The News I Did Not Want

Speaker 0:00

After I got over 20 rejections. Over 20 rejections. I will still cry and still be upset. But I don't regret doing it. It's it sounds kind of insane, but I didn't want to keep carrying that pain by acting like it it doesn't exist or that I wasn't hurt or affected by being rejected over and over again. Everything that I do today matters to my future self. And I either wallow or I get up. I want you to know that if you're in a hole right now, you're not the only one. I didn't plan on having to say this. In episode 19, I shared with you all that I was going back to school, but I didn't say what kind or what school for this exact reason. Because if I didn't get in, then I wouldn't have had to say anything. Um but I also didn't plan on not getting in. Like you couldn't have told me that at the beginning of that journey that I was not going to get accepted anywhere, but here we are. So yes, I didn't get into law school and it hurts so bad. So let's talk about it. Welcome to Renovating the Soul, where we turn the mess into something meaningful. I'm your host, Alexandria, and I am so excited that you have joined me today. This episode is going to be hard for your girls. If you've ever set out to do something and it didn't go the way you planned, if you've ever chased something hard, a job, a program, a relationship, a goal, and you gotta know that you weren't expecting, then this episode is for you. I wish I could tell y'all that this story was from five or ten years ago and I have the other side, but this is something that I just it was still going through that I still haven't made full peace with, but it's life. I have to take it for what it is. I'm talking about it right now because I'm still in it. I'm still figuring it out. And so if you're currently sitting in a fresh disappointment, I want you to stay

Defining Rejection And Embarrassment

Speaker 2:09

with me. So y'all know here on Renovating the Soul, we like to define our terms. And one of the things you're gonna hear me talk about that is at the center of this is rejection. So let's define rejection. It is the dismissal of something as inadequate or unsuitable. And I've always said that I'm not good with rejection. Now, when I've said that, it can be in terms of whatever, like a relationship, a job, you know, even kind of seeing rejection as like critique or feedback, like negative, like when you have this idea, but then someone's like, I don't like that. Um, but but this also comes up for me mostly with like people when you're in public and you don't know if that person recognizes you or you someone may be upset with you and you don't know. Like, I'm not the first to approach. I'm going to cut the corner and go around the corner because I'm so nervous about you not saying hello to me. It's the equivalent of when you think someone's waving to you in public and you wave back and they're not actually waving to you, like that's so embarrassing. But this type of rejection, not getting into law school, it's just a different level, and it is more embarrassing. And I I hate to call it that, and my husband has been telling me not to say that, that it's just life, but it doesn't feel that way. And so this isn't just about law school, it's also about my issue, and I'm sure maybe someone who's watching yours of avoiding hard things.

The Safe Route And Settling

Speaker 3:37

And I have spent most of my life taking the safe route. If there's a safe route, I'm gonna take it. I'm not a risk taker, I don't like challenge, I'm gonna take the easy road. What that's looked like for me is no confrontation. I don't stick up for myself unless I'm like forced into these things. I want I want to I want that to be clear. I have done all of these things, but I have to be forced into it. It's not the option that I willingly choose. I don't welcome the risk, I don't welcome the challenge. I would do it if it's like the last resort, but these are not my go-to. So again, what that's looked like for me is no confrontation. I do not like confrontation. I I don't like having to do it. I don't like conflict. Um, I have not historically like stuck up for myself. Um, it also has looked like doing things that I'm already good at and then calling it a grand accomplishment. So, oh, I'm a I know I'm a great public speaker, right? And then I go and I do this event and I'm like, yeah, yeah, patted myself on the back, but it's like you're already good at that. That wasn't a challenge for you, right? Um, the uh how this has also shown up is talking myself out of challenges before I've even tried. We're gonna talk about that more, but talking myself out of things that seem risky or that seem hard, and then also running from things again, same thing like that. I perceive is too hard or too risky. So those last two kind of really go together. But the application of this is when I applied to graduate school at Azusa Pacific University, I really wanted an MBA. So I went to Clark Atlanta University, got my business degree, amazing school. I already talked about Clark Atlanta, love Clark Atlanta, and my professors were all great. And the next step, like the obvious next step for a business major, is getting your MBA. But your girl was too afraid to take the G MAT. And for whatever reason, I don't know if it's like hearing other people say this, or I just I honestly don't know where it came from, y'all. Like I really don't, but I was telling myself that I was a bad test taker, that I wouldn't be able to pass the GMAT or the GRE or whatever test was required to get in. So instead of going after the MBA, I applied for my Masters of Arts in Management. And I did not like the program. I found out when I got there that because there are no barriers to entry or no requirements, no test requirements, a lot of the students at Azusa were doing this program because it was easy, because they had um been able to graduate in three years and they wanted to continue to play sports for Azusa. So this is the program that people would do when they want to play sports. So not only was I coming from Clark Atlanta, this amazing business program, right? Where we're doing fortune or presentations in front of Fortune 500 companies, we're um uh building marketing plans for real small businesses, we have to dress professional twice a week. Um, all of these things, right? To then this management program where the kids don't really care, they don't know how to dress, they don't know how to present, they don't know how to put a business plan together, and I'm sitting there like this is crazy. And I remember standing in the hallway of the business school at Azusa and watching the NBA students come out of class, and it's like a scene out of a movie, it's like slow motion, and they're all dressed up in their professional attire. And I remember sitting there and literally thinking to myself, that's where I belong. Oh, it was like watching them dap each other up. I know this probably wasn't happening, but this is how I remember it. They're like dapping each other up, and they're high-fiving, and they're coming, and they look so serious, and I'm like, that's where I'm supposed to be. But I settled. I did not push myself, I did finish my master's because I had already started it, and I was like, you know what? This is, you know, I started it, let's finish it. And I already spent the money, but I settled. And that same fear of that hard test, not wanting to take the G MAT, is why I never pursue law school. And it's why I didn't do it sooner, even though I've always wanted to be a lawyer. So I want to walk you guys through this

