0:00:00 - Joanna Newton
Welcome to the Her First podcast, a platform to help online business owners, coaches and creators gain the confidence needed to build a successful business while creating a sustainable lifestyle balance. We are here to help you prioritize yourself in business and life.
0:00:11 - Michelle Pualani
Today we have special guest Cate Scott Campbell, founder of Ecstatic Voice, a communication studio and voice lab for creative, dynamic and multidisciplinary leaders and brands. She has supported a wide variety of companies, from startups to Fortune 500 corporations, in activating their missions, authentically engaging with their audiences and bringing their unique stories to life through products and programming, and she has guided many one-on-one clients, from creative directors to CEOs, to define their voices, change careers, upgrade their messaging and communicate with joyful ease. So getting to chat with Cate just brings a smile to my face. I met her at the Yellow Co-Conference and you have absolutely have to connect with her in person sometime if you can, because her radiance just fills the space around you. So welcome, Cate. Thank you so much for being here, and where I want to start is in your own words. Let's just go over a brief introduction to the work that you do with Ecstatic Voice.
0:01:11 - Cate Scott Campbell
Thank you so much, Michelle, and thank you, Joanna. It is such a genuine joy to be here. I love this conversation that both of you are leading and really excited to jump in with both of you today.
Ecstatic Voice, like you beautifully introduced, is both a communication studio and a voice lab for specifically creative, dynamic and multidisciplinary people and brands, and sometimes, as we all know, that's both right. And I choose those words specifically because a number of years ago, my phone started ringing, and I always say that I was called into the work of Ecstatic Voice because I literally started getting phone calls from my creative and dynamic and multidisciplinary friends. Creative in terms of creating something new, right, working maybe in a really clearly creative field or maybe not, creating a product for the first time or a process for the first time. Dynamic, because someone is maybe moving in a bold direction that they haven't moved in before Switching industries, switching categories, switching genres. And multidisciplinary because maybe there's a lot going on, maybe you're doing all kinds of different things, and I happen to identify as all three of those, and so I spend a lot of time with people who do as well.
So I started getting calls with questions like Cate, how do I describe who I am and what I do without sounding like I'm describing 10 different people? Or how do I make my words match this big, exciting vision that I have in my head? Or how do I articulate the value of what I bring when maybe that value is not so straightforward? Or what do I do with that part of my path? How do I talk about that? And that could be a gap or a thing that just doesn't make sense in some way. And so I started answering the calls and realized that the kinds of challenges of communication, of talking about your work, that come with doing things differently, that come with creating something new, or that come with having all kinds of different interests, are unique.
And so really the work of ecstatic voice is twofold. It's first connecting your dots, articulating what you do and who you are and what you're all about for yourself first, so that then you can connect those dots for other people understanding your logic, so that you can share that in a way that's going to carry you forward to wherever you're being called to go.
0:03:51 - Joanna Newton
Next, that's amazing and I think in the way business and relationships and earning money and all of those things work today, who you are and how you present yourself are so utterly important. One thing I think that happened that's really interesting is when TikTok happened. Tiktok happened, it became an app and at first it was just silly dance videos and jokes and memes and then people started using TikTok to really communicate. And then TikTok did this thing where changed the way we have to communicate and now things like the way we look, the way we present ourselves, the way we speak being able to connect those dots for people quickly is so important Because a lot of times you have three seconds right. You have three seconds to make an impression on someone, whether that's through a landing page, a piece of marketing material, the first three seconds of you speaking in a video are so important and I can imagine for the people you work with, helping them clarify those points is probably so powerful in the way they present themselves to the world.
0:04:56 - Cate Scott Campbell
It's really true, and we all hear that. Right, you have three seconds, you've got to make this impression, and with that comes a lot of pressure, when already you may be figuring out. Wait, what is this thing all about? That I'm doing? I'm still sorting through how it all goes together, and then here I am. In order to do this thing, I'm needing to communicate what it is while I'm still trying to wrap my head around that, and so I started noticing that communication or hey, yeah, and then just describe yourself was always like a chapter in a book or a oh. And do that when really to me, these things go hand in hand doing something differently, stepping into your fullness and being able to communicate that in a way that doesn't box you in but acts as a bridge for you and everyone that you're in conversation with. That is the work that we do here.
