Ep #94: The End of Judgement and Cancel Culture

Hi, you are listening to episode 94 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you put an end to judgment and cancel culture. Let’s go.

Welcome to The Confident Coaches Podcast, a place for creating the self-confidence you need to do your best work as a life coach. If you want to bring more boldness, more resilience, and more joy to your work, this is the place for you. I’m your host, Amy Latta. Let’s dive in.

Hi confident coach, how are you doing today? I hope you’re doing fabulously. I can’t wait to share with you all what I learned when I was at my weeklong mastermind with my coach. We are still digesting, we are still taking that all in.

What today’s episode is, is actually a part two from last week’s episode, episode 93. So look for, in the next few weeks, some good stuff to come out of my work at my mastermind with my coach.

This week is actually a wrap up to last week’s episode, so if you have not listened to episode 93, actually you are going to want to stop this. You are going to want to stop this and go listen to episode 93 first. Because a whole lot of stuff I talk about today is not going to make any sense if you haven’t listened to episode 93.

So it’s essentially a two-parter, so hit pause, go listen to that one first and then come back and listen to this, the whole thing. Both episodes shouldn’t take you more than an hour. And if you’re smart, you’re listening to me at like 1.2 speed, right?

All right. It still won’t take you about an hour, but they are brother and sister episodes because they really are so essential to my path to 100K. And they’re going to be part of your essential path to 100K too. Because last week I introduced the question that changed everything for me in 2018.

Now why is that year important? Because 2018 is the year that I went from making 18K to 103K. All right? And here’s the interesting thing, I keep talking about how I went from 18K to 103K, I want to offer you that that 18K that I made in 2017, I made half of that in the last three months of the year, when I started working with my coach who helped me with self-belief, and self-worth, and self-love.

Even that 18K seems a little elevated, considering that I had really only started doing this kind of work towards the end of that year. And then the phenomenal growth that I had in the year 2018, when I really started implementing a lot of what I share here on the podcast.

And a lot of what I share on the podcast is what I learned from that coach, what I learned from other mentors, plus what I mixed with my own brain to create what is now the Confident Coaches Podcast.

But these two episodes, last week in this week, was a question that was asked of me that really just, it was one of those – I talk a lot about 1% confidence shifts, these decisions that we make that seem small at the time, but actually send us on to a completely different directory.

This one actually feels like a 2% confidence shift. It felt huge at that time, it felt big in the moment. So I think even in the moment it was greater than a 1% shift confidence change. And that was when my peer coach asked me, “If there are no rules and there is no judgment, what will you create?”

And my mind blew up. What was she talking about no rules and no judgment, right? My entire life was modeled around following the rules so that I could avoid people’s judgment. But that question opened a doorway in my mind that, listen, if I’m honest with myself, I always knew it was there. I knew she was right.

Rules are just made up thoughts that a lot of people have agreed to think. Now, we do like some rules, right? We like the rule not to murder other people. I think I mentioned that last week. We like “don’t murder other people” but it’s still just a thought that it’s not okay to murder someone. We just as a collective human race have determined that in most cases killing another person is not okay. We don’t like that and you’re going to go to prison if you do.

And this is we’re going to get a little bit more into today’s topic, even right now in the time of Covid, and just a forewarning, this is not going to get political in any way shape or form. But it’s going to spread some light, or shed some light, sorry, on the idea of rules, judgment, and cancel culture. This is not a political conversation. Do not freak out. Stay with me here.

But this is being recorded in August of 2021. So If you are listening in the future, we have a vaccine, about 160 million people are vaccinated. We also have variants that are starting to surge. Cases are going up; hospitalizations are at a max again. It’s August, but the numbers look like now what they were back in January in the middle of sick season.

And there are questions about whether we should make the rule that everyone needs to wear masks indoors again. We’ve lifted all the mask mandates, those were lifted. People are wanting to bring them back down, other people saying no, you can’t do that. So there’s a lot of like, “What’s the rule?”

Now, this isn’t a rule that many people are on board with as say, like the don’t murder people rule. Most people are like, “Yeah, don’t do that.” But when it comes to this, there seems to be some gray area. But it’s a rule a lot of us are okay with complying with. I like knowing. It’s good for me to know that I’m not unwittingly contributing to somebody else’s severe illness or death.

My whole family is vaccinated. We just feel more comfortable having done that. I feel good knowing that I’m not going to spread it to my family members who can’t get vaccinated or to my family members that do have asthma. My son has asthma, I have asthma. We’re on board with that.