LSAT Prep And The Error Journal

Speaker 7:40

process. Since I did tell you guys in episode 19 about the layoff and I was going to school, I want to walk you through what this last year has looked like. After losing my job, I thought, well, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So I just I jumped all in. I started my uh LSAT prep, which is the law school administration test. I started that prep in February of 2025, right after I got laid off. So I got laid off in like January, into January, February. I signed up for a prep course, was in there. And now this is not a law school chat, so if y'all want more information, we can talk about this offline. But that prep course did not help me. I didn't find that out until later, but I just want to put a little pin in there because I don't want to make it seem like I'm supporting that route. It's just kind of what I thought was right at the moment. But the whole point is I jumped all in, started studying, started doing my research, what kind of law do I want to practice? Um I saw myself improving. I studied hard. I stayed dedicated, I pushed through, even though I had the kiddos at home. At this time, we still had our nanny. So I was able to dedicate my time to like studying, um, doing the law school research, attending virtual admissions tours with different schools. I was just doing so much. And I remember when I started doing this, I just started kicking myself. And I was just so frustrated and crying because I was like, I should have done this when I was single. Because I actually seen myself improving. I was like, girl, you were never bad at this. You just had to sit down, practice it. That's all it took. Rarely do people come to anything where they're an expert already. And I don't know why in my mind I thought that. But I was just so frustrated at the process itself. But then I was frustrated that, girl, if you had done this in your 20s, you would have excelled. If you would have done the G Math, you would have excelled. So I had to accept that I was there. I had to accept that okay, you're doing this now, married with four kids. You missed that opportunity back then. And as I was going through this journey, one of the biggest lessons that I have gotten from this whole process was how much that I can learn from my mistakes. Part of that rejection, not taking risks, not taking challenges is not looking at my mistakes or wanting to ignore mistakes, not accepting critique, like I'm not good with feedback or critique, all of those things because I don't want to think that I'm doing a bad job. But when I was doing the LSAT, one of the things that they encourage you to do is to keep an error journal. I don't know why I say error so weird, but error log or error, your mistakes journal. Um, and I didn't take it seriously when they were saying, when they were recommending it, because I was like, I don't want to highlight all the ways that I'm messing up. I don't want to see what I'm doing wrong. I don't want to know that I'm failing when I already know I'm failing and this and I'm struggling. I don't want to see that I'm struggling. I don't want to highlight that, right? But without the error journal, it felt like I was messing up on everything. And then with it, I could see exactly where my patterns were, what traps I would I kept falling for, and I could start training my brain to get better. I took the LSAT three times. I increased my score by five points, and I never went backwards. And in the LSAT world, and according to like the admissions people I talked to, that is significant. A lot of times people either stay where they're at or they go backwards, but that but they don't have a lot of big leaps. And even in my practicing by myself, my my score, I had issues with timing, but my score was a lot higher in my practice than it was on my actual performance. That was all from looking at my mistakes. That was all from highlighting the things that I was doing wrong. That's not something that I would have welcomed had I not gone on this journey. And so for me, I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to the process. So we do the LSAT right, and then I knew my score could be stronger, but I took this leap of faith, if you want to call it that, and applied with the score that I had. Now that was based on information that I was receiving, but I've learned, and this is for anybody that's gonna go through this process or is thinking about law school, the LSAT matters more than they try to let on. Do not listen to people try to tell you that the LSAT does not matter because it does. But in this time, I was meeting virtually with schools, as I mentioned. I um flew to Atlanta for the pre-law HBCU conference to make these connections and meet school representatives in person. I spent so much money on applications and study materials to test itself. So I'm saying that because it wasn't like I was just in on the LSAT. No, I was all in on this entire process. And when I was talking to people, person after person after person was saying, hey, we look at it holistically. Well, what they don't tell you is that they look at you holistically after they see your LSAT score. They make you think that holistic means we're going to discount the LSAT score almost. I literally have quotes from people. I recorded some of my sessions, so I had to go back and listen and see, was I crazy? Did I misinterpret what they were saying? No, they sell it to you so that you can uh uh do the application and then apply for law school. And this is not a bash, okay? I'm not I'm not trying to, like I said, I'm not trying to make this a law school bash. I may have to talk about this on my personal channel because I did vlog my entire journey, y'all. Entire, it's it's more tears in that vlog. The tears in that vlog could feel a river or a little lake somewhere because it was it was just a crazy process. It's a crazy time. But I just want you all to see that like this pain that comes later that I'm gonna talk about is because of how all in that I was. So again, flying to Atlanta to go to the HBCU pre-law conference, meeting representatives virtually. I mean, just it was my full-time job essentially. At one point, I started working out of a co-working space here in Vancouver, Washington, just so I could focus and study properly. So when it came time to start applying, like I said, I applied with the scores that I had. I knew I could get, you know, better scores, but I had taken the LSAT three times. That thing, that thing, that, that thing, okay. It's not like Lauren Hill, but my mind was just it, it was it, it's it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I'm gonna be honest. All you have to do is apply yourself and keep going and keep going. But I was just in this like time pressure. I wanted to get to law school because I just got laid off. I wanted to hurry up, you know, keep going. So when it came time to actually apply, I'm excited, I'm hopeful, I'm thinking like, okay, I've put in the work, they're telling me that I have a chance, they're hearing my story, they're understanding, they're telling me that because I'm a mom, these are literal things that people are telling me that because I'm a mom, that already gives you a little edge up because we know that you can manage time and you can balance, which I was like, but you don't know if I'm a good mom or a bad mom. So I was using my brain, y'all. I just wanted to buy into like I had a chance. Um, but there, yeah, that's so like that, having work experience as well. Like I have years of work experience since I was 17 or 18. And you on certain applications, you have to list every single job you've had. There's like barely any gaps in my work history. I was either working or in school. All of these things that are called sauce, but that you know, I'm thinking will give me the edge of being older, because being an older applicant, you know, they said that it reads that you're more sure, you've had a path, you kind of know what you want versus being young and coming out, and you don't necessarily know where you want to go, you're just doing this as a fallback, etc.

