What it means to find your voice

Find Your Superpower newsletter 061

Read time: 5 minutes

Topics covered: Personal brand, storytelling, LinkedIn bootcamp

Earlier this week I received a sweet message from someone on LinkedIn. This is what she wrote (paraphrased for anonymity):

“Hi Juliana, I’ve enjoyed reading your posts and found your journey of a career switch to entrepreneurship inspiring. I’ve read from a few others about the importance of finding our voice. What exactly is “finding your own voice”? Is it a paraphrase for “finding your purpose”, communication style, or something else? I would love to hear your take on it.” 

Thanks L for writing to me.

Across the internet, whenever we read about the topic of “finding your voice,” the following phrases will inevitably come up: unleash your message, own your story, be authentic, speak your truth, define your purpose.

For left-brained individuals and technically trained professionals like me, they might as well be speaking to us in Latin. What on earth do these phrases mean?

In today’s issue of my weekly Find Your Superpower newsletter, I thought I’d share some new thoughts on how I approach the concept of “finding your voice.”

1/ Find your North Star

A classic situation that someone who has spent decades grinding for an organization finds themselves in, is that their entire identity is wrapped around their work and their company's mission. There is no issue with this, as long as they remain employed by said company.

That said, after the pandemic and return-to-office (RTO) mandate, many of them have decided to hang up their boots and leave their office desk for something new. 

Here’s a challenge they now face: Because their identity is completely work-related, they now realize that they have no unique identity outside of work. They don’t have a North Star outside of their former organization’s corporate mission.

In essence, they were the mouse walking in front of the Gruffalo this entire time.... and now the Gruffalo is gone.

TO DO: To make up for lost time, we need to focus on finding our North Star. For many people, joining a community of like-minded people, going on a transformative healing journey, joining a nature expedition, taking a months-long sabbatical, finding a spiritual connection, or volunteering for non-profit charity may help to unlock that deep purpose in them. 

2/ Find your origin story

I work with many senior executives, founders, small business owners, coaches and consultants in my six-week bootcamps and 1:1 coaching.

Their profile is similar to mine: a mid-career professional who has left employment for the entrepreneurial life. In many cases, they may choose to stay on in their day jobs, but they’re leveraging their skills and developing a side hustle.  

Here’s a challenge they now face: They are realizing they had never trained their muscle to communicate their mission, vision, values, beliefs, ikigai, and ideas in a clear, concise and powerful way.

In the past, all of this had been delegated to their PR, comms and marketing colleagues. I mean, honestly, raise your hand if you are guilty of saying this in the past: “That’s not my job, it is the comms/marketing team’s job to figure it out!” Well, surprise surprise, it’s our full-time job now. I hope you learn quickly!

Because these soft skills were not prioritized before, they don’t know how to tell strong business stories to generate demand for their technical services, despite being an experienced and senior expert in their industry.

As a result, they are hearing crickets for their new consulting or coaching business.

TO DO: If the clock is ticking and revenue is not generating itself, we must sharpen our origin story quickly. This is the story we tell when we meet someone for the first time at a networking event. This is the story we tell when we give a keynote speech at an industry event. This is story we tell in our LinkedIn posts to find new clients and revenue streams. It is both incredibly simple and hard at the same time, and finding your origin stor(ies) is what I specialize in.

3/ Find your shadow... and integrate it to become whole

According to Wikipedia, “The shadow is an unconscious aspect of the personality that does not correspond with the ego ideal, leading the ego to resist and project the shadow, leading to a conflict with it.”

Our shadow is basically our wounded self. It is often is created in our childhood, and it consists of everything that hurt us and that we didn't fully process along the way. It is the “dark side” of us. By doing shadow work, we heal from old wounds, improve our relationships, create better boundaries and stop the negative self-talk.

In my bootcamps and 1:1 coaching, as soon as my clients start writing intentionally and authentically, their shadow often appears, sometimes with startling force. It rears its head in their stories. It creates conflict in their writing. It muddles their voice.

Until we soothe and heal our wounded inner child, we simply cannot achieve the fullest potential we are destined for. It is for the above reasons that I started reading about the abundance mindset and implementing it in my life.

TO DO: The journey to finding our voice begins on the inside. It is an inside job. We can take baby steps towards integrating our shadow into our overall identity by talking to an experienced therapist.

Enroll in our six-week Find Your Superpower bootcamp!

Amanda Cua and I are thrilled to welcome two distinguished guest speakers to our upcoming six-week LinkedIn bootcamp:

• Chris Do, LinkedIn Top Voice, Emmy award-winning designer, director, CEO and Chief Strategist of Blind and the founder of The Futur—an online education platform with the mission of teaching 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love

• James Cheo, LinkedIn Top Voice, Chief Investment Officer, Southeast Asia for Private Banking and Wealth Management at HSBC

Thank you Chris and James for joining our bootcamp as guest speakers!

Please feel free to check out some bootcamp testimonials here. You could also DM some of my past participants.

By midnight today (Sunday, June 16, GMT+8:00), the bootcamp will revert to full price. Cohort 3 is already 80% booked in two weeks! Only a few spots left—secure yours now.

ENROLLING NOW!

ENROLLING NOW!

ENROLLING NOW!

Thanks for reading issue 061 of my weekly Find Your Superpower newsletter.

For those of you who are new to my newsletter, Find Your Superpower is subscribed to by 37,000+ people, and discusses the following three goals: (1) Making a career transition, (2) Professional branding on LinkedIn, and (3) Reinventing ourselves for the future of work.