Become A Bare Maximum Babe

Join me this week as we pilot through the art of becoming a 'bare maximum babe', where going above and beyond becomes your new norm. Together, we'll unearth the philosophy of setting personal thresholds that align with the results you truly desire. It's not just about meal prepping versus takeout; it's about infusing your life with actions that spark vitality and satisfaction. We'll navigate the nuances of matching your energy with your ambitions, and how shedding the comfort of minimal effort can liberate you to thrive.

In the spirit of playing to your strengths, this episode is your invitation to leverage what makes you unique. Forget the comparison game and focus on your innate abilities. Discover how superheroes from the Hulk to Iron Man harness their gifts to surmount life's obstacles. I'll share why embracing initial discomfort can pave the way to incredible feats and how centering on your 'superpowers' is key in tackling challenges. Plus, keep up with my journey and the candid behind-the-scenes from my final semester in college by subscribing to my  YouTube channel where I just dropped my first vlog of the year. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Hey guys and welcome back to that Girl Radio. It is your lovely host here, ricky Lee, also known as that Girl, and you are tuned into your weekly supplement to help you live and design your best life. And for today's podcast episode I want to discuss becoming the bare maximum babe. Today's episode is meant to encourage you to stop being so afraid to be seen trying, because, after all, embarrassment is going to be the cost of entry, and after today's episode, you should be willing to pay the price. Now let's get into defining what exactly is the bare maximum babe.

Speaker 1: 0:47

The bare maximum babe to me is someone who has leveled the playing field between the amount of effort she puts forth and the results that she is. She is someone that understands that there has to be a balancing of the scoresheet. She will not put forth more effort if it is not going to yield more results because, after all, she likes to do the bare maximum. The true difference between the bare maximum and the bare minimum is actually putting forth effort and expecting there to be better results. And so many of us rob ourselves of the opportunity to achieve great things because we're afraid to be seen trying after we set the goal and it's not yielding great results. And so, from then on forward, you find yourself unconsciously putting forth bare minimum effort, waiting to be lucky or to be blessed, or to be favored and to yield these crazy results, because, after all, you want to be an overnight sensation off of bare minimal effort. In a way, bare minimal effort is self-sabotage. Stop sabotaging your dreams and stop disqualifying yourself from being able to attain the very things you pray about because you're not willing to just put in a little bit of work. And I'm not saying you have to do the most 24 seven, but I am saying that, as God's child, you are called to do the bare maximum. And that looks different than everyone else around you who can show up and just do the bare minimum at all times. Because, at the end of the day, do you want to be known for doing the bare minimum or do you want to be known for doing the bare maximum?

Speaker 1: 2:34

The bare maximum is also showing up for yourself, regardless. It's not just an identity, it's not just an action, it is setting a minimum threshold for yourself that says okay, this is the bare minimum. I could do this every single day, but once I get to the end of the week, I make my life extremely hard. But if I do the bare maximum, if I take it just a little bit farther, I'm gonna break even because at the end of the day, I'm matching the energy that I put in and the results that I want. When you do the bare minimum, you're just shy of the break even point and you're always gonna fall below the expectation of what you want for yourself.

Speaker 1: 3:16

So this is why we define the bare maximum threshold for ourself in a multitude of areas, because the bare minimum for me is waking up and not deciding how I'm going to prepare my foods for the day, what I'm going to eat, and just going about the day very laxative, ordering a door dash, picking up things while I'm out and just spending a lot of extra funds that I don't necessarily have to, whereas if I was to do the bare maximum, which is meal prep, I would put myself at a point where I'm breaking even. I'm putting in just enough energy that doesn't take a lot. I'm putting in enough funds that doesn't take a lot and I'm breaking even and I'm getting the results that I want. I'm feeding myself good foods that give me energy, that keep me balanced, that balance out my PCOS and they make me feel good and they make me look good. But if I do the bare minimum, I'm just shy of the threshold that is necessary to keep me sustained and full and energized for the day. So I'm going to be feeling farmed out, and if you continue to live your life at this bare minimum threshold, you are going to start to feel depleted. You're going to start to feel like you are not fulfilled. You're just shy of the break even point of the effort that you're putting forth and the results that you want. And so sometimes it's not necessarily that we don't know what to do, it's just that we don't know how to do it. And today I want you to choose to do better, choose to do a little bit more, choose to set that threshold for the bare maximum that is going to set you free daily.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Think about your routines, your morning routine, your midday routine and your night routine and find ways where you can raise the bar just a little bit to make yourself this much closer to breaking even between the effort you're putting forth towards yourself and your goals and your relationships, and the results that you're yielding that are in alignment with the place in which you want to be in life and that's why we do the bare maximum. That's why we're bare maximum babes, because we know that doing the bare minimum didn't get us much. It got us by. But I don't know about you. But I don't want to just get by. I want to thrive, I want to be happy, I want to be satisfied with my life and the work that I'm doing and the relationships that I'm building and the home that I'm living. And the only way that I can get that satisfaction is by doing a little bit more. It's by putting forth a little bit more effort and while it may be embarrassing, while it may be a little bit more time consuming, while it may be the harder road traveled, it's going to set you free. Do the hard things now, do more now so that you can do less later.

