Be Not Afraid: How Learning Differences, Confidence, and One Tiny Daily Ritual Can Change Everything

What if the story you tell yourself about being “not smart enough” is just a bad fit between your brain and a test format? We open up about growing up with the quiet fear of not measuring up, the panic of multiple-choice exams, and the surprising relief that came from changing the way questions were asked. When the puzzle layer fell away, knowledge finally had room to show up—no extra genius required, just a fairer way to think and respond.

From there, we explore learning differences without shame: how timing, ambiguity, and test-maker intent can derail capable minds, and how accommodations like oral exams and extended time aren’t shortcuts but bridges to accuracy. Carmen shares a small, luminous practice—the toothbrushing smile—that acts like a daily reset. It sounds simple because it is: look in the mirror, smile for real, and watch your nervous system unclench. That tiny habit makes it easier to greet strangers with warmth, to start softer, and to carry less static into the day.

The conversation turns on a phrase that finally landed: be not afraid. A client with power and status reflected Carmen’s strengths back to her until they stuck. That mirror—of competence, kindness, and calm under pressure—reframed worth beyond grades, titles, and money. We talk about the mask of “behave as if,” why many of us wear it, and how confidence shifts from performance to alignment when we stop trying to decode other people’s expectations and start honoring our own wiring.

If you’ve ever felt small in classrooms, meetings, or social circles, this story invites you to audit your beliefs: Who taught you them? Do they serve you now? Try the smile ritual, ask for the format that lets your mind work, and practice be not afraid in small, brave steps. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a kinder story about intelligence, and leave a review so more listeners can find their way here.

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Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.

Chapters

• 0:09 Nervous Start And First Question
• 0:27 Childhood Beliefs About Intelligence
• 1:38 The Multiple-Choice Maze
• 4:32 Finding Help And Accommodations
• 7:10 Learning Styles And Self-Worth
• 9:48 The Smile Ritual Reset
• 13:45 Be Not Afraid: Owning Value
• 18:29 Why Beliefs Matter And Choosing Joy
• 23:00 Gratitude And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:09

Hey everyone, welcome to All About the Joy.

SPEAKER_03: 0:11

This is Carmen Talk. I honestly I don't know why I'm so nervous. Okay. You can go ahead. You can you can you can answer the first question. I'm ready. I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01: 0:24

Alright, here we go. What's something you believed as a kid that you now find hilarious?

