Sharon Ehrlich: You’re tuning in to a live recording of the Living While Leading podcast. This episode offers essential tips for discovering your authentic voice, whether presenting at work or speaking on a large stage. It also features real-life stories showcasing how mastering public speaking can transform your life and career.
Don’t miss out on the full transcript for this episode and discover other resources for women leaders www.livingwhileleading.com/52.
You’re listening to Living While Leading with your host, Sharon Ehrlich, where I support high-performing professional women to build confidence, take control of their careers and lives, and lead with purpose and impact.
My name is Sharon Ehrlich. I’m the founder and CEO of Living While Leading, an executive coaching practice. I help high-performing professional women build confidence, take control of their careers, and lead with impact.
During my career, I had limited access to powerful female leaders, which is still challenging for many women. So, I created this show inviting thought leaders and top executives to share their experiences and wisdom with my community.
I’m very pleased to announce that I have Carol Cox with me today. Carol Cox is the founder and CEO of Speaking Your Brand and host of the Speaking Your Brand podcast.
Speaking Your Brand is a coaching and training company that works with high-performing, purpose-driven women entrepreneurs and professionals to create their signature talks and thought leadership platforms. Carol hosts a weekly five-star-rated Speaking Your Brand podcast, which I can fully endorse, and, enduring election season, serves as a political analyst on TV news. So that means you’re going to be hella busy the next few months, aren’t you? Carol, welcome to the podcast.
Carol Cox: Thank you so much, Sharon. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Sharon Ehrlich: Would you like to add anything? That was a really short introduction. Is there something else that my audience needs to know about you?
Carol Cox: Well, I think, like so many of us high-performing women and the women that we are ourselves and women that we work with, is that we tend to have a lot of different interests and a lot of different trajectories in our career. So, I went to get a master’s and a PhD in European history, made a left turn into technology and software development, then another left turn into politics, and finally started Speaking Your Brand back in 2015, 2016.
For those of you who wonder, how do all these things tie together? How does my personal brand make sense? It does is finding those threads, and maybe we’ll have a chance to dive into that a little bit today.
Sharon Ehrlich: Well, I think that’s a really good place to start. Carol, your career was definitely not linear by any stretch of the imagination. Can you talk a little bit about what led you to Create Speaking Your Brand?
Carol Cox: Sure. So, there’s the logical, kind of rational, conscious side of why creative speaking your brand, but then there’s the subconscious side that I didn’t realize until about five years later.
I started Speaking Your Brand back in 2015 because I had run technology companies and been a software developer and had just gotten burnt out.
I got burnt out coding, and I really wanted to work with people at the time, I was around a really great group of women entrepreneurs. So, I started thinking, what can I do to help them? Where do I see that they need help? It was around public speaking, finding their voice, using their voice, and being bold with their thought leadership content.
That’s why I created speaking your brand. I have always enjoyed public speaking and creating presentations. People told me I was great at them, so it seemed like a logical, rational next step for a business.
So that’s the conscious part, but then there’s the subconscious part, which I didn’t realize until I was delivering a keynote. This was the fall of 2021, so the first in-person speaking engagement since COVID had started the year prior.
I was standing there talking to the audience of women, talking to them about finding resistance in your purpose. So often in our careers or businesses, we feel like, yes, we’re on fire, we’re living our purpose. But then some resistance comes up.
Could be external from other people. It could be internal from within us. Well, that happened to me in my stint in local politics, and we can talk a little bit about that story, too. But as I was sharing that story and that keynote, all of a sudden, like, that proverbial light bulb went off in my head, and I said out loud to the audience, oh, that’s why I started Speaking Your Brand, because I needed that support, network, and community back when this situation had happened to me ten years prior that I didn’t have, and I ended up creating this to give that to other women. And I had not realized that consciously until that moment.
Sharon Ehrlich: You know what I love about that is the generosity of it. Like I said, when I opened up the show, I did not have something in my career; that was I didn’t have access to many women leaders and powerful women.
I feel it’s almost my duty to do that. I think this “why” that Simon Sinek talks about, and we all know about, starting with the “why” is really important to understand your real motivation behind what you do. And sometimes, it’s not that obvious.
You just said that you had been in business for a while, and then suddenly, the light bulb went off, right?
