Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome, welcome.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: This is your host, D. Wells. And this is why not you? I am excited today because I have a special guest, Ms. Tammy Renee, who's a speaker, author, podcaster, personal discovery, mentor. And her story is a testament to the transformative power of courage and positivity. Just facing her own fears head on, she discovered an invigorating sense of liberation that didn't just change her life, but it had a ripple effect that inspired those around her. And Tammy Renee realized that breaking the chains of fear was more than a personal victory. It was an act of empowerment that resonated with others, lifting them alongside of her. So expect to be moved as Tammy Renee shares quotes that guides her leadership, her dreams, and get a sneak peek into her love for writing and aspiration as an author. And we'll even explore how she uses her expertise as a wriking master to enhance her mentoring approach, aligning actions with values for true success and fulfillment. Let's go.
[00:01:08] Speaker C: Welcome to another episode of why not you? With your host, Derek Wells, where we talk with leaders and entrepreneurs who are doing what they love to do. They'll share insights into overcoming adversity, the systems they use, along with the power of personal growth, faith, and much more. Our goal is to empower you with personal growth, faith, and a plan for ultimate success. Now, here's Derek with another life changing story.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited for y'all to be here today. My name is D. Wells, the host of why not you? And today I am joined by a special guest, Ms. Tammy Renee.
She is a speaker. She's a podcast host of wave, philosophy, wisdom, awareness, vision, and energy.
But she is a personal discovery mentor. And I'm so glad to have you on. Thank you for joining me today.
[00:02:09] Speaker D: Thank you. Thank you so much for allowing me to be here with you.
[00:02:15] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: So I like to get it started with a quote, and I have two. One is by Nelson Mandela, the other one is by Ella Fitzgerald. Give me your perspective, and I guess whatever comes to your heart regarding these two quotes and how they actually resonate with you.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: So, the one from Nelson Mandela is as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
And then the one from Miss Ella Fitzgerald, just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you could go wrong.
[00:02:53] Speaker D: All right, so my take back from that, based on my experience and what I do, they kind of work together. The first one, when you liberate yourself from your own fears, you automatically liberate others. And that goes back to when you're in your inspiration. After overcoming your fears, you get this inspiration, you get this motivation, you get this empowerment feel, and that comes through, and people can feel that. People can sense that from you. And as long as you putting that out, you're led in the right direction. Inspiring others, not only inspiring yourself, but inspiring others. So it keeps you moving forward. When you keep that positive mindset, when you keep that joy that you just received from overcoming fear and an obstacle, it just empowers you. And by empowering you, you empower others.
[00:03:58] Speaker E: That's it.
So can you just share a little.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Bit about how you actually got into this space of speaking and helping other people discover who they truly are?
[00:04:12] Speaker D: So as a personal discovery coach myself, I discovered myself. So I'm taking the things that I learned about myself and how I discover them, which was going within, getting into the intrinsic motivations, those intrinsic skills, that inner strength that we hold, and letting that be my guide through life from all the obstacles and challenges, the life lessons that we have to go through, we have to go through life lessons, right?
To move forward. So I used the techniques that I use, which was the techniques I hold within sight of myself instead of letting other people tell me what to do.
And the other thing I knew is I knew I was supposed to be a speaker, probably, I'm going to say maybe about ten years ago, took me a minute to get here because I had to face my fears. Sometimes when you're a speaker and you're speaking from experience and not a skill or a tool that you're just giving, you have family members that are against it, right? So I had to learn how to put up walls. I had to actually learn the difference first between walls and boundaries. And then I had to learn how to set up healthy boundaries, not only for other people, but the interesting thing is I had to set up boundaries for myself to get out of my way. Wow. So that was the journey that kind of got me to this point where I am now, because I know I need to give back. And my coach one time said to me when I was working with my coach at the beginning of this, she said, oh, you thrive on intrinsic motivation. I know what intrinsic was. I know that word. So I had to go research, as I do. And so I had to go research what intrinsic means. And once I found that I read about it, I said, oh, my God, this is how I operate. So knowing how you operate, knowing what makes you tick, knowing what makes you thrive, knowing what makes you react negatively is very important to moving forward. And so that's what I teach.
