Erin Braxton (00:01)

Most of us love a good story. We love a good story. We love the movies. We love our romance novels. We love a good book. We love a good TikTok story. Storytime is in session these days, right? But the best stories are motivational, inspirational. I love a good story. I'm always telling a story to make my point when I come to you guys and talk.

But many of us are telling ourselves stories that are halting us, that are stopping us in our tracks, right? And I'm not talking about like little, you know, cliche stories, like little harmless stories. I'm talking about big stories with a whole beginning, middle, and end. A whole protagonist, an antagonist, a heroine, a villain, okay? I'm talking about the whole thing.

that we tell ourselves that prevent us from doing what it is we need to be doing. Now, stories are all good until they start to fuck with you, right? So today, I'm gonna talk about the four patterns that us black women are finding ourselves in because of the stories that we're telling ourselves and how we break those patterns with news stories.

So before we get into it,

Welcome to the Coffee No Cream podcast. My name is Erin Braxton and I'm the host of Coffee No Cream. Here on Coffee No Cream, we are unapologetically dedicated to black women and we share what I like to call Coffee No Cream moments. Those things that happen to us black women in business and in life just because we are black women. I just wanna ask that you guys please like, please share, please subscribe. You can hype the video, share it with someone who you feel needs it. I love the community that I'm building here.

and I just wanted to get out to more and more people. When you leave me a comment, I love to interact with you guys. So tell me how I'm doing. Tell me what you agree with, what you disagree with, all the things. And we're just gonna jump right in to the episode. Okay, stories. Now, like you guys know, I'm a big storyteller, all right? I love a story. I always have an example.

love listening to stories, I love telling stories. It's sort of my thing, right?

It's how I connect with people, right? But in the past, I have had a really bad habit of just making up stories. Stories that I have told myself that have prevented me from making the moves that I wanna make.

just due to nonsensical nonsense and BS that I've told myself in my head. It's not happened yet. There's no indication that it's gonna happen yet, but it's this sort of doom and gloom thing that we do that prevents us from moving forward. It's like we can see the vision, but we don't wanna feel the journey or we can't feel that this is part of the journey.

So what do we do? We fill in the gaps with a bunch of bullshit that stops us from doing what it is we want to do. So let's get into pattern number one.

pattern that I think a lot of us black women are seeing because we're just in a really challenging time right now. You know what's happening with black women in the jobs. So we're pivoting a lot of us. We're looking at new ways to find money. We're looking at new ways to uplift the community. We're just looking at new, new and different. lot of people have been at this for a while. So pattern number one,

is we're comparing without context. We're comparing, we're comparing without context, okay? What do I mean? I mean, there are a lot of people out here right now. There's a lot of social media. There's a lot of media period. Back in the day, we just had television and we had movies and we could compare ourselves to...

celebrities and movie stars and famous people, right? It was, was, they were a little more untouchable. But now we've got social media. So we've got regular degular people who sometimes don't look so regular degular, right? They are closer to you in circumstance than we've ever experienced before. All right.

So when you see an amazing black woman online and she's got her shit together, she's got an amazing career or job, she is poised, she's well dressed, she's put together, she's got all that going for herself. She's getting opportunities galore, speaking engagements, financial opportunities, know, podcasts, invitations, all of the things. And you say to yourself,

Wow, that's the kind of thing I want to be doing. I really want to do that. Wow, but she's just, you know, she's doing it. And don't let her be talking about similar topic matter that you want to talk about, all right? This is just one example of social media, okay? But this could be in any line of work, career thing, aspirational goal.