SPEAKER_03: 0:30

That's a good one. Okay, just give me a I just need a second. I used to believe that I wasn't really smart. I always thought that I was much dumber than everyone around me, whether it was in grammar school or high school. I just always thought that intellectually speaking, I was not as smart as everybody else in the class. And I used to think that, you know, this is also when I really believed in God and stuff and the way that, you know, you're taught when you go to Catholic school and whatever. I always kept thinking, I actually think an adult actually said to me, Well, you were given other gifts, you know, not everyone can be A, B, C, and D, you know? And it wasn't until I actually went to college where things changed and I understood something completely different about intelligence and about what it means to be smart. And so I'll give you an example. I was, you know, taking tests all the time, and I'm sure a lot of people have taken these same kinds of tests. They're pretty um dominant in kind of SATs and PSATs, where they ask you a question and then they ask you all the multiple choice questions afterwards. And so they would ask you something like, I'll give you an example, because I I have one, I have an example. So the question would be, and this is like really simple just to make the point, but it would be something like a, you know, which object is most likely to be found on a kitchen counter? That would be a question, let's say. And then it would give you four options. The first option would be a device used to heat food quickly using electromagnetic waves. Second qu answer could be a container designed to keep perishable items cold. The third option could be a tool used for slicing ingredients into smaller pieces. The fourth answer could be a machine that stores and washes dishes automatically. Now those four answers a microwave, a refrigerator, a knife, a dishwasher, all of those could be the correct answer as far as I'm concerned, as far as my mind would be. And what I would do is I would fixate on I would get stressed out because I would be able to see how each one of those, I would, I could tell the story of how each one of those answers could be it. So I would always end up, not only would I probably get most of those wrong because I would be, but really what would happen is I would take too much time in trying to answer the question, so I would never finish the test. And um, the answer to this SAT question, by the way, it's it's not actually an SAT question, but the example is uh a knife. But that is what would happen to me on a continuous basis. So if I had to be involved in a timed test, something would happen in my brain that I would get even more stressed out, and then I would really be picking on each single answer. Um, and when I went to college, what was happening was I was studying all the time. I was, I mean, I was always trying to be as smart as everybody else in the room. You know, I was always trying to be as smart as my friends were, and I knew that I wasn't, so I had to do even more work. And I kept failing. That first semester, I kept doing so badly on every test. And luckily, luckily for me, I knew people in the administration. And I told them I was gonna quit. I told them I was leaving, that this wasn't for me, blah, blah, blah. And they got me tested because they even understood that I was legitimately just so stressed out and not doing well, no matter how hard I tried. So I got tested. And here's the thing: I don't actually have a disability. I just don't have a fundamental basic understanding, or I didn't have a basic understanding of certain skill sets. And the other part of this that's really important to understand is these kinds of tests actually don't just test your knowledge. You know what I mean? They kind of become a logic maze and a simple question that if you just asked me the question, I would have said knife. If you just, instead of giving me all of the different possibilities, because my brain functions in a very simple logical way. That doesn't mean I'm not um smart. It doesn't mean I don't know the answers. It means that um I'm just not someone who's into decoding, you know, a test maker's intention, you know. And I I kind of love that. Um, I think that one of the problems that we do to children, and that happened to me, is that people would tell me I could be anything I want to be if I just worked really hard, but then I didn't have the tools to actually do that. So no matter, like if you're working really, really hard and you're doing the same thing over and over again that's continuously giving you a mistake and you don't know what you don't know, you're just digging the hole deeper. You know, so these tests weren't for me. And what ended up happening was uh because of the test taking I did, and because of people like Barry Mansfield and Patty Corklin, these are people at UVM, um, they talked to my professors. Some professors said, absolutely not. She's got to take the test like everybody else. But a lot of the other professors were like, sure, she can come in, take the test, it'll be an oral test. Um, or she can take the same test as everyone else, but it'll have to be multiple, you know, she can take as much time as she needs to. Some people turned around and, you know, made accommodations in that I would have to sit with a uh TA or teacher's assistant or whatever, and I would take my test, even if it took me a little bit longer. Uh, I could do that. Uh, and and that allowed me not to have so much stress, and I could at least get the answers out, even if I was going through and um, you know, kind of nitpicking over what every single how every single answer could actually be the answer, you know. Um, so this is nothing against SATs or PSATs. I think they're not as important anymore to get into college and not indicative of how intelligent you are. But when I was growing up, all the test taking was like that. And, you know, there's no real answer, but I, you know, for for why people learn differently, I don't know. Um, I don't want to blame it on my childhood because I I think people, we we all have different difficult childhoods. But I do think what's important is that we're all so uniquely different. And so we all learn differently. And that's what I love seeing in kids. I love seeing like how they pick up. And and, you know, I don't know anything about teaching, and I'm not gonna pretend that I do, but when I see some of my nieces and nephews when they were growing up, I could tell immediately which one had an air for, you know, really great comprehension when they read something versus when somebody else really had to visually see something and um just the pacing of how people learn. And I was always grateful because once I understood how I could take a test, and once I understood that I actually was pretty smart, because here's the thing if you asked me any of the questions that I had to answer, I could answer them. What I couldn't do is the puzzle or the maze of when you gave me all the different options. Um, that's a different skill set that has nothing to do with being smart. It has a very different idea of like how your brain works. I'm extremely logical and I also need things to be really kind of, I don't want to say black and white, but if you're gonna ask me a question, ask the question. If we want to talk about nuance or whatever, that's a different thing. If we're gonna talk about theory and possibilities, and I can do that too. But what I can't do is decipher that within. And look at, here's the thing. A lot of people can't. It's not just me. A lot of people can't. But when you're not told that and you're put up against other people, you start to feel bad about yourself, right? You start to think like you're not good enough. And for the longest time, for the longest time, I thought I wasn't as smart as everyone else. And now I find it hilarious because I realize I was not only in incredibly smart, I still did okay, better than most people with even this misunderstanding. I mean, I was a solid B student. It killed me. It killed me to be a B student, but I did better than some people who had the gift of just, you know, understanding how to take those tasks. So it is something that makes me laugh now.

SPEAKER_00: 9:48

So what's a quirky ritual or routine that just always makes your day a little bit better?

