Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins

Inspiring Women, Episode 4: Entitled to Nothing, Empowered to do Anything

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Betty’s Show Notes

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Betty: [00:00:00] You’re entitled to nothing but you’re empowered to do anything. I want to talk about that today.

Betty: [00:00:06] In order to talk about that we have to really kind of define what entitlement is and what empowerment is. There are two very very different things.

Betty: [00:00:15] So entitlement. I look at it as a state of mind. It’s a state or condition that you are entitled. You have rights to something. Notice there’s no action in there. It’s just I have rights. It’s the belief that you deserve more for whatever reason. You could list those out. Let’s add one more word to entitlement. Call it self-entitlement. And it’s really when an individual you know they see themselves for more than they are. They see that they have privilege that probably is unearned. Those are people who believe that life owes them something. There’s a reward. There’s a measure. There is some kind of success. There’s a standard of living that they should have.

Betty: [00:01:02] Very few people are the queen of England and their children get to get this, their children get to have that. There’s very few people that might be a second or third generation with the name Hilton. Those things don’t exist a lot. Nothing wrong with those things. That’s true entitlement because of your name.

Betty: [00:01:21] But really if you look at what entitled people are like here’s a few characteristics. They’re uncompromising attitude. They have very little regard for how someone else feels. They have a very sense of over-exaggerated self-importance. What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own. That’s how they live. They’re probably very one sided. In fact in their mind, no reciprocation is necessary, don’t worry about it. They’re incredibly lazy, at the end of the day. They overstate their own achievement by underrating you. They have unrealistic view of the world. Or they just justify their tantrums. They’re like toddlers. And when anger doesn’t work they choose passive aggressiveness. I think they’re both just as bad. But when all else fails, poor little me.

Betty: [00:02:18] And we think of entitled people as just Generation X or Millennials or whoever’s going to be next right? But it really goes beyond them, because who do you think taught them to have the mindset? The Boomers and the people before them. So you can’t totally just say “oh that’s the entitled generation.” Sorry we taught them to be entitled.

Betty: [00:02:41] Do you know people like that in your life that I just described? Or maybe even better yet you probably have some of those traits yourself?

Betty: [00:02:49] So let’s go to some of the more fun. The definition of empowerment. It’s not a state of mind, it’s an act or an action. You’re either empowering yourself or someone else. You’re either granting the right to someone to do something great to do something not so great. Who cares. Being empowered is something that you’re doing. Empowered people are confident, they believe in themselves. They know their value. They understand that, and they consider life a reward not, “I need a reward.” They don’t get irritated often. Everybody gets irritated sometimes though. And they look for what they can learn from something. They don’t dwell on the negative.

Betty: [00:03:33] They take care of themselves. They validate themselves so others don’t have to. That’s a big one. They’re not defensive. They accept compliments with the grace and they trust themselves. They live by their own rules and most importantly they probably embrace possibilities more than anyone. Now do you know someone like that. Are you that person?

Betty: [00:03:57] When I was going through looking at what entitlement means what empowerment means and the characteristics, what was very interesting was empowered people had a lot more characteristics. There was a lot more that described them and of course it was all positive. Night and day. Who do you know, either group? And who do you want part of your organization or your business? Which business partner do you want? And what mindset do you look for your kids to have? Entitled or empowered? What kind of employees do you want entitled or empowered?

Betty: [00:04:34] The answer is really easy. We all want empowerment around us. We want to empower but getting it done is hard. And by the way it’s never ending. It’s a constant.

Betty: [00:04:46] So I’m going to tell you a little bit of a story. For me at the age of 14 my mom sat me down and she talked about college. She talked about the importance of education. We all have that. She didn’t want me to have the same choices that she had which were very few without being educated.

Betty: [00:05:02] And so when it came to working and opportunity she wanted me to have every bit of it that we could. And she talked to me also about experiencing college, living on a campus, something she never got to do except for two years. She never did get her college degree. She also talked about the cost and what would it take to get there. So she handed me an application. I’m 14 years old. She handed me an application to complete a work permit and explained to me, “Here’s the college. So you got to go work and save for it so you could afford to go take care of it and do it.” There wasn’t “your father and I are going to write the check.” There wasn’t “we’re going to go into debt all over the place. We’re going to make sure you go and take whatever you want.” It was very thought through.

Betty: [00:05:53] And she also explained to me that I was probably going to take debt because hey I have a great job when I get out. And that was the mindset. So I worked and I saved I did what she said I’m 14 years old. And by the way when I was 17 I moved to college. And I got in my brother’s car because the three of us shared a car, we did not have our own cars. And we drove to college and we didn’t stop at Target and go to a big section from going back to college.

Betty: [00:06:17] We just packed what we had in our rooms and we went and by the way we unpacked the car and we moved in. Done. And I went to registration and I wrote a check from my checking account. I loved it. I worked all through college. I continued to save all through college. I still went into debt all through college. And I actually didn’t get my real degree for nine months after because I still had a 400 dollar balance on my bill.

Betty: [00:06:43] So hard work. I got it done. That was empowerment. It was worth it. And it was mine and I owned it. When I was 14 because my mom said here’s a vision here’s how you get there and it’s yours. She showed me potential and opportunity and but she also said now here’s what it’s going to take to make it happen.

