The Manic Candice Podcast
Lessons Learned The Hard Way
[Music] Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Manic Candice Podcast. It took real Candice back at it again with the brand new episode of the podcast. And today, this morning, this afternoon, this good night, we are going to discuss all the things that I learned the hard way. Now, this is your opportunity to gain wisdom at my expense. I'm going to be 29 in two and a half weeks. And I'm proud to say I don't have many regrets. I don't think I have any at all. But I say that because I've learned from our mistakes, some things I have repeated time and time again until I finally learned. I'm stubborn and I sometimes I have the tendency to always feel like I'm in the right, especially in the moment. One of the biggest things I learned the hard way was not to burn bridges. Look, we're humans, okay? We we're not perfect, but we just expect each other to be. And when we don't live up to that, those expectations or other people's expectations of us, things can go awry, we argue, we disagree. It doesn't mean cut people off. I'm someone who has left a bad taste in people's mouths when it came to previous jobs, previous friendships, previous boyfriends, previous acquaintances. And I've always, up until recently, like last year, I've always felt like justified in burning bridges on my end. But I just missed out on a lot of opportunity and a lot of great relationships and a lot of because people have the capacity, I know I do, the capacity and the willingness to forgive. No, I I was someone who would just, one thing when if let's say me and your friends and we had a falling out, that's it. Bridge burned, you know, connections lost, opportunities lost, you know, when you make friends, they come with perks sometimes. Not saying you're using people, but sometimes, you know, your network is your net worth. I'll give you an example. I had a friend who took me in their home when my mom kicked me out of my of our home. And I stole $20 from his sister because I was so desperate, I didn't have any money, my mom kicked me out in the street. She found out and confronted me via Facebook. She made a post about me, but she didn't tag me in it. But she knew it was direct, but I knew it was directed towards me. And it basically said, "Carmen's gonna catch up with you." And it did. It really did. And after I was able to go back home, like I wasn't, I burned that bridge with his sister. Like she'll never fuck with me again. And that hurts no one but myself. The fact that people I burn bridges with, I truly loved. And that they'll never, the fact that they'll never fuck with me again hurts. And I have no one to blame but myself. So I learned the hard way not to burn bridges. Another thing I learned the hard way is that I'm mentally ill. You know, I knew I was sad. I knew that. From an early age, I would say I was sad and unsatisfied with my life at a very early age. Not with my life, but with myself. I wasn't the ideal version of myself that I imagined at years old. And it just, that was my definition of mental illness. But when I turned 24 and my mind was completely gone when I was, when I, I guess my onset of my first manic episode was when I really learned, oh you have a disorder. You have something that can't be cured. Like you have a disability. And it took years to accept that. It's still happening. The exception rate for my mental illness is it's going to be almost five years since my diagnosis. You know, two psych wards, trips later, you know, court-ordered treatment, two times, you know, losing everything twice. I learned the very hard way by losing everything, literally my mind and my possessions, and my job and like just everything, almost my family. I think the hardest part about learning that I mentally ill is just swallowing it. It's the hardest thing to know and to accept that you're broken. And that the rest of your life is going to be spent making up for what's not clicking. I will say on the bright side of being bipolar, I'm really passionate, I'm really creative. And when I have the energy, I can execute things that are really amazing and cool. Like this podcast, like a painting, more things. My God, I'm getting so emotional. Um, slowly but surely, I learned that everything in life, worth having requires hard work. A lot of people probably disagree. But for me, that holds true. Everything that was worth trying for, I worked my ass off. And even though I didn't get it in certain areas, I knew that it would require more work than what I had already put in to achieve it. And I put it in a lot. Like for example, something worth having is a lot of degree to me when I was like 20 years old. That was something worth having becoming a lawyer with something worth doing. So I spent years in college studying. Well, not years. I spent like a few, I spent months studying for the LSATs and bombed it. I'm just not a good test taker. I couldn't, I'm not. And it just, like if I didn't work hard, I wouldn't even have gotten an LSAT score as high as I did. Another thing that's worth having that takes a lot of hard work is talent. You can have talent. You don't got to be born with talent. You can have talent by practicing. Each time you practice, you're one step closer to your mastery. So the only thing that's separating you from someone who is talented, quote unquote, or a very famous person who does what you aspire to do, the living that's separating you is time. Where was I guys? Thank you for all the downloads. By the way, that last month in this month, I really appreciate it. Please share this podcast and this episode with your friends, family and your followers. It's a quick share button. You can send it through Spotify and Apple Apple podcast. It's a little arrow. Then you click SMS or you click Twitter or you click Instagram or Snapchat, just please share the podcast. We are growing exponentially and I have a lot of cool ideas and I just found out that the Manate Canada podcast YouTube is one of the most search terms when it comes to the podcast. So that's exciting because I do plan on going to video, hopefully fingers crossed. Another example of everything worth having in life requires hard work is I remember the first time I lost a lot of weight. I worked my ass off. I lost 40 pounds in two months the right way and I just felt good. I was never more fit in my life than at that time and once I stopped working out, I stopped being fit. It's hard doing hard things. It's hard knowing what you need to do and not doing it. I think that's harder than actually doing what you want to do, that you don't, that you don't want to do. