In the Lobby Podcast
Join us “In the Lobby” as we interview your favorite Austin-based entrepreneurs, influencers, and innovators.
Your hosts Cassandra & Roger display a style that is effortlessly playful and equally probing.
Filled with candid conversations that usually happen off the mic. Our show touches on everything from relationships to dating experiences, as well as other topics including business, wellness, and personal growth.
What is the biggest misconception about you?
Our podcast is a platform where guests share their story, challenging misconceptions about themselves.
Every whisper, every story, unfolds within the lobby.
It’s going down!
In the Lobby Podcast
SOLO: Crafting a Confident Future with Rituals, Reflection, and Cass's Insights
In this episode, Cass opens up about the transformative steps she’s taking to bet on herself and become the person she wants to be. She dives into her journey, from joining a luxury gym to surrounding herself with inspiring people, all of which contribute to a stronger, more confident self. With no guests, this intimate session focuses on the power of consistent habits and self-reflection. Whether it’s the ritual of making the bed, the daily dedication to this podcast, or the introduction of new practices like oil pulling, each habit has the potential to contribute to our sense of self and progress. Until next time, sending love and encouragement your way. Xoxo, Cass.
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You can follow In the Lobby Podcast: @inthelobbypod
You can follow Cassandra Jean:
@paininmycass_
You can follow Roger Braxton:
@arrogee
Hey guys, welcome to the In the Lobby podcast. Today you have a solo episode with your girl, cass. I really wanted to do an episode on really betting on yourself and showing up as the person that you want to become. You know, it's like if you've ever felt trapped and like there's a version of the real you that's inside of you, but you felt like you're being held back by your full potential. I feel like that's something all of us have felt at one at one point or another, and we're all really capable of showing up and being the person that we want to be. Anyone who you're inspired by, whether that's, you know, grant Cardone or Gary Vee or Alex Hormozy all of these people that inspire us. They're just people at the end of the day, but the one thing that all of them have done is bet on themselves.
Speaker 1:And even lately I've been going to a lot of like sound healing and sound therapy, which I highly recommend. It's so beautiful and so healing, and at the end of this episode I'll talk about where I'm going in Austin to do this sound healing, do this sound healing, but the thing that I've gotten from it is, at the end of the day, the one person you can count on is you. When you're laying there and you're kind of in a meditative state, you really have to tap into yourself and get in tune with yourself, and it really reminds me personally that I have my own back and I can show up for myself and the only thing that limits me is my own beliefs. So I think that's really important when it comes to intentionally showing up as the person that you want to become, and I think the thing that makes you become the person who you want to be is your goals and your habits, and the things that you're doing daily are what get you to be the person that you want to become. So I've been on this kind of journey of like self-discovery and growth and self-reflection and at the beginning of 2024, I really asked myself like who I wanted to be. Like what does the best version of Cassandra look? Like? Showing up for herself every day? Like is she showing up working from home with no makeup, just wearing sweatpants, not working out, not eating, not prioritizing the things that are important to her? And I was like absolutely fucking not. So I started to think about what the best version of myself looks like and what the woman that I want to become looks like, and how she moves every day and what her routine looks like. And I think the one thing we all have to remember is the things that we want and the version of who we want to be. In some form, it already exists in the quantum field, if we're thinking about it in that way, like that version of you does exist. You just have to show up and put the action behind it. So your desired self, you're not that far away from it.
Speaker 1:And so for me, wanting to be the woman that I wanted to become, I knew that I would have to shift some of my habits. For sure, like I wanted to be getting up super early, like 6 am, working out. I wanted to eat a healthy breakfast, be showered, be dressed in a really nice outfit, like all of this, before even starting my day. They say, like when you work like a nine to five, it's like what are you doing the five to nine before you start your work day? And so, the beginning of 2024, I kind of bet on myself and I went and got a really expensive gym membership.
