134. Who are you as a speaker?

Who are you as a speaker? What's your speaking identity? If you do not see yourself as a confident, valuable speaker then all the affirmations in the world won't work. In this episode I dig deep into your identity and share my own story to illustrate how behaviour change often sparks an identity crisis and what to do about it!

Transcript

Hello hello welcome back to That Voice Podcast

A huge welcome to you if you’re here for the first time.

This is episode 134 and I’m posing a critical question to you today – WHO ARE YOU AS A SPEAKER?

Now here on That Voice Podcast I talk a LOT about the importance of your mindset. And I invite you to think about your voice and public speaking in brand new ways. I encourage you to speak affirmations, do mirror work, reframing limiting beliefs – rewriting your speaking story.

This goes even deeper.

Because changing the way you think about something and changing your behaviour in any area is challenging when the very thing you’re wanting to change is part of who you are.

It’s part of your identity to perhaps hate public speaking and shy away from the spotlight and be someone who doesn’t like their voice.

And when it’s part of who you are, your identity, your grip around those problems can be like a vice and to release that latch on the vice, you may need to release part of who you are.

We may think the things we do are just that, the things we do, the behaviours we have, external, totally independent to the internal and who we are, and it’s simply not true. Our external world is actually a reflection of the internal world.

So this time last year I embarked on SOBER NOVEMBER.

I’d been drinking a fair bit, and I knew December had a lot of drinking in store for me with Christmas parties etc – and the idea of going to an event and not having n alcoholic drink was simply not on my radar.

So I went cold stone sober for November and surprisingly, I found it quite easy.

And by December, even though I absolutely had a few champagnes I actually didn’t really want them.

And into the new year I was confused. I could absolutely have non alcoholic drinks so why was I struggling rather than celebrating this new healthy habit.

And then it hit me, kinda like that drink that tips you over the edge and I was like woah… I’m don’t have an alcohol problem, I’m having an identity crisis.

You see, pretty much my whole life up to that point I had labelled myself slash identified with. And this is important, what labels are you slapping on yourself, what box are you putting yourself in?

So I had this label of being a blonde, busty, fun chick who’s always up for a drink. I’m not a binge drinker, I just have a glass of wine or two every night like a normal person right? And I could never be that person who said they weren’t drinking. What’s wrong with them. I’ll never forget my year 12 english teacher once said to the class, Girls – it was an all girls catholic school. -Girls, never trust a sober.

My dad also drank a lot and so the programming around alcohol was strong – which is common to a lot of Australians I’d say.

Anyway, this was the challenge. It wasn’t giving up the booze. It was changing my whole relationship with alcohol and to do so, let go of the part of me who identified as being a drinker.

And here’s a pill that may be difficult to swallow – the truth is, the reason these labels and problems grip us like the vice is because they serve a purpose. People choose to have problems. God forbid they didn’t have a problem, what would they complain about? And I’m not immune to this at all. I will say having the awareness of choosing to hang on to problems, and realising the victim is a role you choose, a part you can play and when you get out of being at the effect of your life and into being the cause of your life, you’re well on your way to releasing these problems.

Your ‘problems’ are perfect excuse for why you can’t live the life we want to live.

If you start identifying as someone who’s a confident, kick ass speaker – you might be asked to get on stage, lead a meeting, take responsibility. Far easier sitting in the audience, hiding in the shadows and never even being considered as someone who’d be asked to speak. Let alone someone to listen to.

And herein lies the trade-off. What is it costing you to not be the speaker you want to be?

What influence are you NOT having?

If you’re a business owner and you start consistently showing up on social media and podcast and creating content. You might need to actually play big and show up for your business and take responsibility. And this one is self-coaching for sure, because there are a few problems I’m hanging onto to avoid stepping onto the world stage and making a massive impact in the way I want to. On my mission to help every woman find her voice and have the confidence to use it in a meaningful way to create her impact.

So why are you hanging onto your problems? Why are you choosing to label yourself in a way that’s serving a purpose that’s not your higher purpose?

Maybe it’s a belonging thing? If you get too big for your boots and start speaking really confidently not just like this you know cause you’re cool and you don’t your friends or family to think that you’re showing off or that you think you’re better than them. And all these other stories you might tell yourself to avoid doing the thing that needs to be done.

This was what it came down to for me with alcohol. It was a weird acceptance and relatability thing. I thought, if I’m not Sal the massive boozer then will people even relate to me. God I don’t want to get married or have children, and I just going professional in counter culture here. Will people think I think I’m too good for them, because I’m on my alcohol pedestal, bloody hell what’s wrong with her.

Hahaha those thoughts were exactly what I had in the past of people who didn’t drink.

The reality is that which you choose. Your internal world creates your external world. And once I recognised it wasn’t my drinking behaviour, it was the way I identified with sobriety, I just wrote a new manifesto for who I was in relation to alcohol.

I know this is going to sound like an AA introduction, but this is what I started writing and saying in the mirror.

Hi, I’m Sal, and I’m not drinking tonight. Not drinking alcohol is ok. Not that you need to declare or justify it to anyone else. I was declaring and justifying this to myself.

I rang my wine club and reduced the subscription. Don’t get me wrong I still love a glass of red with Patrick on the balcony occasionally, and when we go to dinner, het this, we order by the glass. OMG I thought people who didn’t order by the bottle were cheap killjoys. Listen to the labels I was putting on others and putting on myself.

And like metaphorically tearing off the stickers of a box I just let that shit go.

We get to choose who we want to be and we get to make meaning of things to the benefit of our lives.

And my new alcohol story is bloody brilliant. I have an excellent relationship with alcohol. It’s a take it if the occasion suits and I feel like it. It’s leave it. And you know in the past I thought people who didn’t drink had serious problems and now I think they’re the smartest in the room. My story has flipped. I have no issue saying yes to a drink and no issue saying no to a drink. It is not something that has a hold on me any more. Mind you in the past, I wouldn’t have said it had a hold on me, however there was no way I could go to a social event without having a wine while there…. That’s a hold.

And this whole story can be mapped across to your speaking story and your speaking identity.

Because as with my drinking. You can spout every confident speaking affirmation under the sun, but if you fundamentally identify as someone who isn’t a confident speaker, you won’t have a robust long term solution. How corporaty does that sound.

So instead of what should my mindset be before speaking, try who am I as a speaker?

Grab your journal or throw your phone on record and start with I am a speaker who …

And you’ll see if it’s helpful or unhelpful.

Just as I changed my relationship with alcohol you can change your relationship with your voice and speaking.

The word identity has its origins in the French which means oneness or sameness. SO it’s bringing into alignment who you want to be as a speaker and who you are as a speaker.

In my online course Fear to Fierce I guide you through rewriting your speaking story in a way that helps you change both the external behaviour and the internal identity piece. I give you all the pre work to dig out your holds and the prompts to write that new story.

So if you’re listening to this and having a holy shit moment. I don’t identify as being a confident speaker who’s worthy of using their voice. As someone who people listen to and has something valuable to say. As someone who has a voice that matters. A voice of significance. Someone who uses their voice to create impact in the world.

If that is not who you are as a speaker and it’s who you want to be as a speaker.

Then join Fear to Fierce. I’ll put the link in the shownotes. This course is the ideal vehicle to help you flip the script on your speaking story, your speaking identity so you can feel proud and get results because you know who you fucking are as a speaker.

Woah I rarely drop the f-bomb on this podcast, sorry not sorry, this is how important it is.

I know you have a voice worth hearing and a message worth sharing, so the question isn’t just who are you as a speaker? It’s what are you willing to do to become the speaker you want to be?