Twenty Rejections And Self Worth

Speaker 15:06

etc. Right. I will say, because I am gonna give you myself some grace here, because it's not because I just failed, okay? The cycle really was that competitive. This law school cycle, I think they said, was the most competitive in years. They've had the most applications that they've seen historically in years. I don't even know if they've ever had this many applications, but that's just how they were saying it. And after I got over 20 rejections. Over 20 rejections. And I applied high and I applied low with that when it comes to ranking. Um, a couple of those rejections were at schools that I would have otherwise gotten into last year or even the year before with the scores that I had. But I didn't. And those ones really started to sting. Okay, I applied to Duke Law. Duke Law is the number for a law school. You gotta be like, not that I can't hang, okay. Let's not get it mixed up. Your girl can survive in any of these environments. Put me in there. Harvard, I can do it. But when it comes to like stats and the type of kids that are getting in there, you know, the the awards, just that the way that they're set up, I did not get that trajectory or path in life. So a Duke Law, okay, that makes sense. I got rejected there. But some of the other schools, and I'm not gonna list them because just in case I do this process again, I don't want to shoot myself in the foot, but some of the other schools really stung. But I met with those schools. I I met with them because I was I was like, this is after rejection, after rejection, after rejection, after rejection. And I was like, I have to know what's going on because I'm spiraling, I'm like, is it my writing? Oh my gosh, it's because I started graduate school at PSU and then I stopped. Oh my gosh, it's because like what is it? They literally told me that my application was strong. One lady said, Your application is perfect, your writing is perfect, everything that you have here is perfect, it's just your LSAT score. And that was a relief, but it was also and still is a dagger to my chest. I have so many thoughts on this, and like I said, this is not, I'm not trying to give you guys my law school frustrations or like law school process frustrations, but it did mess with my self-worth and mess with my head because it made me think, why am I not good enough? Why would this test score that you guys know cannot fully capture a person? You tell me that there's there is a correlation between a slight correlation between your LSAT score and your first year of law school, but it still doesn't determine the type of lawyer that you're gonna be. These are literally speeches that they're giving us. Like they're they're literally saying we know that you can have a high LSAT score and suck at law school and not pass the bar, and you can have a low LSAT score and do great in law school and pass the bar, and still, and you can look this up, LSD.law, they still only accept a bubble. They will tell you that they have no floor, but there's a floor. There's a floor. If you look at lsd.law and you look at people's the ranges where people are getting accepted, waitlisted, or rejected, there's a floor. So all of these things, I know I'm 34. I know the marketing. I know you're selling me a dream, but I wanted the dream, y'all.

unknown 18:20

I'm not even gonna lie.