Speaker 1:So I went and joined Equinox here in Austin and I was so hesitant to join this gym, even though it's something I put on my vision board. It was something I was wanting to do, but I just I kind of had some limiting beliefs around it, like Equinox is not a cheap gym, it's probably like a $220 a month gym membership. And I kept telling myself. I was like I can't afford this, it's too expensive, that's for rich people. And I don't think that was the way to look at it because, a the $220 was an investment in myself. B when you join a gym like that, you're putting yourself around people who are moving in a different way. They're people who are showing up every day, committing to you know their health and wellness, and the people I'm around are, like you know, doctors, executives, really like high value people. And so I kind of jumped the gun.
Speaker 1:Even when I didn't feel quite financially ready, or I was slightly concerned about the financial aspect of it, I signed up and I haven't looked back for one second and I'll just say this I looked at my little Equinox app. I think the last three months've like almost checked into that gym like 28 days out of 30, almost every single month. Um, it's completely like improved my mood, um, obviously, how I feel in my body Cause I'm showing up, I'm working out, just everything. So I feel like sometimes we can put these limiting beliefs around what we deserve or what we can afford. And once I committed to the gym and signed up, I just kind of shifted my finances around to make it work for me and I feel like it's made me level up in like so many different ways.
Speaker 1:And I feel the same thing about my car and so for the longest time I drove this like beat up shitty Mazda three and the nice thing about the car was that the car was paid off and the nice thing about the car was that the car was paid off. But I never felt good about myself driving the car. I was honestly always kind of embarrassed to show up somewhere in the car, whether it was, you know, valet at a nice restaurant. I even remember I had a matchmaker set me up. She found me on LinkedIn. She was like setting me up for a date and she had like a list of rules and requirements that she would give to the girls that were going to go on a date with one of her clients and one of the requirements on the rules was to make sure that your car was nice, clean and tidy and I was like so mortified.
Speaker 1:I remember I think I called my sister and I was like Katie, there's only so much I can do with my car. It's a 2013 beat up Mazda, and so that's another thing. I took kind of a jump on before I felt ready and I switched my car out for nothing crazy, but like a 2023 Kia Sportage, and it's nothing fancy. It's not a sports car, it has red interior, but it just makes me feel so much better every day when I get in that car and it makes me feel so worthy because it makes me work harder and push harder at my finances and my career, because my car payment's not cheap, my gym membership's not cheap, but they're all things that have like added value to my life. Whether it's safety from the car, I feel much safer driving the car. Before I was almost terrified to drive in my Mazda because I'm such a bad driver.
Speaker 1:So I think sometimes we put these ideas in our head of what we can and can't have and if we just go ahead and take that leap, you have to believe in yourself that you're going to show up for yourself and make it happen. Like I'm never going to miss out on, like paying my gym membership. I've committed to the contract, so now I'm in it and I've got to make that payment. I think that's why you have to kind of align yourself with. You know your actions and your kind of like desired identity.
Speaker 1:So you know, just the gym membership in the car were like two pieces of what that woman looked like for me and what I wanted to show up as. And another big one was I have all these beautiful clothes in my closet and I wanted to be like a well-dressed woman. I wanted to look like a high value woman, I wanted to be a successful woman and I had to start thinking about what does a woman like that wear? And not only did that change what I was wearing to the gym, it changed what I was wearing after my workout and the way that I looked when I walked out of the gym every day. And you know, sometimes I feel silly, like I'll put on like the nicest outfit, I'll walk out of the gym and I know that I'm just going to go sit at a coffee shop and work remotely. But it's changed my whole self-concept on, like how I feel about myself. And I mean, if you really think about it. It doesn't take any longer to put on a nice dress than it does a pair of sweatpants.
Speaker 1:And I keep asking myself that question because sometimes I'm so dressed up when I walk out of the gym and I'm like what would I say to someone if they ever asked me like you know, why are you trying so hard?