SPEAKER_03: 9:54

Huh. What's a routine? Okay, this is something I don't think I've ever told anybody this, but I will I'll I will share this. So when I brush my teeth in the morning, one of the things I do is I uh once I finish brushing my teeth, I smile at myself in the mirror. And I probably brush my teeth three to four times a day. And every time it's part of a ritual where I just smile at myself and I'm like, and I should probably explain where that came from because I have to give credit to, I don't remember her name, but I used to go to this day camp when I was a little kid. It's after my mom passed away. And I used to always go to the day camp and I loved all the camp counselors there. Some of them were chairleaders for Boston College, some of them were football players for Boston College. And um one day, well, I mean, I always ran away from home, but uh I ran away and I went to the dorms where I knew one of them lived. And she was dating one of the camp counselors, one of the guys that was one of the camp counselors where I ran away to or whatever. I don't know. But she was there and she was very comforting, very nurturing, very kind to me. And she kept telling me over and over again, I want you to make sure that you smile at yourself every day when you're brushing your teeth. I want you to then turn around when you're done. I want you to smile at yourself in the mirror. Let's do it right now in the mirror together. And I remember, you know, as I'm like doing that whole weird, ugly cry with the big gaps, you know, like I remember doing it and starting to laugh and feeling better about everything. And I've never forgotten that. And I started incorporating that in my daily ritual, and it is really a daily ritual, and it's something that I think more people need to do. Because here's the thing: when you smile, and I don't have any, I don't have any information to back any of this up. This is just me, okay? When you can smile at yourself, a genuine smile, it does play like a reset. It does change your energy, it does make things feel like, okay, different, you know? Um, and what's even better about it is that then I find myself really able to smile at strangers and to people in general. And I have to tell you, it freaks out people a little bit. I mean, I'm just being like, hi, good morning, you know, but I do it. And I do it not just to, you know, give people a little reminder or just to say hi. I mean, some people will just say hi back. And um, I'm always shooketh by the young people who are like, hi, good morning. They get so excited, you know. Um, but people love when you smile at them too, you know, when it's a genuine hello or a genuine hi, and I find it so much easier. I think all of these little things go back to this trajectory of always trying to be in a place of joy. And uh, that's one of them. That's one of my little secrets. So uh people should practice it. It's really a great thing. And by the way, back then I had braces and I had a really ugly smile, and I had teeth all in front of each other and whatever. And when she said that I had a beautiful smile, look at my smile. Like she kept doing that. It just was something that lit up in me, and it was just brilliant. Probably one of the most brilliant life lessons as a kid that I learned from a stranger, because I don't know who she is to this day. I don't remember. I feel bad.

SPEAKER_01: 13:39

What's a piece of advice that you once ignored and now you kind of wish you hadn't?

