Expand Your Fempire Podcast #97 Transcript

How to Amplify Your Voice to Accelerate Your Business

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. I’m your host Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you right now.

[00:00:39] When I was young, about six years old, my mother and I went on a trip, just the two of us. We went to Texas, and we went to see Mount Rushmore, and it was a trip I will never forget. One of the things that happened was my mom and I checked in to the Hilton hotel in Dallas. Now I live in San Francisco, I did at the time, and I figured that all hotels had swimming pools. As soon as we checked in, I said to the lovely lady behind the desk “where’s the swimming pool?” She leaned down and she said to me, sweetly, “I’m so sorry. We don’t have a swimming pool at this hotel.” My mom could see the significant disappointment on my face. I turned to her and I said “mom, can we go somewhere with a swimming pool?”

[00:01:47] And you know what my mom did? She checked out in that moment. She said to the lady “we’re gonna need to go find a swimming pool.” And we left the Hilton, and we got in a taxi, and we drove to the Fairmont hotel. Of course, at the Fairmont, they had a swimming pool. Not only did they have a swimming pool, they had a rooftop swimming pool. It was gorgeous and beautiful and amazing and outside.

[00:02:16] I mean, I’d only been to city swimming pools, which in San Francisco are inside. This was so luxurious and like nothing I’d ever seen before. From this experience, you know what I got? I got that I can use my voice. I can ask for what I want, and sometimes I’m gonna get it. Now I know all kids ask for what they want, but for whatever reason, because this got me such an amazing place and such an amazing experience, it really stuck with me.

[00:02:55] What I wanna shine the spotlight on with you today, ideally what I wanna amplify with you today, is your voice.

[00:03:05] As women we’re often acculturated not to brag, not to speak up whenever we feel like it, to keep quiet, not to make others uncomfortable. And I wanna identify with you some barriers or some areas that you may consciously, or even unconsciously, based on your upbringing, based on your life experience, may be interfering in you grabbing opportunities to use your voice for leadership, for influence building, for massive impact in your community for causes you care about, to change the world or to change the parts of the world that really matter to you. Let’s look at this.

[00:03:52] As women, sometimes we keep quiet because we don’t know if our voice is welcome. And I wanna say to you, it doesn’t matter if it’s welcome, because it might be welcome to some of the people assembled. Recently I attended the graduation for one of my fabulous clients who got her Ph.D. And this was quite an amazing event. The invitation said formal, which I did not see. Fortunately, I showed up in a nice dress anyway, cause that’s how I tend to roll. I walk in this banquet hall, and if you did not know that this was a graduation, you would’ve thought that you walked into a fancy wedding. There were gold and white table settings. There were white rose arrangements on every table. Many of the women were in long dresses. The men, I didn’t see any tuxedos, but they were all dressed in sharp suits. There were green and gold balloons all over. It was quite an affair.

[00:05:09] I was so glad that I chose to go, because it is so important that we celebrate the milestones, the achievements in our life and in the lives of those we care about. Wicondra, my fabulous client who earned her Ph.D., she was in the front of the room with her three beautiful children, and her husband said “anybody who would like to share a few words?” And her parents got up individually, and her in-laws got up individually, and the minister and pastor of her church got up, and their wives, and they all spoke. And I wanted to say something, but I thought “well, I’m not family. I’m not with her church.” Then I thought “Caterina, it’s so important. When you wanna say something and the opportunity is here, you grab it.”

[00:06:04] And my friend, that is my advice to you: grab the opportunity. And I thought to myself after “why would I not?” Why would you not? Well, maybe you think “my words might not come out eloquently. Everything’s already been said. Maybe I’ll make a fool of myself. Maybe I’ll stumble.” And I’m saying to you, my friend, it doesn’t matter. What matters is you include your voice in the room. What happened when I went to the restroom, a lovely lady thanked me for my acknowledgement of Wicondra. She said my words inspired her. She was about to enter med school. And what I said about Wicondra having massive impact through her work all over the country, that she knew that that’s what she wanted to do. And another woman came up to me and shared how my words impacted her. Now I forgot to introduce myself. I addressed mostly Wicondra rather than the audience. It wasn’t the best, most eloquent, brief comments I’ve ever done. It doesn’t matter.

[00:07:19] Because you know why, my friend? Perfection is not required. What is required is you use your voice, you grab an opportunity every time you want to. I want you to start to pay attention when you feel like sharing or speaking up and you’re not. It could be part of what we talked about, not being eloquent enough, maybe not knowing if your voice is welcome.

