S5E2: Mastery, Trauma, and Podcasting: An Unplanned Conversation

In this candid episode, Dr. Lee & TLC discuss the challenges of starting a podcast, focusing on authentic speech, self-perception, and the impact of trauma on behavior and resilience. 

They explore societal pressures, particularly for men and people of color in business, and the importance of mastering skills and overcoming obstacles.

Through personal anecdotes,  highlight the value of learning from failure and achieving self-acceptance. They encourage listeners to embrace spontaneity, let go of perfectionism, and experiment without fear.

Dr. Lee & TLC also share details surrounding 'Trauma Club' and the Trauma Sensitive Business Foundations course as valuable resources for personal growth and support.

Key Takeaways:

1. Authentic speech is crucial for effective communication and building genuine connections.
2. Trauma can significantly impact behavior and resilience, influencing one's approach to life and work.
3. Embracing learning, accepting failure, and striving for self-acceptance are key to personal and professional growth.

Transcript

BTI S5E1 
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[00:00:00] Dr. Lee: Hey, everybody. Welcome to this week's episode. 

[00:00:05] TLC: Welcome. Well, it doesn't make sense. I don't know. I recognize you've done this a lot of times. You have already, four seasons for this. You've done tons of lives. You've done groups and everything for like years and years now. And you have gotten really good at it.

And when I hear you talk, you know, you've got You've got the intonation and the speed and the stuff like that. And I think in my head, I've listened to so many, but I don't think I've ever really recognized some of the different things that go into it along with, you know, in terms of, it is still one of those things.

You hear your own voice. It's like, Oh yeah, it's a little, little odd, little, you know, and it's, I think it's going to be really good. And I think. It's also the excitement of knowing what we have to share is really good information. Like that. There's really a lot of cool stuff. And it's just something that I have always wanted to do in a lot of ways, but I don't think I ever really thought about the actual doing it part as much as I've thought about the, it being done.

[00:01:14] Dr. Lee: So this wasn't our planned episode one, like our planned episode one was to talk about the history of trauma and all of those things. And I hit the record button right here. We started to talk about this and I asked for your consent because actually I think that this is super important. 

[00:01:33] TLC: Yeah. 

[00:01:33] Dr. Lee: I think it's super important for people to understand this because this is one of the things that kept us from not doing this for a while.

[00:01:41] TLC: I don't like, I generally like feeling like I know what's going on. I have the information because in a lot of cases, like Working in a museum or anything like that. You know, I took pride in knowing all of the things, all the pieces part. You'd ask me about a painting. I could tell you who painted it, when it was painted.

What style all the different pieces parts of and somebody had a question, I felt confident in knowing that I have the answer and when it comes to historical information, yeah, I feel, you know, confident and knowing a lot of it. But I also know that you know a lot about trauma. And while it's one of those things that, yes, I've heard you talk about it a lot of different times, read a lot of stuff on it.

I feel like it's something That especially when it comes to the science and some of the different things you've read, you know, volumous amounts of books about the, 

[00:02:33] Dr. Lee: but 

[00:02:36] TLC: seriously, that you, you have a lot of that knowledge. Whereas it's something too, when it comes to actually recording episodes, it's like, Okay, it's not just about the knowledge.

There's a whole other skill set that goes into it. You know, the, the speed, the, okay, well, how do you start this? You know, how does it sound natural? How does it really come across? Well, 

[00:03:00] Dr. Lee: I, I am just, I'm so grateful that you were, you're willing to talk about this because, you know, when, when we want to, when we talk about trauma, and by the way, y'all, we're, we're gonna get into, well, actually, let me just give a quick definition here.

We're gonna have a whole episode on what trauma is, how it's developed, all those things. That's what we were planning on recording today. That ain't, that ain't what happened. Which is cool. 

[00:03:22] TLC: So far. So far. 

[00:03:23] Dr. Lee: So far. We may end up recording that. And I think this gets to be episode one. So when, so when we talk about trauma, trauma is a, any sort of past painful experience that leaves residue.

That there's an aftermath. That it negatively affects what you believe, how you think, how you act, how you feel, how you, how you see things, like perceive, how you show up. And so, a lot of times, you know, that's a pretty general example. definition, um, the opposite of that, or, or the thing that's on the other side of that, I should say, is resilience.

And that's anything that helps you, um, also see the world in a different way, act in a different way, show up differently, believe different, um, you know, think differently, feel differently, except in a way that actually serves you. Right? So we're going to talk about post traumatic growth and some of those things.

But the reason why I want to bring that definition in here is because there are so many couples out there that do not work together. There are so many people out there who do not ever take on things that they really want to do that never get to that mastery level. They don't try things because Of social conditioning because they believe that they have to understand all of it because they believe they have to know the how because they believe they need to be perfect at it right off the bat because they, they think, Oh, well, you know, I'm looking at my wife or I'm looking at this potential business partner and they're so good at this.

I'm like, I can't sit next to them and do it because everyone's going to see that I'm a, you know, what, like insert your favorite self deprecating comment there. And you and I, the fact that we're even sitting down to do this, I think shows your. post traumatic growth shows your resilience because for a while, like you wouldn't even look at that.

[00:05:09] TLC: Oh, for sure. I mean, realistically, vast majority, anytime I've been recorded that wasn't with you in, in, in a group of yours or something like that has never been something that will be displayed to other people. You know, watch tons of YouTube videos, had so many ideas on them, never made one out, you know, even with Tick Tock, stuff like that.

And my idea was always, well, I just want to wait and make it perfect. And, you know, it's gotta be such and such level. And it's, yeah. And in a lot of ways. I think rationally, I recognize that a lot of the people, if I watch, you know, somebody who's doing a podcast, they've probably done a lot of them before that point, they've gotten polished to that point.

They have everything set up in the way that they can be the most successful in. But when I see that and I think, okay, well, that's kind of how I want to do it. 

[00:05:58] Dr. Lee: You know, 

[00:05:59] TLC: like we were joking before, what do we need? Uh, a catchphrase on the, on the intro. Okay. Or, you know, is there a certain phrase that gets said every episode?

Because majority of people I've seen do that. I've never had something that's going to be saved and can be watched any other time. 

[00:06:17] Dr. Lee: Yeah. So what I'm hearing, if I can offer my perspective on this, is there's some serious discomfort around being perceived in a way, like, I wonder, and I'm curious, is it around just being perceived in general, or is it around not being able to control the perception after it's out into the world?

[00:06:39] TLC: Yeah, I think so because that's the thing when it's one on one or even in small groups or something Even if it goes poorly the next group coming in can be I can really knock it out of the park 

[00:06:51] Dr. Lee: Yeah, 

[00:06:51] TLC: and that first group there's no record of it. It was there. It's gone. Yeah, they don't like it Okay, even 

[00:06:57] Dr. Lee: if they were like, oh my gosh, I heard TLC speak and it was the worst thing I've ever heard 

[00:07:01] TLC: Right 

[00:07:01] Dr. Lee: people would be like, well, where's the video of it?

You're like, oh, well And then 

[00:07:05] TLC: they come in 

[00:07:06] Dr. Lee: and then you 

[00:07:07] TLC: and then hear me and then I do really well It's like, it never really, I mean, it happened, but it, exactly, but it didn't, it didn't happen. Happen. 

[00:07:16] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[00:07:16] TLC: You know? 

[00:07:17] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[00:07:17] TLC: And that's how it's always been for me. Musicals, um, shows, football, games. Yeah. They'd be recorded, but there would all either be a large amount of other people there.

There would always be something else that other people could perceive. 

[00:07:32] Dr. Lee: You mean? Right. 

[00:07:32] TLC: Yeah. That, that you, there were other people to focus on. Okay. It wasn't just on. My voice speaking, they weren't listening to me or necessarily seeing me. They may, maybe for a second, but the musical itself was, you know, however many acts and it was hours long.

I may speak for a few minutes, you know, and even if my line got cut, okay. People may not even notice that. 