Speaker 18:22

I wanted the dream, and I wanted the dream because I wanted to say, look at look, GSA, and look at government. You tried to hold me back. And I went to law school and I got accepted, and I wanted to show all those naysayers that there were no naysayers, by the way, but all these naysayers in my mind, I wanted to let them know, like, look at me, I did it. That's not what I'm here to tell you guys. Like, getting those rejections almost and hearing that about the LSAT score specifically actually almost validated my wrongness in the fact that I never tried. And I went to Quincy and I was like, see, this is why I never tried. Like, this is why I actually didn't do this process because look, look at what's happening now. I was not right to say that I should have never tried. I was not right for not trying in the past or telling myself that I was bad at tests or not taking the risk or not not doing the challenges. But when these rejections started coming back to back, I'm like, see, this is why I don't take risks. This is why I don't challenge myself, this is why I never tried this. But that's that doesn't need to be because now I have a new perspective of my capabilities.

Practising Honesty Out Loud

Speaker 19:28

And I'm telling this story because I told y'all I was going to school in episode 19, and it felt wrong to like skip over this and try to come back to the podcast and start talking about something else because I had always planned on coming to celebrate with y'all and be like, yay, this is what happened, and I got it to law school, y'all, and I'm not gonna be doing the podcast. So it's like, why wouldn't I come and tell this other side? Why wouldn't I come and say, you know what? I had these plans in my mind. It it didn't work out that way. I had to admit this out loud, as I said in episode 20, to avoid from spiraling further. I told Quincy, looked him dead in his eyes. I was like, I will not, I just refuse to not to not be honest that I didn't get in. Because if I had started going around when people were asking me about law school, like, did you get in? How was it going? Did you get accepted anywhere? And I had to keep telling people, no, not yet, or oh, this cycle was just so competitive. It was literally going to put me in a deeper sadness. I was feeling it would make me feel more shameful and more embarrassed, and I don't need to because it's life. I'm not the only one who got rejected, I'm not the only one who lost a job, I'm not the only one going through the things I'm going through. It is life. And why do we get so ashamed of life? So I started practicing. First with my close family, and I love my family dearly. I told my parents, I told a few cousins, and I love them dearly, and they're so funny because they it's racism, it's discrimination, those people are insane. And I'm like, no, it's just I wasn't good enough this round, you know? But but I love them. I'm not gonna correct them. Family's gonna ride for you, and that's what they should do, okay? Yeah, have my back. Okay, tell me those people are silly for not letting me in. Like, absolutely, right? So I don't, I'm not, I'm not mad at them for that energy. We want that, we want that, but I know I'm like, no, it's it's not those things. They don't even know me, they can't see you, and you can't put your race down on your application anymore, so it's not that. Like, it's just I was not good enough, guys. Like, this was just not my time, and that's okay. Then I practiced with some friends at a brunch I held. So I hosted a brunch at my house, had some girlfriends over. Some some of them knew that I had been trying to go to law school, some of them didn't, and we kind of were doing this circle thing, everybody's kind of introducing themselves and we're talking, and just you know, and I just been like, hey, y'all, like, yeah, this it's a hard season I didn't get in law school. And it's embarrassing to have to say that out loud and to have to admit that in front of you know your friends and tell them who were so excited for you. You rarely kind of get that part. Usually if someone comes back to you, they're like, oh, I didn't get into law school, but I don't I didn't have a butt. I didn't have a but hold on. I'm still great. No, I didn't. I was like, y'all, I didn't get in law school, lost my job. I'm just here. Yeah. That's all I had, right? Part of the practicing. The next after that was I had to speak on a panel at the MBloom conference. Shout out to the MBloom Conference and Shawni Davis. Um, but I I had to speak on the panel. I spoke at MBloom last year and I went this year as an attendee, but uh Shawni gave me the opportunity to do this legacy panel where the speakers, listen to this, get a kick out of this. The speakers on the panel are supposed to share where they're at since the last conference. Talk about slapping my face, right? Not that she's doing this like it's my face, but just like, you know, I'm like, oh wow. Okay, God. Like, all right. And so I I I was going to do to the conference as an attendee. I never practiced what I was gonna say. I didn't really have like a lot of context as to what I was gonna say. I just knew I'm gonna sit on this panel. And it wasn't until I got into the conference and I'm talking to Shawnee and she's telling me, like, okay, yeah, this, and I'm like, oh wait, I don't have anything to offer these women. Where I thought I was going to be this year compared to last