Carmen Talk: Self-Reflection and Personal Responsibility

Have you ever caught yourself justifying your worst actions, or found solace in playing the role of the victim? This episode of Carmen Talk is an exploration into the effects of our mindset on the world we experience. With a special thank you to my crew, our neighborhood pals, and the always insightful Charlie Mattera, we open up about the impact of negativity and pessimism. Drawing from Gary Vee's wisdom and my own acting journey, we uncover the ways our internal narratives can distort reality, and how our self-perceptions might clash with the moral compass society expects us to follow.

As we navigate the waters of personal responsibility and self-reflection, I urge you to consider the power you hold in shaping not only your life but the lives of those around you. We discuss the pitfalls of a self-centered existence and the liberating shift that comes with taking ownership of our actions. By highlighting the importance of clear communication and the transformative practice of writing by hand, I invite you to join me in a journey of introspection. It's about putting aside the digital noise for a moment of handwritten self-analysis that can lead to profound personal insights and changes.

The conversation doesn't end there; we steer towards the sunnier side, discovering joy and positivity along the way. I share the therapeutic wonder that comes from penning down thoughts, answering personal questions, and making those incremental adjustments that lead to a happier existence. Ending on a note of personal growth, we embrace the strength found in empathy and the courage it takes to confront the architect within us who sometimes designs our own obstacles. It's about recognizing that our actions create ripples, and it's our choice whether they spread joy or strife through our communities. So, let's take this step together, and see where our newfound awareness takes us.

Gary Varynechuck's Post: 
https://www.instagram.com/p/C569M8wMR3S/

Last Week's Live with Rick, Tony D., Cynthia, and Charlie: 
https://youtube.com/live/EbbLyTT05lo

Thank you for stopping by. Please visit our website: All About The Joy and add, like and share. We'd appreciate that greatly. Also, if you want to find us anywhere on social media, please check out the link in bio page.

Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.

Transcript

Carmen Lezeth: 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to All About the Joy. I'm Carmen, your host, and this is another episode of Carmen Talk. I want to first give a shout out to my lovely crew and neighborhood friends who stopped by on Thursday night on the live stream. That happens every Thursday night, 6 pm Pacific, 9 pm Eastern, and, as always, we always have Rick Costa on the show, so I appreciate him. Cynthia, thank you for coming on and hanging out. Tony D was in the house and he wasn't sure he'd be able to make it and I asked him if he could stop on by and he did so I'm really grateful to him. And also I want to give a shout out to Charlie Matera, who did his due diligence to hang out with us for a few minutes. We always love when he stops by. And again, I want to let you all know that you should definitely check out the live stream from this Thursday. It was really fun and an enlightening conversation, as always, and funny but also poignant. And also there are two live streams. Actually they're not live streams. I did two private lounges with Charlie Matera that really talk about his career and his life here in Hollywood, so they're really fun. So check those out.

Carmen Lezeth: 1:06

And, yeah, I want to get back to some things we were talking about during the live stream specifically, just kind of doing a little jumping off point from Gary V's Instagram video that I will put in the show notes if you'd like to check that out. But basically he was talking about if you are someone who is continuously looking for hate, you're going to find it right. If you're pessimistic, if you're a cynical person, you're going to find that in the world. He was kind of just pinpointing that those of us that don't try to be optimistic, that don't try to be positive, we tend to get what we look for. We tend to get what we give right.

Carmen Lezeth: 1:47

But I started thinking about this the other day, and, especially as an actor, it's a really interesting thing when you take on a character that you think is a bad person. So when you first start acting classes or whatever, nobody really wants to play the villain, and usually people that want to play the villain. You're like, okay, you're a weirdo, right, like somebody who's like jumping up and down to play a murderer. In your first acting class, you're kind of like, okay, you're a weirdo, don't you want to play the hero? Because we all want to play the hero right. So what I learned in acting class and I think is really kind of important in this conversation, is this when somebody is playing a murderer, when you take on that character in an acting class, you have to find a reason for why that person is going to murder or hurt or do a crime. Most people, unless you're an absolute sociopath, that's a whole other level of thinking on. You know, I don't know how to go about explaining that kind of situation, but let's just go with.