So we're looking at this person thinking how together they are, but we don't know the full context of her journey. We don't know what she's been through. We don't know what ⁓ it took for her to be sitting there in front of you for you to see her right now. When people come onto the internet, most of the time, especially if it's somebody like professional, not your, you know, I'm not talking about like,

people who, you know, aren't trying to be like maybe professional, I'm just saying, but them too. When you see people most of the time doing amazing things, they're best foot forward. Their dress, their hair, their makeup, you don't see them looking tore down, you know, a mess. You don't see that. They're putting their best foot forward. You don't see

say somebody speaking, all the practice that they went through, the training, the coach they hired, you see them where they are now. You don't know their story. You just made that up and decided because that is where they are. Then that is where they've been. You don't know the beginning. All right. So you assume that they've got something you don't have. That, that

thing that allows them to be able to do what it is they're doing. That thing that maybe you want to do. I have a friend.

who is doing the most amazing, brilliant, smart work I've seen in a while. Like the type of work that is groundbreaking. It's just so smart. And she's thinking about starting a podcast and a community. She's already started the community, but a podcast.

in particular for this story. But every time she goes to want to do that, she's always comparing herself to me, right?

I'm over here just trying to grow and get my stuff out there, right? I'm not thinking I'm anywhere, but she's looking at me and saying, know, Erin, everything, your podcast is so professional. You're so good on camera. You're so attractive.

Okay, thank you. But what does that have to do with you, right? Now, I've told you guys a little bit about my journey, but I've gone through a lot of shit to be able to sit here and do this.

When I was a little girl, I used to read nursery rhymes into a tape recorder in my bedroom trying to record them perfectly. I mean, it's a long time ago and an interesting place to start, but I'm making a point here. I was getting used to listening to myself talk, hearing myself. Do you know how many people have come on my podcast who don't want to watch it back because they don't want to hear themselves? That's like a real thing if you're doing podcasts.

Right? If you're, if you're wanting to put your brand and yourself out to the world, I got to listen to myself talk because I got to edit it. I mean, I edit my own stuff right now.

When I was in college, when I thought I was gonna be Black Barbara Walters, my freshman year, I got a announcer internship at an NPR radio station. I did that for four years, all right? ⁓

I was sharpening my teeth on that. I had to be in this building called Jesse Hall. It looked like the Capitol building. Had a dome and everything. Scary building every Sunday night from six to midnight. Then I had to walk home in the dark by myself at midnight from Jesse Hall. Big ass old building by myself. I mean, this is grooming me, right? ⁓

had an internship that taught me how to use Adobe Illustrator. Why does that matter? Because I use Adobe Premiere sometimes to edit my videos. I learned how to do voiceover and I did that for clients. I used to edit videos and put videos together for my clients. So I learned how to edit. So I'm coming on here a little bit ahead of the game, but she's comparing herself to me.

She hasn't been in any kind of creative field like that. She hasn't done what I've done. So you can't compare, Erin, your videos look professional or, Erin, you're like this on camera. I wouldn't say I was a performer, but I did, you know, performance type stuff growing up, right? I've been working on this. She doesn't know how many videos I recorded.

and tried to get right in my apartment. I record, I'd stop. I record, I'd stop. I'd look, I wouldn't post. I hated them, I wouldn't do. You could probably find some old videos of me way back when I'm trying to do some videos. They weren't good. They weren't this quality. Hell, if you look at the videos that I did a year ago almost, lighting's not as good, I wasn't as good.

You're comparing your starting point and I've been at this shit for a long time, longer than when I just came on here. And I'm not where I want to be. I want to be better. I want to, I want to do more. All right. But my point is comparing without the complete story, thinking that when I start, I'm not going to be like Erin or like whomever it is that you watch and you, you admire that's doing something similar.

that you want to do and you're just at a different point. It shouldn't prevent you because the work this girl is doing.

I'm not doing anything like it and it's work that the world needs to know about, needs to hear about. So of course I sent her a video about, ⁓ quit comparing yourself to other people or whatever and she'll see this and she'll know I'm talking to her. ⁓ or she'll know I'm talking about her. But the news story is I'm seeing the result, not the process. Stop comparing yourself to other people. Stop that pattern.

Break it right now because I'm telling you, if you keep doing that shit, you're not going to do anything. It's it. It's a wrap. You're not going to, you're not going to get yourself unstuck. All right. So pattern number one, comparing yourself without context. Stop trying to figure out how you compare to them and do you. You do it your way. Everybody does it differently. Okay.

