May 12, 2026 • 15 mins
Do your standards shrink the room?
Have you ever been called too much, too intense, too selective, too particular?
What if that's not a flaw, but proof of the work you've done on yourself?
In this episode of A Really Good Cry, Radhi gets real about what it means to hold high standards — in dating, friendship, work, and with yourself. She breaks down the difference between ego-driven expectations and value-driven ones, and why knowing the difference changes everything.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why being "low maintenance" isn't the flex we think it is.
- The difference between ego standards and value standards.
- Three tests to check if your standards are rooted in values or image.
- Why "you're too much" is about their capacity, not your worth.
- How Oprah, Serena Williams, and Indra Nooyi refused to shrink and won.
Your standards aren't the problem. Compromising them is.
Follow Radhi:
https://www.instagram.com/radhidevlukia/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxWe9A4kMf9V_AHOXkGhCzQ
https://www.facebook.com/radhidevlukia1/
https://www.tiktok.com/@radhidevlukia
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And when someone says you are too much, what they're
really saying is you're too much for me. I don't
have the capacity, the willingness, or the tools to meet
you where you are. Welcome to a Really Good Cry podcast.
A Really Good Cry is here to help you understand
your body, feel confident in your skin, manage your emotions,
and take back control of your health. Because growth doesn't
always start with answers. Sometimes it starts with a really
(00:23):
good cry. Hey everyone, welcome back to this week's episode
of A Really Good Cry. I was talking to my
friend this weekend. Our conversation definitely sparked the topic of
this week's episode. She was speaking to me about her
dating life and about her work, and she was talking
about how the more she worked on herself, and she's
(00:45):
worked on herself a lot, she's doing amazing. The more
that she's worked on herself, the more that she has
understood herself, the more she sees her value, the higher
standards have become. And it's actually the first time in
her life where she would actually rather be alone then
talking to guys who she knows are just not right
for her. But also pushing back in areas like her
(01:06):
work and areas that she wouldn't normally because she understands
that she actually deserves a lot more, but she was
talking about the downside where it's actually made the poor
lot smaller and often men again a little bit scared
of her standards, or she'll end up being called too
picky or feeling like she's coming across stuck up because
she knows exactly what she was and sometimes that can
(01:27):
be a little bit difficult for people to receive. And
it got me thinking, and it got us into conversation
about this idea of high standards for women, whether it's
in dating or work or friendship. And I wanted this
episode to be the little pep talk that I was
able to give her, but I wanted to give it
to you in case you need to hear it, because
it's really easy to minimize yourself to think that you're
(01:48):
asking for too much, and I'm going to remind you
of why that is. And if you've been doubting them lately,
then this episode is going to be your own constant
reminder to keep your standards exactly where they are. For
a long long time in my life, I thought that
being agreeable was such a great personality trait. I thought
being easy to be around their maintenance, flexible and not
(02:09):
asking for too much. I thought that was the goal.
And I used to think that being easy was a compliment,
like if someone says she is so chill, you never
make this complicated. You are just so easy to be around,
You're such a low maintenance person. I really took that
as proof as I was doing relationships or friendships right
I was the low maintenance friend, the person who just
doesn't asked for too much, And honestly, I was low
(02:30):
key really proud of it. I thought that's what made
me really lovable, and that my ability to not need things,
to not be a lot, to not make waves, that
was actually my value. But I've come to realize just
how untrue that actually is, and that having standards and
high expectations actually means that you have worked on yourself
(02:51):
enough to know exactly what makes you happy and exactly
what will make you thrive and exactly what you deserve.
And the thing is, the more that you know about yourself,
and the more that you understand yourself better, and the
more that you work in yourself, the higher standards may
seem to other people, and the more that I valued
my own values, the stronger my standards became in every
single part of my life. And I don't think having
(03:13):
standards means that you think you're better than anyone. It
means that you have spent enough time with yourself to
know what actually allows you to thrive in your life.
And for me, you know, I remember when I was
at university and I had specific values that I did
not want to compromise on. One of those was I
really didn't want to drink alcohol. Another one was I
(03:36):
didn't really want to participate in any kind of recreational
use of drugs. And it was something that I struggled
with a lot because everyone around me was doing it.
