June 5, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Levels to This, Sheryl and Tee talk about what it means to set goals for themselves this new year. The two discuss societal pressures women face surrounding kids, careers and marriage and how to stay locked in on what matters to you.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Levels to This is an iHeart women's sports production in
partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find
us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, everybody, what's going on? It's your girl, Trerika Foster
Bradsby And this is another episode of Levels to This. Now,
I bet you're wondering, why is it just so Rika?
Where is Cheryl? Well, Cheryl is under the weather today,
So guess what that means.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
That means you.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Got me, You got your girl. Get ready for a
wonderful and fun time. But listen, I'm not going to
spend a whole bunch of time talking about craziness that
I typically would in a usual surface level conversation because
I'm talking to myself. So it's a little weird, don't
you think. With that being said, though we are already
(00:56):
off and running to an amazing WNBA season, there are
a lot of players and teams who are doing their
best to kind of get to the championship, none more
prominently doing so other than the New York Liberty who
are undefeated at this point and the Minnesota Links that
is undefeated at this point, and it brought me to
(01:18):
what we were talking about a couple of months ago,
maybe even longer than that, but at some point Sheryl
and I had a conversation about goal setting, and we
were talking about how you can use things that are
happening and use things that are going on to help
you set great goals that will get you to where
you need to be. And I feel like the links
(01:39):
in the Liberty listen to that conversation because the goals
that they have set for themselves this season has been amazing, right,
And I think that that conversation was so amazing and
that conversation was so impactful that I want to share
that conversation again. So I want you guys to stick
around because some of you are new listeners and probably
(02:00):
missed it. Some of y'all may be old listeners and
still missed it. Either way it goes. This conversation is important.
I want to share it again with all of you. So,
without further ado, let's go ahead and take it to
the next level. So this might be maybe a dumb
question considering that you were an athlete, and no questions
(02:23):
obviously things that we all assume that you put at
the table. This is what I gotta do. And I
think one of those things for an athlete is, obviously
when you play it in the professional league, your goal
is to win a championship every year. That's the goal.
Win a championship every year. That's it. That's it, which
y'all did for the first floor. But I'm curious to
(02:44):
know if there was ever an instance in which you
wanted to accomplish something so much that you put so
much pressure on yourself to get this thing done and
whatever that was, did you or did you not do it?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So we talked before we started recording, you and I
and I just said.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
This conversation today is one that even I didn't realize
I need it, but I do. So I'm gonna tell
you now because you always coming at me for shedding tears,
but I'm probably gonna shed a few today because I like,
right now where I am in my life, I'm like,
(03:29):
what goals am I really.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Trying to achieve right now?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And by that I mean for me, not what everybody
else is telling me I should do or thinks I
should be doing right now.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So I'm in a space t Honestly, I'm gonna be.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Very vulnerable with you today, Kay, of course, I'm in
a space right now where honestly I'm like, what the fuck, Like,
where am I going?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Where am I headed? What's next for me?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And some people may say, well, you're fifty three so
year old, right, and I'm like, I don't feel old,
But I feel like I'm at a point in my
life though, where.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
What's next for me, and I don't know if that's
good or if it's bad. But to answer your question,
I put a whole lot of pressure on myself when
I was playing and when I was pregnant, and that
pressure wasn't just to come back and be great and
play basketball and do the things that people saw me
(04:38):
do or knew me for as far as a basketball player,
I put pressure on myself to be the best mom
and athlete I could be because it hadn't really been done,
at least in women's basketball, and there was no one
that I could look at and say, oh, this is
how she did it. So for me, being like the
first one to walk that path, there were times where
(05:00):
I was like, shit, am I doing this right? Should
I stop doing all the things to be a great
basketball player and focus more on being a great mom.
There was a lot of guilt that came with that.
There was a lot of pressure I put on myself.
I don't know, like I don't have all the shit
figured out.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I still don't. I did then and I still don't.
But I do think we as.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Women put that type of pressure on ourselves when we're
trying to figure out like our goals.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And what do we want to achieve and what do
we want to accomplish.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Last thing, I'll say, I took your advice our last episode.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I think we talked about a vision board.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yes, And so for me, that vision board has really
put things into better perspective for me than actually just
writing down goals.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
If that makes yes, it does, it makes tons of sense.
And you really hit on so many different things because
I had.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
On my out because it's gonna be one.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Of It's gonna be one of them, and that's cool,
Like I love that. I love that about us, that
we can be vulnerable and really just be honest about
where we are and what we're doing. And I always
do a lot of I'm a documentary nrdive research person.
That's just my thing. And even before I thought that
this would be a great episode for us to do.
I was already looking and following this woman named Stacy
(06:22):
Kim and she's a psychologist, and so she was talking
about some tips and some things that we do as
women as it relates the goal setting that we could
do better. And so one of the things, and I
really want to talk about some of these things that
she listed, but one of the things that she did
was she gave us some numbers. And I looked at
these numbers and I was like, boy, when I think
(06:43):
about the shit that I did at this age, this
is what our problem is. So you're talking about being
a mom. We have been conditioned to think that as women,
we gotta do shit when other people think we need
to do them. So, depending on your cultural background, or
your family background, or wherever you are, my mother was
fifteen when she had me, sixteen when she had my brother,
(07:06):
nineteen when she had my younger sister, and it just
kept going and go. By twenty years old, woman, you
had three children. But you're looking at me a lot
at the age of twenty three and saying, oh my god, Tarika,
when do you plan on having kids? Ma'am?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I'm twenty three.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Allow me to live to figure it out that in mind.
I looked at the average age of parenthood in twenty
twenty four, and according to the statistics, in twenty twenty four,
the average woman having her first child is twenty eight
years old. Then I continue to dig a little bit more,
(07:47):
and I said, how old are people getting married now?
Because that's another thing women get pressured to do. If
you ain't married by such and such age, you might
as well be a spinster out here in the street. Okay,
let's look. I did some more, and I see that
the average age of women getting married in twenty twenty
four is twenty eight years old, which is up from
(08:07):
twenty years old in the nineteen fifties. So as I'm
starting to look at these numbers, I'm looking at careers
because what's another thing. Oh my god, I'm thirty. I
don't have a career yet. I'm going through a midlife crisis.
Look at the numbers. The average age of people actually
settling into their careers are between the ages of thirty
(08:27):
five and forty one. So it's okay to be young
and not have it figured out. So what does this
make me think? Cheryl is like we spend too much
time trying to set goals based on what we think
other people think we should be doing, and not really
paying attention to what we should be doing. It's difficult
(08:49):
when you think about, like, how do I set goals
for me or how do I do shit for me?
When all I've been taught this whole time is what
everybody else think I'm supposed to be doing by a
certain time, a certain age when I get to a
certain place.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Like damn, what the fuck let me breathe?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Twenty twenty five got to be a year we breathed?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Is you said it?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I think depending on like your cultural background and your
upbringing and the way you were raised, that puts a
lot of things into perspective, right, I said on the
last episode it talked about my son getting ready to
have a kid. He's twenty seven, so I'm not tripping
on the age.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
But she's twenty three, so I am tripping on the age. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So when you brought that up, I was just like wow,
because that was my first thought was you haven't lived.