Carmen Lezeth: 2:48

Even in your own life, if you've ever stolen anything, you know when you were a kid. I mean, I stole $5 before when I worked at Little Peach, right, and I would do it every once in a while when I needed money. Till I got caught, I didn't think I was doing a crime, I didn't think it was a big deal, I didn't think anybody would notice it and I needed the money. I needed the five bucks, you know, until I got caught and I felt really guilty and bad. But while I was stealing the $5 from Little Peach Little Peach is like a 7-Eleven for those of you who don't know what Little Peach is, but back I don't even know if they exist anymore, but back in the day they used to be like the little convenience stores, you know. But I worked at this convenience store for a little bit and I would go hang out there when somebody else was working there and I would watch the cash register when they would like go to the bathroom or whatever, and every once in a while, like if I rang somebody up, I would, you know, take $5. And I never took more than $5 a week because I was smart enough to know at least I thought I was that if you take more than that, they're going to notice it. Right, it's not going to just be a mistake. But anyways, clearly I shouldn't have done it to begin with.

Carmen Lezeth: 3:50

My point is is I didn't go into it thinking, oh, I want to commit a crime, right, it came from a place of I need something. What's the easiest way to get that something? Most of us don't realize that we're being pessimistic or that we're being angry or that we are being cynical in the world, because those are very negative things and we don't ever think we do anything wrong. Right, we are all just human beings doing the best we can, and what ends up happening more times than not is we just know that we're doing good, but it's being seen from other people as bad, and there is the disconnect. I was thinking about Gary Vee's Instagram post and I'm sure he has it on all of his other social media and I realized, you know what? There's a part to this that's just missing. He's absolutely right, and any of you who know me know that. I absolutely think Gary Vee is amazing and I hope someday I get to meet him.

Carmen Lezeth: 4:43

But the problem is is that most people don't think they're pessimistic. Most people don't think they're cynical. Most people don't think that they're negative people in the world. I don't know anybody who embraces the idea that they walk around being negative or pessimistic or violent or whatever you know, and I'm not saying that those things are all the same. I'm saying when we do something bad as human beings, we don't even think we're doing something bad, because there's always some logical reasoning that we have for doing it.

Carmen Lezeth: 5:08

And so when you're an actor, when you're trying to figure out how to play a role that is a villain or a monster or a horrible human being or somebody who does a crime, that's why it becomes so intriguing and that's why people always want to play those roles because you have to try to figure out a way to understand why that person is doing what they're doing Even the crazy sociopath. You got to figure out reasonings right, you got to figure out the logic, you got to figure out the backstory, you got to understand why the person is about to commit a crime or commit a murder, and so that's what's intriguing when you're an actor. But even in our own lives, when we are living a life and it is not the way in which we want it to be, and we have more people angry with us than not, or we are constantly crying or sick or depressed or feeling angst all the time, it's probably because we're not aware of our own interactions with the world and what we're doing. It is possible that you don't mean to be cynical, but you are cynical because you're not paying attention to how you're behaving in the world, like here's a great example. I know that there are people who continuously on social media especially. All you have to do is go on TikTok and look at any comment section of any, any, any video. There might be 1% of videos that won't have this, but no matter what video somebody posts, it doesn't matter who it is. You're going to go read comments and I guarantee you you are going to find somebody who finds something wrong, bad or negative to say about whatever the video is, even if it's like just a kitty cat purring. So people who are continuously writing things and reacting to things without thinking about how their behavior is reflecting in the world are those people that tend to be really, really negative and cynical. If all you can see is the bad part of things when it happens instead of the positive, if all you can do is deal with the jealousy you have of whoever it is you see posting something on TikTok, or somebody who has a great podcast, or somebody who looks better than you or somebody who speaks better than you, if all you can do is be that negative person and want to step on that person or be mean to that person, you are being a negative human being, you are cynical, you are pessimistic, you are not doing your due diligence to be a better person. And look, I said on the live stream on Thursday and I believe this to be true because I know it is you have to work really, really hard to be a good person. We are all just human beings and that's okay.