Everyone was trying to convince me to do it. But
it was a value that was really deep for me,
and I had to keep reminding myself of it, and
I had to keep understanding why I had those values,
what they were for, the reason behind them, the deeper
(03:59):
intention not doing those things, And to be honest, I've
got to this age and I still haven't caved on them.
And every single year that's gone by, the more I
refined that intention and understand why, the happier I am
that I stood by them, and to be honest, it
actually limited a lot in my life if I think
about it. When I was growing up, people felt like
they could have less fun with me when we were
(04:19):
going out. If I dated someone it would be a
difficult if that was something that they really enjoyed, like
going out and having a drink with their meals. It
definitely created limitations, but there were limitations that I was
honestly happy with. There were limitations that allowed me to
stick within my values and realized that this person was
or wasn't for me. And so the more I understood
my values, the clearer my standards become. And that doesn't
(04:42):
mean they became higher, they just became clearer. And slowly
that understanding started to outweigh this fear that I had,
the fear that having standards made me difficult, the fear
that having standards made me less likable. Another standard or
another value that I realized was very very meaningful to me,
or that I wanted to focus on more Over the
(05:03):
last couple of years has been my veganism. I feel
so strongly about animals and I feel so strongly about
not eating them that I made a decision a good
few years ago that I wasn't going to eat at
restaurants that serve meat, And honestly, it's really difficult. It's
difficult because of socializing with friends. It's difficult because when
I travel, it means sometimes I can only e a
(05:25):
one restaurant, and again, it creates a smaller pool of
things I can do or people that I can maybe
go out and connect with. I'll still go to the restaurants,
I just won't eat. I will invite people over to
eat instead of going out and about. I don't expect
other people to do the same thing as me, but
I do need people around me who allow for me
to maintain those values, who understand them and accept them.
(05:49):
And so my fear of people thinking I was weird
or not being able to participate when we're sitting at
a big table, then I'm not eating and I'm just
drinking at tea. I had to overcome all those fears.
But by doing that, it allowed me to feel so
much happier leaving those places. Never once did I feel
coming away from it that oh, I wish I'd just
eaten the meal. I was like, no, I'm so happy
(06:10):
that I stuck to my values, and I think my
desire to stick to those values overtook the fear or
the worry that I had about how people were going
to perceive me, And navigating life through those values has
made it so much easier. It's made it so much
easier to make decisions, to make choices in my life,
and it's made it a lot clearer for me. And
so having these standards didn't mean that I thought I
(06:31):
was better than anyone or that they should do it.
It just meant that I'd spend enough time with myself
to know exactly what makes a difference in my life
and what I feel happy about myself with, and I
think that's really important. And so wanting more for yourself
does not make you high maintenance. Holding a boundary does
not mean that you're not soft, or not feminine or
not lovable. And honestly, in my experience, clarity can feel
(06:53):
threatening to people who often benefit from your confusion. And
let's be honest, when a word knows what she wants
and needs, it really does disrupt dynamics in friendships. It
means you don't keep accepting one sided effort. In work,
it might mean that you don't normalize being underpaid, or
spoken to disrespectfully, even when you're the one that might
be in charge. I've been there, done that too. In family,
(07:16):
it might mean that you stop swallowing the truth just
to keep peace. You tolerate dismissive comments from a parent
or a sibling because that's just how they are, or
you swallow your needs that every single family gathering because
keeping the peace feels safe for them being honest. And
then there's the relationship that underpins all of these other ones,
and that's the one that you have with yourself. If
(07:38):
you lower your standards for your own habits, what you eat,
how you rest, what you tolerate in your own inner dialogue,
you say it is fine when your body is telling
you it's not. You push through exhaustion and you skip
a meal, You ignore the ache that your body is
feeling because somewhere along the way you decided that your
needs don't really count. And if it's present in one area,
(07:59):
it trickles into the rest of your life too. And
this is something that was a big game changer for
me when I realize that if I'm not willing to
hold a standard for myself, it becomes almost impossible for
you to hold it with anyone else and for anyone
else to also hold it with you. And I think
the confusion comes when most people connect having high standards
with ego, and I do think that there's something to that,
(08:20):
but I don't think that's always the case. And I'm
not saying that all standards are healthy. I'm not saying
that every expectation you have is valid. Some standards do
come from ego and some do come from values, and
the difference really matters. Ego standards are about image. They're
about what looks good, what impresses people, what protects your identity.
