SPFPP 251: Just Set the Price and Live Your Life
Sean Carter in the song "Bam" said a quote that speaks to this podcast episode; "My advice is just don't be too nice to n(eighbors). Just set the price on n(eighbors) and live your life my n(eighbor)". These bars serve as a mantra for me as I navigate the tough transition of how I run SPFPP as a business with boundaries now. For inquiries, email me directly at Courtney@spfpp.org.
I realize the disrespect I've enabled and I'm actively working to untangle the knots I created by taking my own advice and disengaging from all that is disrespectful. That said, my social media interactions are going to be leaning more toward responding to messages. I didn't realize how social media was impacting me until I went from seeing women talk down about men until a transition occurred on my feed due to the almighty algorithm that showed me women being supportive of men, and men as well in a way that resonated but I hadn't experienced. I liked the feeling in my body seeing/reading this positive messaging to and for men. With that new baseline, what I was experiencing was disrespect to a crucial part of my identity as a Man. If you remember the identity series, I was challenging my masculinity, Blackness, and straightness. This caused by my social media intake and since decreasing my intake, I've been able to connect with my own natural energy. I like how I feel when present in the world so I want more of that. I'm still here for ya'll but understand there's changes occurring within me that reflect in the SPFPP space as well. Thanks for understanding. I love ya'll.
Episode 251 Transcript
Sacrifices, Therapy, and Accepting the Core Mission
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: If y'all been following Something Positive for Positive People for a while, then you know that I like to offer moments of vulnerability. And I've spoken to a lot of vulnerable moments throughout the last 5 and 1/2 years of podcasting and running Something Positive for Positive People as an organization even before I knew it was going to be what it has become without being super repetitive. And now I'm in a very calm space where I feel like I can fluidly speak to a big change that is coming not just for Something Positive for Positive People but also for myself. I've moved to Portland, Oregon. It's been going on for a year. It'll be a year October 31st uh that I've been a Portland, Oregon resident. and I moved out here in order to run Something Positive for Positive People full-time. Throughout the last 11 11 and 1/2 months that I've been here, there have been a lot of major strides for the organization. There have been a lot of major strides for myself and these have come at a cost.
00:01:46 Courtney Brame: I've made a ton of sacrifices for myself. Um, I have a wall uh in my room where I've tacked all of the checks that I've received for Something Positive for Positive People. This includes donations. This includes the funding I received from the Oregon Health Authority, which you'll get to hear those podcast episodes over the next 12 weeks as well. And it includes uh some of the conferences that I've spoken at and uh some like yoga classes I've done. I've lately been invited to speak to disease intervention specialists about some of the work that I do and how it relates to their own work and um working to combat burnout. if that's pro that's probably the best way that I can put it. And I'm really proud of this work. I'm really proud of myself and what I've been able to do with Something Positive for Positive People. And what this allows is for me to continue to pour as much of myself into the podcast and the nonprofit and what I do in my day-to-day life as well for people who are seeking some form of herpes support.
00:03:12 Courtney Brame: I was uh speaking to my therapist. I'm still in therapy from 2020 when the pandemic uh the COVID 19 pandemic started. And one of the things that he and I talked about was how hard it's been for me in trying to get to a place of being able to exclusively run Something Positive for Positive People full time. And fortunately, I've found myself in a health care role, a healthcare educator role. Um, I guess I can call myself a sexual health educator or sex educator, whichever. Um, but I'm teaching medical students like I'm teaching medical students how to give an examination on a person with a penis. I'm also working as a simulated patient and offering feedback to medical students and healthcare workers about how they make me feel as a patient. So, I'm you know putting into practice uh within a part-time job what I've been working and doing for the last 5 years. So, it's amazing that I'm able to um witness uh the evolution of myself in this space.
00:04:33 Courtney Brame: I still don't feel like I have a solid home in what it is that I do or a strong firm identity. And going back to what my therapist and I were talking about, the reason for that has been because I have tried so hard to maneuver my way into spaces that aren't what Something Positive for Positive People is that it's not being true to and genuine to the organization to myself or the root of it. And I tried to, you know, really go hard with this is a suicide prevention awareness resource. I tried to go hard with this is sex education and this is a sexual health communications platform. And while it may be all of those things, but the main thing that I have fought against is accepting the fact that this is essentially self-help for people who have herpes. Period. When I try to get opportunities to speak at these conferences and earn money and be able to talk about the need for uh the needs of people who I've spoken to who are living with herpes who represent people who are living with herpes.
00:05:49 Courtney Brame: It seems like it's not taken seriously and like people don't care and also don't have much vocal or verbal support from people who have really benefited from the services of Something Positive for Positive People listening to the podcast and being able to go out into the world and have sex again and disclose. Like people tell me this all the time and while on one hand, you know, I shouldn't need anybody's validation and approval or anything, but it it's validating to me, but it doesn't support the organization out there because for an organization to thrive and for there to be an impact, the people who benefit from it really make up the organization. And I try to put myself in a position where I can continue to pour endlessly into this so that people can just come, take what they need and then leave. But I've struggled with identifying that fine line between giving to people who are receiving and then giving and allowing for myself to be taken from. That has been the ultimate struggle for me because myself being someone who struggles with receiving, I see that spilling into Something Positive for Positive People.