0:05:49 - Michelle Pualani
And it's so important for our online brands and our content creators to get a really good impression of exactly the things that we're going to talk about today. So, understanding our own voices, understanding how we show up, understanding how we're communicating with our audiences and the narrative that we're spinning in the online space, I think it's really, really important for a lot of our listeners to better understand that piece of themselves and how they're being presented to the world on a larger scale. Communication is really such an important part of our entire lives. It's really at the heart of how we operate in our relationships with our colleagues, with family, with friends and even with ourselves, which is, I think, something that we miss a lot of times. We communicate with ourselves more than we communicate with anyone else, and it's really powerful. How we communicate with ourselves will then exude from there into our communication with others.
So when we were preparing for this interview, you shared with me that communication is the way you navigate through change, which I really love and I thought was really beautiful, because we're all evolving, we're all changing, and a lot of what you support your clients with is that navigation of a pivot, or entering a new career, or heading into a new brand, a new business and what that looks like and how you can better clarify that so that you are received with that impression that you're trying to make in some way shape or form.
So that shift in that pivot, which is such a big part of our lives, and how we communicate that with ourselves and how we narrate that to ourselves, I think is also really important. The perception of negative, positive, the influence of what it means for you and how you're identifying and representing yourself is such a crucial part of how we show up in the world and how we interact with others on a larger scale. So for someone listening that might be kind of questioning the power of communication and might not realize it for themselves or haven't thought about it before. Can you share with us what is so important about voice and why is it critical for a brand, a business owner or an online creator to really invest in establishing the clarity that that can bring?
0:07:57 - Cate Scott Campbell
You know, often people ask me Cate, are you a communication person, are you a career person, are you a voice person? And I always say yes, because those communication and your career whether you are a small business owner, whether you are working as a full-time creator, whether you have a very unique recipe that no one else has of your work, whether you identify as you or you and everyone who works with you Communication is really the dot connector. I always think of it as a bridge and I was mentioning to Joanna earlier that I am someone who happened to grow up on bridges. I literally grew up crossing a bridge at least once a day as a kid in the San Francisco Bay Area. I didn't realize at the time how much that experience of actually crossing large-scale physical connectors would impact my work now, but it genuinely has, because I work with people, with brands.
No one I work with is not going through change or living in change of some kind. If you are working in a multidisciplinary, multifaceted way, you know that you're continually in change. If you have a business that you're growing, you are continually in change. If you have been doing something for a really long time working in the corporate space, in a nine to five and now you want to do your own thing, or vice versa. You are about to make a bold change and in all of these scenarios, you are also being asked to lead a conversation that is truly yours to lead.
I think about voice as the unique and dynamic meaning. It's only yours and it's always evolving, just like you are conversation that you have with everyone around you. Communication in that way is self-advocacy. It is how you say hey, this is who I am, this is where I'm headed, and let me connect those dots for you. And, Michelle, like you just said, it's also how you say let me connect those dots for myself, because often I see that when there's a struggle to say I don't know how to describe this or I'm not sure how to make this make sense for other people, there's often a question inside of wait, does this even make sense? How do I make this make sense for myself?
And we know that words are so powerful and our voice is so powerful. Our speaking voice is the thing that carries all of the thoughts we have inside out into the world so that others can hear them. And so, going through that process of putting words to yourself, putting words to your ideas. Taking that courageous action of voicing those is this generative effect. It is a way that really helps you begin to connect the dots for yourself so that then you can connect them for other people. And those don't have to happen in that order. I often describe them as doing it in that way, but sometimes you'll find you're in a conversation and you go oh, I just said it, now I get it. It makes sense. So that living, breathing experience of articulating who you are has not only a generative effect but a magnetizing effect. It gets other people to say, oh wait, yeah, I'm going through that too, or I get that. Ooh, let's be in conversation.
0:11:24 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and I think if you're someone who is struggling to understand why people don't see you the way you see you, going through an exercise like this could be life changing For me. I know I experienced this. I had a long kind of corporate career regular corporate career in marketing sales. I'm now a business owner, but there was a turning point for me in my career when I had this realization that I was part of the problem holding me back from getting promotions, getting certain accolades, being in the type of role that I knew I could handle, and it was very frustrating because I knew I was getting results right.