Speaker 1:Why are you putting so much effort in? Because I find that when you wear something different than what other people are, you know, if you're not wearing Lululemon workout pants and you're actually wearing a nice outfit, people sometimes are going to look at you like what are you doing? And you just have to remind yourself that you're doing this for you and you're going to show up better for yourself when you look better. So I think the first step is understanding your desired self and what that looks like for you, and a lot of times it's stepping into something that's almost uncomfortable, right, like if I'm going to be a woman that's doing all of these things whether that's working out two hours a day, running a podcast, having a full time job, trying to date and you know, like that's a woman that's going to be really busy and she's not going to have a lot of time and you know, I was talking to one of my girlfriends about this the other day and I was laughing because Kim Kardashian said in an interview I have the best advice for women in business and she just said get your fucking ass up and work. She was like nobody wants to work these days and a lot of people gave her such a hard time and made so much fun of her. I feel like for saying that. But that woman works her ass off.
Speaker 1:Like, if you think about it, do you think it's easy to get up every single day? Have kids run multiple businesses, put on a full face of makeup, always have to be seen in the public eye, moving from appointment to appointment, whether that's a fashion shoot, her TV show, her clothing line. That woman is booked and busy and that is exhausting. And if you're sitting in a place of like complacency and not reaching your full potential when you step into a version of yourself that's doing more, that's putting more effort in, it's going to be exhausting. It's not. It's not easy, okay, um, even Elon Musk's ex-wife, um, even Elon Musk's ex-wife, even Elon Musk's ex-wife, justine Musk. When she was asked you know advice from an ex-wife, you know of being a billionaire. She said that you have to learn to handle, you know, a level of stress that would break most people. So you're gonna have to learn how to handle stress better and, like really think about what that version of you would look like.
Speaker 1:I know, for me, like a big piece of this um, in trying to show up as who I wanted to be, the woman I want to be was like trying to overcome some of these like limiting beliefs I have around myself. You know, even so many times with the podcast or any time I've tried entrepreneurship in my life, like I've had such a fear of failure and self-doubt and that's what's going to hinder you versus the person that's successful, and that's what the difference is is you have to believe in yourself, you have to reframe the negative thoughts that you have in your head and, like realistically, you have to set goals that are going to be achievable for you and that that sounds easy. But overcoming limiting beliefs is not an easy thing to do and there's steps that you have to take in that process to help you. Like if you're feeling really insecure about your body and you want to be someone that, like walks into a room like the most confident person. It's not going to happen overnight, like there's practices you have to instill and there's so many ways you can like help yourself overcome limiting beliefs, whether that's, like you know, going to therapy, going to sound healing or even tapping. Tapping is not something that I practice on a regular basis, but it's supposed to really help you rewire your thoughts about yourself. I know, for me I always try to imagine like a yellow glowing bubble around me and then it starts to make me feel like more confident and it just kind of reminds me that like it's all internal and you know so it's. It's just cultivating that growth mindset and that healing mindset and then realizing it's not going to be perfect.
Speaker 1:I think one of the biggest things for me was cultivating the habits and rituals that you know I felt like were going to make me the woman that I wanted to be. I remember a few years ago I'm 29. I was probably 21 at the time. I was really having a rough time in my life, like it was like I was sad, but it was affecting so many different aspects of my life, like where I was eating like junk food and I wasn't sleeping enough and it just was like this whole domino effect of what was going on in my life. And I remember a friend referred to me this book, the Power of Habit, which I think Atomic Habits is another book that's really popular and I want to read that book. I haven't read it, but I started back in the day with the book the Power of Habit and what that book taught me. I think the one thing that I took away from that book that still resonates was get up every day and make your bed, and since I read that book eight years ago, that's been one small habit I've implemented in my life every single day, and it's it's had a profound effect on my life.