The Power of Consistency and Building the Future of SPFPP
00:07:18 Courtney Brame: And the fastest way to stop doing the thing is to simply stop doing it. So, I have to be able to allow myself to receive by first off just like stop pouring and giving from a cup that is essentially never filling. And what I mean by that is that now there are people, you know who you are, who rock with me, like who hit me up and give me shout outs, give me um ongoing acknowledgement and just like keep me going. And it seems like whenever I'm thinking about making some sort of a major change, I'm met with some sort of nudge from the universe that's telling me which direction to go into. And most recently today, um, I received a message from someone who shared that they've been living in shame for the last 13 years, found the podcast, and they are really looking forward to the changes that are to come, and they talked about how helpful it was, and they even I know they listen because they even made mention of the fact that this is how things work for me, and that I'll think about, oh, Oh, you know, I need to stop the podcast.
00:08:35 Courtney Brame: I'm enabling people to not put things into action and start to work on themselves and implement the things that I'm sharing here. But no, there there's people who are doing it. And to have heard that was validation for me that I'm headed in the right direction with uh providing services in the way that I'm looking to provide the services. So, cutting through all the BS, like I was, I want to wrap up my thought from therapy, which was making myself try and fit into these spaces that I don't belong. Like, I am a space. And I'm getting chills even thinking about this. There's no Black man who's open about having herpes, who receives messages, input, who's interviewing people. Nobody else is doing what I'm doing the way that I'm doing it. You know, I don't I don't see anyone else who is showing up at these conferences, applying for grants, uh advocating as hard as we possibly can for people to just receive better health services, sexual health, mental health, and all of the tentacles of Something Positive for Positive People.
00:09:51 Courtney Brame: Cuz it's not arms, it's tentacles. This thing reaches into a bunch of areas, but at the end of it, y'all, I've been doing this for 5 and 1/2 years consistently. Consistency is a language. Ain't nobody else speaking this language. Who else has been here for the last for five consistent years providing the same level of service, same quality of service? And I have to say this out loud for myself, but like ain't nobody ain't nobody else doing this the way that I am. And I struggled with receiving that from my therapist. I struggled with receiving that even from the people who have given me that acknowledgement. But I've also not given that I've not given that approval and permission to myself just out of a fear of like looking cocky or arrogant or uh like a bad guy because I'm like flexing or stunting on the fact that I'm doing what I'm doing and I'm doing a damn good job at it. And so hearing this from my therapist and giving myself permission to lean into and accept the fact that like this is where I'm supposed to be.
00:11:11 Courtney Brame: This is what I'm supposed to be doing. I have to get out of my own way of resisting the ability to be able to do more to be able to remain consistent. And in order for me to remain consistent, you know, like I said, I moved out here to run this full-time. Like, this is my baby. When people ask me what I do, this is what I tell them. Like, yeah, I also work at OHSU, but that's my part-time job that allows for me to stay afloat while I continue to invest in Something Positive for Positive People. Cuz it's coming. There's going to be a time where this is going to be more than just Courtney Bra hosting a podcast, going to these conferences, applying for grants, and interviewing people. There's going to be an accounting team. There's going to be sex educators. There's going to be therapists on staff. There's going to be support. There's going to be mentoring calls.
00:12:01 Courtney Brame: There's going to be coaches on deck for people who may not need therapy, but it's something a little different. Like, I see it now. And I have a plan. Like, I have my I'm launching the um giving uh health care providers practice taking a sexual history. That program is going to launch in 2023. I'm super busy with that. I'm spending the next week ironing out the details of that and getting approval from my board members to launch it and see if anyone has any connections for places to test this out so that we can collect this information in order to go into healthcare facilities and offer this practice. I'm going to be recruiting sex educators. So, if you're someone who's listening and if you've worked as a standardized patient before or anything like that, then this would be a great opportunity for you. But I want to be able to pay people in order to get these experiences out there because it's necessary and the studies that I'm doing, the surveys that have come in, the conversations I'm having with people, this is something that's important.
Knowing Your Value and Protecting Your Time
00:13:08 Courtney Brame: It's going to change the way that health care is done. And I stand behind it. I believe that. So with that said, my focus is on what Something Positive for Positive People does and what it is. And at the core of it, it's a herpes support resource, herpes stigma, and giving people the tools they need in order to navigate it. And so I try to step into these spaces and talk about all these secondary tertiary things, but at the end of the day, like the information that I have is from us. It's from people who are living with herpes. And it's like I try to sneak that in rather than just like shouting it, man. Like, and being bold about it, like, yo, this is what I do. I do this and nobody else does it the way I can. You come here and you're going to get top-notch levels of service. Whether you donated no money, whether you shared something, whether you've given $10, whether you've given $500, whether you've given $1,000, no matter what, like people get that same quality of service.