All of the work that I did was getting great results for the company. I always met my deadlines, I always got things done, the quality of my work was excellent and I always believed that my work should stand for itself. I was always like, if I'm doing the job, if I'm doing the work, someone should give me that promotion because I deserve it. I had this realization that I had to tell them. I had to tell the other, my peers in my company, the people above me in my company. I had to present myself in a way, speak in a way, and sometimes as frustrating as this is, the results almost don't matter as much. Right, it was so frustrating because I would see people who I knew missed deadlines, did not get the results I got were not, as on paper, successful as me, get promoted over me, and it was massively frustrating and I realized I needed to do a personal brand reboot.
And I did that work on my own, did research, figured out what I could do differently, how I could present myself differently, how I could speak differently, and it was exactly what you're saying. How do I connect the dots for other people between my work and the results? How do I do that for others? And when I took those steps, it completely changed where I was at in my career. Like, I got promotions, I made the most money that I've ever made in a corporate career and then ended up turning my work into a business that I now run and full-time myself outside of the corporate world, and I 100% attribute that to the work I did on my own kind of brand voice, all of those things to that change. Now, I did it on my own. I'm sure having someone help me would have been maybe faster, maybe better, but just spending that time thinking through that dot connecting on my own made a massive difference in my career.
0:14:02 - Cate Scott Campbell
I love that you shared that, Joanna. I love that you took it upon yourself to say I'm going to figure out how to articulate my value here and really get that across. And one of the primary bridges, the primary dots that communication connects, is what you're doing and why it is so valuable. And we learn in school that the more homework we do, okay, then we're gonna be prepared for this thing and we're going to be rewarded on the test with whatever grade we wanna get In life. It's different, right?
Oftentimes the work we're doing, especially when we're doing it well, is a little bit of a magic trick. People don't see all of the work that we're putting in. They see what's coming out of it, but they may not even understand what value it is carrying in the greater story of what's happening or whatever. And so for you to be able to say, hey, this is why this is so valuable is massive. I never like to make a blanket statement like there will be promotions, right, like you will be earning more, but there is really a connection there that the more you're able to connect the dots of the value you bring, the more that value is seen and recognized.
0:15:18 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and I also think there's this layer to that. When you can recognize your own value, it's easier to recognize when other people are never going to recognize your own value. So you might be in a situation where you've made that change for yourself, you've made that mindset shift for yourself and the folks around you aren't catching up. Likely that could be a sign you need to find something else right and to find someone who is going to value you for the things you should be valued for, and if that would likely lead to potential promotions or just more satisfaction with your life and the work that you do.
0:15:54 - Cate Scott Campbell
Absolutely and, like you were saying earlier, that is the thing right. When you have that posture in yourself, because you have that knowing you can really rest in that and know that you have a kind of agency that is going to take you to your point, to the right spaces for you where you can stand in the fullness of your value.
0:16:18 - Michelle Pualani
As a coach and practitioner, I suffered from this problem a lot, Joanna, I completely agree that I thought that my teaching, my instruction, my coaching would always speak for itself.
But once I bridged into the online space, that wasn't the case anymore.
And, yes, there are testimonials and yes, there's a way of demonstrating that success, but that still comes from communication of your value and recognizing the way in which you can support someone or you can successfully do what it is that you're saying that you do and, on a marketing level, being able to kind of let go of the question and let go of the doubt and the insecurity that comes along with that delivery, or that comes along with that sales language, and being able to present yourself to the internet, to your audience, to wherever you're showing up, in full confidence of this is the value that I bring and standing behind that, which takes the belief in yourself and it takes that communication and fine tuning that story and fine tuning what it is that we call brand voice.