[00:07:56] Dr. Lee: Yeah. I, you know, I, I'm trying to think back to when I started doing this. I mean, I, I know when I first started teaching, I prepared a good amount. I, I know, I'm thinking back to the, the speeches that I gave.

I think I've always prepared less than the average person, but one of my least favorite things to do was to record videos where it was just me talking to myself, um, with slides, it was fine. If I could say whatever the heck I wanted, my brain could squirrel, it could go wherever it went and nobody was expecting it to, to, nobody was expecting me to say very specific things.

The thing that really dysregulated me around the person, uh, the perception was, You know, there's slides in front of me, and I got to make sure that I, that I say all the things, and that I do it, um, and I, I don't leave any information out, and that I also keep it in a certain time frame. And so, for me, the, the restrictions and constrictions on the plan actually made it harder for me to do it.

Quote unquote perform. It made it harder for me to teach. It made it harder for me to speak or to present. And I know that a lot of people hear that and they're like, are you serious? I'm like, yeah, actually, if I over planning is an issue for me, over planning is an issue for me. That is when I am most likely to F it all up.

And so even in you and me planning this out, it's been, okay, you've got all your notes and you, and we talked through the bullet points of what was going to happen in episode one. And you have like three pages of notes and quotes and things, and I'm like, don't tell me what they are, don't tell me what you're going to talk about, like, let me just vibe with it through.

And I can only imagine, I think a lot of people see my, my preparation process and they see that as expertise. Like, oh, she can just show up and talk about anything. And I am going to practice not being humble. No, I'm going to practice not, not, uh, speaking from my humility wounds. Let me say it that way. I am going to be humble because I'm going to honor that I know what I know, and I don't know what I don't know.

I'm good at what I'm good at. I'm not good at what I'm not good at. Yes, there, if there is an idea that I know a lot about, I can riff on that for an hour and it is less about my expertise or brilliance on the topic than people think it is. A lot of it is if you give my brain too many restrictions, it can't function.

[00:10:38] TLC: It's fascinating. Mine is almost the opposite. When I would give, like, when I would walk visitors through the museum, I had to kind of hone it down to hitting very certain things and not going off topic. Because what I ended up doing is I would get excited about something. Somebody would ask me a question and I would start riffing on things and I wouldn't just be talking about, okay, this Bible's from the 1600.

No, no. I'd be talking about the paper and, and what was going on historically around that time period. Next thing I know, even if the person was engaged, I've been talking for like 15, 20 minutes. And by the time, you know, the tour would get over or by the time we would finish up walking to the museum It's been a couple hours 

[00:11:18] Dr. Lee: and it was supposed to be an hour 

[00:11:20] TLC: It was but yeah, like an hour was was like a good time frame 

[00:11:23] Dr. Lee: Yeah, 

[00:11:24] TLC: and if anything that would be the stuff that it would be like, hey, we got to speed this up 

[00:11:28] Dr. Lee: Yeah, 

[00:11:28] TLC: like we got to really nail down the important things and not get too much into the weeds So my main thing was putting more restrictions on Because I recognize when I didn't have, say, a sheet of notes, when I didn't have, okay, here are the bullet points to hit, I would get either excited about something, or there'd be something I had a, you know, personal interest in, and be like, oh, yeah, you know, like, here's a relic.

Oh, this thing was amazing, because this, this, this, and just kind of keeping going from there. And that's what messed me up then, at that time. That was what caused my issues. Rather than where you were saying when you can riff like that You do such a good job being able to be like and I got 45 minutes Yeah, you can riff within that and at the end of it you hit your points You're still at that 45 minute mark 

[00:12:14] Dr. Lee: as long as I can see a clock As long as I can see a clock because I know the main like there's four or five points I'm supposed to hit and so if i'm still on point one and we're 15 minutes in and i've got 45 minutes I know I get to speed myself up.

So that's one of my um You One of my guardrails is a clock. How much time do I have? And I gotta be able to see that. Um, beyond that and those few bullet points, I'll have read it. I'll have practiced, but I've, I've done a couple of keynotes now. I I've done some things where I had it really planned out and I had some notes in front of me.

Um, I've had some slides. I've actually stopped using slides in most places. Part of that is just me sticking two big middle fingers up to academia in a way, because I'm being a little rebellious. And. Because you need slides at every presentation there and I'm like, Oh my gosh, like, I don't want to have to prep slides.

And I also recognize that sometimes it's helpful for people to have something visual now. So when I create slides, a lot of times I'll do it with Lindsay, my sister. And she'll help us create super simple slides. So it's something for someone to just like take a peek at or stare at while we're talking.

It's got super simple definitions on there or a picture, but it's not, people are trying to read it, uh, furiously. So I say all this. And see, I even went off a little tangent. There is cool. Um, I say that because I think that one of the things that you've used to kind of be mean to yourself up until very recently is, well, my wife doesn't have to prepare it like that.

[00:13:47] TLC: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think it's something that I've always taken it as like, okay, well, if I did have a whole bunch of slides and I had to hit these bullet points, it may come out more formulaic. Okay. But I will have hit all the slides. And then it was almost like that would be the easiest way to do it.

Not that that would be, you know, that that would be like, okay, well, I have everything laid out and I hit everything on there. I gave out all the information. I completed the, you know, the assignment and I'm not saying that's what I would want to do necessarily, but I just feel like that would almost in some ways be the easiest way.

[00:14:21] Dr. Lee: It stifles your genius though. And I think that this is the thing that for anyone who's like, Oh, I wanted to start a podcast, but I haven't. Because, you know, I'm worried about how I'm going to sound, or how I'm, or I want to do a vlog, but I'm worried about how I'm going to look, I'm worried about how people are going to perceive me, like, y'all, I cannot explain this, like, I, I have, I have said this a million times, I will say it till the day I die, is you cannot control the way people perceive you.

You can't. And so if people are going to perceive you, which they are, like unless you stay in the house and never talk to anybody or never put anything anywhere, people are going to perceive you in some capacity. Heck, sometimes you don't even have to be there. People will perceive your absence and make that something about you, right?

So people are going to perceive you for the rest of your life. And if you don't love how you are showing up, The likelihood that you're going to get perceived in some kind of way that doesn't even have anything to do with who you really are or how you really want to be is so much higher. Like, you don't, you don't know if people like you or not until you actually show up as yourself.

And I know that's really terrifying for people. I know it's, it's scary for you, but I remember you talking about your voice and you're like, I don't like the way my voice sounds on video and I'm going to keep it, uh, euphemistic here. Uh, I love the way your voice sounds all the time. I love your voice. And so to hear somebody that I love say, Oh, I don't really like my voice.

There's a part of me that's like, what are you talking about? But it's, it's the same way that I'm like, Oh, I don't necessarily love my body right now. Y'all, I've gained a good amount of weight since I left nursing due to some health issues and other things. And. It's the same thing when I come to you and I'm like, Oh, I don't really know that I love the way that I look on camera.

And you're like, are you kidding me? So what,

like moving forward on this podcast, if you could show up any way you wanted to show up, how, like, how would you show up? I 

[00:16:36] TLC: mean, yeah, like show up like myself. I think in some ways though, there's just that constant knowledge of like, okay. There's certain things that I do that maybe. You know, like sometimes I will go on too long, you know, and it's great having you here.

I think that's why it's good us doing this together because there are certain times where I'm like something being fascinating to me Doesn't make it necessarily fascinating to everybody, you know, and sometimes I do tend to have that where I kind of forget you know, not everybody is you know wanting to know the intricacies of a World war one battle and you know how it helped, uh, you know change the whole course of the war say You You know, yeah, maybe for a very select group of people might want to hear me talk on that for an hour, but a general audience, you know, or people that I normally meet, like if I were at a bar or something, say, 

[00:17:28] Dr. Lee: yeah, 

[00:17:29] TLC: they're not going to be the kind of people.

[00:17:30] Dr. Lee: Okay. I hear you. And. It's our fucking podcast. 