Speaker 1: 6:15

And it's not like you're doing the absolute most daily, because that's where you get burnout. There's like two sides of the playing field of satisfaction. Right On this side of the playing field, where you're doing the absolute least, you can rely on luck, algorithms and whatever else to get you by and you can get some satisfaction. But over time that bare minimal effort is not going to be sustainable. It's not going to continue to yield you great results because, if you know anything, luck runs out, algorithms change, people change their minds, favors aren't going to be extended to you all the time, and so you are going to hit a plateau and there are no longer going to be great results coming from your bare minimal effort and you're going to have to come back to the drawing board and re-figure out how you need to do things to get the results that you want. Then you have the absolute opposite into the totem pole, where you're putting forth so much effort, you're burning yourself out, you're doing way too much with way too little, you're depleting your funds, you're stressing yourself out, you're losing sleep and you're still not satisfied. And when you look at that happy medium between both of those points in the middle, you will see that there's far more satisfaction with just doing the bare maximum. You can yield the results that you want without having to deplete yourself of the energy and the creativity and the resources that are necessary to get yourself by. But you're not just getting by, you're thriving. So let's get into this zone of satisfaction by putting forth a little bit more effort daily so that we can get the results we want.

Speaker 1: 7:57

I will say, the perfect example of this is that girl radio. This started out as an idea after I had completed the task of becoming what I thought was that girl, and I wanted to share with millions of other women how to do the same. And I had such big visions, right. Sometimes our vision can be so vast that we forget how to even start. I had put out that I was going to start it. I shot the cover art, posted it on New Year's Day of 2022.

Speaker 1: 8:29

And I kept thinking of all the things I didn't have. I didn't have the beautiful podcast set up, I didn't have the super nice equipment. I didn't have multiple microphones to be able to interview people. I just kept listing out all the things I didn't have as excuses on as to why I shouldn't show up, and I had to make a decision. I was faced with deciding to continue putting off this great thing that so many women are excited about or just showing up anyway, in spite of not having what I thought I needed. But I'll tell you what I did have. I had a Blue Yeti nano microphone, I had a little mic stand for my desk in my dorm and I had my laptop and we thugged it out and we produced, I believe, like six or seven episodes right before I moved out of my dorm. The results that I yielded from that bare maximum yielded such beautiful result.

Speaker 1: 9:39

So don't think that just because you have a vision or just because you have a goal, that you have to have everything to even get started, to even start trying, because the best success stories come from people who are willing to build from ground zero. And I built from ground zero and I'm happy to say that today I'm probably at level 20. And we're trying to reach penthouse and to see that growth. From going from my dorm room with a little Blue Yeti mic and a computer to now in this apartment, in this space where I've built out my own little studio, is just mind boggling to me. But once I put aside my fears of being perceived as someone that was trying, I was able to set myself free, and I'm here to tell you that sometimes you don't have to do the most, but you certainly cannot do nothing. So you have to find that happy making.

Speaker 1: 10:42

And I found my happy medium after I was met with the same problem, where I found myself in this new space that I had always dreamt of the beautiful podcast studio set up, that I could film countless videos and talking to you guys, and I found myself stuck because I wanted to show up in the best way that I could for every single video, but it was a roadblock for me. When the sun didn't rise, when my hair wasn't done, when my makeup wasn't right, when I didn't have an outfit, it was just harder and harder for me to show up because I wanted all of these variables to be perfect and I was giving myself actually a recipe for disaster, because I was my own roadblock through and through throughout the first couple of seasons of this podcast. I would start and then I would stop. I would start and then I would stop, because I constantly was chasing perfection and that was impacting my ability to progress. And then so, finally, after investing all of this time, money and effort into producing beautiful podcast episodes, I then decided Ricky, we have to decide and define what is the bare maximum for this podcast. What can we do that requires minimal effort but will yield maximal results? It will look like we've done the most, but in all actuality, it didn't take much, and so that for me was setting up this microphone, same way I did in my dorm bedside. And we are just going to thug it out. We're going to talk. We're going to speak from the heart.