Some people may judge me for the fact when my family and I are out we are starting to wear our masks again. And this is where it’s important to remember that not only are there are no rules, there is no judgment.

So in last week’s episode I went in depth on how to find the rules you’ve been following in your business and then what to replace those rules with. Again, go listen if you haven’t already. So once you are feeling all copacetic on this side of the table, that there are no rules for yourself, you’re Helga brain is going to freak out. She’s going to start reading riot acts in your mind.

Because even once you decide you are okay that there are no rules, she’s not going to be okay because she’s going to start worrying about what everybody else is thinking. Because just because you decide there are no rules or there are rules that you are not going to comply with, your Helga brain is going to be like, “But other people think we should be and that’s going to be a problem. If I don’t follow the same rules they do, they will judge me.”

And I live in a part of the country where a lot of people are not getting vaccinated. And pretty much no one’s wearing a mask. So my Helga brain could be shouting, “They’re judging you for wearing a mask in Target.” But I just don’t even worry about that.

Why? Why am I not worried about being judged? Why am I not being worried about being judged in my business? When it comes to COVID? Really, when it comes to anything? Why am I not worried about being judged about having a Black Lives Matter sign in my front yard where I live in a very red republican oriented district?

Why am I not worried about being judged? Because no one can judge you. I know, did a little part of your brain, did your amygdala just explode back there? Listen, we could have hours of conversation about whether or not people should be fighting against or for Covid rules, or whether or not you should have a Black Lives Matter sign in your yard or whatever.

That’s a whole other side of a conversation, because what’s really important here is understanding that no one can actually judge you. Because feeling judged, where does feeling judged come from? Think about this coaches, you know.

Where do your feelings come from? Do they come from what other people think or what other people say? No, they don’t. You know, it’s true. Where does feeling judged come from? Feeling judged comes from what you think, not what somebody else thinks.

I know, I know you’re going to start mounting a lot of arguments against this right now. I can hear your Helga brains churning up. I can hear him right through the airwaves right now. They’re going, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but…”

When I wear my mask in public, and even though I’m vaccinated, even though there’s no mask mandates where I live and there probably won’t be because there never was in the first place. I don’t feel judged at all by anyone else, even though I see funny looks coming my way.

And maybe they’re not funny looks, I don’t know. Maybe they are. I feel just fine. They might think I’m an idiot, or a sheep, or raving tree hugging liberal who loves letting illegals in and killing babies, all over a mask, right? People will make so much pre-determination just by what you wear inside of a Target store right there.

But I don’t feel judged by them. How is that possible? Because I can’t. I literally can’t. I literally cannot feel the judgment of others. My thoughts about me are 100% fine. That’s how I don’t feel judged by them. They may have those thoughts about me, but I can’t feel their thoughts. You cannot feel someone else’s thoughts.

Side note, now as an empath, if you are on the empathic side of things you might be like, “Well, actually, Amy…” I do want to say, yes, I can feel energy coming off of people. I work with an empathic energy healer who can feel my thinking when I run into the room. She has a very high level gifted ability. That is not we’re talking about here.

I get that. I do get an emotional read from a room when I walk in. I am a highly sensitive person. That’s not what we’re talking about here. And I know you know that, but before someone’s brain just shuts down this entire conversation with, “Actually us empaths and highly sensitives…” Yes, I do know. That is not what this conversation is about. That’s a whole other podcast episode here.

I like that we’re like 10 minutes in and I’m like, “That’s a separate podcast episode. That’s not what we’re talking about. That’s a separate podcast episode. That’s not what we’re talking about.” We’re talking about when people think something about you, you cannot feel the feeling of that thought about you.

The only way that you feel that feeling is not because they are thinking it, but because you are too. You are agreeing with them in their thinking. You may not like that you’re agreeing with them.

If you have any doubt, if I was a little worried, if I was a little unsure about the mask, if I was a little bit unsure about the political statements that I put outside my front yard in an area that thinks very differently than I do. If I was thinking that maybe they were right, then maybe I might feel judgment. But the judgment would be coming from inside the house.

My clients hear this all the time, “The call is coming from inside the house.”
It’s not coming from out there, it’s coming from in here. If someone thinks I’m a dumb ass for wearing a mask at Target, I don’t feel their judgment, because I’m not questioning if I should be wearing a mask or not. I feel fine. I feel very confident in that so I don’t feel judgment from it. The only way I would feel judgment from it is if I was thinking that.