Carmen Lezeth: 7:50

But the societal nature of what happens with us, as the environment around us is also influential in who we are, as grownups or as teenagers, or as young adults or as old people. All of that has an influence on us, and because it does, we are constantly thinking about ourselves first. There is nothing wrong with thinking about ourselves first. We really do have to be able to do that in order to protect ourselves. Right, we can't just randomly be walking down the street and not paying attention to what's around us because we could get into an accident. Right, we're trying to make sure we're looking and crossing the street making sure nobody's going to hit us because we want to protect ourselves all the time.

Carmen Lezeth: 8:31

The problem with that is you can't walk in the world and interact with other people and constantly, all the time, only be worried about yourself. How you interact with people matters If you're going to cross the street and all you're going to do is only worry about yourself, but not care about the little kid who's about to cross the street, who didn't see the 18-wheeler that's about to run them over, and you do nothing. Who are you then? Who are you then? Right? So listen, I know this is a little bit out there, but it enrages me that so many people, more and more every day, are falling victim to being victims.

Carmen Lezeth: 9:10

It bothers me more and more every day that I see so many people continuously blaming others for their own plight in life. So there are so many people, especially on social media, but even in my workplace, that their constant gripe is about how bad they have it. And in my head I'm thinking if this is so miserable for you, if you are that miserable, change your circumstance or change your attitude. I can't help you be a happier person. I can't help you have joy. I can't do that for you. I can't make you happy. I can give you a bonus That'll make you happy for the paycheck that you get it for till you spend it, but after that, you are the only person who can dig deep and figure out. Why is it? In every part of my life I have people who dislike me. Why is it? In every part of my life I have people who don't care about me? How come nobody invites me to all the parties? How come nobody tells me about the travel they're about to do or about the things that are about to happen? Or there's a birthday party and nobody invited me. Why is it that I'm alone? These are great questions to ask yourself, because here's the answer you are the common denominator in all of your situations.

Carmen Lezeth: 10:27

You cannot change anybody else in the world. I cannot make Gary Vee do anything. I can't make Tony D or Rick Costa or Cynthia do anything. They don't want to do. I can ask them, I can try to influence them, I can try to make them believe that if they do A, they'll be happier with B.

Carmen Lezeth: 10:49

But what I can do, without a doubt, without fail, is change myself. I can change me. I can change the way in which I interact in the world. I can take steps to, instead of being so self-absorbed, right about everything I have to do, instead start thinking how are my actions, how is my comment, how is my delivery? How is my angst towards other people being taken by those people? Do people understand me when I say A, b, c or D? Do people get me? Like, am I saying what needs to be said correctly, so that people are interpreting what I mean to say? Because clearly there's a disconnect. If people are angry with you all the time, and it's not just one person, guess what? It might be you, it might be you, and so what I would suggest is to sit down.

Carmen Lezeth: 11:43

Listen, I think it's really important for people to write by hand. I know it's really difficult for a lot of people because people have lost this ability or they don't teach it in school. I don't know what's going on with everybody using computers and texting or whatever. This is how I do a self-analysis of myself on a pretty regular basis. Okay, I use a pen and paper. There's something tactile about that rhythm and for some of you it'll be really new and something you don't do. But I'm telling you, get away from your iPads and your computers and your phones and your TV and whatever else your AirPods, whatever Just put all that aside. Give yourself just 20 minutes to sit down with a piece of paper and a pen, in the quiet, and you know.