And ego standards can sound like I only date people
who have a certain job title, or I need my
(08:42):
partner to post about me so people know that I'm
the chosen one, or I can't be with someone who
doesn't fit my aesthetic, or a common one is I
need a guy who's six foot tall. These are not
about connection. They end up being about performance. They're about
proving something to yourself or to other people. And often
these ego standards are come covering up some sort of
wound or insecurity, a feeling of not being enough for
(09:04):
need for external validation to feel worthy. But value standards
are different. Value standards come from your actual needs, your
nervous system, your integrity, what genuinely allows you to feel safe, respected,
and seen. Value standards sound like I need consistent communication
to feel secure. I need someone who is honest even
when it's uncomfortable. I need my time and energy to
(09:26):
be respected. I need a partner who is also motivated
and what they want in life. I need someone who
also wants financial stability. I need a partner tis responsibility
for their own healing. These are not about ego. They
are about alignment in your life. So there are three
filters I think that you need for your standards to
know whether they're coming from value or from ego. The
first one is your nervous system test. Does this standard
(09:50):
make me feel calmer, feel safer long term? Or does
it just make me look impressive? The second one is
the privacy test. If no one will ever know about
this standard, would it still matter to me? And the
third one is the integrity test. Am I living up
to this standard myself? Your standards are not just about
being picky. Your standards are a reflection of how you
(10:11):
value yourself, and so if you're expecting it from someone else,
you need to be living it too. And so those
are the three things that you can kind of work
through in your mind. Whenever you're setting a standard, work
through these three questions and see what your answers are,
and it going to be a really good indication of
whether you are choosing a standard based on value or
whether you're choosing a standard based on ego. I want
(10:32):
to talk about this phrase though, this phrase of being
too much. You're too emotional, you're too sensitive, you're too intense,
you're asking for too much, You're making things a bigger
deal than it needs to be. Too much is not
an objective measurement. It's a sign of incompatibility. And when
someone says you are too much, what they're really saying
is you're too much for me. I don't have the capacity,
(10:54):
the willingness, or the tools to meet you where you are.
And that's absolutely fine, because the goal is not to
shrink until you fit into their space. The goal is
to actually find people, relationships, and environments where your fullness,
your wholeness, is welcomed. And knowing what you need to
thrive is one of the most useful things that you
can have in your life. Because it saves you time,
it saves you energy, it saves you from years of
(11:16):
being in the wrong room with the wrong people and
wondering why nothing feels right. And the fact is, for
a lot of people, just the simplicity of knowing yourself
or having confidence can be difficult for people to experience
if they lack it in themselves. Confidence can look like
arrogance to people who haven't built it. Boundaries can sometimes
look like coldness to people who have had a lot
of access to you. Having clarity can often look like
(11:39):
intimidation to people who are unclear about themselves. So, yes,
standards will shrink your poor they will narrate the rooms
that you can be in, they might disqualify people in
your life, but they will also protect your peace. And
so the option ends up being you can have wide
access and low standards, or you can have selective access
and aligned standards, and both come with cost, and you
(12:00):
have to decide which one is the cost that you
want to be spending. And so a lot of the
times when our standards have become higher for the right reasons,
it's because you're just healing. Maybe you stop negotiating with
your own worth and you just have to remember that
the right people will not be intimidated by your standards.
They will be attracted by this incredible clarity that you
have about what you want in life. And whenever I'm
doubting things in life, whenever I'm doubting my standards, whenever
(12:23):
I'm thinking I'm asking for too much, I love hearing
stories about people, people's success, stories about hope, and these
beautiful reminders of what is possible. So I'm going to
share some of them with you in case you need
to hear it right now. The first person I obviously
have to talk about is Oprah. Oprah grew up in
a lot of poverty in Mississippi. She was raised by
her grandmother on a farm, and she was a black
(12:45):
woman entering into an industry dominated by white men. She
took over a really failing morning show in Chicago in
nineteen eighty four, and honestly, I don't think many people
are expected much at all, but within a month she'd
taken it from last place to first in ratings. Within
two years, it was the highest ranking talk show in America.