The same thing goes with your business. One of the rules that I mentioned last week, I’ll pick a specific business rule. One of the rules that I mentioned last week that came up for me when I first started really putting myself out there as a business owner was you can’t cuss and be a professional business owner. I actually had a mentor tell me that, that I needed to stop cussing or you shouldn’t cuss in general.

So I filtered myself a lot. I changed really, I changed who I was to meet this rule so that I could avoid the judgment of others. And I actually had somebody in my life who was saying the thing.

So this the other thing about judgment, is that judgment, sometimes we think people are judging us and they’re not even thinking about us. They aren’t thinking those thoughts at all. We are putting our doubt into their head and then blaming them for it.

So like nine times out of 10, judgment isn’t even real. Or what we think is judgment isn’t even real. We’re blaming other people for our negative thoughts about ourselves. Nine times out of 10 people aren’t even thinking anything about my cussing. They’re not thinking anything at all.

But one time out of 10 people will actually say the thing. I actually had a mentor say it’s not okay to cuss. You shouldn’t, That’s not professional. That was something that was actually said to me. That’s about 10% of the stuff where somebody is actually saying the thing that you yourself are already unsure of and you’re like, “Oh, see, they’re judging me.”

So again, most of the time when we say people are judging me, they’re not even thinking about you sister. You’re not even on their radar. They are worried about themselves, they are not worried about you.

By the way, Lou is in the office and he’s sneezing. So if you hear him, there’s a little Lou Bear in here going, “Yeah, that’s what I think too, mom.”

And then there are the people who will say the thing that you’re worried about being judged about. You still get to decide what you think about that. Remember, there is no rule and there is no judgment. I get to decide if I want to cuss in my own business or not. It’s not actually a rule. I get to decide if it’s something that’s important to me or not.

And I decided. I decided I cuss, it’s just part of who I am. I don’t have a problem with it. I cuss around my house, my kids know what language is and is not appropriate. They are learning when they can and can’t say things. They actually don’t say those things in our home to me.

But they are learning how to moderate their language to fit a certain environment if that’s what they need to do. But also how to be their own person. Cussing is part of who I am. I don’t have a problem with it. And I like to say they’re just words that I use.

Now, I’ve decided that it’s a rule that I’m not going to follow. That doesn’t mean other people are going to agree with me. And again, I had a mentor who actually said the thing. And I have gotten messages from people who have told me to stop cussing. They have told me I have a filthy mouth. They have told me they can’t take me seriously. I have gotten private messages that have said, “I would love to work with you. But I just could never work with somebody who cussed like you do.” Fine, right?

Am I being judged? No. No, they have thoughts and feelings about me cussing. But I can’t feel judged by those thoughts and feelings, they’re their thoughts and feelings. The only way I would feel judged, is if I agreed with their thoughts and feelings about my cussing. And I don’t.

Now, let’s be clear, when I first decided I was going to be this person who cussed in her professional speak and be who I am, my Helga brain was a little uncomfortable. People aren’t going to like this. They are going to think this isn’t okay. And I did feel judged, but I didn’t feel judged because they said that. I felt judged because I didn’t feel confident in myself to be who I really was yet.

It’s because I wasn’t firm in my own rules and what I believed about me. Because I was worried about those things for myself. I still questioned if I should really say what I wanted to say. All judgment from others is, is worrying about other people’s opinions. This is an other people opinion situation, OPOs for short. OPOs, everybody’s got them.

OPOs never have anything to do with you. They always have something to do with the other person. Other people’s opinions are not about you, they are about the person who has the opinion. And that opinion is likely reflective of the rules that they think that they have to follow and the judgment that they are trying to avoid, and the life that they have lived. Literally nothing about you.

When I cuss, most people say nothing. A couple of people say don’t like it. And a lot of people say it’s why I love you. How can I get three different reactions from one thing? Because the reaction is not about me, it’s about the person who has the reaction. That is all an OPO is. It is reflective of that person, it’s never reflective of you.

And the only reason OPOs ever affect us is if we ourselves have that same opinion. So I want to make sure that you really get that you can’t be judged by others. We’re going to take this another layer deeper and it might get even more uncomfortable for you. And I want you to stay with me, okay?

Because everything about our culture says, “Oh, but you can be judged by others.” Right now everything in our culture says that people can and are judging you, and they can cancel you. And this simply isn’t true. I know we are at what seems to be the height of cancel culture. But canceling isn’t any different than regular judging. People have thoughts and feelings about you.