[00:17:35] TLC: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:17:37] Dr. Lee: Like if people don't want to listen to it, they can turn it off. If people don't want to listen to a squirrel moment that you have, are you going on a tangent? They can fast forward a little bit. Guess what y'all TLC is going to go on a tangent every now and then it's going to happen.

I'm going to go on a tangent every now and then it's going to happen. Also, we have this thing called like editing. If, if, if, 

[00:17:54] TLC: the tangent timer. 

[00:17:57] Dr. Lee: Well, but that's, that's my, my, I just, I think that sometimes we take ourselves, we preemptively think about how people are going to perceive us way too much. And we forget that this is supposed to be fun.

This is supposed to be enjoyable. I get to sit here with you, my best friend and the love of my life and talk about literally my favorite thing ever while you talk about your favorite thing ever. And we get to put it out there for people to listen to who also enjoy those topics. And then we get to make money off of, of humans coming into trauma club and coming into our other spaces at the institute and talking with them more.

And if they like what we said on the podcast, and if they're like, Oh, actually, I'd like to go into that. You, Us going on tangents during a podcast that people enjoy also models for people. Oh my gosh I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to have a script. I don't have to do this the way that you know Susie joe bob whomever does it I don't have to do it the way I almost said the least by the way y'all um, we forgot to talk about this in the trailer So TLC, what you tell him?

[00:19:08] TLC: Yeah. No, ever since, so I'm the second. So my dad has always been Tim, so ever since I've been born, that was kind of the deal. I 

[00:19:15] Dr. Lee: don't think they know your full name. I'm 

[00:19:16] TLC: Lee, so my full name Timothy Lee Cordell ii. Since I've been born, the deal was I go by Lee, so my whole life it has been one of those weird things.

You know, sometimes I would even. Forget when somebody would call out, you know, Tim on a roll call or something like that. And for the longest time, it just, I wouldn't even answer. Like it was never, that was never my name. And yeah, as we met, it was one of those, I, yeah, I'm Lee. Oh, I'm Lee too. My, Oh, well, you know, probably spelled it now.

Both L E E and now both Lee Cordell. So we recognize that, you know, sometimes people think I'm talking in the third person, you know, I'm Bob Dole or something. 

[00:19:57] Dr. Lee: Oh, people think that all the time with me when I forget to tell them that I'm married to a wee. And I'll mention you and they get this really confused look on their face.

So I'm like, Oh shoot. They don't know. So I 

[00:20:08] TLC: know that look, I have to go. 

[00:20:10] Dr. Lee: Oh, right. Right. 

[00:20:11] TLC: Yeah. That's a, 

[00:20:12] Dr. Lee: it honestly hasn't been a problem. And we talked when we did some like mini business ventures in the past for anything together, we, everyone called us the lees now. You did something that I think is very gentlemanly that I love sharing with people.

And they're like, wow, what a cool husband thing to do. Um, it was such a provisional thing for, excuse me, for you to do, which was you, when I started the institute and you came in and you started, um, doing some of the, the teaching and the instructor work. People were getting us confused. And so, and welcome to 2024 where people still have a little bit of implicit misogyny built into their thinking process because we would go places and they would walk up to you and say, Dr.

Lee. And you're like, Nope, I'm Mr. Lee. That's Dr. Lee. 

[00:21:08] TLC: Doctor and mister. 

[00:21:10] Dr. Lee: Doctor and mister, or mister and doctor if you're going to put it in the right direction. But um, the, so you were like, I'll go by TLC. And that was That meant a lot to me that you were like, no, I want to make sure that people know that you, you know, people give you your, your credit.

[00:21:30] TLC: No. Yeah. It is still the occasional time where it'll just say one name, especially if you would sign into something, it's Dr. Liqueur on the line. Oh, doctor. Well, 

[00:21:44] Dr. Lee: I, I, I think that You know, when

I am so grateful for you that you're just even willing to have this conversation, because I know that it's really vulnerable. And again, you're modeling for a lot of people, like, and, and this is really what we're going to be doing more on the podcast is, is bringing in our own experiences of these things.

And honestly, I don't hear a lot of men talk about this. 

[00:22:14] TLC: No, it's something to, you know, the only time I've ever heard something even related to this was on Big Bang Theory and it was used as the butt of a ton of jokes because, um, the one character, his wife was a doctor and even though he had a master's from MIT, she was doctor, he was not, and it was played off to jokes of like, you know, well, let's have the doctor, let's have the doctor answer, you know, yeah.

And he was an astronaut and all this and it's like, oh, okay. Okay, but but she's the doctor 

[00:22:43] Dr. Lee: Do you feel like that added to the imposter syndrome piece a little bit or like I don't know if it's i've made an assumption That it's imposter syndrome. Do you feel like that added to? The stress of saying yes to this and like prepping and planning for it.

Thinking about, you know, people are going to see me as a more educated one. 

[00:22:59] TLC: Well, I think maybe a little bit, but when it comes to certain topics, especially when it comes to stuff around trauma, and I think maybe, you know, I hadn't even really thought about it, but I do think it's something that no, you do have the doctor and you really know a lot about this topic.

So me coming to it, You know, there's a lot that I can maybe add, but I think it is kind of, I hadn't really thought about that, but yeah, 

[00:23:25] Dr. Lee: I, this is another piece of the reason that people don't go after things, right. In order to become a master at something. You have to practice it. You have to go learn.

You have to go out there. We actually talk about this way back in season one on K is for Knowledge. There's three levels of, uh, learning. And the first one is, Okay, I know something, right? And this is what's so fascinating for me because when somebody tells me, I know this versus using other language to me, I go, okay, so they are very sold on this fact in their brain.

And if I, if I push this and not push it from the sense of like be resistant, but if I try to dig deeper than that, they may not be able to take that knowing Uh, to a more, uh, a less superficial level. It's well, no, that's just what the truth is, right? It's well, the, the, the, the sky is blue. Okay. Well, well, can you tell me why?

Well, that's, it just is what it is. Like, I know that the sky is blue. That's what I've learned. Okay. Can you explain to me how, nope, none of that's there. People defend what they know at that superficial level, much higher. Then things that they learn at deeper levels. 

[00:24:52] TLC: Oh yeah. I feel like the best scientists are the ones who can not only recognize, know what they know, but then recognize, okay, there is so much more to this topic than what I could possibly know within a lifetime.

So it's like, I know. A lot, but it's like when you read Einstein or something like that and they go, oh yeah, there's this whole other part to this nuance. Yeah. That, that I kind of know about, or I kind of understand like Einstein with like quantum physics. It's like, I, I, yeah, there's certain things that he kind of would understand, but there were certain things he's like, I don't know if this is real, if this works, whatever else, there were other great scientists that did work within that.

[00:25:33] Dr. Lee: Yeah. Well, and that is. So that is the level at which most people come at something that they really want to do. And they're like, okay, I know some about this, but I don't know enough to be able to talk about it. The way that you Get really good at talking about something. This is something I used to talk to my students.

So I used to teach like what three, 400 students a year. It might've been more than that. And I would in, in two major classes and we would have the conversation. I'm like, look, y'all let's see. If you got it at the next deeper level of learning, which is understanding and understanding has a few pieces to it.

But the biggest piece is, can you explain it to someone else? Can you answer their questions? Can you, um, connect it to other ideas? Can you argue the validity of this compared to another idea? Can you compare and contrast it? This thing that you understand was something else. There's all these different, it's called Bloom's Taxonomy, if anyone wants to go nerd out on it, but there's all these different levels of learning.

And so I would tell my students, I'm like, look, you want to know if you just memorized, AKA, you know something, or you understand it, go teach it to one of your classmates. I would have my students, um, I'm like, if you have no one else in your house, To ask you questions, set up some stuffed animals, like talk to your dog, teach your animals or, or, you know, put a picture on the wall, teach it.

