Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Created by Roselis Cortez • Co-host: James Stanley
Seam Notes explores luxury as behavior
How you think, how you move, and the standards you hold when no one is watching.
This isn’t about status or appearance. It’s about composure, discernment, boundaries, and self-respect. The things that quietly shape how you live.
Through lived experience, we talk about growth, outgrowing environments, and learning to move differently without losing yourself in the process.
No performance. No exaggeration. Just real conversations about what it takes to hold your own.
New episodes every Wednesday.
Roselis (00:01)
The title was never you.
James (00:07)
The title was never me. Yeah. No. Okay.
Roselis (00:08)
Okay, so most of us have confused who we are with what we do.
James (00:19)
One thousand percent relatable. Yes.
Roselis (00:21)
So why is this such a big deal?
James (00:27)
Self worth.
Roselis (00:29)
Again, it's the same conversation that we have all the time, right? But this is about most of us confuse our job titles, our family titles, our, you know, whatever titles we choose to give ourselves
James (00:45)
Husband
wife.
Roselis (00:46)
Exactly, and that's what I mean by family, right? Yeah. As our identity.
James (01:07)
I did it, I was guilty of that for years.
Roselis (01:14)
I'm gonna make a bold statement. There is no luxury in that.
James (01:11)
Of course not. And I think we confuse the word luxury specially in this case with The title is luxurious. Or, you know, but what you're saying is that it's not connecting to what's inside. And that is not luxurious.
Roselis (01:25)
So so here's an interesting take on this, right? When you go to a party and you actually interact with people
you're in the middle of you know, I don't know, some cosmopolitan city in the United States, so Chicago, New York, LA, Miami.
James (01:51)
Yes, got it. Got it. We're there.
Roselis (01:56)
And you go and you start talking to people and you say, Hi, I'm Roselis, and then you say I'm James, and then one of us says to the other, so what do you do? Right?
James (02:09)
Of course, yeah, of course, yeah.
Roselis (02:12)
Your answer is usually the title of your job. And in the United States, the question usually refers to that.
You're in Europe, you're in the same situation. Yeah. The question comes, right? So, James, what do you do? The answer is more about what you like to do. So the answer isn't necessarily a job title. The person would say,
I travel, play tennis, do safaris in Africa, this is my regular, and then, we do, I don't know, expeditions to help young children, you know, learn whatever, right? They don't answer the question as to what do you do as a title because they don't identify with the title.
Think about that. That's immense
James (03:15)
Huge. Yeah, of course.
Roselis (03:18)
Because it says a lot about our society stateside is what I'm trying to say. I'm taking it into a little bit of a socio-political kind of situation as well, because I think it's really interesting and important that we recognize that this is a very North American United States thing.
That we're so attached to the title.
James (03:44)
Yeah, yeah. Agreed.
Roselis (03:45)
Right? I'm not saying that it doesn't happen in other parts of the world because it does. In my country, back when I was growing up, yeah, you know, it was like, the judge and the doctor and this and that, But it was more out of reverence and honor of the work that you had put in to be that person.
So then it was a sign of respect and you were revered for that. But it wasn't that that made you
James (04:16)
So does the title and career make us who we are? No.
Roselis (04:19)
Absolutely not.
James (04:21)
Exclamation.
Roselis (04:24)
About four.
James (04:27)
Really big red? Yeah. Like
Roselis (04:31)
Yeah.
James (04:33)
Yeah, agreed, agreed, agreed. Yeah.
Roselis (04:37)
Because we like to believe that that is what it is, but it isn't,
James (04:42)
Well do we do we believe that or are we taught that? For me I was taught that.
Roselis (04:46)
I think that that is what we're taught here. And that's what I'm saying, right? That's why I brought that example up, Because I firmly believe that that is a very North American thing that we do. Because we are so superficial, so materialistic, so appearance driven,
that a title of course is going to have that effect on others, as to what that signifies, And
We are so much more than that.
James (05:26)
Well, I can attest to that.
Roselis (05:27)
We are so much more than that, Now, there was this whole thing that happened in COVID where there was all these people who left their jobs and did all of these things and changes because obviously our economy changed, everything that we did changed.
James (05:47)
We thought we were gonna die, literally.
Roselis (05:49)
WEll that too.
James (05:52)
We thought that life was over.
You know what interesting during COVID now that I think about it, for me it was a resurgence. It was almost me going back to okay, what do I want? What am I doing? I was running JSD at the time and it was this, construction slash design firm. And I got so caught up in the business and I was super caught up in the title. Don't misunderstand. what do you do? I'm a design builder. Uhhuh.