[00:06:27] Speaker E: Wow.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: And so do you feel like because you talked about boundaries, you talk about the intrinsic values, how important is it just to be aware? Or I guess that whole self awareness piece, because there's a lot of stuff that people might not be familiar with until they kind of experience maybe some kind of trigger or some kind of trauma or something like that. And then it's like, because you said a lot just in your own family. Right. Not believing, and you had to overcome that.
[00:07:12] Speaker D: It's so important to be self aware, because if you don't fill your cup, someone else will.
That's just it. And I use that as an example of, before I was fully self aware, I was in people pleasing mode. So I'm filling my cup, as they say, with pleasing other people instead of pleasing myself. And what had happened was I started carrying the dreams of other people. I didn't even know how to dream for myself because I didn't know what I wanted. I just wanted what everybody else wanted. So when you're not self aware, you become someone else that someone wants you to be. You don't become who you are truly capable of being, if that makes sense to you.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: It does make sense. It does make sense. It's almost like you're living somebody else's identity instead of your own.
[00:08:12] Speaker D: Yeah. And it's not even the same as impostor syndrome, because impostor syndrome, you're more aware that you're changing your personality or your attitude or the way you move. You are more aware of that. Whereas if you are not even self aware. I held a dream that I thought was my dream. You begin to take on the identity. So I held a dream for, like, six years, and it was a good dream. Don't get me wrong. I would have loved to have it, but I had to come to the realization this was not my dream. Not saying that I can't share your dream with you, but I do have to have my own dreams for my own identity.
[00:09:00] Speaker E: Right.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: That is wild.
And so I just know it's, like, all about empowering other people to help them actually get to a place where they see beyond what they see in front of them.
When you help somebody like that, what are some of the things that you actually do to help them? Just manifest what's on the inside and extract that puppy.
[00:09:28] Speaker D: Okay. So as a personal discovery mentor, I actually work closer with you.
I get more personal with you. Yeah. Your goal may be to leave a job. But let's really figure out why you want to leave this job. So when you leave this job, you get a job you really want. You ain't bouncing from job to job to job trying to figure it out. So when I work with you, my goal is for you to have a greater self awareness and social awareness.
That's one of my main goals. And the other goal that I have is to inspire you, because we know once you are inspired, you are motivated. You just need something to click to create that chain reaction. So once I can get you inspired about your life, inspired about what your desires are and your goals are, you will automatically go into what I call intrinsic motivation. And that is where we start digging out all your core values. We find out the things you like, the things that make you tick, what makes you mad, because then you need to know how to handle that so that you're not reacting to it, you're controlling your reaction to it, and you're able to step back. So ultimately, the goal is to get you to self actualization, which is knowing your own strength and your own talents and your own.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: You. Just that word, power. And so I'm associated with an organization. We call ourselves the king's accountability group. All men from the east coast to the west coast. And we all have a mantra. And when you said power, it reminded me of the first segment of my mantra, which is, I'm unstoppable and everything that I need is within me. And I'm like, people need to recognize and know that. Right, right.
[00:11:39] Speaker D: Which is why it took me on my journey, because I was operating in that energy, in that field, but I was not aware I was operating in it. So I want to spread the knowledge about what that means, what that looks like, and that's how I do that, through my speaking.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Yes, ma'am. Yes.
[00:12:06] Speaker E: I want to know how you came up this name, game changer.
[00:12:12] Speaker D: Oh, my God, that's what you're doing. So game Changers is part of a entrepreneur collaboration networking group that I started on Facebook, and it's called game changes. And how I came up with that is I played off the word of underdogs.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:12:32] Speaker D: So a lot of people understand underdogs as people without resources, people who are not going to make it, people who are going to stay at the bottom, people who don't have that strength to stand up for themselves, people who, you met them in high school and you said, oh, there'll be nothing.
They're not going to go anywhere in life. So the underdog, I didn't want to use underdog because I considered myself an underdog, but I didn't want to use underdog because it has that negative energy behind it. They lack the resource, they lack the motivation. They lack all of those things. So I use game changers because once an underdog who had to have scrapped out there in the streets, they had to hustle for what they wanted. They had to make a way, they had to be creative. Once those underdogs get the resources that they need, they become game changers. And I do believe they are our future leaders. Like, they think outside of the box. They're able to get outside of their comfort zone, because now they have the tools of everything that they've struggled with to overcome it. So that's why I use game changers, because we change in the game, right?
[00:13:52] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:13:52] Speaker D: We change the rules. We got new types of leadership coming into place. The whole world is changing.