So I wanna get really clear on this concept of brand voice, because it does bring about a lot of things, and I love that you say multi-disciplinary, Cate, because I feel like, especially as entrepreneurs, especially as business owners, especially as creatives and sometimes visionaries, we often feel like we're bringing a lot of pieces of ourselves right, a lot of different aspects of ourselves in which we've been successful in the past, or different experiences, different work that we've done, and the thing that I've heard a lot is oh, I'm such a multi-passionate person, I can't be clear in what I do, or I have all of these things to offer. How can I pick just one thing? So I would really love to hear from you how and in what way can we authentically create that brand voice and what does it mean for us as online business owners, coaches and creators to establish?
0:18:13 - Cate Scott Campbell
Such a great question and I'm so happy that you asked it through this multi-passionate lens. And I'll start there by talking about that very real challenge. When you are someone who you know, arguably, to be a human is to have many interests right, and when you are sharing those in a way that directly connects with your work, it's exciting and it can very easily become overwhelming. I work with a lot of apologetic generalists who say, yeah, I'm doing all this stuff right and that there's an apology underneath that. And one of the first things I will say is let's try saying I'm a generalist on purpose, and here's why Because, even if it doesn't feel like it's on purpose, there is often and I'm saying often because I try not to be hyperbolic, but I could probably say always intuitive logic happening there that, even if you feel like a scatterplot and you can't see how all of your different outputs are connecting, there is a through line connecting all of them. So that's one of the first things that I like to say is let's try saying I am this way on purpose and seeing where that naturally leads us. I'm a generalist on purpose because I don't see the world in silos. I see the world of, let's say wellness in a very integrated systems thinking way, and so it is so important to me to understand the different expressions of wellness so that I can serve my clients in a holistic way.
One example, a question I always like to ask is when it comes to defining your voice, overall is no matter what I'm doing, how am I uniquely doing it, or what drives me, whatever it is, because we can get really stuck on the what right? We grow up this way, yeah, and culturally there's a big emphasis on hey, here's the output, here's the deliverable, here's what we're doing, great. But if you're not quite sure what all of those what's lead to and what your voice is, one of the things that you might do is put them all on paper and go okay, let's play a little game of connecting the dots, instead of saying I do this, but I also do this, but I also do this. Okay, I do this and I do this. Okay. Well, what's the overlap there? What is the passion for me between those? Or, if passion's a tough word for you, which it was for me for a really long time I was like I don't know what I'm passionate about.
Why am I curious about each of those things, or what is important about each of those things to the community that I'm serving, to the audience that I'm in conversation with, and really move from there, moving into the how, moving into the why, has a beautiful efficiency to it. So, to define brand voice most simply, it truly is your unique conversation you're having with everyone in your community. It's your point of view, it is what lights you up, it's your hot takes, it's all those you-isms, right? So, before you worry about all the different outputs of that which you can go in so many directions, right? Email captions, all of the things. What are the through lines? What are the big themes? What feels like, is the spirit of the house of your brand? If you were inviting people over, how would it feel inside? What music would be playing? What would be on the walls? What does it feel like to be you, no matter how many rooms you have in your house? What's the overall vibe?
0:21:41 - Joanna Newton
That's such an interesting way to think about that, like the overall vibe in your house. I'm someone who I've always really struggled to sort of write that elevator pitch for myself. It always comes out really generic, like I write it and I'm like I don't know. And I actually had this moment once in an interview for a job. I didn't get the job, rightly so. And the interviewer like read back my little, I haven't made a resume in so long. Like what do you put at the top of the resume? Like the little-.
0:22:10 - Cate Scott Campbell
Your executive summary.
0:22:11 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, yeah, thank you. They like read it back to me digging into questions related to why I chose what I put there and I was like shit, I have no idea. And then he's reading it back to me. I'm like that doesn't even sound like me, like why did I write that? And I think I wrote it because I wrote what I thought someone would want to hire, more than like writing about me.
This is an area that I want to continue to work on and involve in, because I still feel like I couldn't write a great three sentence description of who I am and what I offer the world. But actually doing this podcast every week, talking and telling stories and thinking about a lot of these concepts, have helped me identify the things that are uniquely me, themes that get me going, that make me passionate. I feel like by the end of the year, after we've done even more of these episodes, I could probably write a good statement like that from spending time exploring those things with amazing guests, with Michelle, with people for the world to hear, really kind of exploring myself and what makes me tick and what I'm best at yes, Joanna, one of my favorite parts of developing voice and when I say developing I could also say revealing voice, right, really seeing what your voice is I would say voice is not a process of building or constructing, it's really a process of curiously finding out things that are kind of right in front of you.