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So another thing I learned the hard way is that people grow apart and that's okay. Me and one of my childhood best friends, we grew apart. I think there are some things that I have done or haven't done that caused her to distance herself from me. I can only speculate the reasons why. I don't think our friendship will be revived at all. But no harm, no foul. We don't have any beef. There wasn't a climatic event, climactic, so to speak and I wish you the best. But it hurt, you know, but that's part of getting, it's a part of growing older is that, you know, we all evolve in our own lives. We start families, we're focused on our careers. We want to get from point A to point B. You know, sometimes prioritizing a friendship comes at the bottom of the list. Sorry, it's okay. Another thing I learned the hard way, not everyone is going to like me. And that's a given, right? I knew that, but to like deal with it, I had to learn how to do that. I never assumed that everyone would like me or I never tried to be someone that everybody liked. I always tried to be polite and respectful, but I never tried to be everyone's favorite, to be the popular, to be anything like that. But to deal with people outright critiquing me, people saying me thanks to me, people rating my podcast Zero Stars or One Star, it hurt my ego a little bit. And I'm just like, I just have to don't, I just have to not care, literally. And by the way, if you're listening, you make it to the end of the episode, or if you already listened to a full episode on Spotify, please give me a rating of five stars. I appreciate it. I had someone that I burned a bridge with. They, their retaliation against me was to get like three or four people to rate my podcast One Star. And I'm like, what the fuck? So I brought my rating down from like 4.5 to 3.8. And I'm like, you fucking bastard. Anyways, I still need to keep my ego in check. And that's another thing I learned the hard way. I'm still learning the hard way, is letting go of my ego. You know, I'm not the most important person in the room. I'm not the prettiest person in the world. I'm not the smartest person in the world, even though I like to think I am, feels good to think that way. But I keep it in check. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. This is our house. This is our rules. Turned up, yeah. So it turned up, yeah. Yeah. We like to party. Dancing with Molly. Do it well. Do it well. Why don't why can't I say that doing whatever? Um, but yeah, not everyone's going to like me. I knew that, but just dealing with it was a hard thing to learn. It was hard to learn not to respond to haters. It's hard to learn not to immediately go into panic mode and ask people to rate my podcast part stars. It was hard to learn how to know my truth when someone is calling me a stupid bitch or when someone says my podcast sucks or like just, no. So another hard lesson is that every day can't be a great day with someone like me. That's my polar. And I know a lot of optimistic people are going to be like, don't look at it that way. No, I have to look at it that way. Have a brain disability. Have a just have a mental illness. Not every day is going to be a good day. I have to assume that the day is not going to go good. I can start at neutral, but who wants to stay at neutral all the time that's boring, that's bland. You know, it's frustrating the treatment of bipolar because it's like you're high and low. I'm at like at any point of the day. And the medicine that is prescribed is supposed to keep you at an equilibrium level of zero. But the problem is is that the pills make you literally numbed out. It's like you're not a person. At least that's what the anti-psychotics do for me. They take away my sparkle, if you know what I mean. Now we're going to the next song because it's more in theme with what we're going through on this episode. Hold on, let me sing this part. [Music] ♪ Drive my heart into the night ♪ ♪ You can drop your keys on in the morning ♪ ♪ Morning ♪ ♪ 'Cause I don't wanna leave you alone ♪ ♪ Without you left ♪ ♪ Without you ♪ Okay, that part is just so beautiful to me. Without it. Some days I wake up and I don't want to move. You know, this past weekend was one of those weekends where I was just like, I don't want to live, dude. I don't want to, I don't want to move. I don't want to get out of bed. You know, I want to clean my room, but I want to stay in bed. It was just like a battle in my head. But I had to learn which I hadn't learned yet. I have to learn how to turn those bad days into mutual days or even good days. 'Cause when the bad days are bad, they can get really bad. Another thing I learned the hard way and I learned from rehab is that if nothing changes, nothing changes. It's so cliche, but it's so true. It's like the one thing that's constant in life is change. You can count on that. You can count on things changing. You know, I have desires. I have goals, but it requires change. And they're going to stay dreams. My goals, they're going to stay dreams if I don't change. So that applies to literally everything. Right now I'm kind of going through something that's going to require a big change for me. I'm planning on changing not what I do for a living, but kind of like a different industry, doing the same type of thing, but in a different industry. But it's going to require me to make a lot of changes in order to get the job. So I'm just like, am I ready for this? Am I up for this? But if I want that job and I'm not willing to