year is not where I am. I told a small group of them last year that I was going to law school, and I'm sure they were pretty excited to hear that, you know, got accepted and that these were my plans. I told Shawnee, my friend Shawnee, that like I'm I'm getting ready to move. All of these things that I was thinking was gonna happen, and I have to sit on this panel, and none of that's true, and I almost backed out. I was like, I don't have anything to offer. But I I didn't back out. I sat there, and at first I started to try to paint everything in this kind of better light. And in Christian world, and I think just in life, we want to give good stories. We want to give a pretty bowl on the package. And as I was listening to the other women, I realized that exactly what my story is is exactly what I needed to share because I was the girl on the other side in a rough season, in a horrible relationship, um, down on my luck, or just going through, and I'm looking at these beautiful women and I'm wondering, but have you ever been through anything? You you've told me your beautiful stories, but like, where's the mess in it all? And it's always in hindsight. It's yeah, I was down, but now I'm up. But we don't talk about what you did to get up. And so I sat there and I was like, no, exactly where you're at is exactly what you have to share. And that's exactly what I did. I was rough, I was raw, I was just giving it plainly. I didn't say I was lost because by that time I knew not to be saying that, but I did say, you know, I felt lost, but these are things that I've come to understand. Didn't get into law school, but it's more than that, right? It's it's it's like I talked about in the last episode. It's the church, it's this, it's all of these things. It's like not having any friends. I'm a friend person. I've always had friends. It's like, you know, being home again. It was all it was just like a complication of all these things that I'm sharing with these strangers. And y'all, when I it wasn't until later on that night when I got home that I said, or back to the Airbnb, and I was like, oh my gosh. I just told a group of strangers that I didn't get into law school. I just told those ladies that I didn't get in, and that I don't know where I'm going, and I don't know if this like where God is in all of this. Like, I was just very brutally honest. And I don't regret it though. I don't regret it because it's life. I wish I could tell you that even with all of that practice, it gets easier to have to admit. But in sitting here, even before I started recording, I'm like, oh God, I have to say this again. Like I have to sit here and say it again. But I'm also sitting here to say that my life didn't end. It's like the rejections were punching me and punching me and punching me, but they were also making me stronger. Which it's hard to even say because I don't even want to I don't even want to sell it like it felt so good or that I seen it that way. But sometimes the things that we think are working against us are really making us stronger even if we don't feel that way. It's the strength that I have to be able to sit here and say it because we rarely talk about the journey when we're in it. And like I was saying earlier, the reality is I'm not experiencing anything that someone else hasn't already. I was one of thousands who didn't get into law school just this year alone. But you know what I thought about a lot of them are young. They're in their 20s. They don't necessarily have families, and you know, they're coming out of college, they're so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. And I thought about the people that were feeling the same pain that I was feeling, but didn't have anyone. And at least I had my family. I had my sons to distract me because I don't care. I mean, they knew I was going to law school, they prayed for me every night, but they didn't care that I didn't get in. You know, when I told my son, he was never like, dang, mom, you suck. Like I he was just like, oh, you didn't get in, like, okay, you know, and he just bounces, they bounce back. They're they're they're into Power Rangers and they're flipping and they're fighting, and they want me to, you know, punch them and do all the they don't care. So at least I had that to distract me. I had my husband who's so proud of me and who never made me feel bad, and he was so happy because we've known each other since high school, so he knows I'm not a risk taker. I don't try new foods, I'm getting better, but I just I don't take risks. And so he's like, I'm so proud that you did it. And not only did you do it, but you did it with 20 plus schools. Like you you went in, you knew what you were capable of, and my mentality started to change because I took so much on me personally, my worth. I'm not good enough, you know, all these things. And he kept telling me like almost every single day, I hope you're not letting this define you. I hope you're not letting this be anything about who you are, because they don't know who you are, they don't know you personally. So I had him in my corner, and I'm so sad. I am so sad. It still makes me cry that I didn't get in. I wish I could say that I regret doing it, but I don't. I will still cry and still be upset. But I don't regret doing it. It's it sounds kind of insane for someone like me. It sounds crazy even coming out my mouth. But I want you to know that if you're in a hole right now,