No more comparing, all right? Next. So, pattern number two. Second pattern. Deciding something is too hard before you even start.

This is something that we do. This is something that we've all done, all right? Things are only hard until you learn how to do them and then they're not hard, right? So a lot of times we'll procrastinate on stuff and we'll tell ourselves, my God, that's gonna be hard, it's gonna be a pain in the butt, I'm not gonna be able to do that, I don't think I could ever do that. Like, you know, people intermittent fast, my God, I can never fast, I could never do that, I just can't just eat.

You know, at that time I need the breakfast, I need this or whatever. ⁓ I don't ever think I could not eat sugar until you stop eating sugar and you can. ⁓ I don't think I could figure out my hair. Your hair is so pretty. I can't do that with my hair. My hair wasn't easy, but once I figured it wasn't easy because I didn't know. Hell, I had had a relaxer since I was eight. I'd been natural for almost 14 years, all right? So the first 37 years,

of my life, I didn't know my hair texture. It took me a while. I hate science. I'm not gonna read ingredients and I hate that. I'm just not, just tell me what to do. So I finally rolled up on somebody who helped me figure out what to do, right? It looks hard until you try it. But once you try it, there's virtually nothing you cannot do, right? Did I know how to build websites?

No. Did I learn how to build websites? Yes. Is it easy for me to build websites now? It's easier. It's easier than it is if you ask somebody to build one who's never built one before. I have a friend that's trying to build a Shopify right now. He's just sitting there and trying to watch a tutorial, trying to watch the videos, trying to learn. That was what I was doing. It's hard until you learn how to do it. Once you do it, it's not hard anymore.

It's just that simple. Once you do it, it's not hard anymore. Right? And a lot of times we will procrastinate and we won't do something because we're gonna be like, it's gonna be hard. And then, do you know how many times I've started to try to do something and then it's just like, huh. It's actually, that was no big deal. I recently had that experience. ⁓

with my financial statements for my business. I had messed some stuff up. I had co-mingled some stuff. And once I figured out what was going on, I was dreading it. Do you hear me? I was dreading that shit. I did not want to look at that because I knew I had messed up. I always knew that I was doing this one thing incorrectly. I was just doing what I wanted to do.

And I finally had to address it. But when I addressed it, was so easy. So easy. Right? So there are things that you want to do. Like for me, starting this podcast, just posting the first episode so hard in my mind. We're on episode 48 today.

Okay, it gets easier every single week, you know? So instead of telling yourself, it's too hard, I can't do that because it's too hard, the news story is, I don't know how hard it is, I just made that shit up.

I'm not gonna know until I do it.

There's not too many things that are that hard to do. Nobody's asking you to perform brain surgery, heart transplant. Nobody's asking you to do anything like that. You're not asking that of yourself, but you see all these people out here doing something and you're looking at all these people do it. How hard could it be? Seriously? How hard could it be?

How many people are out here doing that thing? Can't be that hard.

lot of times if you're doing something new, if you're being innovative, maybe you're inventing something. Difficult, different, but not impossible. If God gave that for you to do, if it's for you to do, it's probably not going to even be that hard. So old story, it's going to be too hard. So I'm not even going to bother. New story, I don't know how hard it is going to be.

I just made that shit up. So make moves to get it done. Make moves to do that. Okay? Okay, pattern number three. Pattern number three.

A lot of times when there's so much out there to see, we get in the pattern of watching instead of actually doing.

And the story that we tell ourselves with watching instead of doing is, I'm learning, I'm researching, you know, I'm not ready because I've got this or I just want to see what this person is doing or whatever. We tell ourselves a lot of bullshit and we're doing a lot of getting ready to get ready back here, but we're not actually doing anything. All right. That's the story that we tell ourselves.

And.

You know, people do this a lot when they want to do something that they fear. You want to start a business and you're just going to try to get all the information about starting a business you can. A lot of times this shows up when we purchase into ⁓ courses and learning.

