How To Find Your Voice

The phone rings. One time. Two times. The third time she picks up. I haven’t spoken to her for a couple of days but that's cool. That's how we roll.

I ask how she's going.

I'm fine, she says.

But there was hesitation. There was this weird intonation at the end, like she was asking a question to herself... Am I fine? Like she was trying to convince herself she was fine. She was flat. Her voice, usually bubbly, was lower in pitch. Monotone almost. And there was a weird wobbly-anxious edge to it.

I heard it. I felt it.

Without seeing her. Without knowing what went down over the last few days. In about two seconds flat, in complete contradiction to the actual words that were coming out of her mouth, I knew she was not fine.

Did you know our voice box wasn't originally designed for communication? It's original purpose was to protect our airways so we could keep doing things like breathing and surviving.

The way our voice box protected our airways was by rapidly closing the vocal cords to prevent anything nasty coming in. Like say that delicious berry you scavenged on the way back to your cave.

So, it's crazy-ass sensitive.

Humans… Being dramatic since the dawn of time, hey?

Over time, evolution happened and we started using our voice box for voicing. That’s a thing. I’m sure of it.

And so our voice became the gateway between who we are and the world we live in.

It’s used to broadcast our personality, our thoughts, our worries, our highs, our lows, our ambitions, our excitements, our defeats.

Our everything.

And then something happens. We lose our voice. Somewhere to the left of growing up and adulting.

Like when you think it's a good idea to start swearing in your business because the latest hottest business bitch online swears by it as your one-way ticket to Authenticville. Hmmmm, not so authentic for you now, is it?

Screw it. Let's find your voice.

Here's how.

Ready.

Here's the secret.

The big reveal.

The thing you've been searching for.

Here’s how to find it…

You’ve already found it.

It never got lost.

It’s been there all the time.

You've just been too afraid to use it.

No shit.

You don’t need to ‘find’ your voice. You need to learn how to translate it onto the page.

Because your voice is your personality on paper. And you can’t lose your personality. Sure, you can strip it back, you can suppress it, you can try to ignore it.

But you can't lose who you are at your very core.

You can’t leave your personality at the party in the lost and found box.

It’ll always follow you home, like an annoying little brother you’ve been trying to ignore the whole night.

What can happen is you get lost in the space between your mind, your thoughts, your ideas, your world, and putting it into words on paper.

Namely because it’s scary as shit when you do.

I mean, remember saying I love you to your love for the first time?

That shit wasn't just scary. It was heart palpitations, and Holy shit, do I need to go to the ER because my heart is about to explode out of my chest with fear and excitement and fear and fear and fear?

But you just had to do it. You had to say the three words.

If you're lucky, you get an I love you right back.

Everything you’ve ever wanted.

When you use your voice.

Same thing with putting your voice on paper.

It’s terrifying putting what makes you YOU onto paper. And not even for the whole world to read. Just for YOU to read.

If you’re not feeling ‘you’ in your business, it’s not because you’ve lost your voice.

It’s because you’ve been too afraid to use your voice.

So, how do you overcome that fear?

You don’t. You tune into your heart instead.

And how do you get better at translating your voice onto the page?

WRITE.

EVERY DAY.

Let your voice flow and watch as your community flocks to you ready to listen.

You don't need to FIND your voice.

You already have it.

You just need to practice using it.