 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. The Comfort Zone on Think Tech on Spectrum OSU 16. I'm your host, RV Kelly, and today we're going to be talking about excuses. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm a little tired of the excuses I've been hearing from Washington, from politics, even from local community leadership, and sometimes from my husband, though I'm sure he feels the same way about me. So today we're talking with the confidence architect, Kamisha Muhammad, about making excuses and why they don't serve you. Kamisha, welcome to the show! Hello, thank you for having me. Oh, it's so good to have you here. I'm excited you're joining us. Now viewers, you should know I've actually never met Kamisha face to face, so this entire interview is live, totally spontaneous. She hasn't been prepped, but we're gonna have a lot of fun anyway. So, yes, we are. Kamisha, would you be willing to explain a little bit more to our viewers about what you do? Yes, I am a lifestyle transformation coach and speaker, and currently an author as well. I help women gain the courage, confidence, and compassion for who they really are, so they can show up boldly, fearlessly, and authentically to live the life that they truly want to live. And I do that through coaching and speaking and sharing. That sounds like a really unique and a really interesting thing to do. You must get a lot of interesting stories, you must get a lot of interesting clients, but how did you get into that? Okay, so I got into it because I had a really expressive degree that I wasn't using, and I found that I needed to use it because I spent a lot of money on it, and I wanted to use it in a way that I could spend in my integrity and also set my own standards, and I felt like working out in the field that I was in. I was running into a lot of integrity issues. I wasn't in a place where it was too high enough standard that I felt comfortable to actually represent them, and so I just got tired of it happening over and over, and I wanted to control my own situation, and I fell into a swamp trying to figure out, okay, what do I do? I really want to live life, but it's so hard to just show up and work your own business, and I really want to go back and work for someone else because it's easy, but then I have to, again, work to their standards and have to deal with whether it's going to be in integrity or not, and I didn't want to because integrity is really high on my value list, so what happened was I said, okay, how can I help other people, and I found that I wanted to help other people be confident in who they are, like who they really are so they can go out and really live how they wanted to live because that's what I fear for myself, and that's how I wanted to show up, and I was like, there's many women out there that want to do the same thing, so why not go ahead and help them do that? Wow, Camisha, that is really powerful. Would you be willing to tell me a little bit more about some of the struggles you see these women going through, some of the difficulties that they face? Now working with women on solely confidence, and what I came to find is that a lot of the women weren't ready for the confidence conversation because at the moment a lot of them didn't even feel like they were worth going after their dreams, they were worth being who they were because they were always told something different, and they always felt something different from the people around them. So we were stuck in the story of work. Alright, that's a really interesting story, and I actually have a couple personal experiences about that where I've noticed in my personal life whenever I'm really wanting to go after something and there's something that I know is going to be good for me. I just kind of, sometimes we just freeze, and we hit this thing where we don't know how to move forward, we kind of want to move forward, but we're afraid of the risks, and so we end up making these ideas and these stories about why we can't have what we want, why it's not safe to go after what we want. And so I've seen in my life so many times where there's something that I say I want, but instead of getting my results, I make excuses. Oh, I can't do this this week, I've just been too busy. Oh, my husband and I are going through a rough spot, I have to focus on that. Or, oh, you know, I've been going back to college, I just don't have time. And so I make all of these excuses instead of getting the thing that I actually want. Is that something you see your clients doing sometimes? Oh yes, it happens very, very often and it even happened with me. So I've learned to see the patterns because it was a pattern that I followed. And I followed it in kind of a different direction where I had the excuse of why I shouldn't show up and show out for me. And my excuse was because it would dim someone else's life and it would hurt someone else. And I really believed it, it was like it was instilled in you. Like if I keep showing up and showing out and I'm getting all this recognition it's taking away from someone else. And that was another reason why I decided to help women just show up and be who they are because I went through a whole phase of where I was always dimming who I was because I wanted to let other people shine. Which it didn't serve me any purpose and made me feel a little okay but it also helped me hide. So I felt okay but I also was able to hide for that very reason and that was a really good excuse for me to hide. Whereas later I decided like hey I'm tired of dimming my light it takes too much energy, I'm not happy, I really want to be happy so I'm just going to be who I am and if someone doesn't like it