290. Why You Should Brag More

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 290: Why You Should Brag More.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Hello everybody. I have not much of a voice left but the little bit I’ve got left is all for you. So let’s hope my throat holds out. The reason I don’t have much of a voice left is because I taught so many classes and did so much coaching this week it was one of the best weeks that I can recall having in a very long time. So we just finished up today the last day of Better Than Happy Bootcamp and it was more amazing than I dreamed it would be.

And so I want to thank all of you for making it that because you guys showed up. You delivered. You embraced and soaked in everything and you all were more than willing to get coached. We coached so many amazing people, I just felt so much love for all of you and I felt all of your love for one another. And anyway I just can’t thank you enough all of you who came and participated.

We had almost 3500 people that participated in Bootcamp, some of you live, some of you through replays and gosh I just – it feels like the same energy I used to feel back when we used to get to do live events pre-Covid. It’s like there’s something about the energy of that much intensity around this work and that many people gathered together to love on one another and to grow that feels honestly spiritual to me, spiritual but in a more energized way than I tend to think of spirituality. But anyway it was just so amazing. And I’m pretty tired now, it is also exhausting but it’s so worth it.

So if you were there live or through replay just know that I’m thinking of you and I love you. And I know a lot of you are in Be Bold and we’ll get to continue to further this work and that will be fun.

Okay, so I want to talk about bragging today. And I want to tell you why I think you should brag more. Now, if you don’t like what I have to say here about bragging, that’s okay. My work is about empowering you to find your own truth. So what I try to do is offer perspectives for you to consider. And for some of you it’s really empowering and for others of you it makes you really mad. So it’s alright, this isn’t for everyone, just take what you want, leave what you don’t.

This is not an absolute truth, this is just a new perspective because I want to empower you to think about things in the way that serves you best, to think about things in the way that helps you become the highest version of yourself, the most aligned with the attributes that our Heavenly Father probably has. And is the most effective at anything you want to do in the world.

And we don’t have to stay in alignment with that version of us all the time but the goal is to as much as we can to access that version of ourselves. So if this doesn’t help you get to there then it’s not for you but for some of you I think it may. So I want to begin with a story about one of the things that prompted me to want to talk about this but I have several stories I’ll share as we go. So I have a book I’ve written that I’m really proud of and I’m really excited to get to all of you and I think it will be coming out sometime this spring. But when I know more I’ll for sure let you know.

I’m working with a publisher right now but at any rate one of the things that’s been interesting, as I’ve gone through the process of this book, as I’ve worked with many different editors and people who have all helped me to shape the book. And I’m so grateful to all of them. One of the editors in particular had at one point some feedback about my introduction.

Because in my introduction I talked a little bit about just my finding coach training after getting let go from my corporate job and that I really just went through coach training to try to help myself, I was lost. And I loved coaching tools and I just decided let’s go there, see where that leads me. And so then it went on and the editor explained that where it led me wasn’t anywhere what I expected. It led me to the now multimillion dollar business that I have and the thousands of people that I have helped through coaching.

And the editor said, “We should take that part out because people might think that you’re bragging. It sounds like you’re bragging when you say that right there in the intro before they even know you.” And I thought, well, that’s interesting because what I’m doing is just telling the truth. I do have a multimillion business and I have helped thousands of individuals through my coaching tools. Maybe I am kind of bragging. And is that really bad? I don’t know, maybe it is. But I just found it to be an interesting question that I started playing with in my mind.

I started thinking do I want to not brag? Maybe, I mean we all assume you shouldn’t brag. We say this, “I don’t want people to think that I’m bragging.” And I just like to question things like that. So I looked up bragging in the dictionary, here’s what frustrates me about the dictionary. I feel like they’ve gotten so literal and so specific that all they do is give you more words that you’re like, “Okay, but what does that word mean?” So when I looked up bragging it said pompous or boastful. It also said arrogant talk and then it said cockiness.

So I’m like, “Alright, let’s look up pompous.” Pompous said irritatingly grand, solemn or self-important. So that’s what the dictionary says what bragging is. Now, here’s what I found to be interesting about it. The way they’re defining bragging as far as I can dissect it here is that it has to do with how other people interpret what you’re saying.

If we take pompous, it says you’re irritatingly grand. Well, if I’m grand or if someone else is grand, let’s just take somebody who we look at and say, “That person is grand.” They’re big, whatever that means, maybe they’re in the public eye, maybe they’re super beautiful, maybe they’re very successful, maybe they’re very rich, whatever is grand. How do I know if they’re irritatingly grand or they’re just grand? It’s just my interpretation.