[00:13:59] Speaker E: Constantly evolving. Constantly evolving.
[00:14:02] Speaker D: Constantly evolving.
Yes. That's how I came up with game changer. I didn't want to use underdogs, and we are changing the game.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: But, I mean, you were actually in a position where, I mean, since you use the word underdog, where people would have been like, I'm not sure if Tammy Renee is going to make it, because you talked about your homelessness. And I was like, okay, now you're getting down and dirty with it, and you got to get gritty and you got to.
[00:14:31] Speaker D: Actually, why would we consider an underdog in a lot of other people's minds or eyesight or view or whatever?
I dropped out of high school, so I didn't have a high school diploma. I got married at 17. I got divorced at almost 30. So that time, between middle school and maybe 28, I would have been considered an underdog because I was just living for other people. I was just going through life. I was just hustling. I was just going from job to job. I was trying to keep up a certain lifestyle as good as I could for my family. But I didn't have a high school diploma, so where am I going to go, right?
And that changed, but until I was almost 30, I did not have a high school diploma.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: That's amazing. I mean, just how many people actually get written off because of the past or something that they've done in the past? And that's all people remember, for whatever reason, is they remember the bad.
They don't recognize the good or the potential that somebody has. And sometimes it takes either that person to come to some kind of defining moment where they go, like, head to head with they maker, or they actually have somebody else just kind of pull them up and be like, listen, man, I believe in. Or, young lady, I believe in what it is that you're doing, but you have to believe in it yourself. And then the wheels start to turn, and now you start gaining some kind.
[00:16:10] Speaker E: Of traction, taking a momentum. Yeah, it's unbelievable.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: I've listened to your podcast, and you had a segment on there where you talked about introvert and extrovert.
[00:16:35] Speaker E: For the listeners, would you classify yourself.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: As an introvert or extrovert? And then.
[00:16:43] Speaker E: For the type of work.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: That you do, how do you prepare.
[00:16:45] Speaker E: Yourself to do what you need to do?
[00:16:49] Speaker D: So let me ask you this. What do you think I am?
[00:16:53] Speaker E: I believe you're an extrovert because you got the energy, you got the charisma. You outgoing.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: I almost see you, like, on a disc assessment. I will put you as an eye.
[00:17:09] Speaker D: Okay, so I am actually an introvert.
[00:17:13] Speaker E: What?
[00:17:15] Speaker D: Right. So the reason why I did that episode is because a lot of people don't understand introvert and extrovert. And sometimes if people are shy, they might think they're introvert, but they could still be an extrovert. So being shy is not the same as being an introvert. Shy is an emotion, whereas being an introvert or an extrovert is a personality trait. So I'll tell you why I'm an introvert.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Go ahead.
[00:17:46] Speaker D: So I consider myself an introvert with an outgoing personality.
Okay?
I don't go out in the streets. I don't even want to go out in the streets, okay?
You're not going to find me out at no local.
I don't have a local hangout spot. I like to be alone. And how it prepared me to where I'm at because I am an introvert, it allowed me to be okay with being at home by myself, doing research, investigating, parading, doing all these things by myself. I have to have that alone time. Even if I go out for a while, eventually I want to come home, and I just want to be by myself. I'm not a TV person. I'm more about educating my mind. Introverts like to do research. They love to study people. They love to study the mind.
So that's why I'm an introvert. But how my outgoing personality, thank God that I have prepares me is to help me recognize that I need to take that outgoing personality and be an extrovert. So being able to connect with people. So in the past, I wouldn't let people get close to me as an introvert. But as I continue to grow and learn, I can use my outgoing personality and let that shine and connect with people.
[00:19:27] Speaker E: Nice.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: I love it because I believe I'm the same way where I'm an introvert, but I already know what God wants me to do. So I have to be somebody else or not be somebody else. I just have to be more out there and just get out my comfort zone to do the things that I need to do. And when you do that after just a certain time period, it's like you get comfortable doing that and so it doesn't become a problem for you. But at the same time, I'm not that like, oh, I'm not that high.
[00:20:07] Speaker E: Energy extrovert type of person either. Yeah.
[00:20:12] Speaker D: So an example would be is to get me out the house. It takes work.
Somebody want me to go hang out, go to dinner, go to some show or something. It takes work to get me out the house. But once I'm out the house, it takes work to get me back home.