Roselis (06:18)
I own a design build business, right.
James (06:20)
That's right. And I was really caught up in the title and I was taught that. My self worth was based on from a child. especially as a male growing up in family that, was about the money you had and the business you owned and how good a businessman you were. But during COVID that switched for me. Right? And I found through the grace of whomever guides us on this blue ball,
This person was put in my life, a very dear friend of mine, Diane Petsky, and she said, You know, you should try TV. Universe worked out of my favor That I had time now on my hands, And I wasn't happy. And she knew that. And I was like, okay, what am I going to do? So I started social media and I started some other things.
Bing bang boom, we started some media stuff. And there was this resurgence of whoa. And yes, was the was the allure of television and media grabbing me. But what I discovered was the bigger thing than that was I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed interacting.
I enjoy being in a studio, I enjoyed interacting with others, and I could take all the skills that I had learned in my home design world, building world, and then spiritual world, and combine them and talk to people about them. And it was a new beginning for me.
Roselis (07:35)
Invigorating, right?
James (07:36)
It was beyond invigorating and I learned soon after other trials and tribulations that the title no longer concerned me. It or you know what, not concerned me, it did not define me.
I consider myself a spiritual being in this existence and I'm defined by love and compassion, not the owner of a business or a person that wants this or that or whatever. I really define myself by that first and foremost. That is the headline.
Roselis (08:12)
But what happens when your life is so attached to that
James (08:17)
It was for a long time.
Roselis (08:17)
And then you lose that, Like what happens? I mean I just think about this. I think about I grew up in a very privileged family and environment as a child and then by the time I got out of boarding school my father was in a position where he had lost everything.
So I went from being handed everything, you know, I would ask for anything. I mean, yes, they taught me to do some work and get some money so that I could learn to pay for things and
So not everything was handed to me, but everything was handed to me. Right? And so then I come out and there is nothing. I can't say, help me, pay for this none of it, right? So now I am this person who doesn't have daddy to take care of things. And
James (09:08)
Correct.
Roselis (09:09)
I'm having to go out and fend on my own.
I cannot tell you how challenging that experience was of going from being able to do and being able to be in places and being able to travel
James (09:29)
Yeah.
Roselis (09:30)
to not being able to do anything and eat ramen noodles basically. In a tiny little studio apartment that I had three pieces of furniture.
and the art that I had that I had brought and carried along with me everywhere that I went, And so, that identity of who you were, even in a home environment is what I'm trying to say, No longer applied, And even if I had decided to go back home instead of staying here, I would have been,
the daughter of and the niece of and the da da da da da but financially that wouldn't have changed because that wasn't there.
James (10:07)
Right, right, right.
Roselis (10:09)
The financial variance for me was a very, very difficult thing to go through I was seventeen years old, it was really challenging to go through that.
James (10:20)
Yeah, I'm sure. Right. 'Cause you were still a kid, you didn't know anything
Roselis (10:23)
So I know that this is not a title that I'm speaking of, but it's a status, right? That you are accustomed to and you attach yourself to that.
James (10:30)
Totally. You're attached to attach yourself. Of course.
Roselis (10:36)
And it's challenging to go through that. But it didn't define me, you know?
James (10:45)
At the time it did, but it doesn't now.
Roselis (10:47)
Sure, sure, at the time it was a struggle but simultaneously it gave me a freedom to go explore in different directions.
James (10:57)
To discover self. Yes, how wonderful
Blessing in disguise. It sounds like such a cliche, but I so relate to this
Roselis (11:05)
Ah huh, exactly, right?
James (11:07)
You know, I was a kid, I also grew up in a privileged home, with a very controlling mother. And I got married and
Then I came out. I didn't actually come out. My mother hired a private detective and had me followed. and I was cut off financially. And I was I grew up in a family business. I ran the family business. So I had never had a job. What was I gonna do? I didn't know. and and you know, I grew up in the States, but I grew up in a very ethnic
Mindset. So you didn't leave home and go get a job.
Roselis (11:40)
Right. You stayed
with family and you built with family and you did all of this
James (11:46)
And I was grappling with many things at the time, but one of them was how do I survive financially?
Roselis (11:51)
Mm-hmm.
James (11:52)
Yet at the same time I was scared to death. Right? I had never wanted for anything materialistically ever. But now I had nothing. So I went out and got a job, and I figured but the exciting part of that was the underlying
Roselis (12:11)
Right, right.
