Ep. 55: Samantha Redden: Embracing Authenticity From Pageants to Pedals and Poetry Artwork

Passing The Torch

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Ep. 55: Samantha Redden: Embracing Authenticity From Pageants to Pedals and Poetry

June 19, 2024 • Martin Foster / Samantha Redden • Season 1 • Episode 55

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What if mastering the art of authenticity could transform your life and career? Join us as we sit down with the extraordinary Samantha Redden, a powerhouse of talents who seamlessly juggles roles as a podcast host, senior master instructor for Cycle Bar, type 1 diabetes advocate, and motivational speaker. Samantha shares her inspiring journey, from preparing for the Mrs. Ohio America pageant to her reflections on slam poetry, a passion inherited from her poet mother. Be captivated by her anecdotes about unique pageant talents and her heartfelt advice on building confidence and self-esteem for young girls.

Discover how Samantha overcomes challenges and builds resilience through her work at Cycle Bar and her podcast, "The Samantha Show." Learn how these pursuits have positively influenced her family dynamics, especially her daughter’s outlook on dreaming big and chasing goals. Samantha offers practical techniques—such as positive affirmations and visualization—that help manage nerves and stress. Gain valuable insights from her therapist friend on handling pre-event anxiety, making this episode a treasure trove of practical advice on maintaining mental well-being.

On a lighter note, enjoy some whimsical moments as Samantha answers random questions and shares personal stories, including fun hypotheticals like who would play her in a movie. Get to know her quirky husband Joe and his extraordinary napping skills, and learn more about Samantha’s podcast, which features engaging interviews and charming banter. Don't miss out on this enriching episode filled with laughter, wisdom, and the mantra: vision, relate, develop. Tune in and be inspired by Samantha's journey and the transformative power of authenticity.

Conversation:
0:00 Intro

Why life is great and pageant prep
0:34 Samantha Redden So I'm competing in Miss Ohio America in just over a week and you know we have an interview is like 50% of the score. And so they have a bio with basics about us, but we don't know what aspect of that they're going to ask us about. So you know, I don't know where we're going with this podcast. I'm like this is great practice for me.

Slam Poetry
1:10 Samantha Redden Someone asked if the Miss Ohio America pageant had a talent portion category and it does not. So I don't have to come with a talent and everybody. Because I'm a senior master instructor for a cycle bar and I ride a lot of bikes. Everyone's like, oh, you'd ride bikes, you do choreo on stage. I'm like, nah, I do that all the time. I think I would do something like slam poetry. But I think that slam poetry, I have no experience in slam poetry. I don't even know how to begin. It would be like kind of like artistic, rap type deal.

It's not a skill that I have, but it is interesting. My mom actually not to make this about her, but she's a fascinating one. She worked high up in administration at Kettering Hospital and then retired and went back to college to get another master's degree in fine arts and she actually is a published poet and writes a lot of poetry.

She doesn't do slam, but she does a lot of poetry and she's the guru, the expert in it all. So I might have to go to her and be like mom teach me how to do slam.

Craziest talent or skill Samantha has seen
3:24 Samantha Redden I don't know, I mean, look, I'm new to the pageant world and whether we're speaking in that or just in general. But I did have the opportunity to judge, the National American Miss pageant, which is younger girls, last year and there was talent and I judged talent and it was so fun to see these young girls like one girl played the electric guitar. One girl did karate, but I thought I mean, don't get me wrong, there were some amazing singers and dancers, but it was really cool to see young women get into other types of activities.

One played the saxophone. Those, to me, were the most fascinating and interesting, because I'm such a big believer in authenticity and doing what you love, what feels good to you, not what you think is the right thing, or what you have been told is the right thing to do. It was just cool to see, I think anything that anybody wants to take on and try and do, it's cool to me.

On judging Young Miss Pageant and message to girls between ages 5-17
4:58 Samantha Redden It would be a lot of what I tell my own daughter. So I have a daughter who's going to be eight in two weeks…beauty starts on the inside. It comes back to authenticity doing what you want to do, what feels right, what you enjoy. And the truth is, society can be rough and they can be tough and they can make you feel like you're not good enough, but as long as you love yourself, love the reflection in the mirror, whatever that is, you know, that's what's most important and that's what's going to take you the furthest in life is that self-love, and so that's really what I try to teach my daughter and what I would try to teach any other little girl.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Cincinnatians of the Year Gala
6:00 Samantha Redden That was so fun and amazing. You introduced me at the beginning as a motivational speaker and I actually believe it was Zac Pitts who we were talking about, that had said to me. I had told him I wanted to get into motivational speaking and he was kind of like you're already doing it, you are doing it, so why would you not just call yourself that? But along that same realm, it's been a goal of mine this past year to get on the mic as often as possible in front of crowds of people, because I just want to get better at it. And I believe that you can't get better at something until you just put yourself out there and just start doing it. So that experience was awesome for me because I was with Bob Herzog, who is a news anchor for Cincinnati very well known. So to be up there sharing the stage with him felt like a gift and he was so kind and supportive and encouraging, which was great.

