Rediscovering Your Voice: Unearthing and Amplifying Your Power

Have you ever felt like your voice was silenced, buried under the pressures of life?  Over the years, I have discovered that our voices are powerful, even when they feel buried. Through sharing my own story and the inspiring narratives of various women, I'll take you on a journey of rediscovering your voice. We'll explore the various factors that suppress our voices and the steps we can take to unearth them.

In this episode, you'll learn the value of opening up and sharing our experiences to encourage, inspire and influence others. We'll also discuss the importance of understanding ourselves and being part of a supportive community in this journey to authenticity - you don't have to go it alone. Let's embark on this journey together, to uncover and amplify the power of your voice.

Whether or not you will ever be a speaker, podcaster, teacher or trainer, understanding who you are, what your VOICE sounds like is important.  Today we’ll talk about some of the truths and falsehoods about Finding Your Story.

3 Fallacies about your Story or your Voice

1. My story consist of only a specific piece to illustrate a point
2. My story is boring and won’t help anyone
3. I have to come up with my story or discover my voice on my own

3 Realities about your Story or your Voice

1. Your story is ALL your experience and gives rise to your voice
2. Your story is more valuable than you can know and you’ll see this when you start sharing
3. When you open up and share, others will be curious and ask questions to help you develop your voice

How to start:

1. Write out your narrative
2. Write down all the things that are important to you
3. Start sharing your stories
4. Find your community

Learn more about Andrea:
Get involved here! 

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Chapters

• 0:02 Unveiling the Power of Your Voice
• 14:00 Discovering Your Voice Through Sharing
• 17:54 Uncovering Your Voice and Finding Community

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey, it's summer 2023. If you're new to my world, welcome. I'm Andrea Johnson, a transformational leadership coach, and my passion is working with ambitious, high-achieving women who are truly ready to impact their world. The Intentional Optimists Unconventional Leaders podcast has been three years of teaching my philosophy and learning what high-achieving women all have in common in their stories, in their backgrounds and their mindset. I have interviewed over 75 amazing leaders and the information I've gleaned has actually changed my life. They've encouraged my growth and development in ways I never expected, and now it's time for me to level up. So I've got a brand new podcast coming out this fall and I can't wait to share it with you. It's currently in development and all the necessary gear shifting and whizz-bang thing of Majigee things are going on behind the scenes, so I want to refresh your memory, or share with you for the first time, if you're new, on some of these foundational and important concepts and thoughts that have contributed to the development of this next level. Between now and the new launch, i'm sharing with you my personal must-have episodes that will set you up to switch gears right along with me, and when I say switch gears, what I really mean is kick it into high gear. So if you want to level up along with me and be encouraged to grow past that spot where you keep getting stuck, subscribe or follow the show now, because right here is where the new podcast will live too. Share it with your friends and let's get the next revolution started.

Speaker 1: 1:38

You're listening to Intentional Optimists, the podcast for unconventional leaders, where you'll find inspiration, learn to discover and develop your own strengths and hear from inspiring women just like you who are making a difference in their community. Who knows, you just might find yourself stepping up as the next unconventional leader right where you are. I'm your host, andrea Johnson, the original Intentional Optimist. Hey there, you're welcome to Episode 81. As of today, i've interviewed nearly 40 women on this podcast, listening to their stories, pulling out all the early leadership moments they may or may not have noticed, and one thing that stands out to me is that many of us end up circling back to who we were as that young, unvarnished leader long, long ago, and what that tells me, or what I conclude, is that who we show up as in our leadership role and how we shine in our strength, that's our voice.