Y'all haven't lived, And when you get ready to bring
a child into this world, I don't care what age
you are.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Shit changes. You go from.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Being first to last, yep, when a child comes into
the picture. But the thing that I really want us
as women, and not just Black women, women in general, Like,
I really want us to take charge of who we
are and being who we are the way we want
to be that right, not the way society says we
(10:12):
should be, Not the way your parents say you should be. Like,
we've got to get to a point to where we're
okay with it. If I choose not to get married
until I'm fifty years old, damn it, that's my choice.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
That's your choice. Yes, maybe I haven't.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Maybe I haven't found the right person.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And who are you to tell me that I have
to be married by a certain age or else. The
other thing is you talk about the age where women
have kids. Maybe some women don't want to have kids,
and that's okay too, Yep, it's okay to be childless,
cat ladies, right right.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I know I'm not gonna go To'm not gonna go there.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But there's so much pressure that's put on us from society,
from even friends, right that says, here's who we have
to be, the way we have to be when we
have to be it, And no we don't.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
We truly don't at all. And it's okay to be
the first to set a different trend in your family.
For everybody else in your family getting married at twenty
two to twenty three, baby, it's okay to wait till
you thirty five. You ain't got to follow the tradition.
That's how you break the cycle. It's absolutely one, absolutely
the cycle. And so when I said earlier that the
(11:29):
reason why sometimes we don't meet our goals is because
we go sett and wrong. We go setting wrong, we
setting goals for the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
We look in we're setting goals for other people.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
We're studying the setting goals people, our lives yah other people.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And based on other people's ideas or what we're supposed
to do or how we're supposed to act. We got
to cut that out. So some of the things that
Stacy says that I truly love is one, pick one
goal to focus on, and then two, let that goal
be a want rather than I have to or I should.
And I love that. I like that right that we
(12:03):
can definitely walk in chew gum at the same time.
So that doesn't necessarily mean we're incapable of having more
than one goal, but at the same time the one
that you focus on, let that be your one, and
then do smaller tasks to get to that one goal.
So you got long term and short term, which makes sense.
(12:23):
For example, my goal was to buy a house. Little
things I had to do to make sure that I
could do that, save my money, pay down my debt,
find a realtor, cut back on shopping. But the ultimate
goal was to do this thing right. One of the
things that stood out to me, she has seven of them.
So one was pick a goal and focus on it.
Two would start with want to rather than I have
(12:44):
to or I should. But this one was interesting to me.
Focus on yourself. You can't change the behaviors of other people,
and you can't make people see you and what you
want to do the way that you want them to
see you. You just got to let them do what
they doing and be what they be in and feel
how they feel. You focus on yourself, mind your own
(13:07):
damn business. And so I think that is such an
important I'm telling you, like, the only thing you can
do with such jus for you, And if people ain't
rocking with you, they ain't rocking with you.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Number four she had, which I just touched on recognized
the difference between projects and tasks. So big goal and
then little things you need to do to get big goal.
And then five, which I really love too, was set
a check in point right, hold yourself accountable, put a
deadline on it.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
After a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Number six what I've been saying twenty twenty five is
celebrate your success. Celebrate it right instead of saying, oh,
you know, I wanted to lose fifty pounds, I only
lost twenty five. Since you lost twenty.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Five pounds, celebrated, celebrated, celebrate that shit.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
But this, to me was the most important one of all.
Be flexible, abandoning goals that don't serve you well. It's
a lot of shit that looked dope in January. I
like that, and by the time you get to April,
you like, Yo, this really ain't it. That's part of
the focus on yourself. If something that you said you
(14:20):
want to do in January ain't really working out by April,
you ain't feeling it. It's not making you happy, it's
not serving your purpose. Don't be trying to do it
just for the sake of doing it.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Let that shit go just to have a conversation or
for it to be a good look. And that's why
t I think I got away from making my New
Year's resolutions because every year I was, Okay, i'm gonna
work out, I'm gonna lose x amount of pounds, I'm
gonna do this, and I did it for the first month,
but then through traveling and just life right, I was
(14:52):
just like, shit, no, I'm done with that. But I
also think we put so much pressure on ourselves when
we kind of see what other people are doing. Your
journey's different from mine, and maybe what you're doing is
working for you. That doesn't mean that what I'm doing
is wrong. Because back to what number was it three?
(15:16):
Focus three on yourself. Focus on yourself. And that is
what I think we as women really need to dive
into and really focus on, is just focusing on ourselves.
I don't know whoever said in life that when you
get to a certain age that you have your life
figured out, because again, I'm fifty three and I don't
(15:38):
have it figured out.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
No, of course not. And what's interesting is we use
the term mid life crisis all the time. So I
did a little bit of digging on that too, and
Apparently the actual range of midlife crisis happens between forty
five and sixty. So I'm sorry if you're listening and
you're thirty and you think you're going through a mid
life crisis because you can read waiting from school with
(16:00):
your degree and unfortunately you haven't found a job of
your career yet and now you're in a one bedroom
or a studio apartment. In life is coming to an
end unless you plan on kicking the bucket naturally at sixty, sweetheart,
you are not in a midlife crisis. You are doing
an average twenty nine thirty year old person has to
go through it is It is sorry, but usually it
(16:22):
is said that midlife crisises usually happen between forty five
and sixty after a significant life change like a divorce,
a retirement, a death of a loved one, aging, something
where you significantly shift because you think you don't know
your purpose. And I thought that was interesting because I
(16:46):
could totally understand someone who had been a director for
thirty years and at the age of fifty five, they're
no longer a director and they've decided to retire, and
now they're like, now, what what is my purpose now? Like,
how do I make an impact? It sounded good to retire,
it sounded good to not work, but like, now, what's
(17:06):
my goal? What's my thing? I could see that more
than just I didn't make or reach the societal norm
that folks put upon me. And because I didn't make it,
I didn't reach it. I didn't do that thing. Life
is falling apart. Those are not the same. And the
thing about that is I have to ask myself sometimes
(17:28):
when I be going.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Through this, do men have to go through that shit?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Because while men have their own set of pressures, it
is very different than the set of societal pressures that
women have. You talked about it's pressure that you felt
having to be an athlete and be a good mom.
Do you know how many daddy's in the NBA ain't
thought a sure thing about missing a birthday, missing a Christmas,
(17:55):
not being able. I'm sure they would love to be there,
but I don't see not a single column being written
or any of the thick pieces coming out about how
they are terrible fathers because they have to be in
the NBA from October to June.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Do what it says is they have to do their job.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
They have to provide for their fai.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah, that's their job is to be a professional athlete.
