Road to Radical Visibility Show/Podcast
Road to Radical Visibility Show/Podcast
How to Embrace Your Identity as an LGBTQAI+ Person in Corporate America & Beyond
Get ready to uncover the secret superpower hidden within your own identity! Join us as our special guest, Paul, unravels the extraordinary journey towards authenticity and self-expression. Brace yourself for a testimony that screams courage and inspires us all to live life on our own terms.
His experiences, from embracing his queer identity to stepping away from the corporate world, serve as a beacon of inspiration for all those who strive to live a life true to themselves.
Paul's insights on the power of human connection and empathy, especially within the professional sphere, are a refreshing take on the potential of the corporate world if we choose to honor the individuality of its inhabitants. He challenges the profit-driven norms and instead champions a culture that values people and their unique experiences. Prepare to have your mind blown!
Paul's exploration of the critical role of the LGBTQ+ community in transforming societal norms further underscores the power of being true to ourselves and how this can foster a culture of acceptance and support.
And to continue the infectious inspiration Paul and I take a deep dive into the importance of self-expression and inclusion within our communities. His perspective on how to manage our energy effectively, challenge negative social norms, and the power of sharing our personal growth stories are truly enlightening.
Paul encourages us all to embrace our authentic selves, celebrate our identities, and advocate for a life lived on our terms. This episode is a powerful reminder of the strength and beauty that lies in authenticity, so tune in for a conversation that will leave you feeling inspired and empowered.
Want to learn more about Paul? Check out the links below.
IG:@thecuriousqueer
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-honeycutt-30167158/
Email him at: ps17honeycutt@gmail.com
Did you have an Ah-Ha moment from this episode? I would love to hear about it! No seriously, I want to hear from you! Send me a DM or email at rachel@rachelfreemonsowers.com.
Watch more self-empowering content on my YouTube Channel.
Want more inspiration and empowerment connect with me on social:
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#LGBTQ+ #LGBTQ+business #visibilitymatters #timetoshine #RoadtoRadicalVisibility #RachelFreemonSowers
I think that if we truly understood what was happening here, in this experience, this human experience, that we're all individual souls that have chosen in to grow and to experience something, and that everybody has a right to go on their own path, because everybody has a path, even your child, you know. Oh, men should wear dresses, but pink is not, you know, that's a gross color which do your history? Because pink was only war by men. All of these beliefs that we have been told for centuries are bullshit. But you got to figure that out yourself and I think that that's, to me, radical. When you start to ask question what are my beliefs and why are they there? You are on the right side, evangelical to extreme, on the left, understanding how those perceptions and those beliefs came about so powerful.
Speaker 2:Hello, beautiful people, just a little warning listening to the road to radical visibility podcast may result in you feeling confident, af, free from the expectations and opinions of others, and give you the ability to create ultimate self trust in who you are, what you say and how you show up in every part of your life. I guarantee you this episode will empower you to be 100% yourself 100% of the time. No shame or guilt needed. Now let's dive in. Hello, my beautiful friends, and welcome to another episode of road to radical visibility. My name is Rachel Freeman Sowers, also known as the break free bitch, because I am passionate about helping people in the LGBTQ plus and female communities break free from the toxic social constructs, expectations, beliefs that are holding you back from experiencing your life exactly the way that you want to. And if you've hung out here for very long, you know that my professional and my personal motto is being 100% yourself 100% of the time. No shame or guilt needed. And, as you can see, I have another kick ass guest on the show. It is going to be so good. When I first spoke to my guest, paul, it was almost like this automatic for me, energetic connection, and it was also like wow, this is exactly why we need to be putting this kind of content out here, exactly why I want each one of you to continue listening. So make sure to tune into the whole entire episode today, because you will not want to miss it. Okay, so I'm going to introduce my guest, paul, to you right now.
Speaker 2:Paul is a multi passionate queer creator and master facilitator who describes himself as a self discovery enthusiast fits right in. He is keenly focused on transforming the corporate environment with a unique, intuitive leadership development that taps into the brilliance of each human being. Yes, please. His passion for growth led him to co-create ASG, a community for all queer people to connect as professionals and entrepreneurs to truly transform and uplift our community with rich resources, membership, education, retreats and so much more. I am so happy to welcome Paul on the show. Please help me. Welcome Paul. Thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I'm super excited to be chatting with you today.