00:14:09 Courtney Brame: they get the same quality of presence from me. And I think that that's one thing that I do better than anybody else is that I'm present with people. And there are stories that I can't share because people have asked me not to without even being anonymous because there's a lot of it that'll give it away. But the way that I go about things, and you know this if you've spoken to me, that I don't just like to tell you what you came for, right? I ask questions. I offer what some would consider to be like coaching or consulting or mentoring. And what aligns with me more is mentoring than anything else. And I've even heard from people like, "Oh man, you're like a big brother. You're like a mentor." Like or uh you should be accommodated for your services. And you know, I wasn't trying to hear that because my ego was in a way. My ego was really attached to this being liked by everyone and being seen as the person that people can come to and get free stuff from because it feels like taking advantage of people.
00:15:13 Courtney Brame: It feels like taking advantage of vulnerable people in a very dark vulnerable space to tell them, "Hey, give me a bunch of money and I'm going to make you feel better." I was talking to my buddy Carl who runs the gym that I worked at when I was living in St. Louis. give him 100. And you know, he made a really good point. He said, you know, Nike doesn't, you know, you want a good shoe. You go to Nike, you buy shoes, and there's no guilt from Nike about uh, you know, whether or not or what your situation is, right? And they offer shoes that cost less, right? But I don't think anybody's getting free shoes from Nike. And they make good shoes. Courtney's providing a good service. Something Positive for Positive People provides a good service. And so that all said, moving forward, like even like I'm I'm I'm I'm like nervous even just saying this out loud, y'all.
00:16:11 Courtney Brame: But I have to be more protective of the time and energy that I invest. And I don't want this to come from a place of feeling burnt out or compassion fatigue or just feeling taken advantage of because I point the mirror myself. I have enabled people to, you know, utilize me excessively. I don't want to say use, but there's been excessive utilization of Courtney's time for nothing. And it's been taking away from me being able to expedite this process of making Something Positive for Positive People into what it is and to what it's becoming. And so what would be supportive to that is for people to respect my time as an investment. I think I mentioned that, you know, I have this introduction to sex positivity, which has been the most useful thing to people with herpes because they've said this to me. Being introduced to the world of sex positivity, learning about boundaries, how to ask for what you need, learning how to not only experience rejection, but to also reject, saying no, saying yes, and a hell yes, identifying abuse, and being able to recognize healthy behaviors and green flags.
00:17:31 Courtney Brame: These are things that people learn through trial and error that I've been able to finally put into a place where people can come and get that right away. I put together an event. I'm hired but I didn't pay her. Fortunately, she was willing to do it for free. But the executive director of Sex Positive World and now Sex Positive Portland also conduct this like workshop and have this introduction to Sex Positive World and um what offerings they have for getting people who are in this space the kind of tools and resources they need in order to navigate their sex life. and 62 all women signed up. They went through the RSVP process and only 14 came. And that was a really big bummer to me because I'm telling this person like I even went as far as saying, you know, I think half these people won't show up. So, let's say we'll see about 22 people. She's like, "All right, great." And we got 14,
00:18:35 Courtney Brame: y'all. 14. And that's including me and Jamie. So, 12 people came and it was a great um workshop. It was a great podcast episode as well, but things like that, you know, I put stuff together and I try to continue to offer it for free and these are things that are super useful that I know are super useful. I put it together and like I can't get people to commit to that. Same thing with therapy. I can't tell you how many times I pay upfront when I'm paying for people's therapy services because it's a deal. I'm getting people a lot of therapy services with the health care providers that they're working with. And I'm also doing the negotiations and the paperwork, the processes and getting the payments. And that's a lot of work on the back end for people to just not show up or to think that they can just do this on their time or spread out the sessions, you know, over the course of months and months.
00:19:33 Courtney Brame: And yeah, if it doesn't it doesn't work for me it's not in the best interest of myself or the organization. And so the way that therapy has to be done now is I need people to invest what they feel comfortable with. And I also want y'all to understand like your investment in Something Positive for Positive People. As a nonprofit organization, if you give a significant amount, this is tax deductible. You can write this off on your taxes if you work at a place that wants to give a lot of money to a nonprofit organization that is doing good work that the organization can get behind. Something Positive for Positive People is one of those organizations. And I get it like herpes stigma, whatever. Like that's not an excuse. Look where I'm at as a result of herpes stigma. Like you if you've listened to these podcast episodes from episode one to episode what is this? This would be 251 or 52. Yeah, this would be 251. If you listen to the growth, the trajectory from then till now and you've stuck around all this time and you find yourself in the same place that you were back then, then there's nothing I can do for you.
00:20:54 Courtney Brame: I don't think there's anything that I can do for you. If you listen to this and you get inspired and you want to make changes and you just might feel stuck, you don't know where to start, then this is your starting point. You know, I think that therapy is very useful. I think that some people may have therapists and, you know, they may not want to talk to them about, you know, their herpes diagnosis because there's some shame and stigma there. But y'all, this organization is getting people to a place. If you look at the Instagram page, Courtney Brame_, I changed it away from H on my chest because I'm I'm I'm done. I'm done with the hiding. I'm done with wearing the suit. And I'm just living as I am now. Like, I'm not trying to hide from anybody who I am and what I do. It's out there. Courtney Brame on Instagram, on Tik Tok, you're going to see herpes information.