Because I'm out there having a good time. I'm letting that personality come out, and I begin to have a good time. And like you, probably me also, I had to practice on letting my personality shine in public. I had to practice on allowing communication, unspoken communication between people allowed to happen.
That took practice because otherwise I would block and I'd just be out there. I'd be the one sitting on the wall looking and feeling uncomfortable. But once I let loose, it's hard to get me back in the house. My sisters be like, you know what? It take us a year to get you out the house. But then once you get out, we ready to go home? I'm not ready.
[00:21:30] Speaker E: That is funny.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: So I know it can be difficult for sometimes for people to get out of this state of just complacency because they get comfortable, whatever it is that they're doing.
The first thing as I'm talking now, now I'm just starting to think, like, how many people, because we talked about the jobs earlier, how many people are doing things that they know they shouldn't be doing and they could be doing it because, one, they're apprehensive to take that next step. Or they're like, look, I'm making a decent amount of money. I'm good right now, and I don't want to go after my dream or my passion because I don't want to compromise this.
How do you get people to get unstuck just to take that next step to chase and do whatever they need to do to pursue that passion.
[00:22:39] Speaker D: So I'm going to use what I call the wave philosophy to answer this question.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:48] Speaker D: Wave philosophy is something is my own philosophy that I go by, and it's my podcast. But if I take the w, which is wisdom, we gain our wisdom from experience. So one of the things they may be lacking is the lack of wisdom to move forward, the lack of knowledge of what is possible, the lack of passion. They have no desires, and they really don't know what they want. So first, we try to tap into what are the things they enjoy doing. So if you can find out what they enjoy doing, you can use aspects of that action to help them think outside of the box. Well, what if you took this and you did this with it? You enjoy traveling, so why not host retreats?
You know what I'm saying? You kind of start to engage some kind of passion. You have to start engaging them to click into their wisdom so that they can tap into all of those skills and all of those things that they hold in their heads or their hearts or in their soul to let them know they have access to it. Got it. And then the next one would be the a, which is awareness. Then through getting them to tap into their wisdom, they start to become aware of possibilities, aware that there's tools out there to help you get past whatever is blocking you, aware that there's opportunities in the next door next to you. So you tap into that awareness, and then you have to get them to visualize, which is valuing your vision. If you can get people to actually visualize, not just think of a picture, it's different. Thinking of a picture is not visualizing. You're putting an image in your head. When you visualize, you're tapping into all those senses. So you have to essentially wake up the body. Yeah, the body is sleep.
So as you're waking up the body, you're waking up the soul, you're waking up the heart, you're waking up the mind, and it all starts to come together. And then energy, which is the e you get them to look at, are they happy? Are they completely satisfied? I know this is a secure job. I know this is what's paying your bills, and you don't want to ruffle no feathers. But at the end of the road, what is the goal? Do you want to retire from this job, or do you want to do something that you're more passionate about, to have more of a life work balance?
So I would never suggest anyone to abruptly quit a job and just go after their passion, I would have them work through that. Well, let's start on the side and do this, and let's build it up so that you can eventually quit that job. But let's say you're in that job and you're unhappy, but you need another job. Let's find you a job that aligns with the goals that you want to do. You don't want to go work at Amazon. If you want to be a pilot, let's go get a job somewhere where you can work on airplanes, or you can start being in that energy, being around people who do what you want to do.
So it's really about waking up the body essentially. And I just came up with that, talking that through with you. So it's waking up the body.
[00:26:44] Speaker E: That is good.
Wake up the body.
I've come across so many people, and.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: That was one of the reasons why.
[00:26:52] Speaker E: I started the podcast, is because I.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Was coming across these types of people who had the ideas and dreams, but for whatever reason, they're not moving. It's like they're either they're apprehensive, they're scared, or they're just allowing that comfort, even though they have a desire to do something else. And they know they're not operating in a gift and they know it.
They're just staying there and they're like.
[00:27:15] Speaker D: Let me talk to them.
It's really easy to get.
I'm just going to use the word stuck. It's really easy to get stuck because we get comfortable, we get complacent, we get security, we get the known. It's not the unknown, we know what's coming.