Speaker 2:Well, if it's anything like our pre chat, this audience is in for a freaking phenomenal treat. All right. So the first question I ask every guest on the show, before we dive into even more goodness, is what does radical visibility mean to you?
Speaker 1:I think radical. I know what I feel radical visibility is. For me is that space of really coming back to our own individual self and finally being like what the fuck? I actually have choices and I can be myself and I don't have to go that way or that way, or there's a path that I can find myself. To me, that's the radical pieces when we discover that within ourselves. And then it gets even crazier because then you get out in a normal society and they're like who the fuck are you? And I'm like well, I'm just being me. I know you want to be yourself too, but they're like oh no, I can't handle this. And so it takes the gumption. But to me that's what probably has been most radical in my life is just that thought that I actually have options, that I'm in charge fully of what I create in my world.
Speaker 2:Well, so that's a great jumping off point, because I know that so many listeners have experienced a little bit of that. Some listeners have experienced okay, this is me fully being the way I want to be, and interacting in the world. What was one, because I'm sure you have many what was one turning point when you were like nope, I'm choosing to be the way I want to be right now.
Speaker 1:It was on a trampoline under the stars in the Black Hills in South Dakota and I was with my best friend who had just gotten engaged. I was raised as a Jovas witness and I was exhausted at that point with life, hated myself, couldn't cope with not fitting in. And then this heavy pressure to get married and, as they are celebrating, I went out and laid on the trampoline. I'm not sure what took me out there. It was my intuition, I think my soul was like you need to get outside. And at that point what I realized was this question of like. You have two options here you can deny being who you are, get married, stay the course, or you choose to be yourself and acknowledge.
Speaker 1:And like the first time on the trampoline, I was like I'm gay. I mean, I knew that I was gay, right, I had done shit I've had, I've experienced, but to really internally acknowledge and be like I am gay and I am going to have to choose. I'm not, I'm choosing this and I know that it's going to mean that I'm losing my family and community and I don't care. And I felt so good In fact, the next day we were all having breakfast at a restaurant and they all were looking and I'm in there, like you are like glowing, like you're, you seem so happy, what's going on? I'm like, oh, you have no idea. I finally acknowledged that I liked this. I mean, I didn't say that to them, but you know, like oh yeah, but that was really, I think, just that moment of finally, like I've had enough. I, I can't. It was to me that was the two options and the other was the latter was just no way, couldn't do it.
Speaker 2:Well, how, how many times do we and I was talking to someone about this the other day but when we're younger, it's all about at least for me, it was all about this self-betrayal, this constant self-betrayal, and it was like, at some point you're either you're going to hit rock bottom one way or another. Right, and I love it when people don't hit all the way rock bottom and they decide to choose themselves. And you're right, it takes gumption, it takes courage, it takes I don't know all of the things.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it totally does. And you know, when you no-transcript Somebody asked the question about the trans issues and all the LGBTQ rights, like we were having this conversation and they're like, well, why does it feel like queer people are pushing an agenda? And I said, well, straight people have been pushing in their agenda for thousands of years and I think that that's what it speaks to is you're up against whatever belief system, structures, family, who knows all the different pieces that each of us have gone through? But to get to a place where you hopefully don't hit rock bottom, but I think that that happens a lot in our community, absolutely, and that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1:It's unfortunate and yet, at the same time, I feel like we are so capable, as in the queer community, of really setting, as you said, like this radical approach. We've already taken one radical step of probably many, and that's why you know I love shows like this in these conversations, because and it's exhausting when you think about all the different programming and different conversations and the shit that you're bombarded with you have to back away from and say that's not me, even even how queer, even how I don't know how you feel about this, but even how queer culture is presented to us as like this is what it means to be queer or gay or a lesbian or transgender, and I'm binary, and so then it's like this other, this other box. I'm like I'm fucking tired of boxes, like no more boxes for me, please.
Speaker 2:Well, right, right, there's a couple things that that you hit on in there that are just so important for us to start doing in our own lives as a part of this community and helping our community. I know you and I are both really passionate about helping our community really decide to choose themselves, and you know all of the things that we've done that we've not known, that we've been doing to ourselves, all the things that we are taught, but then it does leak into our own culture, our own LGBTQ plus culture, and we need to help people within our culture, not to discriminate against each other, not to try and tell each other how we're supposed to be living, because that still happens within the culture. Right? It's like what they call, like a micro culture of the macro.