That's right. Unfortunately they can't be there, and.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Spouses are expected to understand Listen, that was the person
that you got with, when you got with them, those
pressures don't apply to men, So why the hell do
we keep letting those type of pressures rule and feed
our lives. The numbers are showing women are starting to
wise up a little bit and be like, I ain't
got a rush to do this shit.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Because here's what happens a lot of times. Let's just
go back to the whole marriage thing. Lots of times
when you think you found the right one, and yes,
it happens, it works. But just say, I'm going to
use my son and his girlfriend for an example. Right,
my son's twenty seven, she's twenty three. Have they had
(19:03):
a discussion about marriage?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Not with me. That ain't your business.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
That ain't my business. That is my business.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
But so many times because of what society says, right,
you should be married before you have a child. And
I also know in the black culture, I know my
mama was like, oh no, you're not about to lay
up with nobody and have a baby.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
You better get married first, all those things.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
But to me, at the age of twenty three and twenty.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Seven, I don't think you've lived.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Also, do you really truly know what love is? It's
a question I'm asking. I don't know, but to say,
this is the person I want to marry. The only
reason why I bring that up is because I went
through a divorce. I got married when I was really young, right,
and I went through a divorce. Not saying divorces don't
(19:53):
happen to older couples, because they happen all the time,
but I would like to think that the younger you
get married, if you don't really truly know each other,
that's going to lead to a divorce quicker than someone
who's older. My husband and I we were engaged for
(20:14):
ten years.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I remember you saying that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, and I just again, I go back to the
stats you brought up, and we just have to get
out of the old ways and the old mindset of
this is who I have to be and what I
should have accomplished by the time I get a certain.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Age have to and when we come back on the
other side, I want to share a couple of things
that My girl has really laid out here that we
can do to help us get back on track when
we feel like we've slipped on our goals a little bit,
but also maybe how we can help each other to
stay out of that mindset of doing what society an
(21:00):
he thinks we should do instead of just doing.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
What we like to do.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So we'll be right back after this, Cheryl. Can I
ask you if there is one I guess you can
say societal norm about women that people say about us
or place on us, or a pressure that they put
(21:25):
on us that you just if I had an all time.
I really hate that they say this about us. This
is that thing?
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Oh yeah, you put me on the spot there because
I can say I think there are so many.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Okay, let me hear your two first.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Okay, the first one that I have is about all women.
I hate that people think women are soft, Like women
are soft, like we're supposed to be soft. So to
make that an insult is like, what the fuck does
that mean? We're supposed to be soft?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
But I don't mean like cute, cuddly sauce. I mean
like the we can't handle trials because what you mean
or if you're talking to a man and you'd be like, oh,
you're putting up a girl, Like, what the fuck that means?
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, I hate yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
And it's like one A and one B. That leads
me to number two, which is more for black women,
and that is that we're aggressive. Don't call me aggressive
because I don't take your bullshit, because I stand up
for myself. Because I'm assertive because I learned how to
use the English language correctly and I use it for
my benefit when necessary. That means I'm aggressive and I'm angry.
(22:32):
I don't like that. Those are my two. I hate
that society has those stereotypes around us.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I mean those are two good ones, because I would
definitely agree with you on that.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I think one for me is I just hate when
men say, oh, she's a woman, Like I hate that
because I'm like, what does that mean? Yes, I am
a woman, I'm gonna forever be a woman. What is
your point?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Because there are.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Times where my husband and I are having a conversation
and sometimes he'll say, well, she's a woman, and I'm like,
what the fuck does that mean?
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I am too?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So if you feel that way about her and she's
a woman, then you feel that way about me, and
I think the other one for me, tea would be
And this is going to take me back to the
election where we society doesn't feel like a woman is
capable of running a country. Because there are a lot
(23:28):
of different reasons why Kamala didn't win, but one that
I heard was, oh, my goodness, I would never vote
for a woman to lead us to run this country.
And that bothers the shit out of me because I
know for a fact there are women out there in this.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
World that are way better at running shit than men are.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yep. But that's where we as women have to stand
up and hold our ground and say, listen, I am
a proud to be one, but let me tell you
why I can.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Do this job better than you.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Matter of fact, let me show you why I can
do this job better than you, not just tell you
my mom you say I can show you better than
I can tell you.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, that reminds me of I forgot what podcast I
was listening to, but someone had mentioned that women get
jobs based on their track record. They have to prove
that they can do it, whereas men get a job
or get an opportunity.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Because I could see the potential soldier.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I can see how much I could see you look
like the kind of guy who is going You're going places,
even in relationships, right, even in relationships, you look at
a woman and you be like, I want to get
with that woman because that woman got it going on.
She's got a great job, she's got a college education.
You look at a man and you'll be like, yeah,
I know he only got a g DA working at
(24:48):
McDonald's right now, but guess what, I could see him
going places. And then it's twenty years later and you
are here calling this man a bum, but you saw
him going places twenty not having a GED or working
at McDonald's. So I wasn't trying nothing at all. Say
nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying, be accepting of
(25:09):
what you got in front of you and talking about potential.
But I bring all that up because Stacey continues to
talk about sometimes women we set goals based on what
we think is achievable for us, because people have already
decided what's achievable for women and what's not. Example, being
(25:30):
president of the United States. It has already been proven
in other countries that women can absolutely be world leaders.
But for whatever reason, in the United States, there is
still this societal norm that women can't be president because
we've seen three women try four Technically, Shirley CHISHLM didn't
make it, Hillary clam did make it, Kamala Harris didn't
(25:54):
make it. So some of the things that I love
that she says is that there are some really countering
to ways to just get people out of your brink.
You touched on one of them. One of the things
she says is keeping it to yourself. Right, Sometimes you
want to tell people what it is that you want
to do, and you get those people around you who
just aren't supportive, even esther when she was like, I
(26:15):
was asking people should I quit my job, and they
were all like, girl, no, you crazy. If every single
time you want to do something and somebody is there
behind you to try to tell you don't do it,
you know what, you need to preserve your energy and
sometimes it's just best to keep that shit to yourself. Now,
(26:35):
you know what, Like it's cool, I don't really need
to tell you. That. Don't mean I'm not gonna try
and do this thing. I'm just not gonna have these
people bringing this negative energy around me.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
And that is huge right.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
If you have your little circle and I don't even
have a circle, they got mna have an arc.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
You gotta have more.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, because you gotta be careful with the people
you bring in that circle because lots of times those
are the people.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
That will drag you down and bring you down. Because
let's just keep it real.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
We talk about men not supporting us and having our
backs and all that, but Tea, as women, sometimes we
are our worst enemies. Say that shit again instead of
supporting each other, Tea, I don't want to see you succeed.
I'm gonna sit here and laugh with you right now
in your face and encourage you and say yes, girl.
But as soon as I get at the door, let
(27:29):
me get on my phone, let me go tell these
people this crazy Shitterterrika talking over here.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Girl, know she ain't about to do X, Y and Z. God,
I'm gonna be here with her. Let her think she can't.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Or this one right here that sometimes we do. And
we're gonna talk about accountability. We gotta have accountability for
the shit that we do. Sometimes, not me and Ryl personally,
because we ain't fake like this, but it's people who
will hear your dream and hear your idea and hear
what you trying to do. And then the next thing,
you know, ay out here pursuing and.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Doing the same shit. What and you saying what my time?
Saying on my time? You had one more time?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I told you that I was about to get ready
to go jump on this opportunity. And the next thing,
I know, you in the room trying to get on
the opportunity before me.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
What type of shit is that and acting like it
was your idea.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Now they're trying to gas like you like you're crazy,
like making as sad as that is.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
You gotta be very careful.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Back to Stacey's points, sometimes you gotta keep shit to
yourself because not everybody is on your team.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Sys that's facts.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Second thing she says when you got to get back
on track with your goal is sometimes it's cool to
double down on doing nothing because a lot of times
people are making seem like you know what, Oh, all
she was doing was over there standing in the corner,
or all she said she was doing was praying. You
did what I said, I was praying, Like that's a
doing nothing, that's doing this thing. Yes, thatation is something
(28:59):
that doing nothing. Maybe I do need to go and
take this walk around the corner to get my mind
and clear my mind. Maybe I do need to spend
an extra ten minutes in the shower because I need peace.