Getting Up Without A Full Plan

Speaker 28:21

you're not the only one. And I want to stop here for a second and speak directly to whoever is in the middle of their own rejection right now. Not the one from five years ago that you've already healed from, but the fresh one. The one from the other day, the other week, the other month, or even just a few months ago. The one that you really haven't discussed or told people about yet, the one you're embarrassed by, and I want you to know that I see you. And I want you to know that the sadness is real, the grief is valid, and that getting back up doesn't mean pretending it didn't hurt. No, it hurts. It's hard for me to even say it out loud because I'm not there, but there is another side. There is another side. And I thought that once I got laid off, I had to keep going, I had to keep going, I had to keep going, and right now I really don't have to do anything. I'm asking myself, okay, I'm not where I want to be, but what if I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be? And that same thing of nothing bad has ever happened to me. It's all about this mentality shift. I had to keep digging and saying it and asking myself, what's really bothering me? What's really bothering you, Alexandria? And it's layered. It is, but it's nothing that invalidates who I am and who I've been and the type of lawyer that I could be one day. I had to realize that, yeah, you get back up, you say you didn't get in, you don't let anyone shame you for that because it's life. It's literally life. I came back, I got back to this podcast, and I get to do it in the messy middle. It's not the story that I wanted to tell, but here we are. And I was laughing the other day because I'm like, you know what's funny is that I didn't, I was gonna put myself into law school. I had an opportunity to take a full break. I came back to the podcast. So after this season, I really will like sit down and take a break. I'm just so used to moving. It's a it's a complex of mine. I haven't really figured that one out. But anyways, the worst thing that I could have done was to act like it never happened. Like seriously. I don't know what it I don't know what it was about this time in my life that I was like, I cannot act like this didn't happen. And it's probably because I wanted this so bad. Because it felt like I was finally going after a dream, it was going to come true, and then it didn't. And I think that's why the pain was also I feel like the pain was just as big as the dream. The pain of not getting it was just as big as how excited I would have been if I did. And I didn't want to keep carrying that pain by acting like it it doesn't exist, or that I wasn't hurt or affected by being rejected over and over again. Do you know how many stories there are of people who were rejected, who you know didn't get this job they were going after, doors closed. I mean, we were just watching the um uh I don't know exactly what it's called, but it's like the Kevin Hart comedy competition. I don't know what it's something silly, like funny AF. There you go. And Kevin Hart is saying how every closed door just opened up another one. Like he didn't get on SNL, and you look back at that and you're like, they're crazy, but he didn't get on SNL, but it opened up, I think he said like soul plain for him, right? But if you watch Shark Tank, you listen to the stories of the sharks, and they talk about their personal stories, but they talk about the stories of their a lot of them are immigrants, so they're immigrant parents and grandparents who came to America not speaking the language, not knowing what to do, but they made something of themselves, right? Closed doors, uh, people pushing you aside, and then you listen to the sharks themselves, and they talk about bankruptcy, they talk about failing businesses, they talk about all the no's that they've gotten, but how everything kept pushing them. That resiliency comes from those, again, like I talked about, your mistakes, acknowledging your mistakes. It the resiliency comes from getting kicked down and having to get back up, making the choice to get back up. And here's the thing: you have the choice, and you have the power to get back up. No law school rejection, layoff, no nothing, nothing has to stop me. They don't have the power to stop me. I only have the power to stop me, and I figured that out, and I thought, you know what, your girl's gonna get up. It's not a plan. I don't have a plan. I don't have a 10, 5 year plan like I'm used to. It's just every day I am making the decision to do something. Every day I am making the decision that whatever I do now, my future self is affected by that whatever I do today is pouring into my future self. What do I want that to look like? Sadness, crying, wallowing, why me? Oh my gosh, this is horrible, my life is crazy, why did I do? Or reading a new book, spending time with my kids, teaching my children their colors and their ABCs and watching them grow. You have options. And even if the rejection is your own, because sometimes we reject things as well, right? And sometimes we regret that or whatever that looks like, but whether it's a rejection that you uh something that you rejected or you being rejected, you still have the option to get up and make something from it and do something. Again, not having a full plan, not needing to go into the next five years or my three-month plan or whatever it is. If you need that, that's great. But I'm just saying it's not required. But you just make decisions each minute, each hour, that I'm just gonna I'm gonna do