Carmen Lezeth: 12:26

If you live by the beach, like I do, go sit on the beach and do it. Or you know, sit on your porch or whatever it is in your room, it doesn't matter and just start writing. And it doesn't matter what you write, but just start writing and then, at some point, start saying I like this, I believe that I want this, I do that. Just go and keep writing, writing, writing, writing, all those things and then write how do I get this, how do I get that? How do I buy a car? How do I get more friends? How do I have better grades in school? How do I have better co-workers at work? So then you do that part of it. It just goes with the flow. Just go how, how, how, how, how, and then answer those questions how do I buy a car? Well, the way I'm going to buy a car is if I make more money, right. I have to make more money to have a better income so I can buy the car that I want, right? So I'm using that as an example.

Carmen Lezeth: 13:19

How do I make more friends? You have to start thinking about that. And the next question would be why don't I have enough friends? Why don't I have enough friends? But I'm saying if you want more friends, why don't you have more friends in your social circles? If all you're doing is fighting with people on a regular basis, baby, those are not friends. If people are making you cry all the time, that's not a friendship. I don't know why that is so difficult for people to understand.

Carmen Lezeth: 13:43

As you go through the writing, just let yourself breathe. Get into an exercise of trying to do that First in the beginning. Just try to do it once in a while. Then do the writing once a week. I'm telling you, the more that you do something that is about learning about who you are. By asking yourself questions, asking your own self some truths, you're going to get better at understanding how people perceive you. And here's the thing you make little tiny adjustments. There's nothing wrong with who you are. That's not what this is about. There's nothing wrong with who you are as a human being. But if you want more out of life, if you want more joy out of life, if you want to be more optimistic and experience what life is like, I mean, look, here's the crux of it. You know what.

Carmen Lezeth: 14:30

It just hit me as I'm trying to record this. It doesn't matter what my financial situation is, it doesn't matter what the weather is, it doesn't matter how much work I have on my table or in my schedule, it doesn't matter whether I'm, you know, visiting family or not visiting family, or talking to people or not talking to people. You know, for whatever reasons people, you know you take time off, whatever I am always in a really good space of positivity. I am always in a place of joy, like because I'm always excited about what's next, and even if I'm laying on the couch, like it's so funny. I was just talking to my one of my best friends the other day. We're having this really great conversation about how I'm doing and I told her there's all these things going on, they're stressing me out or whatever. But at the end of the day, what I was focused on was that we had this great ability to have a conversation, because it had been such a long time since we had this time. So I was actually really happy and she was even like yeah, you know, it's just life, we're getting older, blah, blah, blah.

Carmen Lezeth: 15:28

But there was no hatred in my heart about anything that's going on in my life. It's just stressful because I have to deal with a lot of stuff at work right now in two different offices. I'm thinking about buying a really expensive car and I don't want to spend the money, but I think it's time to buy a new car. Like there are just all these things that are starting to stress me out and I realized like they're stressing me out but they're not making me a negative person, like they're not making me angry or angst or anything like that. And I'm telling you, it doesn't matter how much people know me when I had a lot of money. People know me when I had no money. Right now, I'm in like that middle space where I'm all right, even though I have to keep working. But I think most people would agree that I am always in this same state of okayness.

Carmen Lezeth: 16:11

People do not make me cry anymore. I learned that lesson a long time ago and the reason why people don't make me cry anymore is because when people don't want to be in my life, I let them go. I realize it's not about me, it's about you. You got to do what you got to do. I ain't worried about it. Bye, you know, if you are so it doesn't hurt me anymore because I always I look at it from the positive point of view. If you're somebody who has to move on, or you hate me, or you don't like me, or whatever, vaya con Dios. And the reason why I said that is because when you leave, that opens up a whole other space in my life. I want good energy. I want people who want to be in my life. I want people who make me a better person. I want people who are positive and joyful and supportive. I want people who, even if they don't agree with my dreams or even think my dreams are valid, are going to be there on the sidelines cheering me on. That's what I want in my life and I'm going to work hard all the time to stay in that place of positivity.