they don't mess with me or it's not good for someone else, it's okay. Because I'll find my people, I'll find the people who like me who love me for exactly who I am and those were the people that will rock in my life and the people that don't, I'll be okay. And I want other women to feel that exact way. And you know Camisha it's really funny you say that because actually that's something I've been going through right now. Now my viewers you know I have my TV show, I'm a speaker, I'm a coach, I sing I love to put myself out there but I often don't because I feel like there's a limited amount of whether that's like happiness or recognition and if I put myself out there like you said I'm taking it from someone else. And so I've had to struggle with that mindset myself that if I am my true self and I go after what I really want I'll outshine people and everyone will turn on me and drag me down. Like that's a fear I've had. So when you are working with your clients on this what do you tell them or what do you have them do to have them work through this situation? I have them look at the outcome and weigh the results. What is going to be different if you show up as who you really are versus if you don't? How is that going to serve you in your life? You have to take care of yourself first. You can't take care of everybody else and then not take care of yourself. You are the most important. You have to take care of you so you can show up as your best self so that you can be of help to those around you or take care of your children or live in harmony as much as you can with your husband because you know how they get. So you have to love who you are first and you have to take care of you. So I focus on that a lot. I focus on you. You are important. It's okay to be selfish. It's okay because when you are selfish you're able to be happy and helpful. You don't have to not help people because you're being a little selfish. Being a little selfish helps you be your best you. And I think some viewers might misinterpret this as you saying that oh you should undermine other people or oh you can take things from other people but I don't think that's what you're saying. Right? I think it's more like you're saying that. No, no, no. I'm saying when I'm saying be selfish I'm saying think of yourself first sometimes because we as women we're so nurturing and we want to help everybody else that we neglect ourselves and we forget ourselves and so everybody else is getting what they need and then we're falling by the wayside and we're not getting what we need. So what I'm saying is okay to be selfish sometimes and think of yourself first. Take care of you because self-care is very important. You have to take care of yourself so that you can really show up and a lot of people take it as oh you tell people to say no and I won't help you or I can't do that for you, I have to do for me and I'm kind of saying that but I'm not really saying that. What I'm saying is think of yourself first so that you can make sure that you're happy mentally, physically and emotionally so that you can be your best you and then as you're doing that you can reach out and help other people you can be a part of other things but you need to help you first. I think I get it now and so I have a story where recently I committed to helping a friend with a project right about the same time that I decided to go back to college while I was also growing my business and then as all of this was going on I was like I'm running out of hours and then my church called me they wanted me to take on some extra responsibilities there and I was so like ahhh tense and stressed by like trying to juggle everything that I ended up like disappearing for a week and a half where I just I couldn't answer my messages I couldn't show up to anything I was like so overwhelmed that I shut down and if I had at the very beginning been just a little selfish like you said I might not have committed quite so much to that project I might have been able to commit to a smaller thing for my church I might have been able to spend more time on my college courses maybe shrink down a little bit on my business but I would have kept my sanity and it's not like I would have let those friends down but I still could have supported them in a way that also supported me is that what you're saying? Yes, you could have thought of ways to I want to say spread your time more wisely than spreading yourself in because I know you just said you wanted to help and you had made a commitment but sometimes you do have to say okay what can I really handle and how can I handle it effectively and efficiently because like if you can't handle it and you shut down now and you are harming yourself versus if you at the beginning you would have said okay this is how much time I have that I can commit to this and if you can accept this time here this amount of hours or this amount of minutes then I can help you but if this is not enough time for what you need I'm sorry I won't be able to help because I have to I have my own commitment to commit it to right now and sometimes people are like I don't want to say no but you don't necessarily have to say no you just say at this time I don't have the capacity to handle that for you but if you need me later I can say I'll let you know if I have the time then you don't have to come straight out with the word no everybody thinks that no is a bad word but no is a good word because I used to do the same exact thing I would take on so much and so much and so much because I really wanted to help but then for me I I had a shut down situation that was for not just a couple weeks it was for like some months and I just was like okay no