Choosing Presence Over The Rush

Speaker 33:52

this, right? And right now, for me, I'm excited about this podcast. I I came back to this with I actually left this with so many ideas. So it's not that I I was lacking ideas. I thought about this podcast throughout the whole journey, and I felt so bad that I was like neglecting the podcast to do law school, but I just knew that law school was gonna open up so many doors for my career, financially, all these things. So I needed to be all in. But coming back, I was like, oh my gosh, the ideas were like sitting on my chest. That's how I describe it, where it's just like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. So I'm excited about this podcast. I'm excited to spend time with my kids, my family. I'm excited to read. I have a good list of books that I'll share with y'all that I'm so excited to read. I'm also excited about the fact that I don't have to go to school. I don't have to study right now. I didn't have the stamina to jump back into LSAT studying or to get back in there. I and I honestly, I didn't want to. And I didn't have to. I just wanted to do me, so to speak. Like I wanted to use the time that even my husband has given me where he's like, you don't gotta rush back to work, you don't gotta rush to school, you know. It I I get to come up with like new meals, and it seems so minor and so small, but they're so fulfilling for me because I haven't gotten this. It's always moving. I've had a nanny, I've had a babysitter, I've always had someone else, and it's like now it gets to be me. And every day my children are doing something that is absolutely hilarious, also annoying, because we're not gonna act like it's not annoying. But every day there's something. My my baby came up to me literally yesterday as I'm preparing to come record, and he's in my uh lipstick drawer, just turned two, and he pulls out one of my lipstick and he goes red. And I was like, Oh, did you just say red? And he's like, Yeah, but then he calls everything red after that. But but he got the first one right, okay? He knew what red was, but it's like I heard uh immigrate, and I think I'm saying her, it's either immigrate or immigrati. I was getting her last name wrong, but I heard her say that she's the type of mom, she's not the nine to five mom or something like that. She doesn't need to be in every single detail. Let's put it like that. She and I'm not faulting her for this. That is her life, her children, her children will be fine. I'm sure they will be totally fine, okay? So I'm not coming at her for that. What I'm trying to say is when she was saying that, I thought, you know what? I never really thought about the type of mom that I want to be, but I am the mom that wants to be there for every moment. I am the mom that, like, if something happens when Quincy's watching them and he doesn't tell me, I'm like, why didn't you tell me he did that? Or I I'm the one who's like, oh my gosh, guess what he just said today? Or they picked out their clothes on their own, or look, they like I I am I am that mom, and I haven't really gotten that with having to work and having to, you know, or wanting to work and wanting to, you know, go to school, all these things that I was doing, but it's like now I get that back. And law school is always gonna be there. A job is always gonna be there. I don't have to rush back into those things, and it's funny because Quincy's phone went off the other day, and it was the same chime that I had on my work phone. And I tell y'all, when that chime went off, my body leapt because I'm thinking, oh gosh, somebody at work is chiming me. And then I realized, oh, it's not mine. Oh my gosh, I don't have to send my nervous system into a frenzy because I don't have to answer to them. I don't have to be on someone else's schedule. I don't I just I'm thankful. That's all that's all I say. I'm thankful. And even outside of that, I have to still take care of me, I have to still pour into me because like I said, everything that I do today matters to my future self. And I either wallow or I get up. And I just made the decision now. I'm gonna get up. It's not the ideal. The bumpy path is hard. It's not what I would have chosen for myself if we're being honest. But I'm glad that I took the risk. And I'm glad that I took a chance at myself, and that I got to see that I am so capable of learning things at a high level, even after four kids with mom brain, that I was able to close those gaps and oh my gosh, and see myself improve and see my see who I am even in the process, because the way that I showed up, even on virtual calls, professional, uh, the way I was dressed, I built this little uh like picture wall on the back for those calls. Like everything that I did was so intentional, and that's who I am. It's the same way that I present to the podcast. It's so intentional. I'm not just intentional on my behalf, but I'm intentional on others' behalf, right? And that no matter what school would have taken me, I was gonna be that representative, but they're missing out, and that's on them, you know. So, hey, they're missing out, you know? But let's get it's like all the things that they were looking for, I know that I had. And I know I'm a good speaker, I know I'm a good person, I know that I would have been a good lawyer, and no rejection can take that away from me. There is a brighter side. There there are lots of lessons that I've been able to learn, and I can say those things even while it all still stings. But it doesn't define me. I get to define me that the my patterns in life define me. I'm not in a place where I'm trying to prove that to people or prove that to um them. And that's what I was telling the ladies at the panel that I spoke on. They were asking a question about what is a lesson that you had to learn this year or that you've learned, something like that. Like, what's where are you at now that you weren't at last year? Some kind of question like that. I said last year, so 2025, I feel like I had a lot to prove. When I walked into that church, and I'm gonna try not to cry because I have a crybaby, I did this whole episode without crying, y'all, so that's good, but now I'm getting teary eyed. But when I walked into that church to speak, and that's up on YouTube, it's called Dangerous Daughters, but when I walked into the church to speak last year, I was coming in a place of needing to prove myself because I did feel like something, like I did something with the last ministry and those doors closing and having having lost all those relationships. And so I walked in the church with my head held high and my chest stuck out because I need to prove that I am that girl and that I am this person, and I needed to do that, I needed that same proof for going to law school. I needed that same proof to show my family and friends that I'm still your Alexandria, who's a go-getter, and I'm not gonna let anything stop me. Like I had all of these things to prove, and I told the ladies, but I sit here and I'm like, I don't have anything to prove anymore. And not that I don't want to show up, but it's like I've taken the pressure off of needing to prove those things because I had to start looking at the data of my own life, of who I am, and that person shows whether people see it or not, or is there, I should say, whether they see it or not. I sit here with less pressure of needing to prove that I'm a professional and I'm I can be taken serious as a career woman because that's why I wanted to be a lawyer. I thought, well, you know, they talk about podcasters so bad that I was like, well, I don't want to be deemed just a podcaster, but it's like, so what? I'm a podcaster with four kids, a husband, got integrity, I've done things already. Like, why am I invalidating my own life and my own story when it's legit? It is legitimate. So, yeah, this is for whoever needs that permission to be honest about the hurt, even despite the hurt, you can still get up. That it doesn't disqualify you or discount you. And if you've been keeping a disappointment quiet because you're embarrassed or because you don't want to let people down or because you're not sure how to explain it, you don't have to have it figured out before you say it out loud. I didn't. And when I was saying it, I wasn't saying it as eloquently as I'm telling y'all, I have my head down, I was like picking that stuff, I'm like, yeah, I didn't get in the law school, but you know, like I I but you keep saying it. And you don't have to be on the other side of it to be honest about it.