And this is the path that I love. In the
(13:06):
late eighties and early nineties, when every talk show was
trying to be trashy and create like sensational content. Oprah
absolutely refused to do that. She made a deliberate decision
to shift her show towards self improvement and education and
having honest conversation, which people thought was going to be
so boring, but it says. She built a media empire.
She became the first black woman to own her production company,
(13:28):
She launched a magazine, a book club, a cable network,
and she did all of it by not being agreeable,
but by being uncompromising about the standards that she had
about what she wanted to put out into the world.
Another phenomenal story is Serena Williams. She was trained on
public courts by her dad in Compton, and she was
(13:48):
one of the few black women in sport that was
almost entirely dominated by white women. As she was told
her whole career that she was too powerful, to emotional,
too loud, too much, too much of everything she had
been policed about. She was wearing on court. She'd been
penalized for showing the same emotion that a lot of
male players show and every single match, but she didn't compromise.
She did not build her legacy by being palatable. She
(14:09):
built it by being undeniable in what she wanted and
by refusing to edit herself for anybody else's comfort. And
that's what standards look like at the highest level. Someone
else that I actually really admire is Indra Nuyi. She
is the former CEO of Pepsi COO. And she was
born in a little village in Chennai, and she wore
a sarry to her job interview at Boston Consulting Group
(14:31):
and she got the job. She didn't compromise on her culture,
on her values, on her traditions in an environment that
the odds were against her walking into that room wearing that,
but she chose to anyway. And so I really hope
that this episode serves as a really great reminder to
you that if you have certain standards, and you have
them based on true values that you deeply, deeply care about,
(14:55):
don't compromise on that. It will make you so much
sadder in your life, and it will create so much
much duality in yourself if you go against the values
that you feel are so strong for you, and to
compromise on those bit by bit over and over again,
it really chips away at your own love for yourself
and your own worth for yourself. Do not compromise on
any of that, because your high standards are just a
(15:18):
beautiful reminder that you have worked so hard to understand
who you are and what it is that you want,
and you don't have to compromise that for anyone. Sending
you all so much love and I hope you will
have such a beautiful, wonderful week filled with finding people
that appreciate and value your values and your standards.
And when someone says you are too much, what they're
really saying is you're too much for me. I don't
have the capacity, the willingness, or the tools to meet
you where you are. Welcome to a Really Good Cry podcast.
A Really Good Cry is here to help you understand
your body, feel confident in your skin, manage your emotions,
and take back control of your health. Because growth doesn't
always start with answers. Sometimes it starts with a really
(00:23):
good cry. Hey everyone, welcome back to this week's episode
of A Really Good Cry. I was talking to my
friend this weekend. Our conversation definitely sparked the topic of
this week's episode. She was speaking to me about her
dating life and about her work, and she was talking
about how the more she worked on herself, and she's
(00:45):
worked on herself a lot, she's doing amazing. The more
that she's worked on herself, the more that she has
understood herself, the more she sees her value, the higher
standards have become. And it's actually the first time in
her life where she would actually rather be alone then
talking to guys who she knows are just not right
for her. But also pushing back in areas like her
(01:06):
work and areas that she wouldn't normally because she understands
that she actually deserves a lot more, but she was
talking about the downside where it's actually made the poor
lot smaller and often men again a little bit scared
of her standards, or she'll end up being called too
picky or feeling like she's coming across stuck up because
she knows exactly what she was and sometimes that can
(01:27):
be a little bit difficult for people to receive. And
it got me thinking, and it got us into conversation
about this idea of high standards for women, whether it's
in dating or work or friendship. And I wanted this
episode to be the little pep talk that I was
able to give her, but I wanted to give it
to you in case you need to hear it, because
it's really easy to minimize yourself to think that you're
(01:48):
asking for too much, and I'm going to remind you
of why that is. And if you've been doubting them lately,
then this episode is going to be your own constant
reminder to keep your standards exactly where they are. For
a long long time in my life, I thought that
being agreeable was such a great personality trait. I thought
being easy to be around their maintenance, flexible and not
(02:09):
asking for too much. I thought that was the goal.