The way that I learned so much while I was teaching, which people are like, Oh, you were teaching advanced classes. Like, you know, I did not know all of that. I did not understand all of that. I need to go in and be able to really learn it and understand it myself to just be able to even present the information.

And there were times when students were like, I have a question on that. I'm like, let's Google it together because this is, I'm just learning this along with you. How many 

[00:27:29] TLC: different medications are there? Oh 

[00:27:30] Dr. Lee: yeah. The 

[00:27:31] TLC: idea that you could possibly know them all. Yes. Keep them all straight. Yes. 

[00:27:35] Dr. Lee: So there's this third level of learning and that's the embodiment.

That's the mastery level. And that level is actually, it's such a fascinating level. I'm actually reading a book on this right now. Surprise, surprise. Um, Robert Green, it's called mastery and he's talking about that. This level is actually very primitive. It is a, um, a pre verbal like, but like our human brains before we could talk, had the capability of mastering.

Things like just innately knowing what to do. And so a lot of times, this is what we refer to as experts intuition. This is, you know, it's, it's somebody who's been in something for a long time that can look at a scenario and go, something's off here. I don't know what it is. There's some sense that as I'm looking at this very big picture, that one piece or two pieces don't fit.

It's also the ability to just move without thinking and do the right thing. And so that requires so much practice. And so a lot of people are like, well, I really want to do the thing. I want to go out there and be like the best blank, or I want to be a top ranked podcaster, or I want to make a hundred thousand dollars a month.

doing this thing. Do you know how much you need to go practice? 

[00:28:59] TLC: Oh, I'm running through a baseball. 

[00:29:01] Dr. Lee: Right. 

[00:29:01] TLC: You can, you know, it's just one of those you have to practice. There is no way to get around it. 

[00:29:06] Dr. Lee: Yeah. And at that mastery level, one of the things I think of Neil deGrasse Tyson, he's one of my favorite teachers because I have heard that man say, I'm not sure about this.

I don't know. There's so much we don't know. What we know is a fraction of the, of what's actually out there. These ideas could change. He's so flexible. Oh 

[00:29:27] TLC: yeah. I've heard him actually say, Yeah, you know what? I was kind of wrong on that. New research has really shown, you know, this, and while it seemed reasonable, or it seemed like probably the likely case, it's now been shown not to be.

And he'll actually come out and say that. I'm always like, yes, that is so awesome. 

[00:29:42] Dr. Lee: So when you connect that back to what this podcast is about, you know, becoming more trauma informed, when one of the biggest traumas I see in our children is that we teach them that they need to be sure. of things as quickly as possible and that they need to be the best at things as quickly as possible.

The idea that you have time and space and there is protected, uh, energy for you to try new things, to create, to experiment. I mean, if you look at what they're getting rid of in schools right now, what is it? It's music. It's art. It's physical education. It's all of the things that are, are the tangential, um, adjacent, adjunctive things, except it's not.

It's all of the things that actually allow kids to learn how to learn. And not just memorize stuff for tests. 

[00:30:48] TLC: Right. Yeah, because, yeah, memorizing the same facts for people can do that, but it's, you know, it's like sometimes you've you know, quote, met people like that, that, you know, oh, they're book smart, but they're common sense, they're not, they're not able to handle, and it's like, in some cases, it's like, yeah, they were able to memorize stuff for You know, that test, whatever else, but when it comes to applying it or it comes to connecting it to things, you're like, how did you get to the point you're at?

Like, how did, you know, how did this work? 

[00:31:18] Dr. Lee: Yeah, I used to see that in nursing. I would have students that had straight A's and, you know, the faculty talked to one another. And so I'd have students that would get a straight A in my class and I'd go to their practical teachers the next semester. Sometimes I would be in that, um, that class with them and I would, I would be like, look, they get good grades.

And they need practical help because knowing it and being able to do it are two very different things. And so I think it's, this goes all the way back to what you were saying in the beginning of, okay, you know, we started to record episode one and we couldn't like even figure out the intro because it felt so off and wonky.

You're like, well, I know what I should be doing here. I know what I should be saying. I know how people do these podcasts. I know how people introduce these things. You haven't done it before. 

[00:32:15] TLC: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And it seems strange because it is one of those that doesn't seem that hard either. It doesn't seem like it should be that difficult for me to just, yeah, just figure it out, you know?

[00:32:26] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[00:32:27] TLC: And it's like, well 

[00:32:28] Dr. Lee: Well, it doesn't seem that hard to hit a baseball. 

[00:32:31] TLC: Right. 

[00:32:32] Dr. Lee: It doesn't seem that hard to, to, you know, um, I don't know, like run a mile. It doesn't, when we think about these things just off, you know, off the top of our heads, it's like, well, you know, I could do that. 

[00:32:44] TLC: Especially when you've seen a lot of people do it and you're like, Oh, well, I could, you know, I could probably do that too.

I mean, that doesn't, they don't seem to struggle with it at all. And it's like, you don't know how many times they, how many other show recordings, whatever else they've done before. 

[00:32:59] Dr. Lee: I see this in our son, Jack, who we have consent to talk about this. You know, he plays travel baseball. We use him as an example in our posts sometimes because of the tenacity and the willingness to, um, practice that he has.

Our other kids have this, too. Um, are, Uh, Jack's twin, Charlotte, practices the piano consistently and has for years, and, and, you know, in other places, uh, really builds, like, spatial skills and drawing and art, um, Ray does incredible things with writing, goodness gracious, that kid wrote a 10, 000 word essay on summer break about a character analysis in one of their favorite mangas, and so, like, Or fanfics.

Um, I don't know which term. I'm not going to get the term right. And I, I use that as examples because one of the things that we've really tried to teach our kids. And model for them is, yeah, you are not going to get this right necessarily. The first time, the second time, the fifth time, the 20th time, do you enjoy doing it?

Is it something you'd like to get better at? Would you like to grow? Would you like to eventually be a master of this thing? And it's okay if you don't know the answer to that, you can take it as far as you want to, but like, can you follow those instinctual Uh, nudgings to be like, Oh, I think this is something that I'd really enjoy.

We get asked all the time, Oh my gosh, how, how does Jack do what he does? 

[00:34:22] TLC: Yeah. Does he stay so positive on it? Like even when he has a rough time, coach was just telling me, I think on Monday. You know, two days ago that he is just the happiest kid. Everyone's stuff's going wrong. He's like stopping. He's like, okay, I want to work on this.

I want to figure this out. And he's like, it's amazing. 

[00:34:39] Dr. Lee: It's like, 

[00:34:39] TLC: he's so like, just happy to be doing this. He loves this. I'm like, he really loves baseball. Like that's his thing. 

[00:34:45] Dr. Lee: And, and part of that is his personality. The other part of that though, is that we've really worked with him to understand you're not going to hit, you're not going to get a hit every time.

And you can get frustrated with yourself for a second and evaluate, right? So when we, once we're like, dude, you, you're getting a lot of data. You're getting a lot of data points that you can go back and look at and learn from. He started having you record his at bats, you take all his stats, he watches them after the games and he's like, okay, I can see what I was doing there.

[00:35:14] TLC: Even sometimes between at bats, he's like, Hey, can I just, can I see that last at bat really quick? Can I see my swing on that? We're like, go in the dugout, buddy. Okay. I was uppercutting a little bit on that. You know, maybe if I, I moved my hands, but yeah, it's, it is one of those, I think, especially with baseball is awesome because I'm like, okay, he, he kind of took it in early on, I said, best players of all time.

Like nobody has hit batted 400, which is in tenant bats, six times you get out four times, you get a hit. That doesn't happen since George Brett in the eighties. I mean, that's nobody hit most people. If you hit three out of 10 times, you're doing great. You're hitting 300 and you're in the major leagues.

That's a really good bet. And you're a 

[00:35:56] Dr. Lee: pitcher goodness. 