James (12:12)
I discovered self. I discovered what I liked, what I liked. What did I want to do? What were my interests? Who could I become? Right?
For years, friends used to tell me, I'm tired of hearing about what you had and how you grew up and what cars you had
Roselis (12:28)
At this point you don't even have
James (12:29)
I must have been driving a car 'cause you can't get around South Florida without it, but I don't really remember. But I was so attached to where I came from so the reality had not even hit me
Roselis (12:39)
At first it was really hard for me to think about being able to take care of myself. Somehow, because my father always told me you can do anything and you can be anything and you did da da da da I had this trust that I could find my way, And so I would get jobs and they paid enough for me to be able to pay. a two hundred dollar
efficiency apartment
James (12:58)
Okay.
Roselis (12:59)
Anyhow, I had the money to be able to pay for that, but it was all the other shiny things that I missed. And so there was that same reminiscing thing and being able to be like, you know, when we used to
I remember having bought a car that I really couldn't afford
so I had to let go of the car. I ended up buying a nineteen eighty-eight Cutlass Cruiser baby blue
station wagon. I was 18 years old.
James (13:27)
Cutlass Cruise. How great though.
Roselis (13:29)
This thing was $500 and I loved it. I made fun of it. I called it Bathtub Bertha. She became a thing. I made fun of it. I drove it for three years. I ran it to the ground and then I auctioned off the parts and I got three hundred dollars out of the car.
So I drove three years a car for two hundred dollars, right? Wow. So I mean I was able to kind of quickly make peace with that part of me.
James (13:57)
Yeah yeah, I did too.
Roselis (13:59)
If you will because somehow I had the tenacity, which I'm sure you did too, to be able to do that. And so
James (14:09)
And I think it's easier when you're younger, no?
Roselis (14:12)
I think so. I think so.
James (14:14)
To let go and not be attached to these titles.
Roselis (14:16)
But you know, it was that also gave me the freedom to do that too, right? To do other things that had nothing to do with titles and to go along that way. But at some point later on in life I did. I started thinking of identity and what you do. And what am I if I don't have a job
that has this kind of thing. And then all of a sudden I started looking at shiny things in other people again and I was like, my God, what about all of that? Because working within that environment and having lived in that environment and knowing what that brings, it brings that up.
James (14:56)
Right, correct, correct.
Roselis (14:57)
So it's this struggle that we go through in life because I don't think that it's as easy as just letting it go.
Because it can come and go depending on the moment and the experience that you're going through. But I think that when we go to that beautiful place where we recognize that it doesn't mean anything.
James (15:18)
Yeah. Correct. I mean we can enjoy these things.
Roselis (15:20)
What a beautiful place to be, right?
James (15:24)
Can we not enjoy all of it? Enjoy the title and the career and the hustle and yeah.
Roselis (15:27)
Right, but that's not whom, whom you are.
James (15:30)
Correct. But it it no longer defines who I am. Right? Right. I I can still enjoy it. She made a a lovely comment earlier and it was about an Hermes bag. And we both have admiration for Hermes just because of the quality.
Roselis (15:49)
Right. Yeah. The workmanship, the artistry, all of that.
James (15:52)
It is the ultimate luxury store brand. Anyway, you know, and so, you made a statement about, you could walk down the street with this purse and it I'm no one more important with this purse, this bag, this Birkin, than the girl is with the gap bag.
Roselis (16:08)
Exactly.
James (16:09)
And I thought, how wonderful is that? And and then I thought, and what if you were able just to give the bag, the Birkin, to the girl with the gap bag?
And have no oh it's worth so much and all the title and just no attachment and just give it away, right? I said what a beautiful not just gesture but thinking I don't need this to make me feel important. I no longer need the title to make me feel the worth anymore. Right. yeah.
Roselis (16:39)
So let's think about it in the same way about the title, right? I mean like what is that? Why do we hear when the question is asked, What do you do? Why do we hear what is it that we do for work?
versus what we do as humans in life. Right?
James (17:00)
You know, I'm gonna I'm telling you from
this moment forward, I'm gonna keep my word here. Okay I'm gonna keep awareness first and foremost on the mind. The next time somebody asks me what I do, uh-huh, if they don't phrase it with what do you do for work or living,
Roselis (17:16)
Yeah.
James (17:17)
I will answer, I'm a spiritual being steeped in compassion and love. And I really feel that
Roselis (17:26)
What a beautiful thing.
