The story is this: if I don't need anything from anyone, I can't get hurt. I learned that as a kid. I was the oldest of two, and asking for anything felt like a burden. So I became self-sufficient. I learned to take care of myself and my brother early. People praised me for it. I built a lot of success on it.

I thought I'd worked through this story two years ago. I found the piece underneath it, that being quiet and small felt like the price of being loved. Naming that changed my life. Friendships, my marriage, my career identity, a lot of it fell away because it no longer fit.

Then this week, feelings I couldn't name showed up. A friend helped me find the soft spot underneath them. I realized knowing the truth about a story and healing from it are two different things. I still had to sit with the parts of me that are scared, and tell them they're not wrong for feeling that way.

If you've built a life on trying to not be a burden to others, I hope this episode tells you something you need to hear. There's another version of that story, and it's worth finding.

Latoya grew up believing she had to prove herself. It started in a big family that measured love through achievement. It followed her into corporate America, where she was often the youngest person in the room, or the only woman. She learned to lead with accomplishments because accomplishments got her love and respect.

Then a friend told her something simple. You don't have to prove anything. It took her over a year to actually believe it.

In this episode, we talk about where that story started, what it cost her, and how she finally put it down. We also talk about the one place it still shows up: her love life. And about the night her daughter said something that stopped Latoya cold and showed her exactly how far this story can travel.

Ten years in, she has. And the story she's unlearning now is even more interesting.

We talk about the inner voice that shows up right when you hang your own shingle, why surrounding yourself with good people is a strategy and not just advice, and what it actually costs to wait. Shan also gets into what she'd say to the version of herself who was chickening out, and why the scariest thing she could do next is still something she hasn't named yet.

This one's for anyone who's been really, really good at building something for someone else and hasn't quite let themselves believe they can do it for themselves.

Then I got there. And it didn't feel the way I expected.

In this trailer episode, I share the story I told myself for decades, the moment it started to fall apart, and the question that opened everything up: "If everything is on the table, what would you choose today?"

What I Make Up About That is a podcast about the stories we tell ourselves. About success, identity, and what we think we deserve. Every two weeks, I sit down with guests who are in the middle of questioning those stories, or who've already come out the other side.

New episodes drop every two weeks. Subscribe so you don't miss the first guest episode.