[00:35:57] TLC: So that being the thing, no matter how good you are, no matter if you were the best that ever played, you're going to get out more times. Then you're going to get a hit. And that's because again, walks aren't taken into account. Anything like that. The majority of the time when you get up and you put that bat to the ball, majority of the time you are going to get out and it took him a little bit.

I remember telling him that, and he was like. Yeah. And I even sent him a video and he was like, thanks for that. You know, he's like, cause yeah, that does kind of put things into perspective. And I think he just kind of recognized like, okay, I had a bad game. Well, it's baseball. 

[00:36:30] Dr. Lee: Well, and the other part about it too, is, is, you know, sure.

You want to go with your natural talents and abilities. And also you have no idea what those are. Um, I I've seen this so often and actually the book mastery talks about this. There's another really great book called mindset by Dr. Carolyn Dweck that talks about this. You know, so often we look at, um, prodigies and we go, Oh my gosh, they've been good at this since they were, do you know how many child prodigies there are out there?

That are now, and I don't mean this like as a character piece, but like they are adults doing mediocre and whatever they're doing because one of two things typically happens. One, nobody tells them, Hey, you're really good at that. Let's teach you a growth mindset so that you can learn how to foster this.

A lot of times when there's a child who has a talent or an innate gift at something and they really enjoy it, that can be seen. I see a lot of past painful experiences. Um, okay. You know, we have family members who are incredible musicians. That didn't become musicians because it wasn't a quote unquote safe career, right?

Um, or, or they weren't quote unquote as good as insert person's name here. And I'm like, okay, but you were playing eight to 10 hours a week. What would it look have looked like? 

[00:37:48] TLC: Yeah. 

[00:37:49] Dr. Lee: If you had somebody go, you know what? Go after that for a year, go after that for three years. Let like weight tables do the things.

See how it goes and put in 40, 50 hours of work a week into that craft. Like we don't know what would happen. So that's the first one is that it never gets developed in the first place. The second one is that, uh, there's a wall that gets hit and That wall is the first time it gets hard. I know. I just laughed.

I'm like, that's what she said. And the first time that it gets difficult, right? The first time it gets difficult. It's just a problem with doing a podcast with you. Anyway. Um, the first time it gets difficult, they've been taught you're a prodigy. You're a genius. Like you have innate talent at this. And so it's not supposed to be hard.

Oh 

[00:38:40] TLC: yeah. I always think of the basketball player that gets his height early. Right. And he's well over six foot by the time he's still in middle school. It's like, yeah, it's really easy to take shots when you can put your hands up and there's nobody that can block you because you are far and away the tallest person.

You're good to go. You can just kind of shoot from wherever you just practice your show. You don't have to really worry about the, the, the smaller skills, but the first time you get into high school and you go up against a guy who's you're six, two, he's six, six. And you go to take that shot and he stuffs it in your face and you're like, okay, now what do I do here?

Cause I've never had to deal with this. 

[00:39:14] Dr. Lee: It's like the five 11 quarterback in high school. That's the all star, like he's going to struggle in college. 

[00:39:19] TLC: Yeah. Yeah. The line stands up and everybody else beforehand, he could see over the line and all of a sudden that line stands up and he's like, Okay. Do I have to, I have to learn how to roll out now?

[00:39:28] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[00:39:29] TLC: Do I have to throw it earlier? I don't know. Never really had to deal with these issues. 

[00:39:34] Dr. Lee: You know, this also reminds me of back when, I mean, I see this in business owners that I work with a lot. They, they are a lot of times we attract. High achieving, like they're super successful in their careers. And I'm like, yeah, so I want to start a business, but those skills aren't there.

And it's like the thing that they're going to do in their business, they're so good at, they don't know how to run a business. And so, you know, we have our trauma sensitive business foundations course where we, we help people understand this is what you need in order to be able to run a business. And also to not like.

Be super mean to yourself while you're doing 

[00:40:06] TLC: great at something Even if you are a master woodworker, you can make a beautiful table per, you know, yeah consistently Right away. It's like okay, but then what are you going to do with that table now that you've got it made, 

[00:40:18] Dr. Lee: right? Are you good at social media?

Do you know how to do google seo? Do you know how to how to effectively sell a table? Do you know how to price them? Things based off of your time and your energy and your labor and your, your resources. Do you know how to, what, what happens if you put it out there and it goes viral and people order 50 tables?

Did you accidentally set up your website so that people could order 50 tables and now you have to make 49 tables in so much time. That's a big bang theory episode two. Remember with Penny and the Penny Blossom? That's a whole thing. There's like five geniuses in this room setting up this business, and they forget to uncheck the box that allows for rush shipping, and they've got to make a thousand overnight.

And there are so many pieces and parts to starting a business that you just don't know. And that doesn't mean you're stupid. That doesn't mean that you're incompetent or incapable or you're going to be bad at it. It just means that you got, there's a learning curve. 

[00:41:11] TLC: Yeah, I think sometimes, especially when it comes to business, a lot of people get this idea, like, well, I've been to stores and I've seen, you know, think how things generally work.

I feel like almost in some ways, the familiarity 

[00:41:22] Dr. Lee: of something, 

[00:41:22] TLC: the more times you've seen it happen, either on TV, in person, whatever like that, it almost makes it seem so much easier. And it's like, once you finally are actually in that role, you're like, wait a second, wait. There's how much more that goes into this, you know?

And it's like, yeah, when you break it down, okay, you have a store. Okay. What do you price the products at? What's the, the margin, all of that gets factored into some of these places, but it's like you just as a visitor there, you see, okay, yeah, you just take a stamp. You put the price on the thing. You walk away somebody comes up.

They want it. They buy it. If not, well, you're good Well, okay taxes and and then you're paying employees over there. There's just all this other stuff 

[00:42:01] Dr. Lee: there's so much that goes into it and and that is why honestly, I I love that. We have this section in trauma club. Um for business owners because you know There's now there's there's stuff that comes up from a trauma and a um A resilience perspective in just being in work and, and being in stressful or high responsibility situations.

And the reason we have that specific forum for business owners is because there's a different piece to it. When you're the one making the calls, there's so much. Um, I see so many people with past painful experiences around responsibility. This is something I've personally been working through a lot.

You've watched me do this. And, If you're somebody who was taught from an early age or conditioned, like you're wrong. If you need help, you should be able to do this all on yourself. You should be able to figure it out all on your own. You know, be independent, be alone human. Don't rely on anyone else.

Don't trust anyone else. I remember you used to say this to me, you used to tell me business wasn't personal. like, the fuck it isn't Lee TLC. Like, I was like, I get what you're saying. And also business is so incredibly personal for me. It is so relational for me because I'm literally in people's lives.

I'm in their traumas. And so yes, there needs to be this, there needs to be boundaries and there needs to be those pieces to it. And at the same time, I can't, I could, I don't desire to make business decisions purely from a transactional perspective. I desire to really ensure that whatever happens is a mutually beneficial decision to the best of my ability.

You have helped me kind of come over to. Understanding that business does involve transactions. And so I can't give things away for free all the time. Um, y'all, the reason trauma clubs price so low to start for the first hundred people was because I was like 19 and they were like, no, I was like, okay, not, but like for a few people, they're like, okay, that's fine.

Honestly, it should probably be 99. It's 49 full price, but that's always been a thing for me. I, I love to price things at an accessible place. And luckily I've surrounded myself with humans that are like, Lee, we see you. We love your heart. We love that you want to make this accessible. We also need to keep the lights on.

We also need to make sure teen gets paid. We also need to make sure we can keep that kid in travel baseball and keep paying for those piano lessons and keep buying those manga subscriptions and all of those things. So, um, See, I just changed it. 

[00:44:39] TLC: I, but I think trauma is the perfect kind of, you know, in terms of that, where you really have this knowledge too.

And it's also one of those, even before I started really understanding trauma, you'd be like, but you don't understand like where they're coming from. You would, it would really allowed you to see. Not just customers, but other people like from where they're coming from, from more of a whole person. And I'm like, yeah, I think it's, I've kind of gotten a little bit better with that where I'm like, yeah, it's something innately you kind of know.