It's okay for me to be making my moves my
way and you not fully see or understand why I'm
moving the way that I'm moving. And I'm one who
(29:22):
personally loves to tell folks when I'm doing something great,
and I don't do that to be braggadocious. I do
it because I feel like it's inspiring. There's some little
girl out there from the east side of Detroit who
never thought that she could be in a certain place.
And I want to be able to be like sis.
I came from the same place you came from.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
No doubt, believe me.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
We can do it in here's how. But sometimes you
might not see me doing nothing and you'll be thinking
to yourself. Girl Terrika's like a whow she finna do this?
And that girl like did nothing. She ain't posting nothing,
she ain't seen nothing like Let me do nothing, because
you don't know what my nothing looks like. If my
nothing is what's giving me peace of mind to move forward,
(30:02):
let me do nothing it's so true.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
It is. It is, Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
And you know what, sometimes it's okay to just sit
in silence. That's it, because you know what, I'm doing
this for me, not you, and right now this.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Is what I need. I need some me time.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
And in that meantime, you have no idea what I'm
doing or what I'm working on.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, And the last thing that she says before we
head this out to get back on track is to
not assume defeat. And we touched on this earlier. Sometimes
we're not really focused on the right goal right. Sometimes
we confuse the process for the endgame. Sometimes we think
we have to do A B and C in order
(30:52):
to get to D. Maybe doing A B and C
and how we get to D and instead of just saying, oh,
AB and C didn't work right, so I guess I'll
never get D. Switch it up. I get asked all
the time from students who are like Tea, I want
to get into sports journalism. I want to be on ESPN.
How do I do that? And I'm like, in my head,
(31:13):
the first thing I think is since I'm the wrong
want to ask, because I ain't got this shit figured out.
I ain't one hundred percent doing what I want to do,
just yet right, the endgame won't look the same. But
what I always end up telling folks when they ask
me that is just this is my process. Yes, this
is how I did it. How I did it, and
(31:33):
how you might do it. It is totally different. That
does not mean that you can't do it. It's just
it might look different for you than different for me. So,
if this is the end game, these are the traditional steps,
these are the steps I took. You figure out what
works best for you. But we just can't assume defeat.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Everybody's journey is different and it might take me longer
to get there, but I'm gonna get there.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
To her point, don't assume defeat.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
That's easier said than done, though, because I know for
me personally, there are times when I'm like, you know what,
I'm about to go do this and I get through
door one, just crushed it.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
I get through door too, just crushed it.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Door three is just the stubber.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
It just won't let me in.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
So instead of me finding another way around, I just
back up and say, I guess I ain't supposed to
do that. It's easier said than done, but I love that. Yeah,
don't assume defeat.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Don't assume defeat because I know if you're a religious person.
And that was something we didn't really talk on during
this episode, but that plays a large role in some
of the goals we set in some of the reasons
why we put pressure on ourselves too, because we quick
to be like, you know, a black felk. The Bible said, yeah, well,
the Bible said no fornication either, and we ain't gonna
talk about what you was doing at nineteen.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
We really want to bring.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
The Bible on this. We want to bring the Bible, girl.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
But work quick that we're so wach to do that.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Listen, Bible says a whole lot of things, but you're
only gonna pick out the things that you think I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Let's talk about what you doing.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Talk about what you you was dropping it like it's
hot Saturday night, but Sunday you the first one at church. Okay, anyway,
okay for going to get your glory and repent.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
And I'm just saying, don't judge me for that, no.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Doubt, that's all I'm not because I'm not judging you, sis,
but I saw you you but I was witch because
I was with you, I was witch you, dropping it
like it was hot on Saturday, and I'm gonna be
with you in church on Sundays.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
But he says, I'm here for me.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I ain't here to be judging you.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yes, yes, Bible said don't drunkenness is a sin. We
both walk to.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Really, what's wrong with you? Oh my God, Oh my gosh,
hear him.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
It's neither here nor that, but the whole twin Yes,
it's a trip. But the whole point that I'm making
is sometimes when folks are religious, they will say that
just wasn't what.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
God wants me to do.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Maybe maybe God was trying to tell you, this is
what I want you to do, but I need you
to find another way. God didn't say don't get married.
He said, don't get married to that fool you miss
ye be a ceo. He didn't want you to run
that love it? You miss it?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I love it. But it's so true. You're like, ow, anyway,
let me get off my soap. By y'all.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
We're gonna be right back so we can level this
thing on. We're gonna be back, y'all. Alrin, sis man,
it's been a great show as always have a good
time chopping it up. I just feel like, you know,
moving forward, I'm going to be even more intentional than
(35:04):
usual about making sure that I'm in the right space
when I create whatever goals I'm setting for myself for
this year, but also that I'm very intentional about the
people I share them with the process that I take
to accomplish them, because i just want to do right
and I just want to celebrate my wins and celebrate
my friends and their wins so that we can all
really just be successful this year.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You know, I'm gonna try to do the same thing.
And we talked about this last week. New Year's resolutions,
all those things, they're just not for me anymore. And
again I'm going to go off of what you said,
what Stacy Kim said. I'm going to focus on me,
focus on all that extra shit and everything else is
going on, because it's.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Gonna be there. I can't let it get to me.
But you had some gems.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You had some really good stuff for the people today
and for me as well.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So I love it.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
I love it, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
So I'm gonna give us something real short and sweet
to level us off.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
You got me traumatized, not sure, just a.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Positive thought, y'all. Tea told me my positive thought was
long last week, so I'm okay, that's what short and sweet.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
But you know what, it's really spot on for what
this topic is about. When we talk about goal setting
and putting too much pressure on us, we need to
live our life. So this sense in between goals is
a thing called life that has to be lived and enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
So go live your life.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Period.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
That was a really good one because it was short
and sweet. It wasn't because I'm messing with you. It
was no, it was I was a telling too long,
but she was quote talking about it. I got a
short one for us, and I was like, Sis, that
ship won short.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
By the time I finished, I was like, damn, that
really wasn't short. But today was short. It's a great one.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah, And it was a good message, really good message.
I really love that. So, yes, set your goals, but
live your life. And we hope that part of living
your life means continuing to listen to the levels of
this podcast because we appreciate that and we want to
make sure that we are sharing our thoughts and sharing
information that you find beneficial and that you relate to,
(37:21):
So please continue to let us know if you're enjoying
our next level conversations about the real shit that women
go through. Right, So, leave us a review in Apple Podcasts,
or you can email us at the Levels of This
Podcast at gmail dot com. Tell us what you thought
of this week's show. Tell us what maybe you want
to talk about next. For that matter, you can even
share what some of the goals are that you're setting.
(37:41):
We are not haters. We're not going to steal y'all
idea neither, So it's okay you just share your goals
with us. Okay, Now, make sure you're also following us
on Instagram at lttpod. But until next time, guys, keep
your mentals ground level and we'll be back next week.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Peace. Listen to Levels to This on America's number one
podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search
Levels to This with Ryl Swoops and Tareka Foster Brasbee
and start listening.