more world I really just have to shut down and take care of me but it followed me being stressed to the point to where I got sick I ended up in the hospital because of the stress and made my body think that's why self care is so important to take care of you physically mentally and emotionally you have to set boundaries and be able to say I can't do that right now I can't help you with that right now because if you don't you risk yourself you know you risk yourself and that's not what we want to do we don't want to risk ourselves which as women we do it so much and sometimes we just have to learn to say I can't or no or I told them an easier way to say no is to just schedule your youth time that no one or anything can interrupt take a day of the week or a couple of hours that that's just you and it's time for no one else that's an easy no on this day of time and that's not even saying no that's just saying hey this is the time for me and nobody else so that's a good way to get started in blocking out time for you so that you can really take care of you and decompress and not worry about anything else going on that's just like the shutout time for you and it's like a healthier way to do it before you get to the end and it's kind of too late those are some brilliant strategies Kamisha so thank you for sharing and viewers we are going to be right back to talk just in a minute just in a minute more we'll be right back to talk more about making excuses and some easy strategies that you can use to start saying no and protecting yourself see you in a minute Hello everyone I'm DeSoto Brown the co-host of Human Humane Architecture which is seen on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4pm and with the show's host Martin Desbang we discuss architecture here in Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live but other aspects of our life not only here in Hawaii but internationally as well so join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4pm on Think Tech Hawaii Hey Aloha Standard Energy Man here on Think Tech Hawaii where community matters this is the place to come to think about all things energy we talk about energy for the grid energy and transportation energy and maritime energy and aviation we have all kinds of things on our show but we always focus on hydrogen here in Hawaii because it's my favorite thing that's what I like to do but we talk about things that make a difference here in Hawaii things that should be a big changer for Hawaii and we hope that you'll join us every Friday at noon on Standard Energy Man and take a look with us at new technologies and new thoughts on how we can get clean and green in Hawaii Aloha Welcome to Comfort Zone I'm your host RB Kelly and this is our special guest Kamisha Muhammad now viewers when you checked out we were talking about easy strategies for you to say no we were talking about why it's so important to be a little bit selfish and put yourself first now we also want to dive into a little bit of excuses so Kamisha can you explain what you're thinking with this Yes, yes, yes so I found that it's so easy to make an excuse but this means something you really want to do because the excuse is easier and I've been through it I made some crazy excuses to not do what I really wanted to do be out of fear and not wanting to put myself out there and then I got to a point where I was like I'm either going to get an excuse I'm either going to get excuses or I'm going to get results at a point where excuses really didn't matter anymore because I was like it is what it is and it's going to be what it's going to be and if I don't take that step and jump out there I'm going to live within my fears because fear can't consume you and so I said okay I have to get past these excuses so what am I going to do and I just started to jump into anything that I would have apprehensions about or that I would not want to do because it wasn't comfortable and I love this title out of the comfort zone because what happens is we will live in our comfort zone forever because it's safe and it's easy what I found is that out of my comfort zone consistently on a consistent basis I always tell everyone to go for what's easy first I think I went for what's hard first because I needed to get past the excuses and because I got really really in tune with time and I was like time is passing by and passing by and passing by and you do not get it back and so I was like okay I can't waste any more time so let me expose myself to these things that I'm fearful of or that are uncomfortable and I didn't get used to being uncomfortable and what happened was I kept doing it and I kept doing it and I kept doing it and now I'm not as uncomfortable to do those things and sometimes I don't even think about it because I built it into myself that it's become part of my lifestyle to just go after whatever I'm most afraid of first and get it over with and it's kind of like you're numbing yourself and you're numbing yourself to being uncomfortable because you're consistently doing it and it was I was doing it for a while and I came across a YouTube video where I wish I could remember his name right now where he was actually exposing himself to know he would ask people outrageous things get a note, ask the one something outrageous, get a note because he wanted to get used to hearing know so that when he heard it it didn't affect me anymore and that's kind of what I did with fear and being uncomfortable I kept exposing myself to it so that later I would have to deal with excuses and I would get more results it was about taking action and taking action is what helps you get past the fear it helps you get to your results and it also helps