It's almost to me trauma in some ways. It's like, yeah, like a lot of these other skills, people might know some about it or might think they have some sort of an idea, but it's like when you really start getting into it and you start really understanding it at a different level and how it connects, in different ways to how people show up 

[00:45:28] Dr. Lee: and how 

[00:45:29] TLC: people really get into things.

You're like, Oh yeah, there is this whole other layer. 

[00:45:35] Dr. Lee: You're speaking to the ability to bring a trauma informed trauma sensitive perspective to business. 

[00:45:42] TLC: Exactly. And that's why when you have, when you're teaching these people, it's like, they may understand that. Okay. If somebody had something traumatic happened to them in their life.

[00:45:50] Dr. Lee: Okay. 

[00:45:50] TLC: That may, that may affect them in some ways. But how that actually relates to business, how that actually relates and how that relates to them as a person, how to better understand that it really does add that whole other level of depth to their business, so interactions. 

[00:46:08] Dr. Lee: And, and to your point, I think this is, oh, I'm just making a connection right here.

Um, Let me let it like sink in. So one of the things that we hear a lot in our spaces is that they're really diverse and they're diverse in thought. Meaning we have people who, you know, um, believe very different political beliefs, religious beliefs, um, you know, uh, economic beliefs, all, all of those things.

Uh, and We also, our spaces are very diverse in terms of, um, religion, ethnicity, uh, gender expression, um, you know, uh, sexual orientation, all of those things. Socio economic status. We've got, uh, people who are, you know, multi millionaires and we've got people who are, um, on government assistance. We've got people who, you know, really just like, we have such a diverse space and people ask me all the time how we created that and I really don't.

No, um, it wasn't an intentional, like I knew that that was a desire, but it wasn't something that I went, Oh, let's see how we can get as many diverse people in here at all. I think we took it from the approach of, um, being intentional about being accepting and understanding and welcoming and inclusive.

But I say all that to say, uh, we've been getting more men in our space and particularly men of color in our space. And, um, which is just like, Jazzes me up so much to have because that's one area was men that we didn't have it was like 90 10 in our space and I've had several conversations with them recently.

And when you think about, okay, well, they're men, right? According to our current society, they should be great at business because business favors men. The patriarchy favors men. And yet. there. Are you, you just shared your story as a white man of like feeling like, oh gosh, I don't know that I'm gonna be perfect at this right away.

I don't know that I'm gonna be successful at this right away. Some of the stories that I hear from men of color are Okay. I, I, I'm being told that I hold this privileged position in which I should be able to start a business and be successful at it. 

[00:48:22] TLC: Hmm. 

[00:48:22] Dr. Lee: And yet there is a very deep sense of scarcity.

and fear around putting myself out there to be perceived as a man of color in today's world. And I don't think I understood the level of trauma and the intersectionality and just all of the pieces and parts that went into that until I started having conversations with some of these people. I understood it from the, the woman of color perspective, being a woman of color.

Now, I'm. Uh, light skinned. I'm, uh, I passed the brown paper bag test. So my experience is different than women who have of color, who have darker, uh, complexions. And I didn't really think about it like that. I had never thought, oh, goodness, if society has taught you that you're supposed to be really, really good at this, that can be just as traumatic as society teaching you you're never going to be good at this.

[00:49:19] TLC: Oh, yeah. And I think it's always been fascinating to me that you have so many people who go on to do great things and as part of their origin story, it's like, okay, he tried these eight other businesses, they failed. And then he was able on his ninth business to get it going. But I think what's always been interesting.

I never really had thought about it is that between each of those businesses, At one point, he was broke. 

[00:49:43] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[00:49:43] TLC: He was, you know, a broke guy who didn't really have anything going on. And then from there, kind of, now granted, some people had something to fall back on and stuff like that. But in a lot of cases, but that can be kind of rewarding.

But I've, you know, it was one of those, I don't even know where I heard it, but they were talking about, you know, And again, not to say that this is my experience, but like black man was saying, yeah, but if my business fails, I'm, I'm a bum 

[00:50:08] Dr. Lee: and it 

[00:50:09] TLC: becomes more of like, I'm, you know, I'm broke I'm whatever else, and I fit a lot of these negative stereotypes where it's like, and it never really didn't click to me, whereas in some cases, it's like.

Yeah, there is that added other dimension. Yeah, where it's like you are then perceived by everybody, you know, oh, yeah You're broke, you know, you have all these other issues rather than like, oh that didn't work out Okay, go ahead. Try the next one, 

[00:50:33] Dr. Lee: right? there's there's um resiliency factors in that sense of privilege and I think that we As a society, we do a really good job of having the conversation around holding this privileged identity or, um, what, how that helps you.

And I do think it's an important part of the conversation though, for people to understand, um, it's nuanced, right? There is a little bit of nuance to this. I have met so many white men who are terrified. Right now to make any kind of move or do any kind of thing they are, um, I, I talk to their, a lot of their spouses and they're like, I don't know how to help my husband or how to help my partner.

Like he doesn't want to try. He, uh, is having a real, like he's depressed. He's using substances. Like he doesn't like his life. He doesn't like his job. He doesn't like what he's doing. And I, and I know that there's something in there. Like I can see that spark in him. I know that if he really went after what he wanted, he, his life would feel so much better.

And I have no idea how to help him get there. And, you know, you and I have had conversations, um, around this before and something that you pointed out to me was, and actually we talked about this in our trauma training program earlier this week. We talked about the definition of autonomy. Mm hmm. And in that book, Judith Urban has taught trauma and recovery, she's talking about that autonomy requires, or excuse me, she's talking about how we as, uh, as helpers, right?

Those of us who are holding space for people who want to heal from trauma, how it is our job to, um, help people complete the healing that they have started spontaneously. And so this is a big thing for those of you who are listening to this and you're, you have been thinking of someone this entire time that you're like, Oh my gosh, I have to send this podcast to them because they're, you're right.

Like there's something they want to do and they're stuck. Like they want to start a podcast. They're just like TLC. There's just this y'all. We oftentimes can see other people's brilliance. We can love their voices. We can love the things they share. We can see the brilliance in other people. And until there's that little spark of spontaneous, like, Oh, I want to do something with this.

The likelihood that that resolution is going to come is really low. 

[00:53:20] TLC: Yeah. And especially if the, the fear of if I fail it, that's it. 

[00:53:25] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[00:53:26] TLC: It's done. 

[00:53:26] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[00:53:27] TLC: You know, I've always kind of, and again, I don't know that this is for sure the case, but I've kind of wondered more as people are more on the internet as stuff is more permanent as it is more out there.

If the fear is if I fail, everybody knows it's always out there. I'm a failure in the public eye, 

[00:53:45] Dr. Lee: whereas 

[00:53:45] TLC: I, you know, when you see in history, it seemed like in your area, maybe. But the idea was, you know, you could maybe move somewhere else, but it was, but you know, now there is, you can't move 

[00:53:57] Dr. Lee: somewhere else.

Like you, I guess you could like scrub your identity from the internet and like go pretend to be someone, but that's really hard to do these days. And you can 

[00:54:03] TLC: try, you can try and become someone else, but now so many things are like, so many things that you say something's wrong, you do something, and I don't mean just wrong, like you had some sort of a belief that was, You know, generally people speaking, looking at it, we're going, well, that's really messed up.

Yeah. But the idea is there's no coming back from a lot of 

[00:54:21] Dr. Lee: this. You can't. Yeah. You can't. Um, there's, there's not a lot of redemption that's allowed in. Right. And we're gonna actually get into that in a whole episode on cancel culture and those things later on in the season. And, and I'm really excited for us to talk about that.

You know, I, I, if you're listening to this and, and. Again, we did not plan on talking about this at all. This was not episode one. Use this as evidence because one thing that happened while we were talking is you got comfortable. We sat here, we had a good conversation. We squirreled, we went off on tangents.