00:21:47 Courtney Brame: And you know, if people aren't comfortable with saying, "Hey, this is this organization," or, "Hey, this is how I found out about this organization." Like, you don't have to tell people you have herpes, in order to be supportive of a cause that has helped you, has supported you, that believes in you. Like, I believe in y'all, you know, just like y'all might tell me you believe in me, but maybe don't show that with actions, right? But I I need that. like I genuinely need those actions. I need that reciprocity in order for this business to thrive. And you know, it doesn't matter if the donations do or don't come in. And like I said, if you give $1 or if you give $1,000, you are going to get the same quality of presence from me. Um, and with that being said, like the whole thing about uh I' I've been very accessible. I've been very available. And I want to make it known now. Um, please, please, please, if you are considering or you've thought about joining Patreon, now is the time to do it.
Transitioning to a Business: Mentorship and Therapy Structure
00:22:56 Courtney Brame: Um, I will be announcing different offerings there, but outside of Patreon, I am going to be charging for mentoring services. Like I, I can't just be answering questions now. Like I'll share if you have a story, if you want to say thank you, great. That's the content. If you're sharing our content, awesome. But I have to be more protective of the space, especially going into all of the business functions that I have to go into. Like there are people who want therapy who cannot afford therapy. There are people who want to just have someone put together a disclosure template for them. And you know, these kinds of things, they take time, they take energy, they take an investment. And I do a lot of this stuff, and I've been doing it for free for 5 and 1/2 years. And I put the majority of it in the podcast episodes. So, if you're someone who you have the time and you have questions, please start there.
00:23:56 Courtney Brame: Start with the podcast. Go to the website spf.org. I've made this website as easy to navigate as possible because I made it as easy for me to upload and add things as possible, right? But I can't. I can't keep answering the same questions that I've already answered to the masses. And if you want these kinds of things, I'm offering mentorship services. And this can be on a sliding scale, but we'll have to talk together about what's a reasonable number for you. But my asking price for unlimited access between, you know, business hours, let's say 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. uh Pacific time. Like I'm offering unlimited conversation if we need to talk. As long as it's outside of me having things going on. We have to be reasonable about this. Of course, text talk, FaceTime, video chat if we need to. I'm working with you on how to disclose to a partner. Something that's been coming up a lot lately is disclosing to a partner after you've already had sex with them.
00:24:59 Courtney Brame: That's another big thing. And this is going to be something that I don't believe in the one-hour call and getting things done. It's an ongoing process. So, our options at this point are you can pay $350 per week. And again, this is a donation. So, it's tax-deductible. You can write it off on your taxes. I'll add it up at the end of the year, send out your letter. So, when you go to file your taxes for whatever year we're in, you'll have that sum as you'll have that to submit with your taxes. All right? And it's a donation. So, you're donating $350 for a week of mentorship or you can pay $1,000 for a month of mentorship. So, whatever it is that you commit to, like I said, you're going to get that same quality of service. And the reason I don't really have to explain why it's so high.
00:25:49 Courtney Brame: Like I've been doing this. You know, all of the information is out there for 5 years. So, it's a shortcut to getting to the point and customizing this for you. You are paying for my time. You are paying for my attention to detail. You were paying for the presence of me being able to go through this with you and customize this to what your life experience is and to learn about you and who you are so that we can put this together and co-create this for you. And also like that, you know, majority of that is um going to go to I don't want to say majority cuz I have to do the math, but um I will at some point start paying myself. And those percentages are going to be all right, Courtney gets paid X dollars of this and the rest of this goes to the nonprofit and that amount is going to also cover, you know, some people may not be able to afford that.
00:26:45 Courtney Brame: Some people may need support in paying for therapy. Something Positive for Positive People is still paying for people to get therapy. I'm just asking now for people to contribute what they can to it because the therapists that I work with are on a sliding scale and there's a lot that goes into that. I have to reach out to these therapists, schedule, negotiate, uh factor in percentages because now um what I'm asking of people to contribute is going towards their therapy, but also uh Something Positive for Positive People is going to have to get a piece of that for like the finders fee. So yes, we are a nonprofit, but this is at the end of the day a business. And once we hit a certain amount, I got to report taxes a certain way. So, all of these things have to be taken into consideration, y'all. And I don't. I keep telling myself I don't want to sound like a dick, but that's not the case. It's me knowing what my value is, knowing what my worth is because I mean, I have seen people charge $350 for an hour.
00:27:47 Courtney Brame: Like, I'm I can't do that to people. I just can't. And so if you reach out to me and you ask me a herpes question, like, hey, I got to set that boundary with you. Like, hey, you know, if you haven't listened to this podcast episode, then that's cool. But also understanding like this is what I'm asking for. I can work with you in different ways. I know people have different circumstances. Um, but yeah, $350 for a week of mentorship or $1,000 for a month of mentorship. And we can connect as needed. You know, that that to me feels good because it's not only supportive to the organization, but it's also supportive to me. And I mentioned like I'm at a point in life now where I caught myself like I can go to work at OHSU more and it's making me kind of pull away from my drive of running Something Positive. But you know, I didn't come here for that.