Speaker 1: 2:40

We, especially women, seem to have access to it when we're young, but somewhere along the line, life has a way of burying, pressing down or turning down the volume on your voice, and that could be due to any number of reasons. Not all are nefarious things like your community, what is promoted, what is celebrated, what is the demographic, or your family, what they already do think, say, promote what's okay and what's not. Or your religion, like the systems that you're raised in, or the beliefs that you eventually spouse. How about school? What you study, where you excel, what kind of extracurricular activities you participate in. Then there are your friends, who you hang out with and what they support. All of that affects you, but then everything else is lumped into what I'm just going to call practicality. These become things like what you can and can't afford, the circumstances that life throws at you. Ultimately, these women that I interview, the ones we call unconventional leaders all found a way to uncover their voice somehow. If you go back and listen to them, you'll hear me point out that what they do today in their leadership role is eerily similar to whatever they share as their earliest leadership memory. And when I pointed out to them, many are surprised I've received several oh, i've never thought of that before comments. So take heart, my friend, if you feel like you've lost your voice or you just don't know what it is. As long as you're willing to grow, your voice will find you again. It will resurface, and one way you can help that happen is through telling your story. We heard in our last episode from Sophie Wadsworth how to use telling some of your stories to persuade, lead and guide others.

Speaker 1: 4:33

I've learned over the last two years that telling my quote story, all the different pieces of it has given me a new perspective on my own transformation and caused my voice to emerge. Let me illustrate by telling you a little more of my story. When I developed intentional optimism, started my business and became a certified Maxwell leadership speaker, trainer and coach, i knew I needed to get comfortable sharing my vision, my mission and my story. In short, i needed to be able to use my voice. Now I've never really been afraid to speak publicly. I can fake it with the best of them, but unfortunately, though, others could see it, hear it and even celebrate much of it in me and for me. I just really struggled. My confidence was low and was constantly being undercut by my own insecurities, my past hurts, unreasonable expectations for myself and others and a general lack of understanding. You see, sometimes your voice is buried by you.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Now, for Christmas 2019, i asked for and received Kathy Kung's book Raise Your Voice Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up. I started it and immediately put it down. I don't think I even got through the first chapter. The idea of uncovering my voice literally terrified me. I remember sitting on my couch, fire in the fireplace, highlighter in hand, heart racing. What does that tell you about how deep or why my own voice was buried? I'm still not entirely sure what it was about, figuring out how I needed to speak up or speak out. That had me sweating bullets. But as I reflect, knowing what I know now, i think it had something to do with the misunderstanding of what raising my voice actually meant. You know the. You have to do it like I did.

Speaker 1: 6:29

Scenario Y'all some of our voices need to march in protest, some are designed to proclaim the gospel from the pulpit and some are perfectly suited to teach a class. Each voice is different. Each message is different, so when I finally decided it was time to pick it back up in December 2021, i was happy to discover it to be very encouraging and helpful in my personal growth and, consequently, my voice. Cathy does a brilliant job of laying out some simple truths and principles that you take and implement in your own life and in your own way. She's truly interested in you finding and raising your own voice in authentic and heartfelt ways. Now, this is not a book review, but it is a great read for anyone looking to stand up in their own space, like your work, home, even if it's on the stage or social media, all while remaining true to your own values and beliefs. But what changed in that two-year span between the white-knuckled, cold-sweat, heart-racing first attempt and the second, which was truly a calm, open, curious and interested reading?

Speaker 1: 7:37

I started telling my story In an average of one podcast interview a month. I just began sharing my actual life history. It began with a podcast or Facebook group where you can both offer interviews and search for guests, and someone asked for a personal weight loss transformation story and I left a simple comment. That was it. Soon I found myself telling my weight loss, weight gain, gastric bypass story, my infertility and adoption story, my losing my mother to cancer and developing intentional optimism through the grief process story and watching my mother sell herself short as a business woman and not wanting to do that to myself. Story As I shared, each interviewer asked different questions, causing me to come at each story from a different angle, kind of like a sculptor, taking a little off here and a little there until the beautiful image emerges. As if by magic, my voice began to emerge.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Of course, i was also doing my personal growth work, building my own awareness of who I am and how I tick, learning more about my personality type. Right, i'm a disc type. I a Myers-Briggs INFP, an Enneagram six-wing seven and clipped in strength. My top one is connectedness, but I was also getting coaching and confronting so many of my fears, hurts and misunderstanding. And then there were my friends and colleagues just listening when they point out things that they see in me or my story, like when my friend just said you know, andrea, i see one thread moving through every single thing you've gone through in the last 30 years. Really, i said what is it? Perseverance? I never thought of myself in those terms. Then another friend pointed out as I entered a store Girl, i just love to watch you read a room. What? Oh, yeah, she said you do it every single time. You walk in and then you act accordingly. Wow, i had no clue. That's a skill, but those comments helped boost my confidence in areas I didn't even realize I needed it. Remember earlier when I said my confidence was low and was constantly being undercut by all the things? Well, over the course of those two years, i was learning to stop doing that through personal growth.