Speaker 1:Yes, totally Well and to your point. I think like if you look at most of queer media and the queer media outlets that are great, I am going to put my foot in. I don't care. Actually, this is what I've been wanting to say.
Speaker 2:Do it, because I'm going to agree with you.
Speaker 1:You look at the queer media and when you actually look at objective articles or things that we really could be very vital to us and just our overall well-being, that doesn't hit their paper, that doesn't hit their blogs, it doesn't hit their magazines. Oftentimes it's penis pop culture and politics and that's the focus. And when you look at the serious things that are taking place in our community, and then you do, it's all driven to these specific ways that you're supposed to be. And so when I left a Joe's Witness community which was so oppressive and this is what you have to be then I was quickly in my brain.
Speaker 1:I went into the gay culture and I was like, oh well, this is what it means and I need to be out every night drinking and I've got to wear all that you know and I've got to have this car and these are the people I'm supposed to hang with, and I kind of got into that. And then there was a point to where I was like what the fuck? This also doesn't feel authentic to me. Beautiful, a lot of fun, but it also wasn't fully resonating with me. And then when you look where the examples that we have in our media and television and movies that says, hey, there is a whole spectrum of a human beings in our community that have far different perspectives and I think we all individually desperately just want to be individually seen and express. But again, like you said in that and that the micro were still up against those pieces of feeling othered and making others feel othered within our community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean such. It's such a realization when we in our community honor and recognize our own gifts and what we bring into this world right, what are, how much we add value. And we, if we can see you and I both know if we can see our own value, if we can feel and know that we are worthy and I know this gets thrown out a lot, even in the therapeutic world. After being a therapist for 25 years, and I'm sure you've heard it a lot in your coaching world you know you're enough, you're worthy. But this is a constant issue that our society has taught us. But especially in a marginalized community like the LGBTQ plus, if we can notice each other's gifts and we can feel secure in ourselves, we notice we allow other people to feel secure in our own, in our own culture, in our own subculture of the LGBTQ plus. You know community. So then, trans people aren't discriminated against from within our community, non binary people aren't othered in our community.
Speaker 2:And I get what you're saying about like you know, you enter and you're like oh, I'm coming out and now I'm going to be. You know, for me it's like okay, I'm a lesbian, okay, this is what lesbians look like, this is what they do, this is how you're supposed to act, and if you don't, then you're not in. I mean, it's still in the subcultures that we experience, and I even I wasn't that long ago I was feeling like what, what is this about? Like I feel like I'm not in this thing and I was like, oh, oh, hello, hello there, and so it's really a garden variety worthiness that's what I call that when you suddenly realize you're like, oh, I'm just that's my own worthiness thing coming up again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but it's when we can do that for communities, when we're going to really experience this growth and when we chatted before and even in the introduction, it's really about us helping people in the corporate world, too, who are LGBTQ plus, and obviously other people in leadership, to understand. But it's really, how do we help you, the audience say no, I'm coming to my life in this way every time, and maybe what are some of the things you see that are the most troubling in the corporate world right now for LGBTQ plus community?
Speaker 1:I think what I have noticed is and having been in the corporate world myself, where I was in charge of DE&I strategies, and I think DE&I is extremely important However, just like anything, there is an evolution, and we're not still using the first iPhone right. We're allowing things to evolve, and recently I was working with this small company that was very interested in they knew that they wanted to be better. The CEO really deeply, actually cared about being inclusive for the LGBTQ community and, as we were looking at it, they had appointed their employee resource group, and why I think this is a core example that we see in the corporate world is ultimately, I think DE&I at this point has made everybody feel othered.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree with you more.
Speaker 1:And that is a hard thing to say to communities that have been marginalized for so long in the corporate world. But when you talk to these individuals and when I talk to the employees individually, we don't care so much about DE&I. But the queer employees that I talk to, they're like I feel safe at work, Like I come to work. I've never not felt safe and included. I have my life, but their biggest point was it was not the feeling of inclusivity wasn't there, Because they're like none of the leadership has gay friends, they don't go to the pride things. They're not really in here hanging out with other people, and I think that that is the thing.