We wove our way through a journey. We ended up in a really cool place and like your voice sounded amazing throughout the whole thing. 

[00:55:04] TLC: Yeah. Yeah. I didn't, uh, you know, do the really deep style, you know? 

[00:55:09] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[00:55:09] TLC: So. 

[00:55:10] Dr. Lee: But like the, you did it. 

[00:55:17] TLC: Yeah. It's kind of, kind of interesting that you said I'm like, oh, right.

[00:55:20] Dr. Lee: Yeah. So, so can we, but this is cool. Can we pull something out here? Is that okay? Sometimes he's like step out of coach mode and I'm like, okay, I will. But I'm, I'm in there just for a second, just for the purpose of this. Notice that. While we were doing this, you were here, you were present with me. You were in the conversation.

You weren't thinking about how you looked, how other people were going to perceive you, how you sounded, any of that. You were in it and enjoying it. Right? Yeah. Note it. Like what's the difference between that and the feeling you're having now? Hmm. I think 

[00:55:55] TLC: it's more just analysis. Oh, right. This is something that's going to be seen and I haven't been doing that.

[00:56:02] Dr. Lee: Oh, so what, oh my gosh, what could I have done? Right, 

[00:56:05] TLC: right, should I? Just to set up a little more strategy and I like 

[00:56:08] Dr. Lee: I know. Well, and I I wanted to, to pull that out because at the very beginning of this When we started talking, I was like, Oh gosh, this is a side profile. And if people are watching this, like, again, I mentioned I've gained some weight.

Like I I'm a little self conscious about my chin and how it looks from a side profile. I don't love that anymore. One of the things that I've learned to practice is, Hey, what is the point of what you're doing here? 

[00:56:33] TLC: The 

[00:56:34] Dr. Lee: point is to have a conversation with your husband that other people are going to listen to and ideally get something 

[00:56:38] TLC: from.

Mm hmm. 

[00:56:39] Dr. Lee: If people are focused on your chin, or the 

[00:56:42] TLC: fact that I need a haircut 

[00:56:45] Dr. Lee: or the But like if people are focused on that and they go, oh my gosh I don't want to listen to these people or I don't want to watch these people look at them You are so not our people No, you might have noticed that and been like or now that we've said it you're like, oh, yeah I'm not saying if you notice that and you know, uh, perceived it and judged it for a second and then like kept listening because you're paying attention to the message.

I mean, if that's something to, that will keep you, if the perception of my chin or your hair is something that keeps people from continuing to listen to us, bye.

Why, why would I want to cater to that? 

[00:57:25] TLC: Right. 

[00:57:27] Dr. Lee: Instead of being able to drop in and have this conversation and enjoy my time with you and not give a hoot about what my chin looks like or what your hair looks like. 

[00:57:38] TLC: Yeah. Yeah. That is one of those things that I've always noticed with whatever kind of business you're doing.

I've always thought it was pretty awesome is that the people you tend to get in there. You know, I never quite understood it at the beginning, like, Oh yeah, I'm getting these people that I really enjoy working with whatever else in my thought was, well, you know, the people that I would enjoy working with the people who have money that's green, you know, like, I don't understand why would you care in some ways who your clients are, if they're paying and then then cool, then that's then that's, you know, You know, and it was one of those, as you've been building spaces, especially when it's people interacting with each other, like, okay, this does make a lot more sense, you know, everybody's coming from this baseline knowledge and understanding of like, okay, we all at least have this understanding of what trauma is, how certain things can interact and really working within business and coming with each.

Of our unique kind of perspective and unique abilities to really kind of come together to make it, you know, even better. And I'm like, okay, this makes so much more sense why you would kind of went in that direction. But yeah, initially I, if I'm being honest, I couldn't quite understand it. I'm like. Well, yeah, they're cool, but, but cool in what way?

You mean like they have a large reach and that'll bring more people in and bring more money in because well, business, that's the main goal, you know? And I was like, you know, it didn't quite click to me for quite a while. And I'm like, okay, yeah, this is why you said like, okay, this client really wants to work with me, but you know, I don't think we're right.

I'm going to hand you off to somebody else. And to me, there were a couple of times where you would say that. And But they want to pay you and you're saying No, I think you're going to be better off with this person over here 

[00:59:30] Dr. Lee: Yeah, 

[00:59:30] TLC: who really does something in sort of the same vague like vein that i'm doing But they don't do the same thing They don't do in the same way and they're going to be a lot better fit for you and in my head i'm like Yeah, but couldn't you still like?

Why not still work with them? 

[00:59:47] Dr. Lee: Why not still work with them? Do you want to know what that is? That's mastery. That is me getting enough data points to be able to go, okay, What is going to happen here and what you're going to be required to do, what this person's going to want from you, what, what the deal is compared to the amount of money you're going to make, it's not worth it.

Or I'm not going to be able to serve this person to the level that they need or that I would feel good about serving them. So mastery, a part of this is also, you can, you become a little bit of a fortune teller with mastery. When you have enough data, That is when, from the past, that is when you are able to extrapolate towards the future.

But the thing about mastery is, is that you're accurately interpreting the data. And I bring this back because in trauma, 

[01:00:38] TLC: and 

[01:00:38] Dr. Lee: I can't wait until episode two where we go through the history of trauma, in when we have past painful experiences, they shift and they distort the data points. Our brain believes that data is telling us something that it's not actually telling us.

So, oh, you, you failed and your parents screamed at you and told you how horrible you were. Well, the data that you get from that is failure equals bad. When in reality failure is just trying something that doesn't work. And the best way to figure out what works is to keep trying things that don't work or to ask other people to get mentorship and go, Hey, do you know all the ways this doesn't work?

Because that means I don't have to do any of them. You've already figured that part out. 

[01:01:26] TLC: Step seven instead of step one. 

[01:01:29] Dr. Lee: Mastery is I have done this enough to be able to see patterns. And I remember the pattern that happened with this person who paid me a good amount of money and it was not worth it.

And so this person I'm seeing the same data points in this person as I am with the person from before. Even when 

[01:01:48] TLC: you can't even necessarily cognitively understand. What those points are having that going, like, like you were saying earlier, that 

[01:01:54] Dr. Lee: pre verbal, like impending doom 

[01:01:57] TLC: going out there, that, that patient, everything seems okay numbers, but there's something going on with that patient.

And I have a very strong feeling that within the next six hours, we're going to be calling a code on this guy. Yeah. I've heard you say that before. And it's like the amount of times that that is correct versus incorrect is, is way higher than it, than it ever would be based on simple guesswork. 

[01:02:17] Dr. Lee: Well, and, and the thing of it is.

And I'm going to say something that sounds a little, it sounds a little, uh, no, it doesn't it. Cause it's true. See the humility wound coming back in y'all. I still have my own stuff. The podcast is such a great way to place to work through those things. I've turned down 10, 000 before. And when I turned down that money, And I have listened to my, nope, don't do that.

You've, I've had this conversation with you where I come downstairs and I'm like, mother of Pearl. I just had to say no to this thing and I don't want to say no to this thing. Also, I really think I needed to say no to this thing. And I kid you not a day, a week, a month later, I'm like, Oh, thank goodness.

[01:03:02] TLC: Now I know why I couldn't do that. 

[01:03:05] Dr. Lee: I couldn't put it into words. I couldn't, I couldn't explain it. But I did. And yet there was just a visceral knowing don't do that, Lee. And what is so fascinating, I think this is a cool place to end on because something you taught me, you know, we've talked a lot about like you feeling a little wobbly doing the podcast with me because I have so much experience.

One of the things you've taught me is to slow down around decision making, which is not something I've ever been good at. And, um, I can think all the times where you tried to get me to slow down and I did, which, which is a mastery tool, by the way, masters, there's no urgency there. Cause they understand that moving quickly costs them the most like mistakes.