Some courses in learning and coaches obviously are amazing. I'm not saying that, but I remember I had this business coach and she was, she was cool. ⁓ She was like very like woo woo. And you know, it was, it was all about your feelings. It was fine. I mean, it was, you know, it was an experience, but anyway, there was a woman in there and

She and I actually did some business together because I used to teach a course on how to build your own website. This woman was so all over the place that she had spent, I feel like she had spent like maybe 60 ⁓ to $100,000 with this one business coach lady that I met her through.

And she was just grabbing on to everything she could grab onto because, A, she found the money to do that and...

She wasn't in action. You know, she felt like if I buy this, that's gonna make me do it. You know, if I take this course, that's gonna make me do it. You know, so I've talked about this before throwing money at problems. That's a way that we watch without taking action because we feel like we're learning, we're researching, we're getting ready. And a lot of times that's bullshit.

All right, you probably don't need another course on this one thing. know, when people get you to join courses on how to grow your email list, you don't even need to know what business it is. ⁓ I took a course like that and I had a business, but the guy was selling this, how to create a quiz. You don't even have to know what you're trying to sell yet. But the course was like $3,000, right?

but he was trying to sell his shit, right? You don't need another thing. You're not learning. You're not researching. You don't need to watch them tell you how to do anything. You just need to do it. Get out of the pattern of watching and sitting on the sidelines, watching people do what it is you want to do. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're trying to like dip your toe in, but if you want to get in there,

and get in the game, you need to get all the way in and get into action on that thing, all right? So the news story is, I'm watching instead of doing. And then you tell yourself, the news story is, this is not progress, okay? So you go from watching, learning, absorbing, getting everything you can in action to, I'm watching, but this is not doing.

This is not progress. And then you take a step. All right. Stop sitting on the sidelines waiting for the moment. It's the moment is now. Right.

Unless there's some credential that you need to do what it is you're looking at others do, there's no reason to wait. Get a little bit, dip your toe in, see how it feels, you know, get in a little bit deeper and keep going. Stop with all that. All right. Do something in real life, just not in your head. Okay. Not, ⁓ from the lens of the other person. Like, okay, they're doing that. In fact,

Sometimes you just gotta cut this shit off quit looking at other people. What did I say? I was so anxious I'd watch a podcast and I'd literally be like, my god, I gotta turn it off because I knew I was on some bullshit I was not doing what I was supposed to do now

Okay, so pattern number four.

is just the story itself. It's the entire soap opera, the entire mini series, entire series that we tell ourselves when there's something that we wanna do that we're not doing. When I moved back to St. Louis, I had this whole story in my head about

what my life was gonna be like here. I knew I wanted to be closer to my dad.

but I couldn't.

I just, I just didn't want to let go of LA, you know, cause I made up an entire story on doing that, but I knew I needed to get back to St. Louis. So I told myself a story. I told myself I was going to come back here. The people weren't going to be as interesting. It was going to be slow paced.

I just didn't know what I was gonna do here, I wasn't gonna have any fun here, there wasn't gonna be anything to do here.

And I remember when I bought my house, I closed, well, I put an offer on the house because the house came onto the market and it came on like a couple weeks before Thanksgiving or it was pending, like it was coming soon or something like that on Redfin. And the house,

I had actually favorited this house on Redfin. I had favorited this house. So my dad and I always used to like drive around and look for houses in St. Louis. I knew kind of where I wanted to live in the city and we would drive in that area and we would always go to open houses when I would be back home. And I guess at some point I had seen this house and I had favorited it.

I remember that we were waiting on them to put it on the market. It was like the day before Thanksgiving and they put it on the market. came on the market, but they wouldn't show it to my realtor who was back in St. Louis. I'm in LA until the day after Thanksgiving. ⁓ So ⁓ they had an open house. They opened it up. People came and

I put an offer on it that day from LA. Like I had just seen the pictures. My dad had come over to see it, looked at it, walked around, decided, you know, this would be a good house for you. ⁓ He went in, they videotaped, showed me what it looked like and everything like that. We put an offer in on Friday. I remember I was in Vegas visiting a friend. And that next day on Saturday after Thanksgiving, my realtor called me and told me they accepted my offer.