Speaker 1:There's something so nice about, no matter what's going on in your day, if you come home and your bed's made and you know you have a nice, clean bed to get into. It's so life changing and it's all these small habits that add up to make something so beautiful of your day. Right, like I'm always consistently trying to add more and more small habits into my life, like even lately I've been doing like oil pulling with coconut oil because it's supposed to be good for your teeth, and then like tongue scraping because that's supposed to be good for you and it's just slowly adding in these small things that make such a big difference. This is like another weird one, but like I started wearing like perfume every day and making sure that I was wearing perfume and I think just even smelling like a high value woman and wearing nice perfume it made me like want to show up for myself and just kind of changed my whole mindset. So it's just looking at your habits and your rituals and seeing if they're pushing you further to where you want to be or if they're hindering you.
Speaker 1:You know, and I try, I try to look at things as appointments, specifically the gym, like every day I look at the gym when I go as an appointment and I'm never going to miss that appointment when I was in one of the messiest times of my life. I would like blow through appointments, I would like mess up the timing and I'm still not perfect at it, but it's one thing that I always am trying to do is trying to show up and trying to be there when there's like appointments on my calendar, and it's not always easy, but it's something that you know, you think that's the thing and I I tell this to Roger all the time is like the power of consistency, because, you know, even with this podcast, it's just every day doing. Every day I'm working on this podcast, whether it's like the smallest little things, if I'm like tweak, if I'm if I'm tweaking a link on YouTube, or if I'm working on the website, or I'm like if I'm tweaking a link on YouTube, or if I'm working on the website or I'm trying to find a guest. The one thing that I'm doing every single day is being consistent. And it's like we all know that time moves so fast. I mean, it's already almost April and I really started this journey January of 2024 and this podcast January of 2024. And it's like, if you're consistent, it's going to happen. If you're showing up every day and doing small little things towards your goal, you're going to become that version of yourself.
Speaker 1:I think you also have to look at the things that are setting you back from your goals, whether you know it's your, your friends, um, maybe even like the place you're living isn't like a right fit for you know who you want to be or what you want to become. We all go through phases in life, right, but if you, if you want to move forward fast and become that version of you. You have to do some like self-reflection, like, um, if you want to be really healthy, maybe you shouldn't be, you know, out at the bars all the time or drinking all the time, you know. And maybe you should pay for the more expensive gym because you want to put yourself around other like-minded, you know individuals, because it's so easy to get stuck on this like hamster wheel of feeling trapped in our, in our life and who we are, and you know, any day you can really wake up and decide to be a new version of yourself. You really can.
Speaker 1:But it's also understanding that who you are right now is sufficient. You're enough as you are and pushing to be the best version of yourself is just the habits and routines that are going to get you to that right. And it's not going to be like a straightforward path, like there's going to be bumps and challenges and obstacles along the way, but I think that's okay if you're showing up for yourself authentically. You know, and I just look at it like this, because the vision board that I created at the beginning of the year with the woman that I want to be like in a lot of ways I talked about this I have like become that version of me that I wanted to become, um, and so it's just, it's just pursuing it and going after it, because you know there's no one doing anything that anyone else is doing you're capable of as well. So it's just believing in yourself and showing up as that version of you, yeah, and so I wish Roger was here with me, but he's not today.
Speaker 1:But I mean, it's just so easy to embody your desired self, and I just want to encourage you guys to embrace the journey of personal growth and showing up authentically as the person that you desire to become Um, because nothing's holding you back, nothing's stopping you, and I think you know deep down what you're capable of.
Speaker 1:And if you want more out of life, you just have to reflect on what that looks like for you and where you want to go. And there's so many ways to do that. Whether it's to go and there's so many ways to do that whether it's journaling, meditation, sound healing therapy you have to look deep inside of yourself and see where you want to go. So I'm going to leave you with this, this line pursue compassion and self-awareness, then one day, love will tap you gently on the shoulder and say I'm here Unknown, and so I feel like that applies to pursuing yourself. When you're pursuing yourself and you're putting the consistency in, one day life's just going to tap you on the shoulder and you're going to arrive at the destination of the person who you want to become. So, as always, you know it's going down. I don't have Roger, but I hope you guys get some takeaways from this, because it's really possible to be who you want to become, and I'll see you next week in the lobby. Xoxo, cass.