And I used to think that being easy was a compliment,
like if someone says she is so chill, you never
make this complicated. You are just so easy to be around,
You're such a low maintenance person. I really took that
as proof as I was doing relationships or friendships right
I was the low maintenance friend, the person who just
doesn't asked for too much, And honestly, I was low
(02:30):
key really proud of it. I thought that's what made
me really lovable, and that my ability to not need things,
to not be a lot, to not make waves, that
was actually my value. But I've come to realize just
how untrue that actually is, and that having standards and
high expectations actually means that you have worked on yourself
(02:51):
enough to know exactly what makes you happy and exactly
what will make you thrive and exactly what you deserve.
And the thing is, the more that you know about yourself,
and the more that you understand yourself better, and the
more that you work in yourself, the higher standards may
seem to other people, and the more that I valued
my own values, the stronger my standards became in every
single part of my life. And I don't think having
(03:13):
standards means that you think you're better than anyone. It
means that you have spent enough time with yourself to
know what actually allows you to thrive in your life.
And for me, you know, I remember when I was
at university and I had specific values that I did
not want to compromise on. One of those was I
really didn't want to drink alcohol. Another one was I
(03:36):
didn't really want to participate in any kind of recreational
use of drugs. And it was something that I struggled
with a lot because everyone around me was doing it.
Everyone was trying to convince me to do it. But
it was a value that was really deep for me,
and I had to keep reminding myself of it, and
I had to keep understanding why I had those values,
what they were for, the reason behind them, the deeper
(03:59):
intention not doing those things, And to be honest, I've
got to this age and I still haven't caved on them.
And every single year that's gone by, the more I
refined that intention and understand why, the happier I am
that I stood by them, and to be honest, it
actually limited a lot in my life if I think
about it. When I was growing up, people felt like
they could have less fun with me when we were
(04:19):
going out. If I dated someone it would be a
difficult if that was something that they really enjoyed, like
going out and having a drink with their meals. It
definitely created limitations, but there were limitations that I was
honestly happy with. There were limitations that allowed me to
stick within my values and realized that this person was
or wasn't for me. And so the more I understood
my values, the clearer my standards become. And that doesn't
(04:42):
mean they became higher, they just became clearer. And slowly
that understanding started to outweigh this fear that I had,
the fear that having standards made me difficult, the fear
that having standards made me less likable. Another standard or
another value that I realized was very very meaningful to me,
or that I wanted to focus on more Over the
(05:03):
last couple of years has been my veganism. I feel
so strongly about animals and I feel so strongly about
not eating them that I made a decision a good
few years ago that I wasn't going to eat at
restaurants that serve meat, And honestly, it's really difficult. It's
difficult because of socializing with friends. It's difficult because when
I travel, it means sometimes I can only e a
(05:25):
one restaurant, and again, it creates a smaller pool of
things I can do or people that I can maybe
go out and connect with. I'll still go to the restaurants,
I just won't eat. I will invite people over to
eat instead of going out and about. I don't expect
other people to do the same thing as me, but
I do need people around me who allow for me
to maintain those values, who understand them and accept them.
(05:49):
And so my fear of people thinking I was weird
or not being able to participate when we're sitting at
a big table, then I'm not eating and I'm just
drinking at tea. I had to overcome all those fears.
But by doing that, it allowed me to feel so
much happier leaving those places. Never once did I feel
coming away from it that oh, I wish I'd just
eaten the meal. I was like, no, I'm so happy
(06:10):
that I stuck to my values, and I think my
desire to stick to those values overtook the fear or
the worry that I had about how people were going
to perceive me, And navigating life through those values has
made it so much easier. It's made it so much
easier to make decisions, to make choices in my life,
and it's made it a lot clearer for me. And
so having these standards didn't mean that I thought I
(06:31):
was better than anyone or that they should do it.