00:28:44 Courtney Brame: I came here to run this organization. And part of running this organization means treating it like a business. So, um, those are like that's the prices. You know, a wise man, Sean Carter Jay-Z said, "Just set the price on neighbors and live your life, my neighbor." If you want to go listen to that song, it's called Bam by Jay-Z. So, um, those things said, and then the way that therapy works, um, let's say a therapist charges $100 a session, right? If you're someone who wants to specifically work with and see a therapist, then the way that this is going to work is you will make a donation to Courtney of whatever that dollar amount is, and I will have negotiated um, with the therapist that thou that $100, right? So, you donate $100 to Something Positive and now we have the money to pay for the therapy, right? So, at the end of the year when all is said and done, however much money you donated to Something Positive for Positive People and we've paid for therapy for you and other people, that's a tax write off for you.
00:29:57 Courtney Brame: But also, um, with that, I negotiate down with the therapist. Okay, you charge this. um 20% goes to Something Positive for Positive People, right? And so that's their contribution to Something Positive is the negotiation of their rate. So it goes from $100 to $80 and Something Positive keeps 20. So that someone who can't pay $100, let's say someone only has $20, right? If they have $20 to donate, this is what they can afford for therapy. Then I'm able to make up the difference in that with the therapist that I'm working with. Uh it could be someone who's working on the sliding scale and we negotiate it from there or we just have the money in the organization pool because of the people who can afford it being able to pay or donate not just for themselves but also for people who have um less access to resources. Um, and I I thought about this really long and hard, like for months, how to make this work, how to make it to where people can get what they need so that people can also be committed to it because also like I I've tried to help people by using their insurance and that just doesn't it doesn't work for everybody.
Accountability and Ending the Era of Free Endless Support
00:31:10 Erika Velazquez's Presentation: Like sometimes it's I think the last person their insurance um wouldn't pay for anything until they spent $3,000. And it's like, yo, what? like you got to spend three grand before your insurance even kicks in. Like why even have it? Why have insurance? So I think that what we have here, what's going here is a really sustainable model that can remain consistent for people to get their therapy at a tax write off. And like I see what I've seen y'all vacations. I follow y'all on Instagram. I be seeing y'all traveling. And I am seeing y'all do all kinds of stuff. I see them boots y'all be wearing, that hair y'all be getting done. The eyelashes, them shoes. I see it. I see the vacations. And if this has helped you as much as you say, if this is as valuable to you as you say, then I believe that the value of Something Positive for Positive People's services should be significantly heavier than those things.
00:32:19 Courtney Brame: Because if this is something that's contributing to your overall quality of life, then that shouldn't be too big of an ask for you to contribute to um what's happening here monetarily. And when I say what's happening here, I mean like you know all of the people who've contributed to the podcast, people who have been interviewed, people who've supported me even like we built this like this is built off of that. If people hit me up tomorrow and say, "I want my podcast episode removed." I know I'll do that. Somebody did actually hit me up and asked if I could remove podcast episodes. I don't even know what episode they were in, but I reached back out. I was like, "Yeah, I can do that." Like, what's going on? And never said anything back, but like that's the kind of flakiness I experience. You know, people are very intense, high stakes of emotion, and that's perfectly fine. It's understandable. Um, but that comes with a cost sometimes to me or a consequence to me because like people be like, "Yeah, I want therapy." And I can't. I've lost count of how many people started therapy.
00:33:30 Courtney Brame: I pay the full price for all the sessions and then, you know, I got to harass y'all them about the money that I'm spending or have spent for them to get the services that I paid for only to find that like it's it's just been a boy. A boy came into the picture and now people don't need therapy anymore or people don't need um to talk to Courtney anymore or they don't want they don't need to implement the tools and resources and skills that we've talked about. Like all that stuff goes out the window as soon as a new boy come into the picture and that's just been the case and even for men like in the therapy and talking about what people have gotten from it like guys y'all too like y'all get a new girl or y'all get a new partner or something and it's like all that all the work that you've done to the point of getting that partner just goes out the window and I I need I'm here for accountability. This is mentorship and accountability.