So if I look at somebody like that and I think the person is irritatingly grand that means I think they’re grand and I’m irritated because I think they’re too much or I’m mad that I’m not more like them. Or I think that they think they’re better than me, or I think they’re better than me or something like that. That’s what’s going to make me feel irritated. My own thoughts make me feel irritated. That person and who they are in the world, even if they’re grand can never irritate me.

Somebody else might look at that person and say they’re inspiringly grand. They might say, “I love seeing somebody succeed at their goals. I love seeing somebody so confident. I love seeing somebody so healthy, so vibrant, so successful. It’s awesome that that’s available. It’s awesome that human beings can be like that. That person inspires me to achieve to more.” So my main beef with this word ‘bragging’, the way it’s defined is that it has to do with trying to manage what other people think.

And I just find that we get into trouble when we try to manage what other people think. I’m not saying we shouldn’t consider what other people think. I’m not saying what other people think isn’t something that I want to have on my radar for good reasons at times. I’m just saying when I try to manage what other people think I get into trouble because I turn into a controlling or watered down, or some other version of me that is not my highest self, it doesn’t align me with who I’m trying to be.

So when people say, “I don’t want people to think I’m bragging”, see how we’re trying to manage what other people think? So the reason that bragging can be a problem other than this idea of managing what other people think is it sort of implies the idea that either the person doing the bragging or the person hearing it thinks that someone is better than someone else so that my friends is a lie. The idea that some people can be better than others and that some people just are better than others is a lie.

It’s a lie that we all believe to a certain extent, I promise you, every one of you listening believes that to a certain extent at times. But it’s a lie that I think is part of our work here as humans on Earth to unwind and to just sort of try to answer back as much as possible. I don’t know that we’ll ever completely get rid of the lie or unwind the lie altogether. But it’s our job to do our due diligence to understand the worth of every human being, I really do think that. Because I think that to do that will create a better life and I think it’s challenging to do.

So the better you get at understanding that human beings are all different, yes, we have different strengths, different weaknesses, different life experiences, different decisions, different results we create for ourselves. We’re all very different in many ways but we are also all equally worthy. And nothing that you do can improve or decrease your worthiness, it just exists. And our worthiness doesn’t come from us. It comes from us having been created by a higher source which I happen to believe is God. But our worthiness just is and we had nothing to do with it. We didn’t create it.

So as you wrap your head around that then this idea of bragging becomes not really a problem, it’s not even really a thing. It’s just people stepping into and allowing them to be the fullest version of them. I think we have lots of people on this planet, lots of you listening to this podcast I bet who are capable of 10 times more than what you allow yourself to do because you’re worried about what people will think. Some of you are worried that people will judge you and think less of you.

And some of you are worried that people will think that you’re bragging. They’ll think that you’re just too much. That you’re proud of yourself, that you think you’re better than them, that you’re pompous, that you’re irritatingly grand. What I want you to do is to just question if that’s really working, if that’s really going to serve our planet and our community in the end.

I love what Oprah says which is like, I’m probably going to mess it up, I apologize. I don’t have a direct quote. But she talks about your work in this life is to find your purpose and live into it. And to figure out who you’re supposed to be. Imagine if Oprah would have held herself back thinking I don’t want people to think I’m bragging and she would have just played small and not gone after the huge goals she set for herself.

Imagine, we would have missed out on Oprah. Some of you maybe aren’t Oprah fans but I bet most of you are. And that would be so tragic if Oprah would have held herself back because she didn’t want people to think she was bragging or because she didn’t want to brag. You know what Oprah does sometimes? She brags. According to the definition of bragging we might say she brags. I’ve heard her before say things like, “However much money you guys think I have, I have way more than that. And however grand you think my life is, it’s way better than that.”

Now, she follows that up with, “And that’s not because having stuff, and success, and money, makes your life better. It’s because I do all the work to make sure I understand that I’m created by God and I’m amazing, and I’m complete, and I’m whole.” So she understands that there is no such thing. She doesn’t think she’s any better than anyone else. And some people might think she’s saying that but she also knows that’s not hers to manage. What’s hers to manage is her thoughts about herself.

And I just want to offer you my friend, it’s what’s yours to manage is your thoughts about yourself, not other people’s thoughts about you, your thoughts about you and your thoughts about other people.

And I’ve got to go to Oprah one more time but she’s really good at loving other people. You can tell by listening to Oprah speak that she’s sincere. She’s not perfect but she’s sincere in her love of other people and her lack of pride, her lack of belief that she’s any better than anyone else. She’s sincere in that because she does the work to understand that all of us are equally valuable.

So I had another little funny incident happen where a friend of mine who is a fellow business owner reached out to me and said, “I have a group program I put together, would you be willing to talk about it for a minute?” And I said, “Totally, let’s get on the phone, I’m free tomorrow”, which, by the way we never did do that. So person, you know who you are if you’re listening, let me know if you still want to talk through it. But anyway I gave him a couple of times and then it never worked out.