0:23:44 - Cate Scott Campbell
But one of my favorite things about that is that you get to kind of go on this scavenger hunt of yourself. You get to be this like I'm going to make up a new word I've never used before this self-thrippologist, anthropologist.
0:23:57 - Joanna Newton
I think you are.
0:23:59 - Cate Scott Campbell
It's a little bit of a tongue twister, but you get to go oh right, who is in there? Because to your point, it's so easy for something like an elevator pitch, which ultimately, let's look at that we want an elevator pitch to connect us to whoever we're talking with, to grow that relationship in some way, buy in investment, getting hired, whatever, right. And so for those of us who are naturally creative, we can read a room. It's far easier for us to go, okay, what do I think you want? And to miss out on the okay, and who am I in there? Right To miss out on allowing ourself to be as much in the conversation as possible.
And so often when I'm first working with an individual or a brand, we always start by going really looking at who is in there, and I always say to everyone I work with if it feels self-indulgent, that's okay. It needs to be just for a moment, right, so that then you can go. Oh right, I get that at some point I may have to do three sentences and there's a little bit of a structure there, great, and I can make it my own. It's not going to be yet another thing that is boxing me in, because if you are in the work of change, if you are being multifaceted and allowing yourself to be. That is something that is often hard fought, it takes incredible courage and then it is so easy to go.
Wait, I spent all this time really trying to do this thing that I know is mine to do, and here I am needing to fit into some other box of an elevator pitch. We really want these communication tools to be just that to be supportive tools for you that you're not going to have to shape yourself to. They're going to help you go where you want to go. For me.
0:25:49 - Michelle Pualani
I think thinking back to all of the iterations of my bio in Instagram is what this conversation makes me think about, like how many times I've changed who I help and how I help them and who I work with and what that looks like. And you're right, it can be so structured in a way, and I've seen the templates, I've done the things and it feels structured and it does feel like it puts you in a box. So better understanding the thematic way that you look at brand voice and really understanding that vibe that you're speaking to, Cate, I think is important. And then you can go with themes and pillars and I know that there's more to it, but not getting so stuck and this is how it's supposed to be.
I was just speaking to someone about what they put on their business card and she has done a coach training and she's owned and sold the business before and she's just going back and forth Do I do consultant?
Do I do coach?
I was like what if you don't put either?
What if you don't feel like you have to label yourself as a title and instead focus on the why of what it is that you're doing and what you're actually looking to help people accomplish. So I like that you speak to the passion or the interest or the curiosity and letting that be the instigator for how you present yourself to the world, because I think it's really important that we better understand that motivation, we better understand that why and you say that when we are connecting the dots, it's about how we are communicating that value, which is really critical for our personal brand. It's really critical for us in work, like Joanne is talking about, and really important for our businesses on a larger scale, of how we show up in front of people in that way as we move forward. I would love to hear your personal experience with expression and why you got into this work in the first place, why you have been drawn to brand voice and communicating the value of not just what you do but what others do as well.
0:27:44 - Cate Scott Campbell
Such a great question, Michelle, and it's one that I feel really moved in even thinking about, because for so long my path was so unclear and I started this conversation by saying that I developed ecstatic voice because I literally was called to do it. That's because friends were seeing in me what I couldn't yet see in myself. My background in communication goes all the way back to day one. I was born with a hearing impairment. From the womb was clinging onto words, trying to hear people as clearly as I could. I was also a kid with a speech impediment, which may or may not have been connected to the impairment, and so I was really working hard to be understood. At a really young age. I was also highly expressive. I was the kid who literally had to stay after lunch because I was being too loud at lunch, which is like the place where you're supposed to be loud as a kid. Right, I had a teacher who was constantly turning down an invisible knob on my chest to put me in touch with my inside voice. So this goes really deep. I also fun fact and related to Abraham Lincoln, who's quite possibly one of the most famous communicators of all time. There's a lot there, right In my own path for a long time was saying yes to whatever was in front of me.