SPEAKER_03: 13:45

Question. Um, I the first thing that comes to mind is be not afraid. And I was always told that. I was always, you know, I'm not gonna lie. I I I really had some great people in my life who just went out of their way to make sure um I was okay. Um and be not afraid is something that was constantly kind of in my childhood and in my upbringing, but I don't think I understood what it meant for the longest time. I ignored it because I was like, I'm not afraid. Of course I'm not afraid, duh. You know, it was like, you know, like just like any teenager would say or whatever, but it wasn't until I was working for one of my clients who has since passed away. She was an older lady, and this was like crazy money. This was like somebody with a with with ridiculous money who's, you know, all of her children had nannies, and you know, she was always somebody who was doing philanthropic work, and um she just was someone that you could never imagine, like, you know, cleaning a toilet or something. You know what I mean? It was just kind of that thing. And but we got to know each other, and she was so invested and interested in how I grew up, and she knew my story. She knew my entire story. And this was way before I wrote my book, right? We're talking about when I first moved out to California and stuff. So she would ask me all these questions about my mom, about growing up the way I did, about the neighborhood, about she was just so interested. And she would always say these things like, you're just such a brilliant human being. After everything you've been through, look at how good you are at this. Or you should, she always used to say I should be a business life coach, which is always so funny, because I think those things are kind of against each other, but I know what she meant, you know, because I was able to help her to fix things, to kind of give her advice that she never thought about. And here she was. I mean, it wasn't just that she had a lot of money, she also had businesses, you know what I mean? So she always seemed to marvel at my ability to not just adapt to the situation because I would meet with lawyers with her, I would meet with, you know, the CPAs, I would meet with people on, you know, in all of these different um arenas that we would find ourselves in. You know, she also knew a lot of big-time celebrities who were some of her best friends. And I just, she was always like, you're just always so comfortable and kind. And then she would talk about her own children and the mistakes that she made with her own children. And here's why this is so interesting to me. Because it wasn't until that moment, until I was speaking to someone who in my childhood I would have thought of being someone that would never pay me any mind or would never even consider me an equal. That's when I realized that I was not just equal to her, that she thought I was in some way, shape, or form, even better than I thought of myself, you know. She didn't just see me as being equal. She actually treated me like I was even better at certain things than she was, you know, and I think I understood from her the most that all the things I feared about what people thought about me, that I wasn't smart enough, you know, that I wasn't pretty enough, that I wasn't all of these things. Um, she kind of broke that in me a little bit by just acknowledging that she, this woman of prestige and wealth and who knows everybody in town and, you know, has international clients and all of this stuff. Like she just made me feel like, oh my God, I am of such value. And I think that's when I started understanding not to be afraid of being who I am. And here's the thing you know, most people who know me from when I was little and growing up or in grammar school, high school, or whatever, always thought I was this really strong, confident kid who always knew what she was going to do. Like there's the there's the facade that I think we all walk in, right? The mask. Um, because I always believed in, you know, um behave as if, right? That was kind of my motto as a kid. Like just winging, you know, but that didn't mean it was true. And it wasn't until I moved to California and really met her and and and understood how valued she thought I was, you know, and I was giving her advice about things that I would have never imagined someone of her quote unquote caliber would ever ask someone like me, you know? And that's when I kind of learned, you know, be not afraid, be who you are, be who you is because it is good enough, it is brilliant enough. It's like you are somebody who contributes to the world just by existing. And you may think that other people have more than you do, are smarter than you, are better than you because maybe they drive a certain car, or maybe they have a certain amount of money, or maybe they look a certain way, or whatever, but they're probably looking at you and being like, wow, and you never know what it is that they're interested in. I had no idea why she thought I was so amazing until she explained to me that I had been given a gift. She was kind of trying to say, it's a gift because you you took what was in front of you and you made it great anyway, and look at you now. And she was always pumping me up that way. Look at who you are now. You moved out here, you've got a name for yourself, people respect you, everybody wants to hire you. She would always cause it's true, when I was working for her, people were always trying to get me to work for them, like her friends, you. So um, but I I always think about that. Be not afraid. I wish, I wish I had met her when I was like 12. And um, you know, it's not that other people didn't tell me that, but you know, like when people tell you stuff all the time, it's just something else will click in your brain and it'll make sense. But my confidence that I had up until that time was it was real and it was what it was, but it was also part of the facade of not wanting to be hurt or not wanting to be taken advantage of. But after I met her, I understood, like, yeah, be not afraid. I am who I is and this is it. And and and my confidence is a very different thing today than it was back then. I mean, I think that's true for anybody, but you know what I mean. What do I want people to get from this? I think I think if I reveal parts of who I am, I think it at least lets people think about what they think about it. You know, I think a lot of us don't consider the depths of our decisions too much. I wish that we would. I wish that more people would understand why they believe what they believe, where that belief system comes from. Uh is it something that you should keep believing today? You know, I feel like when I reveal parts of who I am, like the smile thing, I've I've actually never shared that at all. Um, but I hope somebody, one person tomorrow brushes their teeth and does it, you know, and they can start to see how one small act might change and reset their morning or reset their afternoon or whatever it is because they can do this small little thing. I feel like when I share a piece or a part of who I am or what I believe, it doesn't matter whether somebody else believes it or not. I think what matters is that that person takes it in and then says to themselves, hmm, I wonder what I think about it too. I wish for a world where we are much more interested in why we believe what we believe as opposed to just believing the thing that we were told to believe because our parents said this or somebody said that or whatever it is. But like, why do you believe it? You know? And for me, the essence of everything I do comes back to trying to always be a person who comes from a place of joy and positivity. And um I kind of figured that out uh when I was writing my first book. But I do really believe that my life really is all about the joy. I I love that I named my company that, and I love that that's what I'm trying to promote on a regular basis. And if I can help other people find tiny pieces of joy, then I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do here. You know, I don't mean to be so dorky about it, but it's absolutely true. So yeah, that's what that's about. Are we done? Hey everyone, thank you so much for your support. We really appreciate it. We love that everyone comes and checks out the Carmen Talk, Friday Night Live, Culture and Consequence, and the Private Lounge, all under the umbrella of All About the Joy. And I am just so grateful. I hope these little Carmen Talks help a little tiny bit. Um, I know I enjoy doing them. So until next time, thank you. And remember, at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy. Bye, everyone.

SPEAKER_02: 23:36

Thanks for stopping by, All About the Joy. Be better and stay beautiful, folks. Have a sweet day.