Carol Cox: Absolutely. It’s getting back to the idea of your personal brand and kind of tying your threads together, the different aspects of your career, your interest.
If I look back, I see that my why, whether it’s through studying history or in technology or in, politics or even Speaking Your Brand, is always about looking for the women in the stories and wanting women to tell their own stories and use their voices, whether it’s back in history or it’s in politics.
We can talk about politics today because it is certainly a lot more exciting than it was a week ago. And then, obviously, with the work we do here as Speaking Your Brand. So that’s that thread.
For those of you who are watching and listening, think about your own career. What were the things you loved to do when you were young? What lit you up? Probably, those interests are still with you today. They may come out differently, but that thread is probably still there.
Sharon Ehrlich: That’s a good exercise in terms of being a bit introspective. But you know what? I spent a little bit of time going online and finding footage of you being interviewed on television.
What I can say is that you share your observations about the candidates with incredible confidence. Has it always been like that for you? And if not, can you share a personal story about when you experienced the confidence gap, what you did, and what that moment taught you?
Carol Cox: When I’m speaking to audiences, or I’m on TV, I kind of put on a persona. And by persona, I don’t mean that it’s false, artificial, or inauthentic. It’s not that.
But I’m very clear in the purpose of why I’m there, the message that I’m there to share the vision that I have, the values that I have, the mission that I have, and how I want that to come across.
So, when I go on TV news, I am a political analyst on the Democratic side. That is clear. I don’t hide that. I like to joke that I’m on there to express my opinions, which I do, but I’m very clear on my purpose and mission.
I think where that’s where that confidence comes from. But I’ve had speaking engagements that did not go well. My confidence really sagged, and I also learned a lot from that.
Usually, it’s because I get too much in my head, and my perfectionism gets in the way of truly sharing my message with my audience. I did an episode on my podcast about this earlier this year.
For those of you who might get nervous about public speaking, being on video, or being on TV, first, get really clear about your purpose, your values, your mission, and what you want to share.
Recognize that you are the messenger that has been chosen. Whether it’s for that TV segment to stand on that stage or to present that workshop to the attendees. You are the messenger. And how can you create that connection with them? Through sharing what matters to you and, by extension, what matters to them.
Sharon Ehrlich: This is such a valuable point because, when I was thinking about starting my podcast, I thought to myself, and I got in my head as well, saying, well, what do I have to say? Why would anybody want to listen to me? Is anything I have to say original?
Then I got over myself with the help of a coach, I have to say and started to understand that the lens through which I see things is through the lens of my life experience, my lived experience, my background, everything.
Of course, my perspective is unique and different from everyone else’s. And that ties into what you were saying about whatever you’re talking about. Your life experience influences what you have to say. And so, it hasn’t been done before because it hasn’t been done by you.
Carol Cox: Absolutely, Sharon. And this is what I say all of the time. Yes, someone has talked about your topic somewhere, and probably many people have talked about the umbrella topics out there.
But what you bring to it is exactly what those particular people in the audience have been waiting to hear because maybe your life experience is similar. Maybe they’ve had a similar career trajectory, or maybe they just feel that connection with you. They can’t really explain it, but they just feel that relatability.
Sharon, I know, because we work together, that you have gotten rave reviews at the speaking engagements you’ve been doing over the past year. And I think it’s for the same reason: because of your relatability and the perspective and angle in your own story that you’re sharing with your audience.
Sharon Ehrlich: I’m glad that you brought that up. I think this is worth sharing with people. There is this idea that because I do this, have a podcast, and do public speaking, I’ve got it all figured out.
But actually, you and I know one another because I was hired to make a presentation, a keynote, at an event filled with medical doctors. I’m not a medical doctor. And so I was very concerned about my credibility. How can I stand up there in front of all of these MDs, some of them MDs, PhDs with specialists, et cetera, et cetera, and tell them something?
I had my doubts. And then I worked with you and Diane, and I realized, well, that was just pure rubbish, what I was thinking. Because I do have something to say. And then with the exercises you put me through, I gained confidence because I realized I have something to talk about. It’s going to resonate with at least a handful of people in the audience.
And what I can say was after I finished the presentation, so many women stood in line waiting to talk to me because they wanted to say that it hit a nerve.