Speaker 1:When we actually get to sit across from somebody one on one, no matter what their belief, structures are, their culture, any of that, and we get down to the human element, we can see everybody's innate worthiness, as you talked about. That's what I think is happening in the corporate world is OK. Now we need DE&I. You have all these voices saying we need it. It is good work. However, how do we evolve this to where people don't feel othered and people are starting to understand just how to have a?
Speaker 1:human connection to maybe I don't understand your perspective. There's 8 billion of us on this planet. Not one of us is living the same life. Not one of us.
Speaker 2:It kind of reminds me of that show Undercover Boss, where the boss goes in and they're undercover and they finally meet with the people that are doing the work and they realize that these people are human. And I think this has been something that's been hard for me to always communicate in my work because I have been chastised for it or whatever, and I want to recognize that the marginalized communities. But I also wonder if we just saw each other as humans with hearts and souls and love and pain and suffering and all the things and connected. I mean, could that be the larger answer? Could it be the easier answer?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, look, I always like to find the easy way out. I don't want to do things that are hard. If there's an easier way, I'm going to do it. That's just how my brain works. But I think to your point, what is difficult?
Speaker 1:And I, even in my own life, felt this for some time because I was so mad and angry about being raised in that cult and so withheld from the things that I wanted and the other things that happened to me For a long time. I was carrying that with me and I didn't realize that I was carrying it as a victim piece. But when I would use it or tell people they'd be like oh my goodness, I'm so sad for you and all that. I'd be like I know it's so fucked up and it would just feed into that story. And then one day I realized I had this epiphany when there was this question of and you've probably heard this, many of you listening probably have heard this is, instead of looking at our lives happening to us, look at our lives happening for us. And when I was realizing the beauty of where I have come and the empathy and the understanding and compassion I have for humans, it's because I sat and I observed and constantly watched and constantly felt other, and I think that that's where the beauty in so many people who are in marginalized communities bring a strength that is just incredible of understanding compassion, because we have experienced that part. But when I changed my story and I started to look at it like what were all these experiences and what did they teach me, that story totally shifted and I came into a place of being responsible and it was like, oh man, look at all of the stuff that I have learned and who that has made me right now.
Speaker 1:So I think to your point, especially in the work that I do in corporations, like total well-being of an employee is not discussed about it's. You know we need to meet these things. It's very. How do we motivate, how do we, you know, command and control? Some of that is shifting in leadership over time. You know we are definitely seeing a shift. But the fact that we have removed ourselves from the nature of where we even live, you know that we are part of this natural cycle and then we remove the human side and say leave work. You know, leave home at home and work at work. That doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't Like come on people. It's never happened, like.
Speaker 1:You're dumb as fuck if you think it does Never Yep, yep. So I think that it's not just in the DE and I, but it's still will focus on profit over people. And I'm not against profit, I'm not against the abundance that there is in this world, right, but I think if we can help people understand like you are really powerful, switch the story.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yes, all of that. And you know I don't know if I told you this, but you know I worked in corporate America for a really long time and for a long time people told me not to say the company I worked for, but I'm gonna, I just say it anyway. So I worked really hard to get a job at Franklin Templeton investments. I sat in that office my graduating senior year from college and I was like I'm gonna stay here till there's a no show, because this is, you know, what I'm supposed to be doing and told to be doing. And there was a lot of experiences within that job that taught me a lot.
Speaker 2:But the one thing that I couldn't ever get over is the profit over people. I couldn't ever get over that. It didn't make a lot of common sense, the moves that they were making, right, because it really wasn't about the people, it was about the company. And they're quite progressive in their LGBTQ plus stuff now and that's all great. And back then, you know, it wasn't as much. But I was let go from that job because literally being told I'm too sensitive to work here, like you're too sensitive to work here, and that it wasn't even about being gay, right. It was about being sensitive and how people in that corporate company, even colleagues, didn't understand my sensitivity, right, and it ultimately taught me that I was in the wrong place, which it all works out for the good, but it does.