00:34:35 Courtney Brame: That's what this is now. So, please, you know, understand that me speaking the way that I am or me um going into our interactions and being upfront like, hey, you know, I got to ask, did you donate? And I got to tell you, you know, what you're asking of me. like this is something that I'm offering for a price, you know, how does this sound? Is this a good price? Can you pay this? If you can't, all right, what can you pay? What do you feel comfortable with? And then how much, you know, what do you feel like you need? Like that's where we have to mutually and respectfully meet each other at. And I want to thank you in advance now for honoring my boundaries. If you hear this podcast episode, I know a lot of people that I hear from ain't going to hear it. People are diagnosed with herpes every day. People find the podcast, people find the resources, and people go, "Hey, I just found your page and I wanted to know if you can answer this question. Read me these results." I had somebody,
00:35:37 Courtney Brame: and this was rude, y'all. This one pissed me off. And this made me get off social media for a minute cuz somebody just sent me screenshots of their results and was like, "What does this mean?" And like I felt so disrespected and I even asked I was like what? What do you mean? And they're like this and like you you can't even talk to me in full complete sentences. You can't even ask me a question and put punctuation in there. And it felt disrespectful but I couldn't. I couldn't say that I felt this person disrespected me. I enabled this because through my enabling I inherently disrespect myself. If I enable people to feel like they can just come at me and talk to me any kind of way and not like there's no investment, there's no skin in the game. And I still haven't even heard back from this person. Again, high intense panic and people come, they try and get what they need and then they leave.
00:36:31 Courtney Brame: All right. So, all of that said, like I said, $350 for a week between business hours. We're going to do it, we're going to work through whatever we can together. And that's the mentorship. If you want more than that, if you want to do a month-long mentorship, bam, we can do that. $1,000. All right. Now, again, I'm gonna just drop this hint here. I strongly encourage you to consider becoming a Patreon member. Wink wink. It's just patreon.com/somethingpositive for positive people or it's SPFP. It's one of the two, but I think both of them will take you to the landing page. Um, and it's also on the website, www.spfpp.org, and you can click the Patreon uh link on the homepage where it shows options to donate. You can donate via Vinmo, Cash App, or become a Patreon subscriber or PayPal. Okay, now that hard thing has now been, you know, I got that off my chest and man, that was hard.
00:37:36 Courtney Brame: That was hard. Hard hard, y'all. I then talked to a lot of different people about what to include with that, what to charge, how to implement it, what felt good for me and different boundaries that needed to be set. And I feel really good about it. I feel good about those numbers. I feel good about um standing up and standing by what uh standing by those numbers and what it is that I'm doing. Like I'm, I'm accessible. Y'all can access me. And the resources are out there um they're on the um website, they're on the podcast. Like I have plenty of free resources out there. And if you need anything more from me than what's out there, cuz I was contemplating quitting the podcast and I was like, "Yep, I said everything there is to say about herpes." All right, that's it. Time to move on because I want to move on to like men. Like I want to speak to men.
Escaping the Algorithm and Reclaiming Masculinity
00:38:33 Courtney Brame: I want to look at masculinity from a lens of vulnerability and I think that that's my next project. I'm taking what I've learned from the herpes education space and bringing that into an area that I care about. And so smooth transition now like I'm going to be spending a lot less time on social media. Not to say that I'm going to be off of it completely. I'll still respond to DMs. But I know that social media has not been good for me specifically with, you know, making me question things that are natural to me. Um or making me not question things. Let me say that just like me being curious about stuff like how can I be a good example if you listen to the identity series or the um yeah the identities series, what does it mean to be heterosexual? What does it mean to be Black? What does it mean to be a man? Right? I was asking these questions.
00:39:31 Courtney Brame: And the reason that I was asking these questions was because it just felt like I don't belong in spaces. I don't belong as a straight Black man in a queer space or in a heterosexual space or in a space with men or in a space with Black people. And it took for me to go through that process of trying to figure that out to realize I didn't have to try and figure that out. like I exist as who I am and I've been not comparing myself to people in these spaces but I now need to understand that is again going back to me verse me like looking at myself from a lens of vulnerability and deciding for myself how I want to live what I want to do who I want to be and taking characteristics and skills and lessons that I've learned throughout life and allowing myself to absorb those things into my personality I want to offer for that to men because I'm seeing social media is not a real place. And like God is the new algorithm.
00:40:32 Courtney Brame: The algorithm is the new God. God is the new algorithm. Yeah. The algorithm is the new God. Like I thought I looked at, you know, how much stuff was being pumped to me. Um, a lot of extreme views on one end and then the first time I questioned something, I started to get pumped with extreme views on the other end. And I think that this started with the Andrew Tate video going viral and him trending and like all of his videos emerging, not just the ones where it's like what he's saying is harmful because dot dot dot, but also the ones where he's like he's talking more than just those 15-second clips and you're getting context of what he's saying. But it was like, damn, like this is what social media is doing. And it really like cracked open a whole can of worms for me personally because like there that's so representative of how media works like they put this particular thing under a microscope but if you zoom out just enough you'll see that the significance of that thing alone does far more harm than the whole of it and the good that it can do because there's so much of like what was said uh what he said specifically that was speaking to men in a very healthy way.
00:41:52 Courtney Brame: It's just in a language that social media does not um it doesn't welcome that, right? Because social media to me is like a dreamland. It's a dreamland where you can put exactly what you want ideally out there. It can be the best of the best. It can be the worst of the worst. But regardless, you can put something out into this space that isn't reality. You can even be somebody you're not. You can make a whole profile with names and faces and stuff that aren't you. And this is a great place for expression. It's a great place for connecting and doing business, but it's also not a real place. And real talk like that doesn't belong in that space to be completely honest because like what I picked up from that was the things that resonated with me were talking about discipline like the mindset of a competitor. I've repressed my competitiveness at the expense of me being able to show up as a man and being masculine as myself, comparing me to me, not comparing myself to my masculinity in relation to femininity or being a man in relation to women or being um anything else like you know me verse alpha male or whatever.