change, I'm not going to get that job. So I started learning my lesson like from this is going to save me a lot of grief and, you know, just take that advice, you know, if nothing changes, nothing changes. So make a decision today to change. Another thing I learned the hard way was paying off credit card debt. Did you guys hear that? That was my neck. But yeah, paying off credit card debt was one of the toughest lessons I learned. I did everything wrong at the bank. It was Chase Bank. They they prayed on me. First of all, who lets an 18 year old with no job? Who gives them a credit card? I lied on my application. I had no job. I said that I worked at ASU, which was a lie. It said that I had monthly income from my mother, which was a lie. They gave me a $600 limit credit card. And then a year later, they gave me a $5,000 credit limit from $600 to $5,000. And I was just like, I was just like loving it. You know, I was in college. I was like, oh, everything's on me. And then the interest charges started to hit. And I was like, oh shit, I'm having interest charges on the balance of $5,000. Holy shit. And like, it was at a point where I was only paying interest. I'm like, I'm never going to pay this off. I had to wait for my mom to get off bankruptcy so she could have more money. And she actually helped pay other bills so I could pay off this credit card. I have never been in a bad situation with credit cards ever since. I'm going to have a few episodes on finances now that I'm transitioning out of this industry, the banking industry to another industry. But in the meantime, I have to keep my mouth shut. So another thing I had to learn the hard way is how to be self-aware, how to view yourself as others do, how to view yourself as others potentially would based off your appearance, based off the things you say, based off your online presence. I'm very aware that I am unhinged. I am very aware that I am crazy. I am very aware that I am not everyone's cup of tea. I am very aware of that. So it wasn't always that way though. It wasn't always the case. Like, I would offend people because I wasn't self-aware. I would embarrass people because I wasn't self-aware. I would come across as a bitch. I would come across as unaware because I wasn't self-aware because I couldn't think before I speak because I couldn't think before I acted. As an adult, I hate saying this, but as an adult, you have to take a moment and be the adult in the room. And I don't really know what that means when I say that, but you just got to tighten up your act. Another lesson I learned was don't be shy or else you're going to miss out. If there's someone that you find attractive and they're giving you signals and you're sending signals back, make a move, say something nice, build that rapport, build that attraction. That's what I'm doing now with my crush. I'm still high off with his compliment a couple of months ago where he was like, "You look really good today." And I'm just like, "Yeah, I do. Yes, I do." But the night before, he doesn't know this. By the night before, he told me that. I was in my living room during butt exercises. I was doing squats. I was doing lunges. I did hundreds of squats. So I think his opinion was biased a little bit. I don't know. That could just be me. Another thing that I learned the hard way is how to drive. No, seriously. I was in driving school for a couple of days. It got my license. But how to be a safe driver and a good driver and a considerate driver and also how to race. But in order to be a good driver, I learned the hard way. I got a DUI. I had an interlock admission in my car. My car wouldn't start unless I blowed in the ignition. Had to pay for that. Had to go to jail, pay for that, go to court. I was sued for everything I had. She didn't get anything. But my insurance skyrocketed. I had to pay for a specialized liability insurance for three years because I had a DUI. I learned the very hard way to drive safely. Another thing that I want to really highlight in learning the hard way is learning not to live beyond my means. Living beyond your means, literally means you are purchasing things and financing a lifestyle that hinders your ability to take care of yourself financially. I was always in a rut with money two years ago. I lived in an apartment I couldn't afford on my own. I was buying things online instead of paying for bills because I knew I could get that money back by asking my mom. I was so spoiled two years ago. I still spoiled, but like two years ago, I fucking milked it. And spiritually, it did a number on me because although I had these things, although I had all these possessions and I could get anything I wanted to literally at a click, I was empty. I was still using drugs. I was still sleeping around. I was just like, my trauma wasn't addressed properly until recently, but living beyond your means is almost like an escape because you're always looking for that next product, always looking for that next experience to pay for, to make you feel secure. Living beyond your means is a sign of financial and probably personal insecurity. I learned that I can't do everything by myself. Even if I have a business and it's my idea and it's my creation, I'm not going to be able to bring it to life by myself. I'm going to have to share my my vision. I'm going to have to share with others who are going to be there to help me bring forth, help me manifest my dreams, whatever they may be. In the past, I have failed at executing my dreams, my big dreams because I tried to do it on my own time and time again. I tried to do it on my own and I wasn't willing to work with other people. I wasn't willing to take another idea. There wasn't willing to pivot. So I say all these to say, I hope you take something from this podcast and apply it to your own life and your own personal situation and learn from my mistakes. Thank you for listening to the Manate Candice podcast. This is Candice with another episode. Thank you for listening. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, good night, and I bet you would do my friends. Bye-bye!