We had over 600, 650 people there on this huge stage so the crowd was great. I believe, raised, I want to say over a million.

And so really to get to that opportunity. I think it felt like a level up moment.

And I was like all right, Samantha, you're doing this and it's so in line with the way I approach everything in life was like you got to get a little uncomfortable to level up, and so for me it was nervous going into it, but I was also like what an amazing opportunity. What an amazing opportunity. That's what it felt like and it was an adrenaline rush. And of course, when I first started I was a little nervous, but by the end of the night I was like you can't have this microphone back, it's fine, it's fine. So, yeah, it was. It was just such a great experience and I feel like, for me, really leveled up the bar where I want to go with motivational speaking and public speaking, and just feeling so much more comfortable with it.

AHA Moment
10:27 Samantha Redden I think through the cycle bar journey that anytime you can, in a controlled manner, get uncomfortable or kind of cause this stress in your life by doing something that makes you nervous but you really want to do, you get better, you get more confident, you get stronger. I'm such a big believer in confidence and how we grow confidence and now starting to try to share that message with other people and the only way you can do that is through that getting uncomfortable. I heard somebody describe it recently as when you go to the gym and you work out a muscle and break it down through that stress but then it goes back stronger. We can create these moments in our life as well where, yeah, we feel kind of the stress of the moment because we're very nervous and it's scary and it's new. But when we get on the other side of that event or that moment, we're like, wow, I did that.

Go-To personal speech when feeling nervous
11:50 Samantha Redden So many of those moments are typically like you want this, you want this, you know what this is going to do for you. So it's kind of hyping myself up. I also heard somebody say the other day getting on top of the nerves and not letting the nerves get on top of you. So it's not wrong to feel the nerves, but you're like I'm in control of this situation. Still, which I think about all the time is I'm on top of my nerves, I feel it, but I'm on top of it, which means I'm in control of the situation. And then I have a friend who's also a therapist and she gave me this, this little tool which I really like, and right before you go into something that's making you nervous, you speak it to yourself, l it's already happened, I crushed emceeing that event, \ I was so calm and controlled, I did such a great job. But you're speaking like it already happened to yourself.

Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF)
14:12 Samantha Redden JDRF is now Breakthrough T1D as of just last week, and their primary mission is to fund research to help find a cure, to advance treatments, to find treatments that prevent T1D. So they're very much involved with the treatment, the cure. The medical side of things Beyond Type 1 is a different nonprofit that actually Nick Jonas started and is a big part of, because Nick Jonas has Type 1 diabetes and so that's more about a community. It's people who live with Type 1 diabetes that are doing amazing things. It's awareness. So both of them kind of play different roles. I'm more heavily involved with breakthrough T1D, but I stay connected and maybe on type one community.

How being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age nine shaped her life
15:10 Samantha Redden First I'll say it is incredible how far the treatments and advancements have come.

Technology is zooming fast, and so the treatment related to type 1 diabetes has changed that much as well, which has been really cool. When I was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 9, I was taking two shots a day and then had to be super regulated with what I ate. Now I wear a device on my arm that reads my blood sugar, that talks to an insulin pump that communicates seamlessly. That's giving me insulin based on what it is. So I have to think a lot less. I mean, I still have to pay attention, there's still highs and lows, but a lot more flexibility with what I eat, how I can work out so all these different pieces. So that's been really amazing, I think, for me.

When I was younger, growing up unfortunately, a lot more people are getting diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and they don't know why, but it's like boom, boom, boom all the time. When I was diagnosed at age nine there was only one other person in my entire school district that had it. Now teachers and nurses are so used to it. Everybody knows how to handle it. So when I first said when I was younger, I think I really tried to hide it. I just didn't want and I never, even to this day, like I never want anybody to feel sorry for me because she has diabetes. I'm like I'm good, like we're good, and even growing up I was like I'm good Like I cheered. I don't want we don't need to focus.