Speaker 2:Although we progressed, I still think we haven't progressed enough, like about honoring the human person, and where can this person actually fit into the company? What can we use this strength for? And instead of being like, well, okay, well, there you go. And I was like, okay, fine, well, fuck it, I'm just gonna go use this sensitivity as a superpower, which is what I get to do now. So again, ultimately, it was all, obviously all meant to be, but even when I see the people that I help in corporate America, it's still they don't feel, they feel othered, and it's not always necessarily just LGBTQ plus people women feel that way too but it's like, wow, what is keeping us from this growth? And it really is, I think, helping people realize, like you're saying, how powerful they are and that you do have a choice, and what happens when we step into that.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I, like you, said, everything is a gift. But isn't it crazy that us are emotions? Your emotion is what trips people up. Emotions scare people Like scare companies, and yet we are emotional beings.
Speaker 1:It's actually our best communication with ourselves and we talk about empathetic leaders, people that are compassionate, generative leaders, intuitive leaders, where you utilize feeling and emotion. But I think that that's probably also like somebody. I heard this, so it's having a conversation with my friend and she is brilliant. But we were talking about corporate America and, like the work that I do, she's my astrologer and we were talking about the colonization, of the impacts of colonization, and she said she's like you know what? It's probably even the biggest one, but beyond all of that, it's the colonization of our imagination and our mind and our heart. And I just feel into that so much that there's so much noise out there that is keeping us distracted from our intuition and our all knowing of like what our emotions tell us.
Speaker 1:Because, to your point, when I worked for a large bank, a BBVA, they were very great in many ways and they have gave me a great career, but there was one leader and he would always he. I don't know what I did to piss him off. I had no clue, probably cause he was a good Christian, whatever, I don't care, but he would always. I would always get told like you're too passionate, You're too passionate and I'm like I am saying the same shit, as these other guys are Even smarter, even smarter, wittier.
Speaker 1:Like wittier, it's a lot more fun. Like my team loves me, we're outperforming everybody else. And, yeah, I'm too passionate. And that goes back to your thing about radical. It's. I think all of us are wanting to find our own path, but it's like in this herd mentality that has happened, it's like, oh no, I can't break out because what will happen? Like it's like our whole world would shatter. And I think to me like that's why queer people like we've already taken a big step, let's keep going, folks, Cause there's like we've already broken out of so many of that, those cultural programs.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's so funny, it's like you're too passionate and then you tone it down and then they're like but what happened to you? You're not the same person as you used to be and it's just kind of like talking out both sides of their mouth and you know I'm sure you know this, I know this. I think people out there that are listening will know this is that you did nothing to that person. I mean, the more awareness we have about that is a reflection of himself internally and how they try and still blame I mean let's just talk to specifically about the LGBTQ plus community they try and blame us for having engendered. They try and blame us for all these things.
Speaker 2:I recently had an episode with a wonderful transgender woman who I love dearly, who was just an amazing person, but I've not ever gotten so much hate comments about leaving children alone and, like all of us, it's like you know that's a reflection of your fear. That doesn't have anything to do with this woman. She hasn't done anything wrong. She's being herself and that you should probably look in your own church, you should probably look in your own school. You should probably be looking in these other places where heterosexual people are rapidly engaged in child abuse, right. So I mean, those are things, those are the issues that I'm like I don't have any tolerance for anymore, like no, we're not doing that.
Speaker 1:I agree. I mean, you know, I think it went well, but what it comes down to is that? Not that there's a they that have an agenda, necessarily, but I think that when people look at that, we have ownership of their over people, that we even our own children, or that we have it the right way, and that that is what is causing these divisions, and the divisions are loudly, loudly spoken through the news, through social media, through movies. The things that we're consuming continue to do such a phenomenal job of keeping us separate and in the queer community when you look at that. So I was on a podcast in this very, very cisgender, straight leaning like military mental health stuff I'm on, which is a great episode. But he asked the question. He's like well, what do you think about the drag queens in schools and the transgender issues like why are we pushing this? And I said we're not. I don't know many gay people out there that are like, hey, look, we're trying to convert your kid. I don't know one gay person that's actually trying to be like, oh yeah, you're gay, no, it's. We're saying like, hey, we've lived this experience in kids to have an alternative perspective, that there's other options. Great, this may go way off left field so you can bring me back, but I think that if we truly understood what was happening here, in this experience, this human experience, that we're all individual souls that have chosen in to grow and to experience something, and that everybody has a right to go on their own path because everybody has a path, even your child to give them the space to be able to explore.