So yeah, it's really easy to get there. But I do say your future is in facing your fears.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: And one of the things I've been really reading, so I got my must five or my must haves, and it's like the five things I have to do. And so my number one, which is kind of like the thing that I'm really focusing on right now, and I'm 100% responsible for everything that I do and that happens to me because I'm the one ultimately making a choice. And so how important is it just to take ownership for your life and the talents that you actually possess to share?
[00:28:33] Speaker D: It's very important.
One, it's our God given gift, right, to take responsibility for ourselves. And two, I'll go back to, if you don't do it, somebody else will.
If you don't fill your cup, someone else will. So if you're not taking action for your own life, someone else will take action for you.
[00:29:00] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:29:01] Speaker D: Or you'll just be alone.
Pick your weapon.
And the other thing is, the things that we learn, the things that we overcome, the things that we work through, is actually someone else's motivation. It is someone else's blessing. It is someone else's reason why.
So by taking action on your own gifts and sharing those, you are inspiring, if that means anything to you. That's my main goal, to inspire. But you are inspiring someone to take a step. You are inspiring someone to get out of a bad situation. You are inspiring someone to not stay stuck, to move forward.
[00:29:59] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: And what's so powerful about.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: This particular.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: Topic is that my wife went to church in her hometown, and her pastor actually spoke about these two siblings whose mother was on drugs. And one of the brothers was kind of using that as an excuse not to do anything because he was just always in the past thinking about the past, blaming his mom for something. And then the other brother took off. Took off, went to college, got in the finance industry, and is killing it, I believe, like on Wall street. And so you have the two comparisons of the brothers. One who took ownership of their life and then the other one who did not. And you can't get mad at the one who actually excelled.
He didn't come with any kind of excuses whatsoever. He saw an opportunity. He was like, I'm about to take ownership of my life regardless of the past.
[00:31:09] Speaker D: It's kind of like those people who are stuck. They're saying, I'm just living for today, or it is what it is. They don't even say, it is what it is. They just say, I'm just living. I'm just living for today. They're actually keeping them in that space because they keep telling themselves that and going back to the past. Trauma, that's one thing.
I had to work through my trauma, so I had to go visit. So it's really funny because sometimes you think you've gotten over trauma and you're just going on along with life, but then when you get ready to go even a little deeper, I had to go revisit it and pull it out of me. But what I don't agree is staying in that energy. Operating in that energy. Yes. Take your time. Write. That's how my poetry book was born, because I wrote out my feelings, I wrote out my emotions. Didn't even know I was writing a book, but doing those things to release them. And then you really have to be grateful for everything you've experienced, because you wouldn't be who you are if you didn't.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: And when you think about just all the stuff that you mentioned, you just documenting, journaling, writing, that's all part of what you were just saying, like just kind of reflecting, but actually allowing you to move past an old trauma or trigger because you had to go back and visit that.
And so when you talk about where it is that you really want to go, which is your vision height, how important, or why do you think that is important for you to actually write out a vision for your life and then use that as, okay, this is where I need to be.
[00:33:20] Speaker E: Let's focus and hunker down and get busy on achieving what we need to achieve.
[00:33:27] Speaker D: Right? So writing it out does something for not only your vision, it does something for your motivation. It does something for your aspirations.
I said motivation. But writing out, when you can see it, you more than likely can hear it. So seeing it, hearing it, being it, feeling it, is all the things that you need to make things come to action. So when you write these out and then you start breaking everything down by goals, small little goals, you don't want to just jump to the big goal. You have to break down little goals. You start taking actions in your life that will lead you on that path, that will lead you in that direction, because you'll start picking activities that align with the big vision.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: Thank you for joining me in this.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: Episode of why not you?
[00:34:31] Speaker B: With Tammy Renee, this was just part one and she dropped a whole lot of nuggets.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: And so one of the things I just want you guys to think about.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: Is her personal journey from dropping out of high school to becoming a game changer. She's doing it. And discuss with some friends on how your past experiences might have shaped you and the importance of just believing in yourself. Having support and accountability is significant to achieve anything in life, but it starts with you shifting your mindset to do some of the things that you really don't want to do to help you reach the goals that you really want. So in the meantime, y'all have a blessed week. And remember, we cannot become what we need if we remain where we are.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: God bless.
[00:35:13] Speaker C: Thank you for listening to this episode of why not you remember, have faith and believe in yourself. God does. Also subscribe to our channel and go to our website for more free content and life changing stories at the why not you? Until next time.