Carmen Lezeth: 17:05

Here is the thing that people don't understand Once you get into the rhythm of understanding that the world does not revolve around you and that you can do a better job of being a really good and decent human being by working on yourself and changing yourself, it becomes instinctual. It takes time, but it becomes really easy. You start to be more considerate of others in other, bigger, more fascinating ways, and it is an amazing journey when you turn around and start to understand that you are not the most important thing on the planet, but you become a really important person in other people's lives because they realize you care about them. And I cannot tell you how transformative it is to understand that I can only be a really good, great, wonderful human being if the people around me are okay and healthy and fine and great and happy too. And what we do when tragedy happens or something happens and we have to lean on others. We're there with strength to walk each other through those moments.

Carmen Lezeth: 18:11

That's what's fascinating about the human spirit. That's what's magical and I'm not going to say it's magical, because I know it's not magic. I know it's hard work and it's courage. It takes a lot of courage to realize that you are the problem. You are the problem in your own life.

Carmen Lezeth: 18:29

Imagine that the reason why your life sucks is because you're not working on it. You just keep thinking everybody else around you is going to change. That's not how it works. So go back into I don't care if you have to pretend you're an actor go back into being an actor and figuring out a way to analyze who you are in the world and then figure out a way to see if what you think you're portraying in the world is actually what people are perceiving. Now don't get it twisted. It is not my job to make sure you receive me well. Okay, like I am who I is, and whether you like me or not, that's your business, I don't care. But that's not what we're talking about.

Carmen Lezeth: 19:09

If you are not happy in your life, if you can't find more joy in your life than not. If you are not in a place of okayness and contentment. If you are finding yourself fighting with people all the time, or always commenting negatively, or always doing thumbs downs to everybody's videos or everybody's blog post or whatever it is, if your whole journey in life is to be hateful and vindictive, if you see that and you realize that people are always angry with you. That's why you want to do a self-analysis and make sure that the way in which you think you're coming across is actually the way people perceive you. I can't tell you how many people, especially women, they believe themselves to be such strong and powerful women and independent and whatever. And these people are not, you know, like they're absolutely not, and it's usually a really good clue to me that somebody who says that about themselves is usually a person who is not any of that. I know that's counterintuitive, but most people that I believe who are really strong and powerful women don't talk about themselves that way. Right, they don't say that about themselves.

Carmen Lezeth: 20:18

So, going back to the Gary Vee video that he posted on social media, if you are somebody who is looking to be pessimistic, cynical, who is angry in the world he didn't say angry, I am saying that, who is constantly in a negative space. If that's what you're continuously putting out there, that's what you're always going to get back, and if you don't think you're doing that but you feel like the world is against you or people are against you, then you have to go in and do a self-analysis of who you are. Are against you, then you have to go in and do a self-analysis of who you are, because there's a disconnect. You actually probably are not portraying yourself the way you think you are in the world, and all it takes is a little bit of courage to turn around and sit down and write and write and write and look. Maybe writing isn't anything. Maybe you talk into a tape recorder or something Okay, I just aged myself by tape recorder, but whatever on your phone or whatever, and you listen back to it, whatever it is. What I'm saying is ask yourself those questions, find a way to do a self-analysis and figure out for yourself why you're reacting the way you are to things. Why are you not being more positive? If you hate someone so much, I'll say this If you hate someone like I had this ex-boyfriend who I was absolutely in love with and everyone knows the story he cheated on me, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

Carmen Lezeth: 21:31

He made a fool of me and I was so upset and angry about the whole ordeal for years, for years I swear to God, years. But he never knew that. I mean, he never, ever knew that. But all my friends knew it. Okay, they all knew it. But it took me a long time to realize that actually, what was more important to me was trying to figure out why I was attracted to such a scumball Like. Why was I so attracted to somebody who honestly didn't deserve me? But it made me ache and it was so painful and it made me so negative because I was so angry with him and for the longest time I thought it was all him. But it wasn't him, it was me. It was me because I chose him and he didn't deserve me.