Speaker 1:Oh, men should wear dresses, but pink is not. That's a girl's color, bitch. Do your history. Because pink was only war by men. Men actually wore dresses and wore high heels. They were invented for men first. Women weren't allowed to wear pink because it was too costly, so men got to wear it. You know this. All of these beliefs that we have been told for centuries are bullshit. But you got to figure that out yourself and I think that that's, to me, radical. When you start to ask question what are my beliefs and why are they there? Whether you are on the far, on the right side, evangelical to extreme on the left, understanding how those perceptions and those beliefs came about are so powerful.
Speaker 2:Yep, totally agree. I mean, that's when, in the online world, you hear like awareness or all those things, that's exactly what we're talking about and having those moments that you're giving yourself to say what does it really mean for me? And you're not like, you're saying, we're not being distracted, we're not being involved in all the things that, honestly, we can't control. People ask me well, you don't listen to the news, you don't do that stuff. How are you going to know what's going on? I was like oh, believe me, I know what's going on, just intuitively, I don't need to add that stuff into the chaos. Right, because I want to stay focused on how I want to interact in my life in this world and I have a mission on this planet until the day that I die, and it feels so freeing to know what that is, but it's not necessarily like a job or anything, but it's a way of interacting. That's my mission, right, being being how you are being.
Speaker 1:Yep, absolutely, you're a human that is being, that is experiencing. So I love that, because when you start to tap into it again, these boxes I think about this example of like and work with people to like, draw out, like identities and draw it in boxes or these beliefs that they're looking at like OK, do you believe this great draw box? And you start to look at the amount of boxes that you have put yourself into and you think everybody else has done it. You've just you've actually done it because you're taking on that belief and when you can come to a place of understanding, like, at least for me, I want to experience myself, grow and learn and show love and show compassion. I want to acknowledge that I think about things differently and I want to authentically speak them and my intention is from a great place.
Speaker 1:But I'm also not going to toe the line. I'm not going to fight. The same way other people think you need to fight, I'm going to none of that, because if it doesn't feel good to me, I don't do it. I learned that like don't feel good, I'm not doing it. Yeah, sorry, no, you know I'm not. No, not into it.
Speaker 1:And when you start to even take those stances of just like, no, I don't want to do it or I'm not going to be there or that doesn't work with me, even when people want to have a conversation, and they'll start to go down the road of, like you know, a lot of complainer, they want to talk about the news, like that's not something that I want to spend or give my energy to. So is there something else you want to talk about? No, ok, bye. And you know people are like what. But I think it would like. Imagine, rachel, if we actually looked at our at is like we have an energy bank and it's like where am I giving my energy? And so, like to your point, why would I give my energy to the news when that is all past and noise and rhetoric and who knows what, and it's already all happened, so nothing you can do about it?
Speaker 2:Well, in so much fear. I have a friend who moved here from South Africa and she's like your country is constantly bombarding people here with just constant fear, constant everything. I was like, yes, yes, that's what, that's what happens here, because you know it's like we have to hype it up so much or, you know, make it such a big deal. It's it's. This may be contrary to, may not do any good for me, I'm going to say, anyway, it's the same thing as the therapeutic model, I mean the medical model does make people say that you have to be so sick in order to get these services, or you have to continue to be sick in order to continue to get the services you actually need, but you have to be on these big, huge ranges of I'm going to commit suicide and then we'll help you, instead of doing it beforehand and letting people say like this is the issue I'm having, I just need to see someone for this issue. It doesn't have to be so catastrophic all the time. Like you know, it's kind of made out to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and a quick on that piece where I think too, in this country, the it is. I don't think a lot of those systems really want people to heal because it continues to make money and so obvious I mean, it's like hello, like it's in. The veil is very thin when you start to realize that there's something else going on, and I think people are. I heard this speaker and she interviewed a ton of immigrants and in immigration camps that were refugee camps and one of the times because they had a therapist and like to do mental health stuff. You know they're taking people in and they didn't want to talk Like they're like not going to room, and finally somebody said to her like why did you take them in the room, shut them in there, make them talk about these things? They're like in our village. What we do is we take that person, we put them in the middle of a circle. The community comes out and we beat the drum, beat the drum and we and we sit there with that person and hold them while they work through whatever they're seeing, and they're not having to do it on their own, and I think that that is also part of like what all of us just want is to be seen. We have to see ourselves, but everything is.