00:43:10 Courtney Brame: but like just me and me like looking at my own masculinity from a lens of vulnerability. And I think that we're missing out on that. And to see that messaging on social media and then to see how the content that's been flooded to me has changed. It made me realize that there are only extremes on social media and that it's not practical. It's not sustainable. It can't be. It's never going to be consistent because that's what drives views. That's what drives our attention. And I got to come back to the real world. So, it's going to take time for me to disengage. And again, this is because of just the polarity that came in. There was a shift between me seeing the Andrew Tate video and then going down the hole of like seeing how um because I follow a lot of women and a lot of the women that I follow have s*** on men to be completely honest and I didn't realize that affected me until I saw how affected I was to hear men and women talk well about men or speak to the things that I felt.
00:44:24 Courtney Brame: that I just haven't had words for. And a lot of it has been really helpful for me because it's super validating for me to understand my idea of what it means to be a man, for me to have my discipline, my competitiveness, and how I express my creativity. And if you listen to these last episodes for the last 5 and a half years, I have never expressed an opinion. I have remained objective. I have allowed for guests to, you know, I've held space for guests and regardless if they talk about how they don't disclose, if they talked about how they've lied or they've cheated, you don't get any judgment out of me. And I've not expressed any opinions. And like lately, I've been expressing opinions. And I'm seeing that through that in real life, I am much more able to connect with people. And I like that. And it's its presence. I find that being on social media pulls me out of the present.
00:45:22 Courtney Brame: So, I started with just allowing myself to be on social media while I'm on Wi-Fi, which is typically when I'm at home by myself. So, all right, cool. I can scroll through. I can message people. I can post. I can do whatever. But out in the wild, like I catch myself wanting to pull my phone down, and it's like, nope, why can't I get on social media? Nope. So, I got to be here. And being there, like I've observed things. I've been able to make connections with people that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to. And I like that. I'm liking what I'm getting out of disengaging from social media. And it's at a point now where I got almost 9,000 Instagram followers. And 200 people see my stories consistently. Consistently 200 people are seeing my stories. I think the most that have seen it is 1,200.
00:46:08 Courtney Brame: Average probably about 4 or 500. But like lately that's not been the case with the almighty algorithm. So for myself, I'm disconnecting. I'm disengaging so much. Like I'll, like I said, respond to DMs. I'll post when it's necessary, but I can't… I'm not going to praise the algorithm. No. I'm going to be present. I'm going to be out in nature, and I'm going to live like my natural life. I'm going to continue to do these things for myself. I'm living I'm going to, you know, like I said, like I I'm going to be charging for services now. So, my attention, my time is a lot more constricted. And another thing that I'm doing in order to take care of myself is like I'm distancing myself from anything and anybody that has something negative to say about men. You know, if you had an experience with a man, cool. But like um I don't know if I wrapped this thought up, but I felt like I didn't know how I was feeling hearing women talk bad about men and date men and like I'm I'm taking this in. I'm like, "Oo, I better not do that thing that she's ranting about." And then when I started to see after
Finding Safe Spaces in the Real World and Outro
00:47:22 Courtney Brame: the Andrew Tate transition because it started to uh take me to content that was like um hearing people express appreciation for men and what it means to be a man and like the traits of men that like I said resonate with me and I noticed it in my body like I just felt good. I felt like my central nervous system lit up. And I've been in spaces where men have been like, you know, talked down to or repressed. And I now recognize why I've been uncomfortable in those spaces because I don't belong there. Like when I talk about being in queer spaces, you know, like I'll go with u one of my lesbian friends, I'll go do anything with her in queer spaces, LGBT spaces. And you know, I thought like uh let me try and make myself more uh fit in more like by making myself smaller, being a little more quiet and reserved or, you know, just make sure I'm not making eye contact with anybody. I don't want anybody to give away my straightness, right?
00:48:26 Courtney Brame: I don't want anybody to know I'm Black. And it was pointed out to me even like in how I dress. Like I try to dress safe for the people around me in the spaces I'm in. like uh going to the sex clubs. There are a lot of people at these sex clubs. A lot of white people at these sex clubs when I go to um the queer spaces like I'm probably one of few straight people. Yeah. allyship, but at the same time like it's uncomfortable because and like I I've I've even experienced it in interactions with people like I will go out of my way to appear more safe to people and that's just like a trauma awareness and there's still just like a hesitance there. Like I tried to shake this one lady's hand and she just like backed off like uh what are you doing here? Like you, you're not in our circle. It's like, "Oh, all right. I know that.