James (17:26)
Because that is if we had to strip everything else away, that is something that I cannot strip away. That is basis of who I am. So so if you guys hear me say something different, you're gonna call me out on it. But I'm gonna do that. From this moment forward. Because it should not be, you know, my my work. You know, it should not be the company, the design builder, even though I love it and I worked really hard.
A lot of ups and downs with it, but still you know.
Roselis (17:53)
And we've worked really hard to get to where we are, but at the same time, it's not who we are, you know.
James (18:00)
Correct
it is a piece of who we are. Does it cannot define me. You know, I grew up in a home where my mother's work defined her. Her money, her bank account, the bag, the car, the address, all of it defined who she was. but so much of it was based on career, really. It was crazy, right? and I thought I grew up that way, so that's what I thought I needed to do. But today, at this third act, that cannot define me. It would make me sad.
Roselis (18:28)
Right. So when I spent that year, you know, 2025 a lot of healing, doing a lot of introspective stuff I discovered coloring again. I discovered how much I love the different pens, my fountain pens, the different papers, the coloring
Pencils that become watercolors when you add a little water to them after you do your drawings and blah blah blah And I remembered things that I fell in love with as a child that I chased all the time that I had let go of completely as an adult and not because they're not things that you can enjoy as an adult.
But because I had no contact with them anymore because I was being in the doing versus being inside, if you will. You know, and
James (19:21)
Yeah yeah. Yeah yeah totally.
And being what's expected of us. It's expected of us as adults to be there.
Roselis (19:28)
Because that is
the other part, right? We have this crazy expectation of one another to get to those places, right? And for years and years and years, and it's what I was taught and it's what I try to remember and sometimes we forget. It's about the human experience. That's it. Right? It's we are all humans in this
As you described it earlier this big blue globe. Is that what you called it? Okay. In this blue globe, right? We're all having an experience here. It's a spiritual being having a human experience, And we're all equal. We all do everything the same. It's just having a different perception and a different experience, right? So if we come from that space, what does the title mean?
James (20:19)
Nothing. Of course.
Agreed. Regardless of title, regardless of any of that, right? But I think circling back to the title, it's attachment to we think we are that title. Or that title is dependent on our self worth and we've attached the two. Title of I'm the wife, I'm the husband, I'm the provider, I'm the I'm the I'm the
How wonderful if we can really just let go of these titles and our attachment to them. And I'm not saying I'm still ambitious, guys, I still want all the pomp and circumstance, but I will not attach my self worth to those things. Because trust me, impermanence is coming. It will come and it will go.
Roselis (21:05)
And it will go.
James (21:05)
That's the design of life. Right. It is meant to be that way.
Roselis (21:09)
And so, you know, I think we can talk about this from this point of view because we are in this stage of life that we've been through all of it in so many different ways. But I think that the message here is also, you know, don't fret over the title.
Right? if you're going through a phase in your life where you're like, my god, I wish that I were in this and I need to have this job because I need to be the VP or the da da da da da
James (21:35)
Or it's been taken away from you somehow.
Roselis (21:37)
It doesn't make you who you are It is your life experiences and how you treat others that really makes what this is.
James (21:46)
Agreed, agreed.
You know, I can literally attest to this guys in the last three years and I may have said this already, so I apologize. I've had the rug pulled out from underneath me. My whole life has changed. My relationships, my company, my reputation, all of it. All the things that I really had attachment to. And the thing that I've learned three years later is not that it didn't matter, but it wasn't who I was.
These things were a part of James. But it didn't define me. And I'm more at peace now than I've ever been in my life.
I'm a better human being. I can truly say that. Having gone through that. Because I'm more aware of self and what's important. And my my connection to self and peace and happiness and compassion for other is also amplified. Right?
Roselis (22:42)
as well as for self.
James (22:43)
I've learned the kindness has to start here, the compassion has to start at home with me. Right. Because then I can shine it out.
Roselis (22:51)
See, that's the same as with this, In this topic, because if you are in that space where you can give yourself that, then the title and the things and all of that stuff doesn't
James (23:01)
Doesn't matter.
Roselis (23:02)
it stays back there, right? I mean, it's really about being in that stable, peaceful, joyous space.
And we do that by respecting ourselves and respecting others and all of that. Yeah.
So this week, if your title were to disappear tomorrow, how would you introduce yourself? Practice that sentence, see how it feels, and then work from there.
Okay, thank you for being with us. We shall see you again next week.