It triggered them and made them think of something. So all of my concerns were completely misguided because, at the end of the day, there were people in the audience who thought the message was valuable to them.
I want to ask you a question about storytelling and building confidence. Can you share an example with us of a story that profoundly impacted your thinking about your professional ambitions?
Carol Cox: I mentioned earlier this realization I had delivering that keynote, why I had started Speaking Your Brand, and this professional experience that had happened ten years before.
I’ll share a little bit about that because this has to do with professional ambitions, confidence, and actually losing my voice and confidence a number of years back when I was around 30 years old, I became chairperson of my local Democratic party.
I was the kind of girl in high school who loved politics, ran for student council, was on the speech and debate team, and did Model United Nations in college. And I was the type of young, high-achieving woman who thought I could be president someday.
In my late twenties and early thirties, I was very excited to get involved in local politics again. So, I got involved as a volunteer and was then encouraged by a group of people to run for chairperson, which I did.
I got elected, and I was in my purpose. I loved it. We ran women for office who had never run before. We raised tens of thousands of dollars to support them. We did big fundraisers. We did get out the vote. I went on TV to talk about our candidates and our vision, mission, and values.
Everything was great until it wasn’t. About a year and a half into my tenure as chair, all of a sudden, all those people who had supported me decided that they didn’t quite like a woman, especially a young woman, especially a young, ambitious woman with that much of a public presence and a public voice. So even though this was an all-volunteer position, and I poured my heart, soul, time, and energy into it, they decided they didn’t like it.
I had to chair a meeting of the executive committee one summer. I knew they would be there, and I knew they would not be nice. Essentially, they bullied me. Even though I would have wanted to see myself as this type of strong woman who would have held my ground and would have fought back, as I mentioned earlier, I didn’t have that support system.
They had been my support system, but I felt really alone and vulnerable. Instead of fighting back, I just ended up finishing out my term, not running for reelection or Congress, which had been talked about.
Even though no one would have known anything was wrong with me in the years following, and I still did my technology business and still did public speaking, I knew within myself that I had lost this core sense of confidence and had lost my voice, my belief that my voice mattered.
It wasn’t until about seven years after that that I started to come out of that. I found this group of women entrepreneurs and started to realize how much having that support system and learning from each other can make such a difference.
If this has ever happened to you, whether it’s feeling like you lost your voice for a month, a year, seven years, or longer, try to find that support system, whether it’s through a coach like Sharon or through people in your local women’s community, because that’s how I believe we build each other back up.
Sharon Ehrlich: Can you talk to me about a client success story where someone overcame this hesitation, maybe similar to what you experienced? And how did that transformation impact their career or their life?
Carol Cox: I have a few women who come to mind. So, the first one is a woman I worked with in 2017. I can’t believe it’s been over seven years now. Her name is Tammy Lally. We worked together on her TEDx Orlando talk, which she delivered that year.
We worked so hard on that talk. She poured hours and hours into it. And it was a really vulnerable talk for her. It was about growing up, about her family. You can Google Tammy Lally TEDx talk. It’s about money-shame, and you can find it.
In those eight minutes, she stood on that TEDx stage and shared her story and why, and this idea of money shame not only transformed the people in that room who were there—I was there—but also the 2 million plus people who have now viewed her talk online.
I believe she has literally saved lives around the world and transformed her business and career. Her business has blossomed because people have discovered the work that she does. She’s written a book, and she now commands very good speaking fees not only because of the incredible speaker she is but also because of her willingness to dig deep, be vulnerable, and tie her personal story to that larger, universal lesson.
Sharon Ehrlich: I saw that TEDx talk, and it is really powerful because she reveals something about herself which I think most people would not be willing to talk about.
And that is the shame about money, not having money, not being responsible with money. I’m sure she had to dig deep to tell that story and be vulnerable on the stage.
I can understand why that video has been viewed more than 2 million times. So many people can probably relate to that, no matter what their background is. There is a lot of shame about it. We don’t talk about money at all.
Well, bravo to you for helping her transform her life. That’s a hell of a transformation that you just talked about. Finding your voice is a journey. I think you just described that about yourself. It’s also been a journey for me. How can women begin to identify and embrace their unique voices, personally and professionally? Because it’s not only in the professional realm that many of us have to find our voices.
