bruh

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When I was going through a painful and shadowy phase, a true friend, the kind who really sees me, sent me this meme:

“May you have the confidence of a mediocre white man.”

Bahahahahaha!!!!

And also, oh shit. Truth.

Because seriously… I remembered a story about a friend’s old coworker who applied for a job in Montreal. One of the main criteria of the job was you had to speak French, because, duh, they speak French in Quebec.

Anyway, the guy gets the job. Day 1, they learn he doesn’t speak a lick of French. Pas du tout.

When they brought it up, he was like, “It’s ok you’ll figure it out.”

And so they did! Whut?

How many times have you known an extremely capable yet humble person (not necessarily, but disproportionately likely a woman) who talked themselves out of even applying for something if they weren’t 100% certain they were qualified (or even overqualified)? Maybe that was you?

And yet this dude just straight up ignored a requirement for communicating with other humans, and believed he deserved the job anyway. Wow.

So this whole mediocre white man joke opened something up inside of me…

It sparked an inner burst of no-seriously-wtf. A forehead-slap style aha:

Woah, I actually DO need the confidence of a mediocre white man.

What would it be like to just EXPECT to get the opportunities I want… with zero proving.

What would it be like to put things out there and just ASSUME people obviously want it, without overthinking or maybe even considering whether it’s good enough.

Does it break your heart too, to see some of the most capable people, the ones brave enough to follow a calling, who know the impact they are here to make is needed… holding back because of some flavor of self-doubt…

…when some random dude with half the skills and an ounce of the passion passes them by because he just has… the freaking AUDACITY?

I decided - In order to boldly claim the confidence that I knew I had earned, yet which somehow still had a tendency to get buried somewhere in the shadows of aw shucks and lil ol me…

I needed a hack. A super power. I needed my very own… Alter Eg-Bro.

So I invented Brody.

When I get scared to press send, I ask, “What would Brody do?”

When I catch myself locked inside what I call my “perfectionist lab” tweaking everything before daring to share it with anyone, I ask, “What would Brody do?”

I’ll tell you what Brody would do.

Brody would publish from his phone over his bowl of captain crunch, pump out a few self-congratulatory pushups, text his buddy something like “winning the day bruh. crushing.”

That’s my boy Brody.

He’s cocky AF and proud of it. Honestly, as much as I’d never date him, his energy is pretty dang fun to summon.

When I strut into to kitchen and aggressively chest bump my husband Myles (white man, not mediocre) he’ll just be like, “Brody?” And then he’ll give me a fist bump because he knows I just did something brave.

See, as much as I sometimes think I’m the only one who feels this way, I know I’m not.

There are certain patterns and conditioned ways of thinking that hold each of us back.

And so I invented an Alter Eg-Bro antidote to the big ones many of us have faced in one way or another.

Wanna meet your Alter Eg-Bro?

You can take the 2 minute Alter Eg-Bro quiz here >

And then please let me know who yours is!!! I’m dying to know.

🩷 Anne