you with the excuses excuses a fear's best friend or fear's closest cousin they work together they plot on you but you have to find I made a post the other day I'd be your own superhero and conquer fear and excuses and living your confidence and live fearlessly and boldly so that you can get to the life you want to live and get to the life you want to live quicker instead of letting fear and excuses run your life you take control and start running your own life wow Camisha now I know okay I can think of just today several excuses that I've already made so what would you recommend for people who are you know trying to stop using these excuses start taking accountability and start building that confidence what would you have for them I usually checklists and I like to do lists because if you're writing it out for one and then you see it right in front of you and I usually say you know like you know one column all the excuses that you would make to not do something that you really love and that you really want to do make a list of all of those excuses and then make another column and write why you make that excuse how does that excuse really affect you and in the third column like is the excuse really in control is that excuse larger than what you want to do with your life and where you want to be in life I also say with excuses I always say find find the counselor for your excuse and what I mean by the counselor what is your excuse and now turn your excuse around and do the opposite because we sometimes we make silly excuses we make silly excuses and we live in them and so we make them so much that we start to believe them you know that is a real thing we start to believe that they're actually true because we're consistently saying it we're consistently living in it so we start really identifying with it if we start to conquer those excuses by countering them and doing the opposite you know to really conquer that excuse now you can always come up with another silly excuse so I call him next to me because we really we get creative with these excuses we get really creative and I know because I'm a really creative person the biggest one that I think we tell ourselves is I'll do it tomorrow I do that all the time I do it tomorrow you know and I say those tomorrow turn into weeks and months and years and then you get to your New Year's resolution and you have the same New Year's resolution for the previous year and the previous year and the previous year because you keep putting it off and you never do it and what I tell people is there's no such thing as tomorrow like tomorrow does not exist tomorrow is a fantasy because every time we say I'll do it tomorrow and you wake up and guess what it's today it's tomorrow and if you keep waiting and say I'll do it tomorrow you're today's keep passing so why not just do it right now and do it today thank you Kameesha this has been really interesting for me and I hope very helpful for our viewers now is there a website or a link where people can find you and maybe practice it yeah of course my website is www.kameesha.com You can like, links below There's the c-s-m-e-s-h-a and I want to stuff that out so so you can find me at www.kameesha.com and on on all social media at Kameesha or you can type into the everything that's architected I should pop up now when we were talking earlier over the break you did mention that there was like a guide that people could use it was was it the So what I have for you guys is I have an excuse cleanse starter kit that is the starter kit before entering into the excuse cleanse and what I'm going to do for you is I'm going to give you a free surprise out of the starter kit and to get it you just have to go to theexcusecleans.com and enter in your information and get on the waitlist because it drops on Monday and I'll be giving you all something free out of the starter kit. Alright thank you Camisha so viewers if you haven't already be sure to go visit theexcusecleans.com not Cleans C-L-E-A-N C-L-E-A-N-S-E cleanse the excuse cleanse. Alright well thank you so much for joining us Camisha we've had a wonderful time having you on the show is there any last minute one or two we've got just one or two minutes left but is there anything else you'd like to say to the audience before we go? Yes I would just like to say you know give yourself a chance take the time to go for you make out what you want to do in your life like what is it not what you think is within reach but what you really want to do no matter how outraged it may feel to you no matter how far away you may think it is just live in that moment and think about it and write it down and then think about all the things that you have that are holding back and I want you to decide do you want to have a life deal with excuses or do you want to get results and a way to get results is to take action and to kick people and to say throw excuses to the curve you know they're cute and all but we want to we want to go ahead and live the life that we want to live. Brilliant thank you so much Camisha I've really learned a lot from having you here and I'm sure our audience has as well so viewers thank you for having me I really enjoyed it and really enjoyed speaking with you good I'm happy to hear that so viewers I hope you are not getting lazy I hope you're not getting stuck in your comfort zone because there's still more to learn every week you have the opportunity to tune in on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. to get more of Camisha and other experts like her to help you stop sucking at life and start getting the results you want so please do tune in next Tuesday at 1 p.m. for out of the comfort zone for you there