Speaker 1: 10:01

All of this work is allowing my voice to emerge. So as I reflect on my personal experience and watch the women I interview for this podcast, i see a few really strong commonalities that stand out. Whether or not you will ever be a speaker, podcaster, teacher or trainer, understanding who you are and what your voice sounds like is important, whether you use it to speak up or speak out about social injustice and cultural changes on a public stage or in small ways on a daily basis, to change the culture of your church, pta, your team at work or your family. This is an invaluable piece of self-knowledge that we can't afford to live without. So I'm going to share three fallacies. Most of us think about our story or our voice, and then I'm going to tell you the realities instead. Are you ready? Fallacy number one My story consists only of a specific piece to illustrate a point Y'all.

Speaker 1: 11:04

I have a document that I have not touched in nearly a year and it's nowhere near done. It's 10 pages single-spaced bullet points. Maybe this one is just totally me and nobody else has this issue, but even when I ask my interviewees to give me their backstory, many stumble. They've developed a specific piece of their story that illustrates a point they want to make and they're not really ready to talk about how their childhood or their teenage years or their experience relates to some of the things they're doing now, which is what I mentioned at the very beginning. Even they haven't acknowledged the way their own life experience has molded who they are today. So here's the reality Your story is all your experience and gives rise to your voice.

Speaker 1: 11:51

I had a conversation this morning with a friend telling me a random story and I said wow, is that why you use this specific technique in your work today? She looked a little surprised and said golly, i never thought about that. It was 20 years ago, but I'll bet it did influence me. My friend, this doesn't mean you need to share every experience you've ever had, but you do need to acknowledge the value of it in the development of you as a person, whether it's childhood triumphs or tragedies, work skills that might not seem transferable, or relationships that have taught you more about yourself than you ever really wanted to know. It's all you Understanding that will give you insight that most people do not possess. It's gold. Don't leave it sitting in the mind.

Speaker 1: 12:41

Valicy number two My story is boring and won't help anyone. I think I need some kind of a sound effect here like wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Seriously, i have yet to meet someone who doesn't have a story that will surprise, delight or inspire me. I love finding out all the interesting little things that you've done or the amazing learning experiences you've had. I'll be honest, though, i thought this After all, my life was just what I'd been through. Right, it was just my life, and who on earth is going to be interested in that? Can you hear it? What Lillo me? Here's the reality. Your story is more valuable than you can ever know, and you'll find out when you start sharing in your room. Give yourself a little credit. Then give yourself permission to believe that what you've been through, experienced or learned is something that at least one other person in the world needs to hear. I think it was maybe the second podcast interview that I gave, where I discovered that just by mentioning that my son was adopted, that my host was also an adoptive parent, and that sent us down a whole new beautiful path of discussion and connection. Literally it was really beautiful.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Many of my colleagues at my last job had no idea that I had ever weighed 310 pounds. They only knew me as I look now. But I had one boss tell me that when she'd heard that I'd lost 185 pounds she figured anybody who could do that could do anything. So she hired me into a new, bigger position because she could see my determination and perseverance in my story And I never told it to her. A colleague shared it when she recommended me for the job.

Speaker 1: 14:29

You have all manner of experiences that have the potential to encourage, inspire and, dare I say, influence others. Do not sell yourself short here. Alright, fallacy number three I have to come up with my story or discover my voice all by myself. Nope, you don't. Very few people retreat to a monastery in Nepal and spend a year meditating and discovering their voice.

Speaker 1: 14:59

I believe we truly accomplish nothing in a vacuum. You don't experience anything in a vacuum. So why would you think that you alone are the sculptor and the piece of stone. But alas, i thought this too. I know true confessions. Here's the reality. When you open up and start sharing those stories, others will be curious, ask questions and help you develop your voice. Let people dig into your stories, just like the sculptor finding the lovely piece of art inside the chunk of stone. When others start digging into your story, getting curious, they help you see the intricate details you may have thought mundane. They help you pull out the emotions that you repressed because maybe it was just too traumatic at the time. They allow you to see your skill or experience against a new or different backdrop or maybe from a bigger picture vantage point.