Betty: [00:07:07] That’s empowerment. It’s empowerment in action. It’s not entitlement. I didn’t have a right to be at college. I either wanted to be there, or I didn’t.

Betty: [00:07:17] It all sounds good it sounds so easy it’s positive and it’s motivating. And I compare it to the feeling when you work all day in the yard. I love to work in the yard. And you then see all the results of landscaping and cleaning up and power washing. But you are exhausted. It’s a good feeling and you soak in the tub. You sleep well. That’s called empowerment to me.

Betty: [00:07:40] What relationships in your life go from empowerment to entitlement or entitlement to power? I think you need to really look at the relationships and the circumstances in your life to go, “no wonder this isn’t working.” So to be empowered you have to do the following just like my mom. You’ve got to be intentional and create that vision of what it looks like.

Betty: [00:08:01] Oh by the way you have to have a plan. Get over it. You got to have a plan there doesn’t work. You always figure out your why. Why are you doing this? Well for me back in the day it was because I was going to have a good job and have a good opportunity through my life. The how, what, and when. That’s the easy stuff to figure out. The mindset that really good things like college educations, or careers, whatever you want to put in there, fill in your blank, it takes time and patience is required. You can either have a roasted turkey by your grandmother or you can have a microwave frozen dinner. Choose.

Betty: [00:08:36] Oh by the way when you want to be empowered or you want to empower, enabling is no longer allowed and letting go is crucial. And most certainly, enjoy the journey. But you got to see it all the way to the end.

Betty: [00:08:49] My mom did all these things in the process of my education as well as transition into life. And she had six kids in five years. We were her world. Yet she was trying to get us to go out and do what we did.

Betty: [00:09:00] Now my son I did a lot of what she did I did with my kids. My son was a little bit different. He taught me a good lesson on life. I laid out his vision and terms. He said no. And he chose a different path on his terms. I’ll never forget the day he showed up in my office and he said I’m going to Boston. I’m going to Eastern Nazarene College, and I’m going to be a pastor. I started to interrupt him about the vision and terms because that’s not we talked about, right? He stopped me and said I’m going with you or without you, but I’m going.

Betty: [00:09:34] In my mind, I knew he would go and make it. I still didn’t help him. I didn’t write any checks, I just said go for it. And I had to sit back and learn and watch. Not easy.

Betty: [00:09:45] So to be empowering to those around you ask them what the vision is for their career, for the office, for our clients, for our family, for kids. On and on. My kids had a passion. I was going to go get a job they were going to follow passions. But that’s OK. I did at least learn through my son. I needed to see what they wanted to do.

Betty: [00:10:07] Live the behaviors that you want them to embrace around you and your office or in your families. I do that and I still do and if anyone acted like you what would your office, family, relationships look like? Sorry these hard questions come with my podcast but it’s kind of true. That the thing that I love, help uncover your exceptional talent and value it. Not everyone is the same. And chances are if you’re using your talents you’ll be more successful and happy. I’m a CPA with soft skills. Not usually seen in my industry. So I leverage and use those talents in a different way.

Betty: [00:10:46] The biggest and hardest one for me to empower those around me is I have to be quiet. OK? I have to state the problem and the vision and the goal and let them come up with solutions. We had a book club in my office a couple of years ago. For about 18 months it was very effective because they were reading and they were learning and they were figuring out how to solve our issues in our office, not me.

Betty: [00:11:13] And you got to give and take. The give and take have to be the right thing not the easy thing. And it can’t just be that you’re going to get a return from that give and take. People know the difference.

Betty: [00:11:24] So when it came for my kids to go to college I took that same approach as my mom. I was going to choose empowerment and not entitlement. But you know a few things change from 1980 to 2010. A little bit different. I sat down with my kids just like my mom but we talked about college. We talked about majors with passion. We talked about the costs. We talked what it would take to get there. And we talked for years. And we modified when necessary. And when it came to an end, graduation was the celebration not the end. It was the beginning. They were both seniors and they were on winter break and we were done with the holidays so I sat down with them and I said look we’ve got to talk.

Betty: [00:12:02] You’re going to be educated adults. And I set boundaries as your mom. On June 30th, I’m done. And you’re going to be on your own. And here’s the titles to your cars and here’s a good insurance agent. And you better start researching phone plans. Some of them parents don’t do today. Something we don’t do in our offices today. Instead we think about if we reward more and expect less,they’ll stay with us. Instead if we’ve just empowered and quit the entitled state of mind, we’d have a different result.

Betty: [00:12:37] I also told my kids when you’ll leave the room for the last time and there’s no more bed in your room, it’s my room and I now have a great office and a walk in closet. Sometimes it’s just time for life to go on and letting go and helping empowering them was the way to do it.

Betty: [00:12:55] I really believe in the success of my education as well as my kids and this is just one example of the difference of entitlement and empowerment. Empowerment was always behind it all. And there was no entitlement in the mix. When empowerment and entitlement are your state of mind of your family, your office, your business, you’ll embrace any possibility. Again you’re entitled to nothing, but you can be empowered to do anything.