I don't mean not moving efficiently. I mean, uh, 

[01:03:59] TLC: jumping into jumping 

[01:04:00] Dr. Lee: into something without doing a little due diligence, even if it's five minutes, The times that I have come to you and tried to move rapidly and you have tried to slow me down and I've gotten really frustrated and been like, well, you just don't believe in me and all that.

And then I've gone to do it anyway, never worked. And I can't say if that's because it wasn't right in the first place, or if it's because I just didn't slow down enough to ask enough questions to be able to go into it with the data I needed to make an informed choice. And so us even recording this podcast, you coming into the business, us starting trauma club, a lot of the decisions that we've made in the business recently, these decisions have been in the works for a while.

You being in here, that was a no for a long time because we just, We weren't masters at working together yet, 

[01:05:01] TLC: right? And there were times where we would kind of, you know, start kind of doing that. And then I would be like, we kind of made quite a few decisions in a row that I didn't know about. And I don't mean this, I'm not trying to like, 

[01:05:15] Dr. Lee: but 

[01:05:16] TLC: it was, it was one of those situations where I'm like, okay, well then what am I doing?

[01:05:19] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[01:05:20] TLC: You know, what, what is. If I can't slay it on because I don't even know what's going on, then, you know, we're just kind of doing it separately anyway, 

[01:05:28] Dr. Lee: you know, 

[01:05:28] TLC: and it, it didn't really like, yeah, let's maybe not do this right now. 

[01:05:32] Dr. Lee: That's exactly what just happened with this episode though, was I shifted the schedule.

It made things a little bit tighter. The schedule needed shifted in order to, to honor a client's needs. And instead of me getting all like, well, let's just get it done. Or instead of. you going, yeah, let's just do it. I was like, Hey, I know that when schedules shift and when we don't have the amount of time you thought we were going to, that that stresses you out.

And I don't want to do this urgently. I want to make sure you feel regulated. So we tried to start episode one, a couple of times, you got weird about it. I got weird about it. And instead of going into old trauma patterns and the way that we would have done things before it was, Okay. Yeah, 

[01:06:17] TLC: there would have been nothing done.

[01:06:19] Dr. Lee: No, we, I would have probably been upstairs in bed after I cried for 30 minutes and you would be off like doing something else and we would have had to work it all out tonight and it would have been this thing and this is the beauty of doing trauma work with, um, inside of the relationships that are the most important and the closest is instead we were sitting here, we were talking, you started to talk about this and I was like, wait, this is really good.

That mastery kicked in of like, Oh, wait, 

[01:06:50] TLC: they were like, let's, I 

[01:06:51] Dr. Lee: said, I said, may I record this? I didn't just hit the button. Cause it was a big deal. You were being, you know, open. And so can we record this? I didn't know it was going to turn into an episode. I thought maybe it would just be a tick tock or a clip, but something intuitively went this and Developing that skill is one of the critical pieces of trauma work, and it is also one of the biggest benefits.

[01:07:22] TLC: Yeah, yeah, because if you told me beforehand, okay, you know, we're not going to do what you have all your notes and stuff here on. We're going to do something else, and we're going to, you know, quote, wing it, if you will. I'd have been like, no, I would like, I would have been really like nervous in a lot of ways because yeah, while it does work, I think there was something, even us just sitting here talking it out.

I think I've kind of realized, Oh. That kind of was where a little bit of that was coming from and really it wasn't Until we talked it out until like, you know really does help me even more understand 

[01:07:56] Dr. Lee: Yeah, 

[01:07:57] TLC: and i'm really glad you did record it because yeah, if we'd had to try and do this again in the beginning No, 

[01:08:03] Dr. Lee: this conversation could never get fully, uh, uh created again and and that's one of the beautiful pieces about mastery too is that you can really um You can take advantage of those synchronicities.

You can notice those moments of you're like, oh, this actually might be something. It's It is, we don't have time to talk about it. It reminds me of Rick Rubin, um, and his new book. I can't remember exactly what the title is, but the artists. It's about art and, um, how to connect with that creative process.

But it goes back to what we've been talking about this whole episode of, As you really go internal and start there and go like, what do I want to say? Like, how do I want to feel while I'm doing this? What, what do I want to talk about? Like, how do I not be distracted by how other people are going to perceive me?

And how do I share what I'm, my perception, the more you do that. And the more you experiment with it, the better you're going to get. noticing moments that you're like, right. It's, it's when the photographer catches the photo. Yeah. It's when the painter captures that really like just mundane thing. It's when, um, you know, it's those moments that just stop you.

And you're like, that's the thing. Sometimes 

[01:09:24] TLC: you don't even know why it's so right. 

[01:09:26] Dr. Lee: Yeah. 

[01:09:26] TLC: Why when you look at a painting, it's like, yeah, it's a painting of a bowl of fruit. But it's almost like sometimes you can just tell, like, that whatever it is, they got it and they, like, they nailed it. 

[01:09:39] Dr. Lee: But that is a master, more often than not, that is a master using that pre verbal, primitive, intuitive.

[01:09:50] TLC: Yeah, a photographer just sees, you know, a random thing and like, nope, hold on, I'm taking that picture. Why? Sometimes I feel like they don't even know, but it's, but that's, that's where it is. And then, yeah, that's what goes on to win the prize. 

[01:10:03] Dr. Lee: And it's play and it's fun and it's experiment and it's, let's just see if this works.

And here's the thing. If we had just recorded this for an hour and 10 minutes and it didn't work, guess what we would have done. We would have scrapped it. You're more comfortable doing a podcast. I've learned things about you. You've learned things about me. It's worth it. It doesn't matter if the end result is something we, we put out to the world or not, did we learn from it?

And so if you are someone listening to this going, man, there's something that I have been feeling really called to do. And I've got, I've got some past painful experiences around this. I think I might have some conditioning on this. After listening to y'all talk about this, there's some pieces that are resonating.

Y'all get in our space. 

[01:10:44] TLC: Yeah. Come, 

[01:10:46] Dr. Lee: come hang out with us. 

[01:10:50] TLC: Let's figure this out. Yeah. Let's get you where you need to be. Yeah. And where you want to be. 

[01:10:54] Dr. Lee: Yeah. It's, it's, it's where you want to be. And, and when your brain invariably starts going, but I have to do a perfect, but it has to be this, but it has to be that.

Guess what? Um, we would love to hear you talk all about the reasons why this can't happen for you because we've not only have we heard most of them. We know what it feels like we've been there and sometimes you just got to be able to say it to someone who's like, man, I get it. I get, I get being scared and I get that feeling of scarcity and I get, I get all of it.

And what would it look like for you to try just even a little bit? Like what would you need in order to be able to do that? What, what, how could we shift your perception just slightly, just enough that you could go, okay, let me just try this tiny toe dip into this. So. Yeah. Join trauma club. If you're a business owner and you're like, I actually want to do some big business stuff.

Like I want to get in here and learn about how to shift my sales, my marketing, my operations, my finance. I want to make sure my business feels good for me and my clients and customers and my team when, and if I have them, uh, our trauma sensitive business foundations. Self study program. I highly recommend that.

It is, it has monthly enrollment. So it's not something that you're going to have to wait to get into. Uh, if you purchase today, you'll be in the next cohort the next month. 

[01:12:18] TLC: And it's something you can use. Yeah. You know, now. Yeah. It's not something you have to. At some point in the future, you can't really apply it.

[01:12:26] Dr. Lee: No. Um, as soon as you purchase, you get access to those self study modules. And then the next cohort that starts, um, the following month, you get weekly coaching calls with Brittany Bowman. Who's one of our key operations. She's phenomenal. She's also in trauma clubs, so you'll get to meet her there too. So trauma club 19 a month trauma sensitive business foundations course.

That's 888. Uh, we have a four split payment option. If you want to check that out, we'll make sure both of those links are down in the show notes. Thanks for vibing with us for this unexpected first step. Thanks for 

[01:13:00] TLC: being there. 

[01:13:01] Dr. Lee: All right. All right. See you next time guys.