Carol Cox: Sharon, so when you were talking earlier about the speaking engagement, you had to deliver to those medical doctors, and you said, I’m not an MD. This is not my industry. This is not my area of expertise. But you still recognize when you deliver how much people still value and got so much out of your talk, even though you’re not in the same expertise as them.
I talk a lot on my podcast about this idea of the “expert trap.” As women, especially our generation, we needed all the degrees. We needed the credentials. We needed that credibility to advance in our careers and our businesses. We needed that kind of third-party institution to grant us that credibility.
But the problem is that we got so stuck in the expert trap that we forgot about our personal stories and our personal journeys and including that in the content, in the podcast interviews, in the presentations and the speaking engagements that we’re doing.
So for women out there, whether it’s personally or professionally, you want to find your voice and use your voice is tap into those personal stories, whether it’s someone like Tammy and money shame, whether it’s me in that, that experience I had in local politics, sharing the stories that you have:
Think about what those stories have shaped you, whether it was when you’re five years old, 15 years old, 35 years old, or 50 years old, and start talking about those and really find that emotional kernel of that message.
A lot of times, when we tell our stories, we want to smooth out all the rough edges to make them seem more palatable to our audiences. But it’s actually those gritty details that we need to keep. It may feel hard initially to share them, but that’s what will connect you to your audience. And honestly, I really believe that telling our stories liberates us from some of the shame or baggage we may feel about them.
Sharon Ehrlich: You make a valuable point, but I like to push back on a little bit because I’m sure some of my listeners are saying, well, sharing a personal story in a professional setting might be a little bit weird. How would you counter that?
Carol Cox: You know, obviously there’s the TMI, too much information. You, your story, still have to be in service of that particular audience. So, you still need to understand what is appropriate for that audience.
Also, that audience has to have earned your vulnerability. Not every audience is the right audience for a particular story. So, you have to judge what is appropriate for that audience.
But find those audiences where you can share those stories with each other. They’re out there somewhere. It may not be at your particular workplace or at the next industry association conference. Maybe there’s a story about a professional failure, a lesson you learned that could be appropriate.
Maybe some other type of personal story may not. However, I will say this. I have another client that I worked with last year. She was on my podcast. Her name is Karen Keene. And very sadly, she had a very tragic situation happen to her back in 2020.
She came to me last year. So, three years after that tragic incident and said, I really want to tell my story, but I need help doing so. And she’s very highly regarded in the community, one of the pillars of our community, woman of the year, all of that.
She was concerned how if I share the story, what are people going to think and all that. But she’s been sharing it because she has that bigger “why”. She has that bigger mission. And I feel like anyone judges someone else for sharing their story in an appropriate way that says more about them than it does about the person choosing to share that story.
I feel like, as humans, there is no greater gift we can give to each other than truly listening, honoring, and being there to hear each other’s stories. And if you’re in a workplace or an environment that’s not going to honor those stories again in a professional way, then find a place where you can do that.
Workplace cultures need to be able to support this level of vulnerability, including from business leaders and other team members.
Sharon Ehrlich: Let’s talk about the practicality of it. How can professional women ensure that their communication, whether in speeches or in presentations or everyday interactions, is really aligning with who they are?
You talked about organizational culture, and we all understand that organizational cultures can actually be all-consuming, and it can sometimes be very difficult to be yourself because you somehow have to fit into this culture.
What would you say to women in that instance who they want to speak, they want to be themselves, but they have this bigger elephant in the room called culture that they have to deal with.
Carol Cox: I very gladly do not work in corporate. I never have. This is why I’ve been an entrepreneur for over 20 years. So I may not be the best person to answer that from my own personal experience.
But let me say this: I have a client we worked with a couple of years ago. She’s worked in corporate for her entire career. She told me this story: She was at this particular company and wanted to advance into leadership.
She had been there a long time, proven herself, and had an excellent performance record, taking on more responsibilities and projects. She thought the problem was her, why she wasn’t advancing or getting promoted.
Finally, the proverbial straw was too much when she was passed over again. At that moment, she recognized that this wasn’t about me. It was actually about the culture of this particular company that I am in. She went to look for another job. She found another company with a much better culture that matched her and what she wanted. And she is thriving there now, and she loves it.