Here’s one of the things that I’ve noticed about the term cancel culture, is that people slap that term on all kinds of shit. It’s like this big umbrella thing and we’re like, “Oh, they were all canceled.” But actually what happened with each individual situation was very different. And yet, we’ve just created this umbrella of cancel culture.

But things are very different. We just slap that term on all kinds of different things. Like from being held accountable for truly criminal behavior, to a celebrity coming out for or against a political stance, to coaches afraid to say what they really want to say because some people might say negative things about them. We will call all of that cancel culture.

I just gave three entirely different examples of things that can happen. None of those things are the same thing. But we will label it all with that label.

I coached a very successful coach this past spring who was really afraid of that last one. She was so afraid of cancel culture. And I was like, “Are you doing anything criminal?” No. “Are you coming out strongly for or against a very contentious political stance?” No. “Okay, then what are you worried about? Oh, you’re afraid that other coaches won’t agree with your techniques and what you teach. And you have a big enough name, that you’re afraid that there will be people who will be vocal and outspoken against you.”

Now, we will call all that cancel culture, but those are three entirely different things. And last year, we did, we’ve seen coaches that we know, maybe even coaches that you have admired, get called out for not taking stances that some people think they should or for taking stances that other people think that they shouldn’t. You know, “You’re not doing enough. You’re doing too much.”

There’s been a lot of calling out people at the top. It is one thing that we do love to do in our culture, we love an underdog. We love to boost them up. But when people get big and they stay there we kind of also love to tear them down too.

It all goes back to those rules that we all tend to grew up with and try to follow. You can be big, but not too big. You can be successful, but not too successful. You can make a lot of money, but not too much money. Or if you make a lot of money, you need to use it in a certain way for us to still continue to like you.

But really consider, even when successful people take a strong stand for or against something. And when there is a lot of public opinion against that person for doing that, is that really being judged and canceled? 9.9 times out of 10 it’s just a lot of people having a lot of thoughts and feelings about that person. And that really is all that it is.

The person in question might lose followers. They might have other prominent people tell other people, “What they’re saying is not okay, I don’t like that. You shouldn’t follow them either.” But that is still not being canceled. It’s still not being judged.

It’s still just people having opinions about you. It doesn’t mean that it’s not uncomfortable, doesn’t mean that if you’re a large enough company or if you’re a large enough coach, you might utilize some public relations. But it’s still just people having opinions about you.

The biggest names in the biggest businesses have had a lot of people have a lot of opinions said about them. And they are still here today.

Even last year, one of my mentors was called out on a Black Lives Matter issue. And my own opinion is my own, this is not a commentary on whether or not I’m – Actually the funny thing is there was this camp over here saying, “She did this thing right” and this camp over here saying, “She did this thing wrong.” I was in a third altogether camp with an entirely different opinion.

But I watched the whole thing unfold with such fascination because she was called out, rightfully or not. And so many people would say she was canceled or she was judged. But guess what? She’s still here. She’s still fine. She’s still kicking ass in the industry.

This is what that client hired me for this past year. She’s afraid of this happening to her. But seeing that even when many people have judgments, your Helga brain will tell you, “We’re all going to die.” And it’s just not true.

Even in your Helga brain’s wildest imagination, the worst thing that is going to happen is you’re going to feel the discomfort of knowing that people do not agree with you. And then have to decide what you are going to do next.

And again, we are talking about very unique. We are talking like the 1% chance of this kind of thing happening. We’re talking about once in a business type of situations, right?

And yet, and yet, we’re talking about wild, probably never even going to be on your radar kind of situations right now, and yet when you go to share your big bold idea on social media this week that might break some rules, your Helga brain is going to go all the way there, right?

It’s going to go all the way, “Do you remember what happened to so and so in June of that year? Blah, blah, blah.” It’ll be like a once in a lifetime thing and just because you want to share something this week, your brain will go to that thing. That thing that’s never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever going to happen to you, it will go there every single time, right?

I’m going to be told I’m wrong. People are going to get mad at me. I’m going to lose followers, I’ll be canceled. I’m going to lose all my money. We’re going to lose our house. I’m going to be on a box on the corner. We’re going to be living on the streets. We’re all going to die.

But you aren’t. But you aren’t. You’re going to break the rules that don’t work for you. You’re going to decide what does work for you by tapping into your values. You’re going to ensure that everything that you do is in alignment with your values. And when it doesn’t, to course correct. Then you’re going to realize that the only judgment you can ever feel is from something that you think, not what anybody else thinks.