Levels to This is an iHeart women's sports production in
partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find
us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, everybody, what's going on? It's your girl, Trerika Foster
Bradsby And this is another episode of Levels to This. Now,
I bet you're wondering, why is it just so Rika?
Where is Cheryl? Well, Cheryl is under the weather today,
So guess what that means.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
That means you.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Got me, You got your girl. Get ready for a
wonderful and fun time. But listen, I'm not going to
spend a whole bunch of time talking about craziness that
I typically would in a usual surface level conversation because
I'm talking to myself. So it's a little weird, don't
you think. With that being said, though we are already
(00:56):
off and running to an amazing WNBA season, there are
a lot of players and teams who are doing their
best to kind of get to the championship, none more
prominently doing so other than the New York Liberty who
are undefeated at this point and the Minnesota Links that
is undefeated at this point, and it brought me to
(01:18):
what we were talking about a couple of months ago,
maybe even longer than that, but at some point Sheryl
and I had a conversation about goal setting, and we
were talking about how you can use things that are
happening and use things that are going on to help
you set great goals that will get you to where
you need to be. And I feel like the links
(01:39):
in the Liberty listen to that conversation because the goals
that they have set for themselves this season has been amazing, right,
And I think that that conversation was so amazing and
that conversation was so impactful that I want to share
that conversation again. So I want you guys to stick
around because some of you are new listeners and probably
(02:00):
missed it. Some of y'all may be old listeners and
still missed it. Either way it goes. This conversation is important.
I want to share it again with all of you. So,
without further ado, let's go ahead and take it to
the next level. So this might be maybe a dumb
question considering that you were an athlete, and no questions
(02:23):
obviously things that we all assume that you put at
the table. This is what I gotta do. And I
think one of those things for an athlete is, obviously
when you play it in the professional league, your goal
is to win a championship every year. That's the goal.
Win a championship every year. That's it. That's it, which
y'all did for the first floor. But I'm curious to
(02:44):
know if there was ever an instance in which you
wanted to accomplish something so much that you put so
much pressure on yourself to get this thing done and
whatever that was, did you or did you not do it?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So we talked before we started recording, you and I
and I just said.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
This conversation today is one that even I didn't realize
I need it, but I do. So I'm gonna tell
you now because you always coming at me for shedding tears,
but I'm probably gonna shed a few today because I like,
right now where I am in my life, I'm like,
(03:29):
what goals am I really.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Trying to achieve right now?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And by that I mean for me, not what everybody
else is telling me I should do or thinks I
should be doing right now.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So I'm in a space t Honestly, I'm gonna be.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Very vulnerable with you today, Kay, of course, I'm in
a space right now where honestly I'm like, what the fuck, Like,
where am I going?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Where am I headed? What's next for me?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And some people may say, well, you're fifty three so
year old, right, and I'm like, I don't feel old,
But I feel like I'm at a point in my
life though, where.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
What's next for me, and I don't know if that's
good or if it's bad. But to answer your question,
I put a whole lot of pressure on myself when
I was playing and when I was pregnant, and that
pressure wasn't just to come back and be great and
play basketball and do the things that people saw me
(04:38):
do or knew me for as far as a basketball player,
I put pressure on myself to be the best mom
and athlete I could be because it hadn't really been done,
at least in women's basketball, and there was no one
that I could look at and say, oh, this is
how she did it. So for me, being like the
first one to walk that path, there were times where
(05:00):
I was like, shit, am I doing this right? Should
I stop doing all the things to be a great
basketball player and focus more on being a great mom.
There was a lot of guilt that came with that.
There was a lot of pressure I put on myself.
I don't know, like I don't have all the shit
figured out.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I still don't. I did then and I still don't.
But I do think we as.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Women put that type of pressure on ourselves when we're
trying to figure out like our goals.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And what do we want to achieve and what do
we want to accomplish.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Last thing, I'll say, I took your advice our last episode.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I think we talked about a vision board.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yes, And so for me, that vision board has really
put things into better perspective for me than actually just
writing down goals.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
If that makes yes, it does, it makes tons of sense.
And you really hit on so many different things because
I had.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
On my out because it's gonna be one.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Of It's gonna be one of them, and that's cool,
Like I love that. I love that about us, that
we can be vulnerable and really just be honest about
where we are and what we're doing. And I always
do a lot of I'm a documentary nrdive research person.
That's just my thing. And even before I thought that
this would be a great episode for us to do.
I was already looking and following this woman named Stacy
(06:22):
Kim and she's a psychologist, and so she was talking
about some tips and some things that we do as
women as it relates the goal setting that we could
do better. And so one of the things, and I
really want to talk about some of these things that
she listed, but one of the things that she did
was she gave us some numbers. And I looked at
these numbers and I was like, boy, when I think
(06:43):
about the shit that I did at this age, this
is what our problem is. So you're talking about being
a mom. We have been conditioned to think that as women,
we gotta do shit when other people think we need
to do them. So, depending on your cultural background, or
your family background, or wherever you are, my mother was
fifteen when she had me, sixteen when she had my brother,
(07:06):
nineteen when she had my younger sister, and it just
kept going and go. By twenty years old, woman, you
had three children. But you're looking at me a lot
at the age of twenty three and saying, oh my god, Tarika,
when do you plan on having kids? Ma'am?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I'm twenty three.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Allow me to live to figure it out that in mind.
I looked at the average age of parenthood in twenty
twenty four, and according to the statistics, in twenty twenty four,
the average woman having her first child is twenty eight
years old. Then I continue to dig a little bit more,
(07:47):
and I said, how old are people getting married now?
Because that's another thing women get pressured to do. If
you ain't married by such and such age, you might
as well be a spinster out here in the street. Okay,
let's look. I did some more, and I see that
the average age of women getting married in twenty twenty
four is twenty eight years old, which is up from
(08:07):
twenty years old in the nineteen fifties. So as I'm
starting to look at these numbers, I'm looking at careers
because what's another thing. Oh my god, I'm thirty. I
don't have a career yet. I'm going through a midlife crisis.
Look at the numbers. The average age of people actually
settling into their careers are between the ages of thirty
(08:27):
five and forty one. So it's okay to be young
and not have it figured out. So what does this
make me think? Cheryl is like we spend too much
time trying to set goals based on what we think
other people think we should be doing, and not really
paying attention to what we should be doing. It's difficult
(08:49):
when you think about, like, how do I set goals
for me or how do I do shit for me?
When all I've been taught this whole time is what
everybody else think I'm supposed to be doing by a
certain time, a certain age when I get to a
certain place.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Like damn, what the fuck let me breathe?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Twenty twenty five got to be a year we breathed?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Is you said it?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I think depending on like your cultural background and your
upbringing and the way you were raised, that puts a
lot of things into perspective, right, I said on the
last episode it talked about my son getting ready to
have a kid. He's twenty seven, so I'm not tripping
on the age.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
But she's twenty three, so I am tripping on the age. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So when you brought that up, I was just like wow,
because that was my first thought was you haven't lived.