Carmen Lezeth: 22:18

And let me tell you, this is like four years of me in deep therapy with myself trying to come to understanding that I chose badly but I fell in love with him, right. So that's kind of the same thing. It's like I had to do a self-analysis of why am I still lingering? He cheated on me, I walked away, we don't talk to each other. Why am I still holding on to this man in my head and in my heart and then I realized it's because I chose badly and it took a lot of courage for me to admit it was. Ultimately that was my fault. I mean, I didn't know going into it, but I also didn't want to see all the signs. I didn't want to see exactly what was right in front of me. So if you can do a self-analysis of yourself and, by the way, I do this on a pretty regular basis because I want to check myself, I want to make sure I'm trying to be the best person I can be. I also like to write, so there is that. But don't let that dissuade you. It takes a lot of work to be a good person, I think, at the end of the day and I don't have any social, scientific stuff to back this up, but this is just my experience People who don't do a self-check on themselves every once in a while tend to be people who are not happy, people who do not do a little overall analysis of who they are, who their friends are in their lives, what they do, the connections they have.

Carmen Lezeth: 23:25

Why are they in this situation and not in that situation, when you don't do a self-analysis and take responsibility, because that's what it is take responsibility for your own life. You tend not to be a really great person because you're always blaming other people for your life, even though other people don't give a shit about your life. Nobody cares about your life, nobody. Nobody cares about your life. After a certain age, even your parents are like dude, I've done what I had to do. It's time for you to move on. You know what I mean. Like other than your parents maybe, but I'm just saying at some point, you cannot keep thinking that everything revolves around you.

Carmen Lezeth: 24:01

It has to be that you are here in the world and you know people aren't gonna like this either, but I always feel like I am here of service. Let me say that again I am here of service. What is my contribution to this planet going to be? What's my contribution to this day going to be? What's my contribution to this day at work, this day with my friends, this day on this podcast, this day on this live stream, this day in this writing? What is my contribution going to be? I am here of service to give whatever gifts I have, no matter how small, no matter how large. I am here to do the best I can and to share myself the best parts of who I am with everyone else.

Carmen Lezeth: 24:40

So how do I do that? How do I do that? How do I do that every day, to the best of my ability. And when I mess up and when I fuck up because I do, because I'm human, am I able to take responsibility for that as well? Am I able to say you know what? I made a mistake? I made a mistake and I need to fix that, I need to rectify it. That is how you learn and know that you are being the best human you can be, when you are doing a self-analysis of who you are in the world and making sure that you are more considerate of the people around you and understanding that not everything is their fault, not everything is everybody else's fault. If you are miserable every day, if you are the common denominator in every one of your situations, I'm just going to give you an idea that maybe you're the problem. So work on that. Okay, work on that.

Carmen Lezeth: 25:26

Listen, I have faith in the human spirit. I really do. People hate when I say that Not people, but people think I'm kind of hokey and dorky about it, but I really do. I believe in the best in people, you know. I believe that we can be better human beings every single day, and I think the fascinating thing about human beings is that we grow every day. We want to be smarter, better, we want to do more. That's not the same when you look at other species, and you know I'm not going to go off on a tangent here, but I'm just saying what is the whole point of being here if it's not to be your best and most beautiful self? What's the point? I don't know, but think about all that.

Carmen Lezeth: 26:03

I'd love to get some feedback. Please, please, please, join us on the live stream. We'd love to hear from you. We're there on Thursday nights at 6 pm Pacific, 9 pm Eastern. Listen to the podcast it always posts on a Sunday and check out our clips on all of our social media. Check out aatjoy. com or allaboutthejoy. com or aatjoy. com. You can check us out, find all our links there. We're on YouTube, linkedin hey, linkedin, love you. Facebook, we're on Twitch and, yeah, you can also check out my website, carmensuarez. com or allaboutthejoy. com, and that's it. Thank you so much. We'll see you again next week and, hey, remember, it really is all about the joy. You again next week. And hey, remember, it really is all about the joy. Thanks for stopping by. All About the Joy. Be better and stay beautiful folks. Have a sweet day.