[00:07:46] You know what else? Sometimes we’re concerned that we don’t look good enough. Our hair, our weight, our clothing, we think we’re gonna be judged. Guess what my friend. News flash: you’re being judged all the time. Doesn’t matter. Your voice is important to be included. And in this case I shared with you about Wicondra’s Ph.D. graduation celebration. This was an opportunity for me to publicly acknowledge her for her accomplishment.

[00:08:17] Public acknowledgement is a beautiful thing. I wanna ask you if you are publicly acknowledging people that are your clients, that are in your family, that are in your community, your friends, not just privately, publicly. How do we acknowledge people publicly? We acknowledge them publicly, like in this case, in a public forum or setting, in a public zoom room, in our email newsletter. Of course, on social media we can acknowledge people publicly. It’s great to do both, not just privately, publicly too.

[00:08:56] I talk about acknowledgement a lot because I feel it’s one of those skills that is easy to master. That makes a huge difference in your communication, in your leadership, in your sales, in your interactions with people that a lot of people don’t realize they’re actually doing very poorly. Let’s shine the spotlight on that right now. I could say to you “thank you so much for coming to my workshop.” That is a “doing” acknowledgement, thanking someone for what they’ve done. I could say “thank you so much for coming to the workshop and participating and asking questions. I so appreciate it.” That’s thanking someone not just for what they did, thanking them for how they’re being while they’re doing it, acknowledging them for both. And that’s better. The piece de resistance of acknowledgement that I really want you to embrace, that will uplift all your relationships, is when you say something like this: “thank you so much for coming to the workshop. Thank you for your enthusiasm and your questions and being engaged. Your participation gave me more vitality and I had more fun in the class with you there.”

[00:10:20] Now this is the part that most people forget about. They thank people for what they’ve done. If they’re really present and connected, they acknowledge somebody not for just what they did, but also for how they were being while they did it. It’s a part that the people miss most of the time. The part that I wanna invite you to put your attention on is acknowledging others for how, what they did is impacting you. Imagine the difference if someone says to you “thank you for coming.” Well, that’s nice, but it’s not significant. If they say “thank you for coming early and staying late, and supporting me with being welcoming to every guest. Your support made a huge difference in the evening and you made my job so much easier.” Do you see how much more significant that acknowledgement is?

[00:11:23] I talk about acknowledgement a lot and how it relates to uplifting your relationships and sales. One of the things I do, which I’m inviting you to do right now, is to grab a post note and write in big letters on your post note three simple words. Do, Be, and Impact. And the idea is to stick that note on your computer, next to your mouse pad area or on the mirror, wherever you talk. You could even stick it on the back of your cell phone. And use it in every conversation to acknowledge someone authentically, not just for what they did, how they’re being while they’re doing it. And most importantly, how it impacts you. This, my friend, will uplift all your relationships. Because now people feel seen, heard, gotten, appreciated, included, welcomed. They get to know that they matter and that they’re having impact. Now this whole sidebar I just did on acknowledgement in our conversation is a skill that I want you to use your voice for, to move towards mastery on, to master this skill because you can’t be a leader, you can’t build influence if no one ever feels seen or gotten or valued by you.

[00:12:59] Let’s look at a couple more things that might be getting in the way of you amplifying your voice, stepping more into your leadership, even interfering with you asking people to be your client. One is this unconscious conditioning that we all had growing up as women, girls, to be a good girl. Our parents would say to us all the time you’re being a good girl, or you’re not being a good girl. Or maybe you went to Catholic school like me, where the nuns talk to you a lot about being good. And believe me, I think I am a good person, but guess what? Are we being good people at the expense of amplifying our voice. And in fact, I want you to use your voice for good, for causes you care about, for people you wanna stand up for. And that includes you, for standing up for your business. Sometimes there’s a difficult conversation that you have to have. And now you could say “well I’ll just let it go.” You’re letting it go because you don’t wanna have that difficult conversation. I remember many, many years ago I paid too much money to speak at an event. When the event was concluded, I did not get return on my investment. I felt that the way the event was set up, I was not set up to get return on my investment. They had way too many speakers offering way too many things. There were things they had promised that had not been delivered. I absolutely though, I loved the producer of this event. She was one of my mentors. I did not want to jeopardize my relationship with her. At the same time, I recognized I had to stand up for my business. I had to be willing to have this difficult conversation, even if she was a no to compensate me in some way for this situation. It worked out. She gave me another event to speak at. I was very happy with that event. None of that would’ve happened if I did not amplify my voice and use it and stand up for my business.