Speaker 1: 12:27

So I challenged myself to do the January series and that is where my consistency was birth. That's where discipline was birth. I wasn't afraid of being seen. Trying to pump out an episode a day is crazy work, but I did it and that showed to me that it doesn't take a lot to make an impact. It doesn't take a lot to progress. It just takes making a choice to be 1% better every single day. And through that, the best thing that came out of the January series was my ability to perfect my process. I had put in so many reps that now I have raised the bar and created the new curve.

Speaker 1: 13:16

For what is the performance level of that girl radio? And I've done it so many times that it's like muscle memory for me. The cost of entry is embarrassment, but the return on that investment is progress. The return on that investment is the ability to be proud of yourself and to say that you accomplished something, and it's something tangible and it's real. It's no longer just a thought, it's no longer just a clipping on your vision board. It is something that is tangible, it's real. People can touch it, people can feel it, people have been impacted by it.

Speaker 1: 13:53

And bare maximum babes, people who figure out the balancing of the scoresheet and they say, okay, I've tried it this way, I've tried it that way. What is the happy medium for me that is going to get me the best results? Because when you think of the greats, when you think of someone who you extremely admire, and whatever industry it is that you are looking to work in, they have defined their bare maximum. At some point they were doing the bare minimum and at some point they were doing the most. And they had to figure out okay, when I was doing the bare minimum, I wasn't doing what I needed to do, okay, I wasn't getting the results I wanted. But when I did the most, it didn't necessarily push the needle forward. And so they found their happy medium. And I find so often that the happy medium resides in your strength. The happy medium resides in your superpowers. When I think of superpowers, I always think of those moments in like the Avengers or X-Men movies, when all of these extremely strong superheroes are in the same room and a couple of them just start getting at it, and one of them was able to knock the other completely off of their feet just by using their gift alone.

Speaker 1: 15:16

And so many of us go through the day to day looking at the next person, looking at the next goal, looking at the next situation, as though it is bigger than you. But if you went into every situation looking at, okay, I might not be the Hulk, but maybe I'm faster than the Hulk, maybe I'm smarter than the Hulk, maybe I can outthink the Hulk Like there are so many different things that God has equipped you with that he's given you the gifts and the aptitude to understand far better than the average person. We are all special and you have to lean into your strength. Yes, we're going to endure suffering. That's what gives us perseverance, that's what makes us resilient, right, so nothing is going to come easy. But just think about the things that come easily to you.

Speaker 1: 16:16

What are you naturally gifted at? Talent can truly never trump effort, because there are people out here who are trying extremely hard and have half the amount of talent as you, yet they're showing up and they're paying the price of embarrassment in order to get what they want. But here you are, a person who is naturally gifted and naturally talented at what you do, and you're robbing yourself of the opportunity to foresee the proceeds of you just putting forth a little bit of fraction of the effort that they do, because this comes naturally to you, and so that is what the bare maximum babe does. She doesn't sit around looking in a room full of brilliant women and say I don't have this, I don't have that, so how am I supposed to show up and shine? She instead says well, I have this and I know that I'm exceptionally good at this, so how about I use that?

Speaker 1: 17:15

Because to do the bare maximum, you have to recognize that just by being you, you are walking in purpose. Just by being you, you are walking in greatness, and that is how you show up, and up here is those you're doing the most. Because you're doing you, so many people are not going to understand why you're great, why you're able to do this, why you're able to do that, why you get this opportunity and they don't. Because it's an alignment for you. You don't waste and expend unnecessary energy towards things that you know are not in alignment for you. I know my skillsets are not called in quantifiable spaces. Okay, I am more of a writer, more of a thinker, more of a creative, while there are people who are far more analytical and they are great with numbers. And I walk through life playing on my strengths, knowing my superpowers and walking in that, rather than wearing all of my weaknesses on my sleeves, because I know that in order to get good results, I don't have to try to do what everyone else does. All I have to do is try to do what I know how to do, and that's what's going to get me the best results.

Speaker 1: 18:39

Just think of the greats like Billie Eilish. Right, she is someone who her music just sounds so effortless. Right, To the average person, it looks like you could just do that. You could just get on a microphone, sing softly and create a masterpiece for a billion dollar movie, barbie. Right, she produced that song and broke it down recently in a video with her brother, who was also her producer, and they talked about the complexity behind the chords and the strategic choices they made in singing in her head voice rather than just singing from her stomach or something, and those minute tweaks that are natural to her, to the average person who would not be in an eight choice.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Right, that is something that is put inside of you, and so many of us try to look to the next person to find our sound, try to look to the next person to find our bare minimum, or for them to define the threshold for performance or greatness, and you find yourself continuously falling short of that because you don't have what you quote, unquote, think that you need. But I'm here to tell you that all that you have within you, all of the resources that you have at your disposal, are all that you need to take one step forward Because, as we've said before numerous times throughout this episode, the cost of entry is embarrassment. So are you willing to be embarrassed for just a little bit, recording sounds on GarageBand, to one day be able to produce a Grammy Award winning song? That is basically for one of the biggest movies of our decade? You have to be willing to do the embarrassing stuff to be able to have the exciting moment. It's just the way that the balance sheet has to work, but know that it doesn't have to be a year long process. It doesn't even have to be a week long process.