Speaker 1: 15:55

Look, we grow in response to stimulation. Plants require water, light and nutrients in order to grow. They don't refuse them. Why should you? If you're truly interested in growing, becoming bigger, if you truly are dedicated to making big changes in your life, creating your own transformation, then you need the water, light and nutrients that others can offer. This is not a one-person job. But there's one more thing Polishing requires friction. Even the smoothest buffering tool that makes your nails shine or a piece of wood or concrete sparkle, employs friction. Smooth stones found in a riverbed don't break off the boulder all smooth and round like that. It takes years of tumbling water, dirt all to create their smooth and polished exterior. So, yes, there will be some polishing friction involved, but how lovely is that marble when the sculptor polishes all the rough edges off that statue and shows the brilliance of the design? So, while sharing might sound scary, it really is the answer, truly All right.

Speaker 1: 17:10

So let's say Andrea, i'm ready to start. Please tell me what's first. Well, the first thing is write out your narrative. You got to start somewhere, even if, like me, it's 10 pages of single-space bullet points. You need to look back at what events have brought you to where you are now. And yes, start with things like I was born in a tiny East Texas town. I was the only baby in the hospital. They even had a special bell on the bassinet that jingled as they pushed it down the hall to my mother's room so that everyone in the hospital knew that the baby was on the move, and that hospital is now a government building, that kind of thing. And yes, that actually is my birth story. See, even that is interesting and different.

Speaker 1: 17:54

Next, write down all the things that are important to you. Make a big Hongan list Short, long, i don't care. Write down your causes, topics, ideas and principles, all the things that just kind of excite you or make your blood boil And then look for pieces in your narrative that either highlight those things or illustrate them. Perhaps one of those bullet points is why you feel strongly about that topic. Start making the connections and pair them up. This process will help you understand how you got to where you are right now, Almost like going back and paving the road you traveled backwards.

Speaker 1: 18:34

Knowing and understanding yourself will actually get you so much farther down the road in the future than pretending you are who you are without acknowledging your past. You'll end up being the same person, but without the authenticity of someone who knows why they are who they are. And third, just start sharing your stories to your family, your friends, in a blog or social media post or on a podcast. It's truly fascinating all the different topics that people want to talk about in the podcasting world. So, as you do, you'll learn more and more about yourself. You'll find your opinions popping up when you least expect them to, and, if you're willing to get curious as to why, you'll be rewarded with more and more insight.

Speaker 1: 19:19

But where exactly do you start Well? do you feel like you know your voice Or do you have challenges speaking up? Perhaps you don't have a community or a place that you feel comfortable or safe enough to start sharing. Not all of us are just ready to jump on a podcast. I get that. Maybe you don't have friends or colleagues who are curious or even gentle enough as sculptors and you're looking for that piece.

Speaker 1: 19:42

This is where having a nurturing and vibrant community comes into play.

Speaker 1: 19:46

This is one of the reasons I created mine to offer you a space where you can explore your ideas and options, share your stories and uncover your voice.

Speaker 1: 19:56

Launch from the beach is a community in which we focus on and live all the tenets of intentional optimism as a way to ensure that we're providing each other a particularly favorable environment in which we can all flourish. So if you need a nurturing, safe place to find welcome, share your stories and benefit from the gentle sculpting and kind polishing of like-minded women, just book a free 30-minute consultation and we'll strategize how to start uncovering your voice and see if launch from the beach might be the community for you. All my contact information is in the show notes. I can't wait to hear your stories. Oh good, you're still here because I have one more invitation for you. My newsletter, optimistic Living, is full of good stuff delivered straight to your inbox. So for weekly encouragement tips and even some special offers, hop over to my website and sign up, because unconventional leaders lead at every level, in any area, using their unique gifts, and you, my friend, are a leader. You are the future of leadership and the role models for future generations.