Y'all haven't lived, And when you get ready to bring
a child into this world, I don't care what age
you are.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Shit changes. You go from.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Being first to last, yep, when a child comes into
the picture. But the thing that I really want us
as women, and not just Black women, women in general, Like,
I really want us to take charge of who we
are and being who we are the way we want
to be that right, not the way society says we
(10:12):
should be, Not the way your parents say you should be. Like,
we've got to get to a point to where we're
okay with it. If I choose not to get married
until I'm fifty years old, damn it, that's my choice.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
That's your choice. Yes, maybe I haven't.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Maybe I haven't found the right person.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And who are you to tell me that I have
to be married by a certain age or else. The
other thing is you talk about the age where women
have kids. Maybe some women don't want to have kids,
and that's okay too, Yep, it's okay to be childless,
cat ladies, right right.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I know I'm not gonna go To'm not gonna go there.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But there's so much pressure that's put on us from society,
from even friends, right that says, here's who we have
to be, the way we have to be when we
have to be it, And no we don't.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
We truly don't at all. And it's okay to be
the first to set a different trend in your family.
For everybody else in your family getting married at twenty
two to twenty three, baby, it's okay to wait till
you thirty five. You ain't got to follow the tradition.
That's how you break the cycle. It's absolutely one, absolutely
the cycle. And so when I said earlier that the
(11:29):
reason why sometimes we don't meet our goals is because
we go sett and wrong. We go setting wrong, we
setting goals for the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
We look in we're setting goals for other people.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
We're studying the setting goals people, our lives yah other people.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And based on other people's ideas or what we're supposed
to do or how we're supposed to act. We got
to cut that out. So some of the things that
Stacy says that I truly love is one, pick one
goal to focus on, and then two, let that goal
be a want rather than I have to or I should.
And I love that. I like that right that we
(12:03):
can definitely walk in chew gum at the same time.
So that doesn't necessarily mean we're incapable of having more
than one goal, but at the same time the one
that you focus on, let that be your one, and
then do smaller tasks to get to that one goal.
So you got long term and short term, which makes sense.
(12:23):
For example, my goal was to buy a house. Little
things I had to do to make sure that I
could do that, save my money, pay down my debt,
find a realtor, cut back on shopping. But the ultimate
goal was to do this thing right. One of the
things that stood out to me, she has seven of them.
So one was pick a goal and focus on it.
Two would start with want to rather than I have
(12:44):
to or I should. But this one was interesting to me.
Focus on yourself. You can't change the behaviors of other people,
and you can't make people see you and what you
want to do the way that you want them to
see you. You just got to let them do what
they doing and be what they be in and feel
how they feel. You focus on yourself, mind your own
(13:07):
damn business. And so I think that is such an
important I'm telling you, like, the only thing you can
do with such jus for you, And if people ain't
rocking with you, they ain't rocking with you.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Number four she had, which I just touched on recognized
the difference between projects and tasks. So big goal and
then little things you need to do to get big goal.
And then five, which I really love too, was set
a check in point right, hold yourself accountable, put a
deadline on it.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
After a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Number six what I've been saying twenty twenty five is
celebrate your success. Celebrate it right instead of saying, oh,
you know, I wanted to lose fifty pounds, I only
lost twenty five. Since you lost twenty.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Five pounds, celebrated, celebrated, celebrate that shit.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
But this, to me was the most important one of all.
Be flexible, abandoning goals that don't serve you well. It's
a lot of shit that looked dope in January. I
like that, and by the time you get to April,
you like, Yo, this really ain't it. That's part of
the focus on yourself. If something that you said you
(14:20):
want to do in January ain't really working out by April,
you ain't feeling it. It's not making you happy, it's
not serving your purpose. Don't be trying to do it
just for the sake of doing it.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Let that shit go just to have a conversation or
for it to be a good look. And that's why
t I think I got away from making my New
Year's resolutions because every year I was, Okay, i'm gonna
work out, I'm gonna lose x amount of pounds, I'm
gonna do this, and I did it for the first month,
but then through traveling and just life right, I was
(14:52):
just like, shit, no, I'm done with that. But I
also think we put so much pressure on ourselves when
we kind of see what other people are doing. Your
journey's different from mine, and maybe what you're doing is
working for you. That doesn't mean that what I'm doing
is wrong. Because back to what number was it three?
(15:16):
Focus three on yourself. Focus on yourself. And that is
what I think we as women really need to dive
into and really focus on, is just focusing on ourselves.
I don't know whoever said in life that when you
get to a certain age that you have your life
figured out, because again, I'm fifty three and I don't
(15:38):
have it figured out.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
No, of course not. And what's interesting is we use
the term mid life crisis all the time. So I
did a little bit of digging on that too, and
Apparently the actual range of midlife crisis happens between forty
five and sixty. So I'm sorry if you're listening and
you're thirty and you think you're going through a mid
life crisis because you can read waiting from school with
(16:00):
your degree and unfortunately you haven't found a job of
your career yet and now you're in a one bedroom
or a studio apartment. In life is coming to an
end unless you plan on kicking the bucket naturally at sixty, sweetheart,
you are not in a midlife crisis. You are doing
an average twenty nine thirty year old person has to
go through it is It is sorry, but usually it
(16:22):
is said that midlife crisises usually happen between forty five
and sixty after a significant life change like a divorce,
a retirement, a death of a loved one, aging, something
where you significantly shift because you think you don't know
your purpose. And I thought that was interesting because I
(16:46):
could totally understand someone who had been a director for
thirty years and at the age of fifty five, they're
no longer a director and they've decided to retire, and
now they're like, now, what what is my purpose now? Like,
how do I make an impact? It sounded good to retire,
it sounded good to not work, but like, now, what's
(17:06):
my goal? What's my thing? I could see that more
than just I didn't make or reach the societal norm
that folks put upon me. And because I didn't make it,
I didn't reach it. I didn't do that thing. Life
is falling apart. Those are not the same. And the
thing about that is I have to ask myself sometimes
(17:28):
when I be going.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Through this, do men have to go through that shit?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Because while men have their own set of pressures, it
is very different than the set of societal pressures that
women have. You talked about it's pressure that you felt
having to be an athlete and be a good mom.
Do you know how many daddy's in the NBA ain't
thought a sure thing about missing a birthday, missing a Christmas,
(17:55):
not being able. I'm sure they would love to be there,
but I don't see not a single column being written
or any of the thick pieces coming out about how
they are terrible fathers because they have to be in
the NBA from October to June.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Do what it says is they have to do their job.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
They have to provide for their fai.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah, that's their job is to be a professional athlete.