00:49:19 Courtney Brame: I know that. I know that." Look. And so recognizing now that I have a baseline. I have my own baseline of where I don't belong or where I have to try too hard to belong and fit in versus where I am welcomed, where I am included, where I am thought of, and where I'm like supported and celebrated. I've even had to like to make this space. I got like a friends group with me and eight of my friends. uh we have like a men's group we meet once a month and we just we get to just talk and that real connection is how the internet is supposed to be used or how social media is supposed to be used like I foresee like a bigger picture of what that will look like but for now like we're just keeping it with us and this is a safe space for me that I have not had in a very long time probably since I played football so there's a lot of these changes that are also happening within me that I am reflecting in something positive for positive people.
00:50:21 Courtney Brame: So with that said, like if I happen to be on social media and I see people who are talking trash about men, like I unfollow you. If you look up, you notice I unfollowed you because I don't like how I feel in your presence or in your space or in your imagination. Because again, social media is like the imagination put on display for everybody to be able to witness. And I don't want to feed that. I don't want to fuel that. I don't want that coming in on my feed because I know how I'm feeling as I spend less time on social media. And I'm loving it. So, with that even said, like, if y'all want to get in contact with me, the fastest way would be to email courtney spf.org. You can get to me through the website as well. But just like I ask that you know what you need, know what you are inquiring about, know what you're asking for because this is going to be like I want to be efficient.
00:51:21 Courtney Brame: I'm intentional about this. I care about this work and I've committed and I've sacrificed the last five and a half years. You know, even my uh I hate that I'm saying this, but it's important to say and I already started and I don't plan on editing this episode, but like the um COVID 19 relief money I got, like I use that to pay for people to get therapy and for people to not show up like and I I I really just like avoided even thinking about it. But that's disrespectful. That's disrespectful. This was money coming out of my pocket. I didn't even bother going through the process of writing it off. It was just boom, let me vim on my therapist. These rates are so good that I can't pass this up. And I'm at a point now where I feel like I've recouped, you know, I ain't have no Yeah, I did have a savings from that money, but that's gone.
00:52:14 Courtney Brame: That's gone. And now I'm at a point where it's kind of I guess recouped itself. like I've recovered significantly but at the same time like the the disrespect for myself enabling the disrespect I cannot continue to do that to myself and it's translating not just in business but also in my personal life I am not tolerating disrespect all right I love y'all and I want y'all to succeed I want y'all to go through the same transformation that I'm doing but in your own way on your own time through your own experience remember that life is not about what happens to you. It's about what happens through you. And I encourage y'all too, man. Know your worth. Like, know your value. I know what mine is. Like, I have this um I really identify with my manliness and all of those things that I've been repressing over the years. And I got to reconnect with that s***. I got to reconnect with my manliness.
00:53:10 Courtney Brame: I got to reconnect by getting off of this social media space that's not making me feel good about myself and start connecting with people in real life. Man, I've been like even going on dates or hanging out with women in person, man, it has been it's been like night and day when you can really be present with somebody because our attention, our focus is it's in our phones, it's on devices, it's in media. And that's not how we communicate. That's not how we've ever communicated. This is a new communication style. New as in like what the last 20 plus years. And you know, I've only been a man for however many and I've been on this earth for 30 almost 34 years. And I've been a man for most of that time. And here I am, just now recognizing that there's been a conflict on what that means and how to straddle that line between okay, what does it mean for me to be a man?
00:54:12 Courtney Brame: What does society expect for me to be a man? And I'm I'm done with that s***. Like I'm setting my own expectations and standards for what it is to be a man. Like that's that's on me. I'm doing this. And I think that that's part of it. identifying and understanding what it means to be masculine, what it means to be a man for me. And I encourage y'all to do this, too. And if you want to go on this journey as well, hit me up. Like, I'm down to do this masculine this masculine masculine mentorship. Oo, that sounds good. That's catchy. But that's what it is. It's mentorship. And like I said, 350 for a week of access, $1,000 for a month of access. And um if you genuinely want this and it's something that you think is too high for you, then we can talk.
00:55:04 Courtney Brame: We can see what we can do. But that's the set price. And y'all know I got a soft heart. Y'all know I'm a big softie. Y'all probably ain't going to hold that up. But I got to do it. I got to put it out there. I talked to my board about it and or some members of my board about it and they've been trying to get me to pay myself since they've been on the board. So, here I am now with the opportunity to do so and here's how I'm going to do it. I'm going for it. All right, y'all. Um, so the next 12 podcast episodes you hear will be from the Oregon Health Authority series. I will be taking a break from podcasting so that I can focus more on the business. Email me if you want any of those services. Email me if you want therapy. Email me if you want me on your podcast. If you have any sort of stories that you want to share, um let me know and we can connect. So, uh yeah, that concludes this episode of Something Positive for Positive People. Please like, rate, review, subscribe to share this podcast as well as any resources that you have available. Um again, donations are taxdeductible. This is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that provides various mental health services under the umbrella of mental health to people who are navigating herpes stigma. We're talking therapy, counseling, group therapy, mentoring. There's coaching available as well as um yoga classes and yeah, just we got this y'all. We got this. All right. Love y'all. Take care and until next time, stay pleasure positive cuz we uncoupling sex from intercourse from pleasure so that we can be pleasure positive and sex positive.
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