It may be that you can change or adapt to the culture within your workplace, and maybe there’s another culture out there that may be a better fit for you. In that case, you do feel comfortable using your voice again, always in an appropriate, professional way that advances your goal and the goal of your team or the organization in a positive way.
Sharon Ehrlich: Well, we have something here from Deborah Skyers, and she says, “Carol, I applaud you for overcoming your fears about public speaking and rising to the forefront of helping people to use their voices effectively. Do you have any strategies for dealing with your inner voice of judgment, particularly when you perceive a tough crowd?”
Carol Cox: Okay, great question, Deborah. Thank you for asking this. I don’t know about you, Sharon, or those of you listening, but have you ever delivered the same presentation, the same content, to one group of people? And it is amazing. They love it. They’re engaged or leaning forward, they’re answering your questions, and you’re like, this is fantastic.
Then you go and deliver that same presentation to a different group, and it’s crickets. There is no energy, no engagement, and it totally falls flat. So, is it on you? Is it on the content? Is it on the audience? Well, it’s a mix of all of those. There are group dynamics everywhere.
So, if you feel like you’re facing a tough crowd, it could just be the dynamics of that group are different. So don’t put that too much on yourself. It’s a lesson. What kind of audience most benefits from this content type and my communication style? Maybe that particular group is not a great fit for you.
Now, if it’s a tough crowd, you need to share a particular message with them and, you know, going in, or you think going in is a tough crowd. At the beginning of a presentation or a meeting like that, I like to break the ice through some questions to the audience to get kind of them talking out loud initially so they’re not sitting back with their arms crossed wondering why they’re there.
So, get them involved but also say out loud what they’re probably thinking in their head. All right, everyone. I know this is not the topic that you all want to be sitting here for an hour talking about today, so how can we make this valuable to you? What do you want to get out of our hour together?
Ask them right there. Diffuse any objections that they have by saying them out loud, and then talk about those shared goals and objectives that you all have and how you can get there together with that time and with the topic that you’re presenting on.
Sharon Ehrlich: This is a very interesting and valuable point. You have to be able to feel the room. One of the things I remember from my discussions with Diane Diaz, who works very closely with you, is being able to leverage and take advantage of any information you can get about your audience beforehand.
If it’s an event, work with the event organizers. In my case, when I was presenting to a room full of doctors and surgeons, trying to understand their pain points. What is it that they’re really challenged with? I informed myself about that.
I wouldn’t say I rewrote my entire presentation, but I certainly put in the threads that tied into what I was told would be of interest to them, and it was indeed very effective.
What you just said about asking a question before you start talking is probably for someone who is a bit more confident in doing that, right? Because if someone throws something at you that you don’t know how to deal with, it could turn out to be a deer in the headlights type of moment.
Carol Cox: Sharon, I would say, yes, public speaking does get better the more reps you put in, whether it’s virtual presentations, podcast interviews in person, and so on; for sure, you’re definitely going to build your confidence the more you do it.
I know it can feel scary to elicit questions from the audience, whether it’s at the beginning or in the middle, or at the end of your presentation, because you wonder, am I going to get a question I don’t know the answer to?
Or they get to say something that feels off. Here’s what most people want: They just want to be heard and acknowledged. You don’t have to have an answer for them, tell them that they’re right, or debate them on the spot if they say something that’s not quite in alignment with the direction you want to take with your talk.
Thank you so much for sharing that. That’s a really interesting point. I’d love to talk about that with you later, or we can definitely talk about it here in a few minutes. That’s all. Just acknowledge them. Sharon Ehrlich: There were so many other things I wanted to discuss with you, but we’ve actually run out of time. So first off, Carol, I’d like to thank you for being here with us and sharing your expertise and being so open and vulnerable with us.
Folks, if you’d like to reach out to Carol, she is very active on LinkedIn, so send that connection request. You can also connect with me. Thank you for your attention. For those of you who joined us live, and for those of you who will watch the replay, thank you for being here and for your engagement.
Thanks for listening today. This is your time. Give yourself permission to reclaim what’s important to you and be who you want to be. If you’re getting value from this podcast, please subscribe, share it, or write a review and connect with me on www.LivingWhileLeading.com or on LinkedIn.
And don’t forget to tune in next week!