Speaker 1:There are so many good things that we can leverage in this world, but, to your point, it is where we want to put our focus, and I think that a lot of what we're up against, especially in the queer community, is that our focus is so easily on gay rights or these transgender laws that are being passed and it's fight, fight, fight.
Speaker 1:You know it's like we need to fight, but if you really look at queer money guys over at Queer Money Podcast, they did a great financial study about the queer finances and they and somebody else did as well and looked at how all these funds are being funneled through evangelical churches into these funds that are able to politically donate and like it's all built in. We can do the same thing. We just we can't get our shit together and I think we can, but they have organized under these financial groups and they're raising 10 to 12 million, I think, of a month. Anyways, why I say like things like this is this is the kind of stuff that I think if we were aware and it's like well, don't get mad, let's just play the game. We always play things better.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyways, like we're really fucking good and creative and fun and smart and witty, you know we do good. I think we could tear this world up in a beautiful way that allows absolutely more scene.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I feel like you and I can go on talking for hours. You know about all of this.
Speaker 1:That's a problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's a good problem for us to have. So, just as we're wrapping up, like so there's someone listening to this podcast who, let's just say, is in the corporate world and they're part of the LGBTQ plus community. Give me a really just brief thing that you would. And they're struggling. What is one thing that they can do right now to return back to themselves or to connect I guess that's a better word to connect.
Speaker 1:That's a great question, I think, to me. I think the biggest piece I would recommend to anybody that was feeling off is to take a few moments in journal, and I know people are like that's what I can think about. Like this is what's coming to me right now is ask yourself some questions of why you're feeling this way. Don't beat yourself up, but like why am I feeling what? Why am I feeling negative or why I'm feeling angry, why am I feeling scared or why I'm feeling stuck, and kind of just sit within those questions and see what comes up and start to go into the deeper why.
Speaker 1:I think that they, if it's I'm feeling stuck, maybe whatever the ease I'm not getting promoted or not being seen, or I feel other again. Why do I feel other? Why am I holding myself back? I think it probably the most basic is asking those questions. And then the other piece that I would say is there are incredible queer people in our communities that love to mentor and have gotten to different points. Get on LinkedIn, get involved with business, the business community that's there, or there's so many different resources, but I guarantee you'll find people who have gone through whatever you are and will give you a perspective, but it's really I think you ask for brief. I struggle with brief is ask yourself why am I feeling this way and how would I really want to fill.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I just dig in. I think you'll start to uncover.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you will, and you'll feel resistance. You'll be like, oh, I don't, I don't. Journals, not. Journaling is not for me. That may be a sign of resistance. Right, you can talk it on your phone. There's all different kinds of ways to journal, so I'm with you on that. And then to asking yourself, even adding in between the why and the how is where does this come from? Because oftentimes the origin is not you, and that's that's how we can begin to free ourselves, right? So I love that suggestion. I think it's simple and I think that if someone is really struggling to connect with themselves and see their own worthiness, having a mentor to help you through that into journal is absolutely a great place to start. So thanks so much for that. All right, so before I end the podcast, just let everyone know where they can find you.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, most of my content and what I focus on is on LinkedIn, so that's probably one of the easiest ways. It's just Paul S Honeycut, okay. Or on Instagram at the curious queer. Those are the easy ways you'll be able to, you know, link into a website or however you else you want to connect. From that standpoint, I like it easy. Go to LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you want to learn more about Paul and his work, please look him up. If you have any feedback about today's episode, if you've been inspired or empowered to start connecting to yourself even more than maybe you are already and really interacting in this world exactly the way that you want to, I would encourage you to reach out to me. I'll forward any messages to Paul. This is such a beautiful conversation and a way that we can all interact in our own LGBTQ plus community.
Speaker 2:All right, my friends, so I'm going to end this episode here, like I had every single episode. Please make sure to stay true to yourself, be kind to others and always, always, always, honor the wise one that is within you. I will see you all on the next road to radical visibility. Until then, bye, hey, hold up, don't go. Yet. If this episode inspired and empowered you to be 100% yourself, 100% of the time, no shame or guilt needed even just a little bit more. Please rate and leave a review. I'm here and I know you are too to leave a positive impact in the world. So please share this episode with your friends, family or that random stranger, because you never know who you'll inspire by just being you. I'll see you on the next road to radical visibility. Bye.