And inside Confident Coaches Mastermind, inside CCM I teach my clients how to feel the discomfort of knowing that people will have thoughts and feelings about what you do and what you say. And how to focus on not needing that external validation from other people in order to feel okay about yourself.

Just two episodes ago I did a podcast on that very thing. How to toot your own horn, how to be your own raving fan. And listen, when you do that work, when you are your own raving fan it simply won’t matter as much what other people are thinking or saying about you because you’re going to be too busy lifting yourself up and the people who love you up to be worrying about what other people are doing.

Other people’s thoughts and feelings about you, what you have previously been calling judgment just becomes irrelevant. Like imagine, imagine being able to not worry about what they’re thinking.

And be really clear, not worrying about them, letting go of other people’s judgment of you, or the thought that people have judgment of you. It’s not the energy of, “Screw them, I don’t care. Let them think what they want, I don’t really care.” That’s not what we’re talking about here, either.

Because as soon as you say, “I don’t care,” like you totally do. I don’t care is literally not even needing to comment or say I don’t care, right? Truly not caring, you wouldn’t need to take the time to say, “I don’t really care what so and so thinks about me.” Yeah, you do. Because you’re taking the time to say you don’t. You probably still do.

Truly letting go of there’s no judgment means being okay with what people are going to say about you no matter what. Loving yourself and loving them as the humans that they are. Even if you put some boundaries between you and them, that is fine. But you are still loving yourself and loving them as the humans in the world. And you are continuing to do your work in the world.

There is no judgment doesn’t have the energy of “screw them, I don’t care” righteousness. It has the energy of “I love them anyway, because I love me.” It has the feeling of love or grace or compassion on that feeling line.

Don’t replace judgment with righteousness towards other people. Replace the judgment with love, grace, or compassion for you. You can’t control what other people think of you. And it’s super weird when you even try.

We’ve had this conversation multiple times before, but remember, when you try to control what other people think of you, when you are worried about other people’s opinions so you’re going to try to like make sure they only think nicely about you, you really have to get really super weird, right?

You have to water yourself down in order to do it. Because you have to try to make all kinds of different people think the same thing about you. Which is literally impossible. And yet, we will put a lot of energy into that.

And when you stop trying to control what anyone else thinks of you, because you really understand what it means that there is no judgment, you have so much more energy into creating what you want.

So remember that original question, what will you create? Who will you coach? How will you coach them? What will your style be? How will you show up in the world when there are no rules and there is no judgment?

The only judgment you can ever feel is your own from your own thinking. And that’s why coaches have coaches who help them work through that. This is absolutely what we do in CCM. What rules are you following that you don’t have to? And what is the judgment that you are creating from inside? Because you can’t actually feel judgment from outside.

You cannot feel the judgment from other people because their thoughts do not create your feelings. The only time we ever feel the “judgment” of others is when we are agreeing with them in our own thoughts.

Being canceled is just a fancy hyped up version of being judged. And 99.9% of what we are afraid is going to happen simply won’t. And it just doesn’t.

Even those people we have collectively said were canceled. No, they weren’t. They might have lost a few followers, but they might have gained some too. And they’re still here, kicking it out in the world, doing the work that they want to do.

The people who were truly canceled the way your Helga brain feels, almost always did something truly wrong, like violating a law wrong. You are not in risk of being canceled. You cannot be judged by others.

So, coach, my friend, you listening out there right now, how are you going to show up in the world now that you truly understand there are no rules? Rules are just thoughts that were made up by someone else and you get to decide if you believe them. And there is no judgment because the only judgment you can ever feel are your own thoughts. You cannot feel the thoughts from other people.

This is essential work on your path to 100K. It was essential for me and it was the game changer in my year of making my first $100,000. If you want a coach by your side while you do this work, make sure you enroll in the next round of CCM.

All right, so go find the post on Instagram or on Facebook for this episode. Go find today’s post and let me know what you think about that there is no judgment and there is no cancel culture.

I know that might be a little controversial. I know some people might be like, “I’m not sure I agree with you.” Tell me about it. Let’s talk about it. What do you think about this concept that cancel culture is just a fancy version of judgment, which doesn’t really exist in the first place?

All right. I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’d love to hear your comments. And I really love to see what you’re going to create in the world now that you’ve adopted no rules no judgment, my friends. All right coaches, until next week, let’s go fuck some shit up.

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