Speaker 1: 20:44

There have been numerous times in this life where I have tried my hardest to make something of nothing and I just didn't get any results. And it wasn't because I didn't put in effort, it was because it wasn't in alignment. It's not my superpower. The Hulk doesn't wake up every single day and get on the treadmill and try his hardest to become the fastest of all the Avengers. He just doesn't do that. He knows his strength. It's to Hulk smash. So he's not going to sit around wasting his time training the way in which his peers train, doing the things that his peers do to help them succeed, because at the end of the day, hulk is meant to smash. He's not meant to run. That's not how he was made up, and so to do the bare maximum is to focus on your makeup and figure out how does my makeup help me thrive and how can I aid my makeup and boost it a little bit better when you get through the day and my challenges with ease.

Speaker 1: 21:56

When you think of Iron man, for example, he doesn't have a very muscular build. He doesn't have a ton of Mortal Kombat skills, so when you look at his peers in the Avengers, you would probably look at him at face value and be like, okay, this man is not made to be able to save the world. But then he's an extremely intelligent person who has a lot of resources, and so he's put together this really functional high tech suit that helps him conquer his goals or achieve his goals. And so when you look at that and you say, wow, well, if I don't have the physical capabilities, maybe I can lean on my smarts, maybe I can lean on my intelligence. Or, if I don't have that, maybe I can lean on my spiritual aptitude and, like me, being able to be in tune with my feelings, like whatever it is your strengths are, play up into that and figure out ways in which you can boost the Iron man suit. Every single movie gets better and better and we see all of these things being added onto it and just like, boost it. That makes him even faster, that helps him to blast off more stuff, like you just see him adding on to what he's supposed to do rather than trying to impede on what other people do. You don't see him making a Hulk suit. He's still Iron man and I know I just went off on a really big tangent, but I want you to understand that you don't have to run the race the way everyone else is doing.

Speaker 1: 23:29

You don't have to do the bare minimum, because everyone else around you is doing the bare minimum. What you have to do is figure out your threshold, a balance between doing the most and doing nothing that is going to get you the results that you want and that is in that beautiful, happy medium space where your superpowers reside that you can play on to help you get through the challenges of life. Becoming a bare maximum babe will take time, it will take devotion and it will take a lot of self-awareness and there are a lot of different systems that you can build for yourself to help yourself thrive and really redefine what that bare maximum threshold will be, whether that be in your cooking, your cleaning, your styling, in your fitness, in your health and wellness. Like figuring out what can you do to raise the bar just a little bit for yourself this year that isn't going to require burnout but will allow you to be free. So I really do hope you guys enjoyed today's episode on becoming a bare maximum babe.

Speaker 1: 24:40

I hope that you honor this title and that you take it on with pride, because, after all, the price of being satisfied with your life is going to cost living the life that you have, and I don't know about you, but I'm willing to pay that price. I paid the price time and time again, and every time that I've exchanged what I currently have for what I wanted, I was able to completely set myself free and reimagine my circumstances. I upgraded my home, I upgraded my wardrobe, I upgraded my car, I upgraded my equipment. Everything got an upgrade because my threshold for performance and effort was taken up a notch and I stopped living life by the bare minimum measurements that society was crafting and started to live by the bare maximum. So I really do hope you guys enjoyed the episode. Make sure to share it with someone else that you feel like should start living like a bare maximum babe, and if you liked the episode, make sure to leave us a rating. It really does help so that we can reach more women like you that want to live and design their dream life.

Speaker 1: 25:51

And if you haven't already followed your podcast host, make sure to do so. I am on Instagram at RickyLeeco. I'm also on YouTube at RickyLeeTV, sharing weekly episodes to help you live and design your dream life, and I'm so excited to announce that the season premiere for my channel is coming up this week, so you want to definitely make sure that you are subscribed to my channel so we can get into all the nitty gritty of what the past eight weeks of my life has been like in my final semester of college, and you can also find me on TikTok at the RickyLee, where I'm sharing little by size videos on, also how to build and design your dream life. I love you, guys, and I will catch you next week.