Me Time ✨

Who's it? Yeah. Hi. Happy Sunday, everybody. Gene Mitchell's here, and I have a special guest. Would you like to see my special guest? I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna hold out for a hot second as everybody starts to dial in and we come into this live space. Space here in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Sunday afternoon. I apologize. I had meant to do my live stream earlier today. However, I was doing a run and I didn't finish in time. Hi, Jules. Happy Sunday. How you doing today? You good? So as you're coming on in on this amazing Sunday afternoon, maybe you're taking a break from a project.

Maybe you are running errands. Maybe you are sitting on the couch having a movie day. I would like to be on the couch having a movie day. Whatever it is for you. Hello, sweet wonder. Welcome, welcome. Nice to see you. So I have a special guest today. I wonder if you can guess who he is. Nuts. I said he. Here's my special guest. Hi, Majors. Major, can you sit? Sit. Yay. Hi, Major. That's my special guest. Oh, popcorn today. Mmm, I like this. So Major is my special guest. He's almost always my special guest.

But I'm going to tell you a little bit on me time today about where I'm at and why I am where I am. So every single day. Well, not every day, but most days. Well, I have to walk Major every day. So let me qualify this. But most days, Major and I will go for a walk to a little coffee shop in the neighborhood. And it's just down these steps ahead of me. Jules, you've been here with me before, and there are days where I'm out walking Major. And I know we're headed here because he can walk me here. He has a really good memory.

He knows exactly where we're going. And he walks right up to the counter, sits down and looks up at everybody and is like, hey, I'll have a biscuit. And whatever the tall one wants, she'll pay. But it's like my Cheers. If you've ever seen the old TV show cheers, it's like my Cheers. I walk in, they know Major. Major gets to see people, and they'll pet him. The other day, Major took the liberties of helping a kind gentleman out with finishing his donut. For him, it was great. He was faster than I was, and he got it right off of the little table that is just at the perfect height as his nose.

But I like coming here and having, like, a spot. Whatever neighborhood I've lived in, I've always found a Spot. Maybe it was a wine bar or a sandwich place or a coffee shop that I can just go in, and I get to know the people there. They become familiar with me. And, you know, maybe we become friends. Maybe we don't become friends, but maybe we just get to celebrate those moments together. But what I love about this coffee shop is I don't know who I'm going to see here. And every once in a while, I'll come bopping on in in my own head, sometimes on a conference call.

But they know if I'm walking my dog on a call, I don't try to hide that. And then sometimes I'll walk in there and I'll hear this gene from across this little coffee shop space, and I will like, who's calling my name? And this happened this last week, and you know who my person was? I'm going to ask you to type in the chat who you think from Cadre I saw at the coffee shop. So go ahead, start guessing. I will announce who it was. But here's what I have to say. In that moment, I was having a day, and I was walking major, and I was super in my head, and I have some challenges that I need to figure out, right?

We all have some challenges. And these ones felt like kind of big ones. And in that moment, when this person shouted out my name and, like, bounded over to me and gave me, like, the biggest, warmest bear hug possible. Ooh, good guess. Speak wonder. C. ooh, good guess. Jules. Luke. They gave me this huge bear hug, and they were like, jade, I just get so excited when I watch you on Cadre. And I was like, such a having a bad day. I was like, why? Like, I suck, you know, because there are days where we're just totally in our head.

And I was walking it out that day, and the universe sent me Luke, and he gave me the biggest hug, and I walked out of there, and I was like, yeah, you know what? I'm doing okay. I'm doing some good things here. And Manger is saying, is it time for our treat yet? As he's pulling me down. So, you know when we take those moments and you walk into that favorite little shop, it could be any shop. It could be maybe you knit or you sew or anything. Maybe you walk into a fitness studio where they know your name and they know who you are, and you just walk in and you can just show up exactly as you are in that moment on that day, whatever it is.

So he did that for me the other day, and now I'm going to tell you another story because it seems to be storied Sunday. I teach spin classes on Sundays. And I was teaching a class today. It's called Hip Hop music. And that was a theme of the class. And I sometimes struggle with this theme because I taught a class many years ago, and I played a song that I never would have played if I listened to the song, and I didn't listen to it all the way, and so I didn't know. And then I started to listen to it, but I didn't have time to change it.

And that day, that song played, and I offended somebody, and my soul crushed that I offended this person, won because I knew better. And two, in that moment, I should have just skipped it and had my class be shorter, but I was still a new instructor, and I didn't know what rules I could break or not break. And I saw people playing some songs that were kind of dicey sometimes, and I was like, I'll just get through it. It's gonna be fine. I'll just get through it. And I didn't get through it because this person was p*****.