Under Construction Takeaways And Invites

Speaker 41:54

The renovation is happening. You just can't see the finished room yet. And our blueprint moment is this every renovation hits a moment where things look worse before they get better. The walls are stripped, the floors are torn up, nothing is in its place. And from the outside, it can look like destruction, more like construction. But the contractor knows this is just the middle of the process. A rejection isn't a verdict on the structure, it's a materials list telling you what to bring next time. You can learn from their rejection if you let it teach you. You can learn from their rejection so that next time you know how you're gonna show up or what you're gonna bring, or okay, that's not that path. Well, let's just keep going, let's figure it out. You are not a condemned building, you are under construction. The no's don't mean stop, they only mean not yet, not here, not this door. But you have to keep building. It's often easier to say those things when you're on the other side. When I'm saying those things, it doesn't feel good, but I have to trust the process. It's okay to say it when it's still raw and fresh and it hurts, and that it doesn't make you less of a person for being willing to say the hard parts out loud. So here are your takeaways. Name the disappointment out loud to someone or even just to yourself. Number two, find the one thing the experience taught you that you couldn't have learned on the easy path. Y'all. I think that is so good. Like, I took the easy path so much. It really didn't get me anywhere.

unknown 43:33

It really didn't.

Speaker 43:35

I look back, I had this model where I was like, I'm not gonna look back in life and I'm not gonna regret. I have it tattooed on me. It's called the used to be, where it's like, you know, you don't look back on the past, you don't, not that you don't look back on the past, but you don't look back on the past and regret, I'm gonna live without no regret. I went through that phase in my 20s, and y'all are 34, and I sit and I'm like, no, I got regrets. I got regrets because I took the easy path or because I didn't do what I should have, or I got caught up in chasing boys more than like, you know, focusing on myself. Like, no, I'm not a bundle of regret, but I for sure got some regrets. But it's like there is so much more that you're gonna learn from the bumpy roll than you will from the easy path. That's just a fact of life. Number three, ask yourself, what does keep building look like for me right now? I just hope that y'all don't make me feel bad when I get it into law school. No, I'm just kidding. I don't think y'all will. But I I was thinking of how on social media they're like, you should have kept that to yourself. I'm like, should I have kept it to myself? But you know, no, I shouldn't have. And I and I don't regret it. And I I'm still in it. That's why, again, this season is coined the messy middle. But if you all have like stories or, you know, experiences that you want to share, even just encouragement, I will take whatever encouragement that you all have of your own stories where you were down and you didn't see how it was gonna work out, and it did. I would love to hear from you know people who are our lawyers now or in a career field that you didn't necessarily know that you were gonna be in, or one that you were striving for and didn't think it was gonna happen, but it did. Like, I would love to hear your stories, your encouragement. And then also for those who you may need encouragement. You might want to talk about the things that you don't want to talk about with your family because they're too judgmental or because they're not gonna get it. You want to share with someone like me because I get it. I'd love to hear from you directly. So you can email me or you can find me on social media and direct message me. But let's chat, like you guys know my inboxes, they're always open. But I love y'all so much. Again, don't come down too hard on your girl. This was hard, but we're here. Um, and until next time, let's keep doing the work to renovate the soul.