It just meant that I'd spend enough time with myself
to know exactly what makes a difference in my life
and what I feel happy about myself with, and I
think that's really important. And so wanting more for yourself
does not make you high maintenance. Holding a boundary does
not mean that you're not soft, or not feminine or
not lovable. And honestly, in my experience, clarity can feel
(06:53):
threatening to people who often benefit from your confusion. And
let's be honest, when a word knows what she wants
and needs, it really does disrupt dynamics in friendships. It
means you don't keep accepting one sided effort. In work,
it might mean that you don't normalize being underpaid, or
spoken to disrespectfully, even when you're the one that might
be in charge. I've been there, done that too. In family,
(07:16):
it might mean that you stop swallowing the truth just
to keep peace. You tolerate dismissive comments from a parent
or a sibling because that's just how they are, or
you swallow your needs that every single family gathering because
keeping the peace feels safe for them being honest. And
then there's the relationship that underpins all of these other ones,
and that's the one that you have with yourself. If
(07:38):
you lower your standards for your own habits, what you eat,
how you rest, what you tolerate in your own inner dialogue,
you say it is fine when your body is telling
you it's not. You push through exhaustion and you skip
a meal, You ignore the ache that your body is
feeling because somewhere along the way you decided that your
needs don't really count. And if it's present in one area,
(07:59):
it trickles into the rest of your life too. And
this is something that was a big game changer for
me when I realize that if I'm not willing to
hold a standard for myself, it becomes almost impossible for
you to hold it with anyone else and for anyone
else to also hold it with you. And I think
the confusion comes when most people connect having high standards
with ego, and I do think that there's something to that,
(08:20):
but I don't think that's always the case. And I'm
not saying that all standards are healthy. I'm not saying
that every expectation you have is valid. Some standards do
come from ego and some do come from values, and
the difference really matters. Ego standards are about image. They're
about what looks good, what impresses people, what protects your identity.
And ego standards can sound like I only date people
who have a certain job title, or I need my
(08:42):
partner to post about me so people know that I'm
the chosen one, or I can't be with someone who
doesn't fit my aesthetic, or a common one is I
need a guy who's six foot tall. These are not
about connection. They end up being about performance. They're about
proving something to yourself or to other people. And often
these ego standards are come covering up some sort of
wound or insecurity, a feeling of not being enough for
(09:04):
need for external validation to feel worthy. But value standards
are different. Value standards come from your actual needs, your
nervous system, your integrity, what genuinely allows you to feel safe, respected,
and seen. Value standards sound like I need consistent communication
to feel secure. I need someone who is honest even
when it's uncomfortable. I need my time and energy to
(09:26):
be respected. I need a partner who is also motivated
and what they want in life. I need someone who
also wants financial stability. I need a partner tis responsibility
for their own healing. These are not about ego. They
are about alignment in your life. So there are three
filters I think that you need for your standards to
know whether they're coming from value or from ego. The
first one is your nervous system test. Does this standard
(09:50):
make me feel calmer, feel safer long term? Or does
it just make me look impressive? The second one is
the privacy test. If no one will ever know about
this standard, would it still matter to me? And the
third one is the integrity test. Am I living up
to this standard myself? Your standards are not just about
being picky. Your standards are a reflection of how you
(10:11):
value yourself, and so if you're expecting it from someone else,
you need to be living it too. And so those
are the three things that you can kind of work
through in your mind. Whenever you're setting a standard, work
through these three questions and see what your answers are,
and it going to be a really good indication of
whether you are choosing a standard based on value or
whether you're choosing a standard based on ego. I want
(10:32):
to talk about this phrase though, this phrase of being
too much. You're too emotional, you're too sensitive, you're too intense,
you're asking for too much, You're making things a bigger
deal than it needs to be. Too much is not
an objective measurement. It's a sign of incompatibility. And when
someone says you are too much, what they're really saying
is you're too much for me. I don't have the capacity,
(10:54):
the willingness, or the tools to meet you where you are.