Dreams, dreams I never wanted it to define me, but I think what it did is it made me responsible because you're taking, you got to keep yourself alive, you're acting as a human pancreas. It made me responsible at a young age, but not in a bad way. I think in a good way it taught me responsibility and then, as I've gotten older, it's really become when you have something like type one diabetes and you're like, why me? There are a lot of moments where just like, why me? If you're having a bad low or you know it's, numbers are roller coasters and you're why do I have to deal with this? I wish I didn't have to.

But I realized somebody like me who is very outgoing and has all these dreams and aspirations, I'm in a position where I can show other people who live with type one diabetes that life can be normal. You can go after all your goals and your dreams. And it helps me answer the question why me? Why me? Because I can empower other people and make sure that they feel okay too and connect with families. So it's just a part of me, it's so automatic now I don't even remember life without it, so it's hard to say like how maybe it impacted me because it's just who I am.

On projects that seem like failures, but pay unexpected dividends and CycleBar audition process
20:06 Samantha Redden My favorite failure led to my most success, and that comes all the way back to the quote that you brought up at the very beginning If you quit when you're told no, it's never your dream. To begin with, 2017 is when I auditioned to be an instructor for a cycle bar and man, I thought I crushed it. Oh, I thought it was so good. And now I did not pass and I was defeated.

You have to ride a bike for 15 minutes. It's recorded on a camera. But the biggest thing is you have to ride to the beat, to the rhythm, and they're looking for rhythm, form and then energy and personality.

I'd be in a room like this with a bike wheeled in here, and then it gets sent to our the cycle bar education team and they review it and they pass or not based on your rhythm, your form, your personality, and I thought I really crushed it and I didn't, and I was defeated, really defeated, and for two or three days kind of I cried a lot. I don't know why it was so important to me, but it was. It was. It was important to me because I knew I would be good at it if I could do it. And my dad actually reminded me of Lindsey Stirling and I love to tell this story too.

She's a violin player, she is the violin player and I'm glad you know her, because she was on Britain's Got Talent and they told her she would never make it. She could never do it, and I've seen her sell out an arena. So it's like my dad had told me that and he was like so you can decide that you're done or you can try again. And so I did. So I tried again, passed, passed and then worked my way all the way to the top, and now I'm the one who watches the auditions.

I'm so glad that I failed that first audition because it lit such a fire in me and then when I passed and I really it was like before when I didn't pass that I had kind of made up in my mind. I was like I'm going to do it again and I'm going to go be on the same team as the woman who told me I didn't pass. And we did. It took two years but it lit a fire and I don't think if I would have failed that first audition if I would have had that same drive and passion.

New habit or belief within the past five years that has most improved her life
25:02 Samantha Redden It's the idea of authenticity. Okay, a hundred percent, I think when you know I I'll share my age. I’m 36 now, but I think when I was in my twenties and trying to establish myself in my career, I was working in nonprofit.

But then when I got into cycle bar, I felt like I always had to do it, like the person I looked up to did it, or like I was thought I was supposed to do it. But I realized truly through the cycle bar journey that it was my authenticity that sold me and helped me level up every single time. It was when I was being truly myself that I found the most success and even recently, within the last, I would say, year, like doing things like I want to be a motivational speaker. Like, no, I want to put myself out there. And even in this pageantry journey, I did my first pageant last year and I had a coach and I was like dress me, tell me what to say, yada, yada, and it was fine, I got first runner up in this pageant and but like, even in this journey, now I'm like no, like I pick my outfits I'm going to show like, show up how I want.

I have coaches, but I'm going to do it in the same, the highest frequency and that level of authenticity, like you said now as currencies, I totally believe that.

GIANT Billboard message for the world to see
31:22 Samantha Redden Well, I would want it to be probably in New York City, in Times Square. Okay, with all the digital fun lights. That's my vibe. Yeah, it would say, if you quit, when you're told no, it was never your dream to begin with. And I think that's appropriate for New York, because so many people are out there in New York just trying to make it, whether it's in acting or even in sales, or on Wall Street or whatever you're trying to do right, like you know, we're going to have failures. Keep going. So I think it's a good placement for it too for it too.

Resources:
Website: https://www.justdontcallmesammy.com/team-1
IG: https://www.instagram.com/_samantha.erin_/

Mentioned:
Zac Pitts
Bob Herzog
Katie Kenney
Maddie Neubecker
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Breakthrough T1D
Nick Jonas
Lindsey Stirling

Quote: “If you quit when you're told no, it was never your dream to begin with.”

My Links
Podcast: https://www.passingthetorchpod.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC04suOPTX3ny_M0aDxmBAXQ Twitter: https://twitter.com/pttorch
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/torchmartin/

People on this episode

Martin Foster

Host