[00:15:28] My friend, I want you to ask yourself, is there a difficult conversation you are not having, or even not even difficult, maybe an uncomfortable conversation, that you’ve been putting off. Because you’re concerned about what someone will think. You’re concerned that you might upset them. You’re concerned that it might make them uncomfortable rather than asking for what you want. Rather than doing what is best for you and your business. And you know the really exciting thing about using our voice? The more we do it, the better we get at it. And let me say this too: not only do the better we get, the more eloquent we get, the better we get at having attention on who we’re speaking to, our attention on the audience or the people. Because you know what? We’re not so worried about what we’re saying. We’re not so concerned about getting the words, right. Because we have enough confidence in our voice that we can share our thoughts without –here’s another one that sometimes gets into women’s way– without the need to do it perfect. Without the need to look really good while we’re doing it. Right now, ask yourself: any difficult conversations? Any uncomfortable conversations? I hope that this has had you think about some things I hope right now that you’re deciding on some actions that you would like to take based on our conversation so far.

[00:17:12] And there’s one more thing I wanna talk to you about. As girls we’re often told not to brag, we’re told that bragging doesn’t look good on us. Of course. Bragging is what they tell you when you’re a high-achieving girl or now woman, which is really a judgment on sharing your accomplishments. When I worked for my sister at Angelina’s in the cafe before I eventually ran it, I used to be told, not by Angela, by this other woman that worked for her, I used to be told I was too bossy. Well, hello, I was the manager. The thing I want you to get is that bossy is another word for leader or leadership. And bragging is another word for highlighting your accomplishments in sharing your value. And I wanna ask you if you don’t share your accomplishments and your value, because you don’t wanna make other people uncomfortable? Well most people will wanna celebrate your accomplishments. Most people will be impressed or at least see your massive value when you share your accomplishments.

[00:18:38] I’ve got a challenge for you right now. I want you to think about one or two or three of your accomplishments that you don’t really talk about much. And I want to invite you in the next three days to find a place, a meeting, social media, somewhere where you can share about those accomplishments. For example, I speak Italian. I have a master’s degree. My first book is published in 13 countries, plus it was also released in paperback in the US. I don’t really talk about that much, cuz I got new stuff to talk about. What are your accomplishments that people don’t know about? I’m asking you to take my achievement challenge because I wanna invite you to be louder and prouder about your massive accomplishments. I know you have many. And this is good for you because it is practice for when you have more in the future. I want you to get really good and really comfortable with using your voice, not only to support others and help others, but also to put yourself forward. I want you to be your own best wing-woman. You know, your wing-woman would rave about you when you’re out to other people, right? Well, do that for yourself sometimes, more of the time. What do you think about that? I hope you really like that idea. Because my friend, if you haven’t heard me say it, I’m gonna say it again. And if you’ve heard me say it, it bears repeating. You have massive value to bring. There is a lifetime supply of people to serve. Now, guess what? You and me, we’re not everybody’s flavor. That’s okay. We’re not looking to serve everybody. We’re looking to serve those people that wanna step forward to be served, and impacted, and my favorite word, uplifted, by us.

[00:20:55] I want you to take our time together today, and I wanna invite you to think about how can you amplify your voice for more good, for more sales, to showcase your leadership, to cultivate collaborations? And I don’t just want you to think about our discussion and what you can do. I then invite you to take action.

[00:21:21] Because as you’ve heard me say too, action is the antidote to whatever ails you that you want to impact. Take my acknowledgement challenge I’ve shared with you today. Take my achievement challenge. Take more action. The more you use your voice, the more you step into your leadership power, the more you speak, the more you talk to people about being your client, the better you’re gonna get at all of this. Pretty soon. If they’re not already saying to you, people are gonna say to you things like “you inspire me. You really made a difference for me. Your words really made a difference for me. You’ve changed my life.” My friend, you can’t do that sitting behind a computer, unless you’re teaching a Zoom something. Using your voice is what will make a difference for you.

[00:22:18] Again, my friend, you have massive value to bring. Get out there, amplify your voice. I cannot wait to be with you again here on the Expand Your Fempire Podcast.

[00:22:30] I wanna invite you to join me for one of my free workshops coming up, we have them every month. I invite you to check out my free links page caterinarando.com/links. More free gifts there than I can mention. I invite you to make sure you’re subscribing to this podcast. Give us a review, send us some love. Join our Facebook group. I invite you to not only connect with me, I invite you to engage with our amazing community of Thriving Women in Business.

[00:23:06] We are all women on a mission, using our businesses for good, and I would love to include you among us. Can’t wait to be with you next time. Take action based on our time together. Bing, Bing, Bing.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.