And I remember, I just remember being like, okay, great, thanks. So I remember I was in Ikea with my friend and I walked over to her and I said, oh yeah, they accepted my offer on the house. And she's like, oh my God, that's so exciting. Are you excited? And I was like, no, not really, not really. I had made up my mind about

what it was going to be like if I moved home to St. Louis. So I was considering like, oh, maybe I'll keep my apartment. I have such a good deal. It's such a cute apartment. And I'll just have my house. And I toyed with that for a long time of keeping two residences. Like my life is so big. I need to have a place in LA and St. Louis. Like I didn't need that. I just didn't want to let go.

⁓ LA because I felt like I was gonna be missing out I wasn't gonna have my finger on the pulse of what's going on I wasn't gonna be you know able to go to like the trendiest restaurants and and you know just get around the world easier because I was in LA, but you know I Decided you know was gonna move home, so I closed at the very end of December of that year

And then I didn't move until March because I was still making up stories about not wanting to really be here, not understanding. And you know, people would say to me and my dad even said to me, ⁓ Erin, you don't know that you might find something better here. You might find this here. You might find that here. And mind you, I had not lived in St. Louis since I was 18. Like I had not lived here as an adult.

So I was supposed to rush in to come home. So I finally got myself packed and moved. let go of my apartment and I drove a Penske with my friends across I don't know how many states and every weather system I can imagine except for ice. Back home, three days, back home to St. Louis. And when I tell you when I got

back home when I pulled up to my new house, because I did end up going to see it at one point and this was all during COVID. I flew in for one night, saw the house, was like, cool, let's get it, and flew back to LA. But, you know, I was still just, it was just like quick. was, you know, my dad was so cute. He just looked at me he's like, are you disappointed? And I was like, my God, no, I really like it. I like it. He just wanted me to like it so bad.

Because he just didn't want me to leave. Even when I went away to school, which was like an hour and a half away, he never wanted me to leave home. I never realized how much he didn't want me to leave home. So anyway, I pull in front of the house, my dad sitting out in front of the house in his car and me and my girl Stephanie, we roll up in the Penske. And I remember when I saw him, I just, he was smiling like, hey, and I was like, hey dad, you know, and he

was so happy I was there and I just immediately felt this relief. I had been on the road for three days. was like, I remember I was like out of money. I mean, we had, I had dented up the Penske truck. ⁓ There was a big dent in the front of it. I had been like so stressed out because it was COVID and

you know, just driving and people were saying it was crazy and I was always worried that my stuff was going to get stolen on the truck. And I just remember pulling up and I was so relieved to be there. Okay. And so we parked the truck, the movers come, they unpack the truck, they set up the bed and I'm still a little whipped up, but I remember feeling so

and peaceful in my house. I remember just feeling that way, right? And the story that unfolded since I've been back in St. Louis, I could have never predicted. I thought all of this stuff that was absolutely untrue because I'm moving back to a city that I basically don't know because I've never lived here as an adult. So I just assumed

It's just gonna be just sew this and sew that. When I tell you how much I love being back here, I couldn't have known, I could not have known the type of life that I was gonna have when I moved back here. I made the shit up. I just thought I needed to be.

you know, in a fast paced environment. The world was happening right now in LA, but things didn't really start popping for me. Even in my business, even with that client firing me, all of the things that have transpired, even this podcast, things did not really start happening for me until I moved to St. Louis. And there is just no way I could have predicted that. All right. So I made

the story up that my life was gonna be less, it wasn't gonna be fun, I wasn't gonna be fulfilled, I wasn't gonna be happy. I miss my friends, I don't miss LA. I love my house, I love being closer to my dad, I'm always surprised and amazed, we have a lot of good restaurants, we have great coffee shops, we have things to do. I just didn't know, I made that shit up. So.