And you know what? They should have been p*****. I messed up, and I messed up even for myself. I literally felt sick for myself. And then once I learned that I messed up somebody else's day because of a song that I chose, like that. That cut that hurt. Because I never. That's never my intention. And I play that story in my head, especially when I'm having those weeks where I'm battling with imposter syndrome. And we all have that right. We have our jobs, we have our lives. We lean into a passion project.

And we question ourselves, right? We all question ourselves. And we should. We should question ourselves all the time. We should check in with ourselves. Is what we're doing something we're really passionate about. And I find that when I have the strongest imposter syndrome about anything, it's because I have the most passion about what it is that I'm doing. Does that even make sense? I find I have the most imposter syndrome for the things that I'm most passionate about doing, because I want to do it really well, and I want to not compare myself to others, but know that what I'm putting out there is good or good enough or better than good enough, you know?

So today I taught a spin class. As I mentioned, I had a hip hop theme, and I was talking to the instructor that teaches before me, and I said, you know, there are days that when I do this Theme, I don't want to do this theme. And she's like, tell me more. And I was like, oh, you're using the questions I use on you all the time. And so I explained it to her and she's like, jean, I used to work at a different studio and they didn't care. And she said they would play these songs and people would walk out of class and they didn't care.

And she's like, jean, I know you're never going to do it again because you care so much. I almost started to cry. I'm like, I can't cry before I teach a class. But she gave me a hug and she's like, you got this. And I taught the class. It was super fun, like really a fun time. Had a whole bunch of new people in my class. And I went onto Instagram this afternoon because I did a post and I got tagged in a post and I looked at it and one of the girls that was in my class today did this really long story.

She shared a story about how she was a wreck all week long. She shared a story about how she's going through a lot of really hard things right now. She didn't say exactly what it was and she didn't have to, but she commented on how coming to our studio, our little bitty Spin studio in uptown Minneapolis, makes a really huge difference in her days. But today, specifically, as somebody who loves hip hop music and coming into my class, she cried in class. And I didn't know cuz she was sitting in the back row and it's kind of dark in the room and sometimes I can see people's emotions, sometimes I can't.

I get off the bike, I walk around, I try to really encourage people. And she said in her post how today's playlist made her cry. And it wasn't because she was sad, it was because she was finally able to let go of all the things she was carrying all week. And then I cried. I'm a crier team. And. And what I said to the instructor I talked to this morning, her name is Heidi. I sent her a note and I sent her that post and I actually shared the whole post with our whole team and said, this is why we do what we do.

And then I specifically sent it to her and I said, heidi, I think this is the universe telling me that I'm okay and that it's okay, I got this. And she was like, jean, this is the universe telling you that you do have this. And I just was like, wow, speak Wonder. Thank you. I really appreciate you seeing that I have a tender and transparent heart. That's how I try to roll. I'll never be able to make it up to the person who I offended. I wish I could, but I will give 10,000 fold to everybody else that surrounds me.

So in those days, on this day of me time, as I'm headed to the coffee shop where Luke gave me a hug in a moment that I needed it, I gave someone a hug today with music when they needed it. This is how the universe works. This is what me time is all about. It's discovering in those moments where you can connect with yourself, you can connect with people around you. Major. You can connect with Major. He's like, mom, I want to connect at the coffee shop and get my biscuit. It's literally the most expensive dog biscuit I ever paid for because I get a key, a tea every time.

But I'll take it. I'll do it every time. Because he brings so much joy to the people there. I feel joy because they smile when he walks in the door. And in these moments of me time where I'm walking him in my head, sometimes I'm looking around, just exploring the same path but seeing it differently every single time. That's what me time's about. It's literally just about the exploration. Checking in with your body, checking in with your spirit, seeing what it is that you need today in this moment, not ten hours from now, not two hours from now.

What do you need right now? So take a breath, smile, laugh at me. Because I'm literally. I went for a run this morning and I get so cold afterwards that I took Major for a walk. And I'm so overdressed in a really thick hoodie and, like, Al parka. I'm basically wearing a parka. People are walking around in, like, vests. They're looking at me like I'm a chump. I don't care. I like to be warm. But I hope you all have a great day. And my key point for you today is this. When you're in your head, you're feeling that imposter syndrome.

Look around because there is somebody out there ready to mirror for you the beautiful impact that you make. And it might not be today, it might be a long time from now, but I'm simply just going to say, go for the walk, receive the hug, and accept that you are exactly where you are meant to be right now, here, today. So I hope you have the best day. I'll see you all soon.