But his reply to me was, “You’re the best”, something like that or he said, “Why are you so great”, something like that. This was all over DM or text. And I said, “I really am pretty great.” Now, I purposely reply that way because I really purposely believe that. I really believe that I am pretty great. I’m pretty generous. I’m generous with my time. I’m generous with my money. I’m generous with a lot of things. I think I’m pretty great.

Do you know what else I know is true? That I’m a hot mess and I’m pretty terrible in a lot of ways, it’s okay, I embrace all of it, but I’m not afraid to take a compliment, I’m not even afraid to give myself a compliment, because I tried it the other way for a long time.

I tried diminishing myself, putting myself down, loathing myself in certain ways, hating myself in certain ways, telling myself not to b brag. And it didn’t help me become my highest self, it really didn’t. It didn’t help my life get better. It didn’t help me help more people. It didn’t help me do more service. It didn’t really do any of the things that my primitive brain might have thought so I don’t do that anymore.

When someone gives me a compliment I say, “Thanks, I agree”, if I agree with them. There’s times I don’t agree, there’s times I just say, “Thanks.” And I watch my mind go they’re wrong, you’re not that great. But if I agree I let myself agree. I’m not afraid to say, “You guys look out because I’m really good at this.” And because I’m not afraid to say that, I’m also not afraid to say, “You guys sorry but I’m really bad at that.” I really do embrace all of it.

So when I’m embracing my strengths, if people think it’s bragging, I’m okay with that. I’m okay with them thinking that, that’s not about me, that’s about them. And I get it because I’ve been there where they’re at, so I don’t have any judgment of them for where they’re at. I genuinely am okay with it.

I was raised by super awesome parents and my dad is really big on selflessness. He really instilled in us that you need to think about other people. We don’t want to be selfish. We don’t want to be talking about ourselves. He has this thing about people who talk about themselves all the time gets on his nerves and I just laugh.

Because I fought that for so long, I fought talking about myself and I finally realized you know what? When I talk about myself but I’m not doing it from the air of I’m so much better than everyone else, I just talk about myself in order to try to help people and connect with people when appropriate. And I’m equally interested in everyone else around me then it seems like people like it and it helps people. And I know I like it and it helps me. And so I finally had to just be like in my head, I love you dad but I’m just going to talk about myself if I want to and embrace who I really am.

And so I was teasing my dad the other day because he does not talk about himself, he really doesn’t. You can tell, in conversations he asks questions about you but you don’t find out much about him because he kind of keeps it all locked up. He’s kind of a mystery that guy. I don’t know. I was giving him a hard time about something the other day and I said, “I just want you to set a goal to start talking about yourself more often.” And he laughed. And I said, “No, not just talking about yourself, I want you to brag, dad, that’s your assignment, you need to start bragging about yourself.”

Because he really is great and he’s done so much, and he has so many strengths and skills, and things to offer and I want to hear about it personally. I want to benefit from it and I know other people do as well. And I was partly kidding but partly not.

And I think there are some of you listening to this podcast who have so much experience, you have stories about things you’ve done, or witnessed, or lived through in your life. And the person that you became because of how you overcame that, or the things that you learned, or the things you’re good at, the things that you know, the ideas that you have. And you’re just sort of keeping them to yourself and I think that’s kind of rude. I think you should share them with all of us. I think you should start bragging more.

I think you should start letting yourself show up in all of your glory. And some people might be irritated, I won’t lie, but I won’t be one of them. I love to be around someone that embraces themselves, it’s so inspiring, it’s so energizing. Do you see this? Do you have people that you love to be around because they embrace themselves? I just wanted to hop on today and make a case for bragging. I think we should all brag a little more. I think we should brag knowing that we did not create ourselves and that none of us are any better than anyone else.

But let’s celebrate who we are, because I promise you my friend, no matter what your situation is, no matter what your life looks like, no matter what you have achieved or have not achieved you have so much that’s worth celebrating. And I want to celebrate it with you. Please allow us.

Alright you guys, thanks for tuning in today. Have a beautiful rest of your week. I’ll see you next time. Bye bye.

Who is your life coach? If you don’t have one I would be so honored to be your coach. I created a virtual coaching program called Be Bold that I want to invite you to join me in. We can address challenges, we can work on goals, and we can do it in so many different ways.

We have group coaching, individual private coaching, and online chats along with hundreds of hours of courses and content that I’ve created just for you. When you’re ready to really take what you’re learning on the podcast to the 10x level, then come check out Be Bold at JodyMoore.com/membership.