That's right. Unfortunately they can't be there, and.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Spouses are expected to understand Listen, that was the person
that you got with, when you got with them, those
pressures don't apply to men, So why the hell do
we keep letting those type of pressures rule and feed
our lives. The numbers are showing women are starting to
wise up a little bit and be like, I ain't
got a rush to do this shit.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Because here's what happens a lot of times. Let's just
go back to the whole marriage thing. Lots of times
when you think you found the right one, and yes,
it happens, it works. But just say, I'm going to
use my son and his girlfriend for an example. Right,
my son's twenty seven, she's twenty three. Have they had
(19:03):
a discussion about marriage?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Not with me. That ain't your business.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
That ain't my business. That is my business.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
But so many times because of what society says, right,
you should be married before you have a child. And
I also know in the black culture, I know my
mama was like, oh no, you're not about to lay
up with nobody and have a baby.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
You better get married first, all those things.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
But to me, at the age of twenty three and twenty.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Seven, I don't think you've lived.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Also, do you really truly know what love is? It's
a question I'm asking. I don't know, but to say,
this is the person I want to marry. The only
reason why I bring that up is because I went
through a divorce. I got married when I was really young, right,
and I went through a divorce. Not saying divorces don't
(19:53):
happen to older couples, because they happen all the time,
but I would like to think that the younger you
get married, if you don't really truly know each other,
that's going to lead to a divorce quicker than someone
who's older. My husband and I we were engaged for
(20:14):
ten years.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I remember you saying that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, and I just again, I go back to the
stats you brought up, and we just have to get
out of the old ways and the old mindset of
this is who I have to be and what I
should have accomplished by the time I get a certain.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Age have to and when we come back on the
other side, I want to share a couple of things
that My girl has really laid out here that we
can do to help us get back on track when
we feel like we've slipped on our goals a little bit,
but also maybe how we can help each other to
stay out of that mindset of doing what society an
(21:00):
he thinks we should do instead of just doing.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
What we like to do.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So we'll be right back after this, Cheryl. Can I
ask you if there is one I guess you can
say societal norm about women that people say about us
or place on us, or a pressure that they put
(21:25):
on us that you just if I had an all time.
I really hate that they say this about us. This
is that thing?
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Oh yeah, you put me on the spot there because
I can say I think there are so many.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Okay, let me hear your two first.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Okay, the first one that I have is about all women.
I hate that people think women are soft, Like women
are soft, like we're supposed to be soft. So to
make that an insult is like, what the fuck does
that mean? We're supposed to be soft?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
But I don't mean like cute, cuddly sauce. I mean
like the we can't handle trials because what you mean
or if you're talking to a man and you'd be like, oh,
you're putting up a girl, Like, what the fuck that means?
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, I hate yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
And it's like one A and one B. That leads
me to number two, which is more for black women,
and that is that we're aggressive. Don't call me aggressive
because I don't take your bullshit, because I stand up
for myself. Because I'm assertive because I learned how to
use the English language correctly and I use it for
my benefit when necessary. That means I'm aggressive and I'm angry.
(22:32):
I don't like that. Those are my two. I hate
that society has those stereotypes around us.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I mean those are two good ones, because I would
definitely agree with you on that.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I think one for me is I just hate when
men say, oh, she's a woman, Like I hate that
because I'm like, what does that mean? Yes, I am
a woman, I'm gonna forever be a woman. What is
your point?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Because there are.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Times where my husband and I are having a conversation
and sometimes he'll say, well, she's a woman, and I'm like,
what the fuck does that mean?
Speaker 3 (23:04):
I am too?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So if you feel that way about her and she's
a woman, then you feel that way about me, and
I think the other one for me, tea would be
And this is going to take me back to the
election where we society doesn't feel like a woman is
capable of running a country. Because there are a lot
(23:28):
of different reasons why Kamala didn't win, but one that
I heard was, oh, my goodness, I would never vote
for a woman to lead us to run this country.
And that bothers the shit out of me because I
know for a fact there are women out there in this.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
World that are way better at running shit than men are.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yep. But that's where we as women have to stand
up and hold our ground and say, listen, I am
a proud to be one, but let me tell you
why I can.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Do this job better than you.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Matter of fact, let me show you why I can
do this job better than you, not just tell you
my mom you say I can show you better than
I can tell you.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, that reminds me of I forgot what podcast I
was listening to, but someone had mentioned that women get
jobs based on their track record. They have to prove
that they can do it, whereas men get a job
or get an opportunity.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Because I could see the potential soldier.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I can see how much I could see you look
like the kind of guy who is going You're going places,
even in relationships, right, even in relationships, you look at
a woman and you be like, I want to get
with that woman because that woman got it going on.
She's got a great job, she's got a college education.
You look at a man and you'll be like, yeah,
I know he only got a g DA working at
(24:48):
McDonald's right now, but guess what, I could see him
going places. And then it's twenty years later and you
are here calling this man a bum, but you saw
him going places twenty not having a GED or working
at McDonald's. So I wasn't trying nothing at all. Say
nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying, be accepting of
(25:09):
what you got in front of you and talking about potential.
But I bring all that up because Stacey continues to
talk about sometimes women we set goals based on what
we think is achievable for us, because people have already
decided what's achievable for women and what's not. Example, being
(25:30):
president of the United States. It has already been proven
in other countries that women can absolutely be world leaders.
But for whatever reason, in the United States, there is
still this societal norm that women can't be president because
we've seen three women try four Technically, Shirley CHISHLM didn't
make it, Hillary clam did make it, Kamala Harris didn't
(25:54):
make it. So some of the things that I love
that she says is that there are some really countering
to ways to just get people out of your brink.
You touched on one of them. One of the things
she says is keeping it to yourself. Right, Sometimes you
want to tell people what it is that you want
to do, and you get those people around you who
just aren't supportive, even esther when she was like, I
(26:15):
was asking people should I quit my job, and they
were all like, girl, no, you crazy. If every single
time you want to do something and somebody is there
behind you to try to tell you don't do it,
you know what, you need to preserve your energy and
sometimes it's just best to keep that shit to yourself. Now,
(26:35):
you know what, Like it's cool, I don't really need
to tell you. That. Don't mean I'm not gonna try
and do this thing. I'm just not gonna have these
people bringing this negative energy around me.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
And that is huge right.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
If you have your little circle and I don't even
have a circle, they got mna have an arc.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
You gotta have more.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, because you gotta be careful with the people
you bring in that circle because lots of times those
are the people.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
That will drag you down and bring you down. Because
let's just keep it real.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
We talk about men not supporting us and having our
backs and all that, but Tea, as women, sometimes we
are our worst enemies. Say that shit again instead of
supporting each other, Tea, I don't want to see you succeed.
I'm gonna sit here and laugh with you right now
in your face and encourage you and say yes, girl.
But as soon as I get at the door, let
(27:29):
me get on my phone, let me go tell these
people this crazy Shitterterrika talking over here.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Girl, know she ain't about to do X, Y and Z. God,
I'm gonna be here with her. Let her think she can't.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Or this one right here that sometimes we do. And
we're gonna talk about accountability. We gotta have accountability for
the shit that we do. Sometimes, not me and Ryl personally,
because we ain't fake like this, but it's people who
will hear your dream and hear your idea and hear
what you trying to do. And then the next thing,
you know, ay out here pursuing and.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Doing the same shit. What and you saying what my time?
Saying on my time? You had one more time?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I told you that I was about to get ready
to go jump on this opportunity. And the next thing,
I know, you in the room trying to get on
the opportunity before me.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
What type of shit is that and acting like it
was your idea.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Now they're trying to gas like you like you're crazy,
like making as sad as that is.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
You gotta be very careful.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Back to Stacey's points, sometimes you gotta keep shit to
yourself because not everybody is on your team.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Sys that's facts.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Second thing she says when you got to get back
on track with your goal is sometimes it's cool to
double down on doing nothing because a lot of times
people are making seem like you know what, Oh, all
she was doing was over there standing in the corner,
or all she said she was doing was praying. You
did what I said, I was praying, Like that's a
doing nothing, that's doing this thing. Yes, thatation is something
(28:59):
that doing nothing. Maybe I do need to go and
take this walk around the corner to get my mind
and clear my mind. Maybe I do need to spend
an extra ten minutes in the shower because I need peace.
