it's often stems from a place of of empathy, unless they're trying to be self-serving. But for most people, it stems from that. So if you can imagine a world where people on the right, the left, everywhere in between actually empathized with one another, Could could we, might we get further than we are right now? But that's just my first draft thinking. Probably three days later from now, I will have the most amazing answer that everyone in the world would agree with.
speaker-0: Can't wait.
speaker-1: I changed my answer.
speaker-0: You know, I I I can agree with empathy. A lot of things can be avoided. A lot of change would happen faster if people just saw that need and be empathetic to to people.
speaker-1: Yeah, the ability to understand what other people are going through. So let's work on it together.
speaker-0: being curious and asking questions. To see how the other person is truly doing, and at the same time, the other person truly answering that question without a surface level answer. Like,
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: I do that a lot. How you doing? I'm I'm good. Instead of truly sharing, am I happy?
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Am I sad? I was sad, but now I have you know that. Because it it it allows other people to also be authentic. Mm-hmm. But someone has to do it first.
speaker-1: Yeah, you know, when people ask me that question, because I definitely was prior pre-liberated Michelle was very much fine, fine, fine, I'm fine. Liberated Michelle is at first I say, let me check in. Sometimes I'm moving so fast I like don't even know how I'm feeling. And then and I'm like, how am I? And then I answer honestly. And sometimes they probably do wish I just said fine, because they don't really care.
speaker-0: I think that's a problem. Yeah. Because if you are just asking how are you just to say how are you? I mean
speaker-1: Yeah, it's just so it's a waste. Let's get into it. Yeah. Like, how are you really? Yeah. And when you do ask and people know they're asking genuinely and they have that space to share, it it's like so freeing for them in that moment. Not that you're about to solve whatever they say, but just that act of them like getting it out is like it's helpful for them. It's expressive. Yeah. You know.
speaker-0: I've had such a a great conversation with you, Doctor Pledger. It's sweet. You're gonna come back. And and I'm sure we always have something to to talk about anywhere that that we meet.
speaker-1: A hundred percent.
speaker-0: For the listeners, thank you for thank you for staying here and and listening to to the stories. If you have any questions, you guys wanna subscribe to the newsletter, follow her on LinkedIn, Instagram, anything. All her information is gonna be on the description. So make sure that you go check it out. And then the she's gonna have the curriculum, the three-month curriculum. If you wanna be a part of it, you know, check it out. It might be for you now, later, but at least give someone the opportunity that is ready now to be a part of it. Remember to pay yourself first, and I'll see you next chapter.