And that's absolutely fine, because the goal is not to
shrink until you fit into their space. The goal is
to actually find people, relationships, and environments where your fullness,
your wholeness, is welcomed. And knowing what you need to
thrive is one of the most useful things that you
can have in your life. Because it saves you time,
it saves you energy, it saves you from years of
(11:16):
being in the wrong room with the wrong people and
wondering why nothing feels right. And the fact is, for
a lot of people, just the simplicity of knowing yourself
or having confidence can be difficult for people to experience
if they lack it in themselves. Confidence can look like
arrogance to people who haven't built it. Boundaries can sometimes
look like coldness to people who have had a lot
of access to you. Having clarity can often look like
(11:39):
intimidation to people who are unclear about themselves. So, yes,
standards will shrink your poor they will narrate the rooms
that you can be in, they might disqualify people in
your life, but they will also protect your peace. And
so the option ends up being you can have wide
access and low standards, or you can have selective access
and aligned standards, and both come with cost, and you
(12:00):
have to decide which one is the cost that you
want to be spending. And so a lot of the
times when our standards have become higher for the right reasons,
it's because you're just healing. Maybe you stop negotiating with
your own worth and you just have to remember that
the right people will not be intimidated by your standards.
They will be attracted by this incredible clarity that you
have about what you want in life. And whenever I'm
doubting things in life, whenever I'm doubting my standards, whenever
(12:23):
I'm thinking I'm asking for too much, I love hearing
stories about people, people's success, stories about hope, and these
beautiful reminders of what is possible. So I'm going to
share some of them with you in case you need
to hear it right now. The first person I obviously
have to talk about is Oprah. Oprah grew up in
a lot of poverty in Mississippi. She was raised by
her grandmother on a farm, and she was a black
(12:45):
woman entering into an industry dominated by white men. She
took over a really failing morning show in Chicago in
nineteen eighty four, and honestly, I don't think many people
are expected much at all, but within a month she'd
taken it from last place to first in ratings. Within
two years, it was the highest ranking talk show in America.
And this is the path that I love. In the
(13:06):
late eighties and early nineties, when every talk show was
trying to be trashy and create like sensational content. Oprah
absolutely refused to do that. She made a deliberate decision
to shift her show towards self improvement and education and
having honest conversation, which people thought was going to be
so boring, but it says. She built a media empire.
She became the first black woman to own her production company,
(13:28):
She launched a magazine, a book club, a cable network,
and she did all of it by not being agreeable,
but by being uncompromising about the standards that she had
about what she wanted to put out into the world.
Another phenomenal story is Serena Williams. She was trained on
public courts by her dad in Compton, and she was
(13:48):
one of the few black women in sport that was
almost entirely dominated by white women. As she was told
her whole career that she was too powerful, to emotional,
too loud, too much, too much of everything she had
been policed about. She was wearing on court. She'd been
penalized for showing the same emotion that a lot of
male players show and every single match, but she didn't compromise.
She did not build her legacy by being palatable. She
(14:09):
built it by being undeniable in what she wanted and
by refusing to edit herself for anybody else's comfort. And
that's what standards look like at the highest level. Someone
else that I actually really admire is Indra Nuyi. She
is the former CEO of Pepsi COO. And she was
born in a little village in Chennai, and she wore
a sarry to her job interview at Boston Consulting Group
(14:31):
and she got the job. She didn't compromise on her culture,
on her values, on her traditions in an environment that
the odds were against her walking into that room wearing that,
but she chose to anyway. And so I really hope
that this episode serves as a really great reminder to
you that if you have certain standards, and you have
them based on true values that you deeply, deeply care about,
(14:55):
don't compromise on that. It will make you so much
sadder in your life, and it will create so much
much duality in yourself if you go against the values
that you feel are so strong for you, and to
compromise on those bit by bit over and over again,
it really chips away at your own love for yourself
and your own worth for yourself. Do not compromise on
any of that, because your high standards are just a
(15:18):
beautiful reminder that you have worked so hard to understand
who you are and what it is that you want,
and you don't have to compromise that for anyone. Sending
you all so much love and I hope you will
have such a beautiful, wonderful week filled with finding people
that appreciate and value your values and your standards.
Host
Radhi Devlukia
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