I say all that to say I had crafted this entire story and vision for my life and I could not have known how good it could be.

until I got here. So the new story is you don't know the story. You just made that shit up. Okay. Old story or the pattern is the story in itself. You continually make up stories when you think about what if I go try this story time? What if I do this up story time? What if I do that story?

All these stories make you stop. They seize you. You seized up. You stopped in place, right? Catch the story. Catch it. Recognize I'm telling myself a story. This shit isn't real. This hasn't happened. I am not God. I cannot predict the future. Catch the story and say, I don't know what's gonna happen. New story, I don't know what it's gonna happen, but I'm excited to see.

what will. All right? There is nothing like...

being excited for life. I have to say it. Like, you ever like have a day and...

It didn't go the way you planned. Like you ended up seeing somebody you didn't expect to see or you end up at dinner or doing something that you didn't expect to do. Like that was not in your plans for the day, but you end up having like the most amazing day. It's just like that with life. So while we're telling ourselves these stories of doom and gloom, of why we shouldn't be doing something, why not tell ourselves the story of it's gonna be amazing?

Why not, why not tell that type of story? All right. So I say all that to say, have a way of telling each other stories. are so many wonderful, amazing, beautiful black women who are doing amazing things. You can and should be one of them. All right. You don't need to compare yourself. You don't need to, ⁓ you don't need to pause. You don't need to.

Hold yourself back. You don't need to do anything, but be you. Stop telling yourself stories. Get out of the pattern of storytelling and get into the pattern of doing. All right? So let's just review. Pattern number one that we constantly find ourselves in, comparing without context. You don't know how they got there. You don't have a clue. You don't know that person. You don't know that woman's life.

You don't know that person's journey. You don't know what they went through, endured, had to give up sacrifice to be there. Okay. You're seeing where they are now. You don't know the full story. So pattern number one, comparing without context. The new story you tell yourself when you see people like that, I'm seeing the result, not the process. Right? You tell yourself that so you can stop comparing yourself to where they are now. All right.

There's nothing worse than thinking that you don't measure up, but you're comparing yourself to measures that have been worked on, honed, perfected for years, right? You can't compare yourself to years of training and growth in the making. That's their journey. And you can't compare yourself to other people. That's just a waste of time. So, new story. I'm seeing the result.

not the process, okay? Pattern number two, deciding it's too hard before you get started. We all do it, we all do it. We look at things and it halts us, okay? You know, ⁓ to wear my hair like that is too difficult, to lose weight is too difficult, to work out like that is hard. We do it especially with lifestyle, right?

We do it all the time. News story. You know what? I actually don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I don't know how hard that is. I don't know what I'm talking about. News story. So let me, let me just shut my mouth and at least try before I make judgment. Hatter number three, watching but not acting.

You're so busy researching, getting more information, getting ready to get ready and not doing shit. Okay. It paralyzes you. Right? New story is you tell yourself, you say this yourself, you know what? I'm watching. I'm not doing. I need to get an action.

This is not progress for me. New story.

Fourth.

is the story itself. The story itself. And I'm talking about the big stories, you know, the big stories that are preventing big things. Like I said, I told myself some huge stories about St. Louis, a city that I thought I knew, but didn't know. Shit, I left when I was 18. I didn't have a life here. I didn't know anything here. New story.

You know what? That didn't happen. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Pretty much, that's the story. That's the new story for everything. I don't know anything until I know, right? So guys, hopefully that was useful to you. ⁓ Pointing out the patterns that we find ourselves in and acknowledging them is so useful, right? We waste a lot of time.

patterning, cycling, circling the same bad behavior or non behavior. We waste a lot of time with that. So, you know.

Think about that, utilize that, take notes, write down this when it happens, know, check yourself, check yourself. I know I have to check myself. So guys, hopefully all of this was helpful to you. I really do hope it was. ⁓ These are the four patterns, you know, I'm talking about today, but what patterns are you guys seeing in your life that you find yourself constantly in? What are you doing that

is discouraging you from moving forward. I want to hear about it. So leave me a comment, drop me a comment below. Again, like, share, subscribe. Thank you so much for joining me and I will see you in the next video.