It's okay for me to be making my moves my
way and you not fully see or understand why I'm
moving the way that I'm moving. And I'm one who
(29:22):
personally loves to tell folks when I'm doing something great,
and I don't do that to be braggadocious. I do
it because I feel like it's inspiring. There's some little
girl out there from the east side of Detroit who
never thought that she could be in a certain place.
And I want to be able to be like sis.
I came from the same place you came from.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
No doubt, believe me.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
We can do it in here's how. But sometimes you
might not see me doing nothing and you'll be thinking
to yourself. Girl Terrika's like a whow she finna do this?
And that girl like did nothing. She ain't posting nothing,
she ain't seen nothing like Let me do nothing, because
you don't know what my nothing looks like. If my
nothing is what's giving me peace of mind to move forward,
(30:02):
let me do nothing it's so true.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
It is. It is, Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
And you know what, sometimes it's okay to just sit
in silence. That's it, because you know what, I'm doing
this for me, not you, and right now this.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Is what I need. I need some me time.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
And in that meantime, you have no idea what I'm
doing or what I'm working on.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, And the last thing that she says before we
head this out to get back on track is to
not assume defeat. And we touched on this earlier. Sometimes
we're not really focused on the right goal right. Sometimes
we confuse the process for the endgame. Sometimes we think
we have to do A B and C in order
(30:52):
to get to D. Maybe doing A B and C
and how we get to D and instead of just saying, oh,
AB and C didn't work right, so I guess I'll
never get D. Switch it up. I get asked all
the time from students who are like Tea, I want
to get into sports journalism. I want to be on ESPN.
How do I do that? And I'm like, in my head,
(31:13):
the first thing I think is since I'm the wrong
want to ask, because I ain't got this shit figured out.
I ain't one hundred percent doing what I want to do,
just yet right, the endgame won't look the same. But
what I always end up telling folks when they ask
me that is just this is my process. Yes, this
is how I did it. How I did it, and
(31:33):
how you might do it. It is totally different. That
does not mean that you can't do it. It's just
it might look different for you than different for me. So,
if this is the end game, these are the traditional steps,
these are the steps I took. You figure out what
works best for you. But we just can't assume defeat.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Everybody's journey is different and it might take me longer
to get there, but I'm gonna get there.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
To her point, don't assume defeat.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
That's easier said than done, though, because I know for
me personally, there are times when I'm like, you know what,
I'm about to go do this and I get through
door one, just crushed it.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
I get through door too, just crushed it.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Door three is just the stubber.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
It just won't let me in.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
So instead of me finding another way around, I just
back up and say, I guess I ain't supposed to
do that. It's easier said than done, but I love that. Yeah,
don't assume defeat.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Don't assume defeat because I know if you're a religious person.
And that was something we didn't really talk on during
this episode, but that plays a large role in some
of the goals we set in some of the reasons
why we put pressure on ourselves too, because we quick
to be like, you know, a black felk. The Bible said, yeah, well,
the Bible said no fornication either, and we ain't gonna
talk about what you was doing at nineteen.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
We really want to bring.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
The Bible on this. We want to bring the Bible, girl.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
But work quick that we're so wach to do that.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Listen, Bible says a whole lot of things, but you're
only gonna pick out the things that you think I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Let's talk about what you doing.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Talk about what you you was dropping it like it's
hot Saturday night, but Sunday you the first one at church. Okay, anyway,
okay for going to get your glory and repent.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
And I'm just saying, don't judge me for that, no.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Doubt, that's all I'm not because I'm not judging you, sis,
but I saw you you but I was witch because
I was with you, I was witch you, dropping it
like it was hot on Saturday, and I'm gonna be
with you in church on Sundays.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
But he says, I'm here for me.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
I ain't here to be judging you.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yes, yes, Bible said don't drunkenness is a sin. We
both walk to.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Really, what's wrong with you? Oh my God, Oh my gosh,
hear him.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
It's neither here nor that, but the whole twin Yes,
it's a trip. But the whole point that I'm making
is sometimes when folks are religious, they will say that
just wasn't what.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
God wants me to do.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Maybe maybe God was trying to tell you, this is
what I want you to do, but I need you
to find another way. God didn't say don't get married.
He said, don't get married to that fool you miss
ye be a ceo. He didn't want you to run
that love it? You miss it?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I love it. But it's so true. You're like, ow, anyway,
let me get off my soap. By y'all.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
We're gonna be right back so we can level this
thing on. We're gonna be back, y'all. Alrin, sis man,
it's been a great show as always have a good
time chopping it up. I just feel like, you know,
moving forward, I'm going to be even more intentional than
(35:04):
usual about making sure that I'm in the right space
when I create whatever goals I'm setting for myself for
this year, but also that I'm very intentional about the
people I share them with the process that I take
to accomplish them, because i just want to do right
and I just want to celebrate my wins and celebrate
my friends and their wins so that we can all
really just be successful this year.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You know, I'm gonna try to do the same thing.
And we talked about this last week. New Year's resolutions,
all those things, they're just not for me anymore. And
again I'm going to go off of what you said,
what Stacy Kim said. I'm going to focus on me,
focus on all that extra shit and everything else is
going on, because it's.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Gonna be there. I can't let it get to me.
But you had some gems.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You had some really good stuff for the people today
and for me as well.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So I love it.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
I love it, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
So I'm gonna give us something real short and sweet
to level us off.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
You got me traumatized, not sure, just a.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Positive thought, y'all. Tea told me my positive thought was
long last week, so I'm okay, that's what short and sweet.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
But you know what, it's really spot on for what
this topic is about. When we talk about goal setting
and putting too much pressure on us, we need to
live our life. So this sense in between goals is
a thing called life that has to be lived and enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
So go live your life.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Period.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
That was a really good one because it was short
and sweet. It wasn't because I'm messing with you. It
was no, it was I was a telling too long,
but she was quote talking about it. I got a
short one for us, and I was like, Sis, that
ship won short.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
By the time I finished, I was like, damn, that
really wasn't short. But today was short. It's a great one.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah, And it was a good message, really good message.
I really love that. So, yes, set your goals, but
live your life. And we hope that part of living
your life means continuing to listen to the levels of
this podcast because we appreciate that and we want to
make sure that we are sharing our thoughts and sharing
information that you find beneficial and that you relate to,
(37:21):
So please continue to let us know if you're enjoying
our next level conversations about the real shit that women
go through. Right, So, leave us a review in Apple Podcasts,
or you can email us at the Levels of This
Podcast at gmail dot com. Tell us what you thought
of this week's show. Tell us what maybe you want
to talk about next. For that matter, you can even
share what some of the goals are that you're setting.
(37:41):
We are not haters. We're not going to steal y'all
idea neither, So it's okay you just share your goals
with us. Okay, Now, make sure you're also following us
on Instagram at lttpod. But until next time, guys, keep
your mentals ground level and we'll be back next week.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Peace. Listen to Levels to This on America's number one
podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search
Levels to This with Ryl Swoops and Tareka Foster Brasbee
and start listening.
Hosts And Creators
Terrika Foster-Brasby
Sheryl Swoopes
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