I began my copywriting career because I saw an ad on Instagram when Instagram had just begun this is now over 10 years ago and I was like you know, I think I could write descriptions, like I think I could write copy, and I picked up a camera to create something for the first time because I had a story I wanted to say and for so long I wasn't really sure how all of these things were going together. I always say and I think this is really important that I'm in the work of communication not because I think it's easy, but because I know in my own way how challenging it is. I truly believe that our callings are directly tied to our challenges and the truth is that little kid who was always being so expressive, who was being told to use her inside voice, she continued to show up all through my career and I think that's also really important to say because my career has been highly creative. You look at the work in my portfolio that I've done on paper and you go, wow, Cate must have just been expressing herself all of the time. She was doing content strategy, she was developing voice, she was producing and directing, and yet I found that I became a master at really shaping myself to the spaces that I was in, whatever spaces those were, and there were a lot of cool things that I was creating in those spaces.
But there was a time right around the time that I started getting all of those phone calls to put ecstatic voice together that I have this experience where I felt like I was orbiting myself.
I could see that I was very productive and that I was doing a lot of cool stuff, but I didn't really know who was in there. I was really great at and, by the way, I love this chameleon part of me. This is the part of me that is able to step into a different perspective as best as I can to help support voice and expression. But for me to really understand what shape I made in all of that was really mystifying, and so I took a step back and said, okay, if I'm really going to be in this work of supporting others and expressing themselves, what does that mean to me? What shape do I make? How do I uniquely do whatever I'm doing, even if it's 10 different things, and so it really has been a lifelong, and still continues to be, a journey of self-awareness and of really allowing myself the curiosity for myself, as much as my curiosity extends in all other directions.
0:31:53 - Joanna Newton
Thank you for sharing that. I think that was really powerful and for me, while you were talking, I had like a light bulb moment. So you were talking about your teacher wanting to have a dial to turn down your voice and I heard a quote from someone somewhere can't source it because I don't remember who it was, but it really stuck with me. That said the thing your teacher is complaining about you when you were in school. That's your superpower. Oh, wow.
And then I think that, even like extends, I would say a little bit farther than that, things that people complain about you likely are your superpower, are the things that you're best at. Right, because when you think about the conversations that we've had and being uniquely you and showing your brand voice, those things that people are going to complain about are the things people notice. They're the things that might be different to who they are. They're what make you unique, and there's so much of the world. I think we're all inherently bad, naturally, at creating our own brand voice, because we're taught to minimize those things that make us unique. You are taught by your teacher to turn down your voice right when really you needed to amplify your voice, because that's what you do, that's what makes you great, and there's so much that happens to us as children, as young adults, as we're growing, where the things we're best at, we are told to tone down, we're told to keep quiet. So then, when we go to think about presenting ourselves who we are, what we are, we're trying to package ourselves in the most palatable way Possible to other people, and we've talked about on other episodes of this, this podcast, that when you try to be for everyone. You end up being for no one and then you have no audience. So I think that we're in this really strange space, right, because there's psychological effects when someone tells you to be quiet.
One thing this is really funny. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. When I was like head people, people would call me a feminazi I don't know if that's like a appropriate term because I was like so as a little eight-year-old, was like so pro woman and that got toned down in me for a little while, like there was a period of my life where I was less Vocal about women's issues and things. I'm obviously not that anymore because I have a podcast talking about it every single week, but I think that those things that people criticize us for and we minimize Are likely the things we should be bringing out and who we are absolutely, Joanna.
0:34:31 - Cate Scott Campbell
I meet a lot of self-described impossible cases. I Would make sense if I didn't have this thing about me. It's also the thing that I always call the thing you want to shove in the back of a drawer. Oh my gosh, I had so many of those, a whole bunch. I'm sure I still do. And Whenever someone says to me, you know, it would be a lot easier for me to put my resume together, for me to understand my brand voice, for me to make this pitch, if there wasn't this thing about me, where my brain is broken or it's just not cool in rooms, or whatever I always say, tell me more about that, because nine times out of ten, that is the thing, or one of the things at least. That is what makes you so, not only uniquely you, but it is so valuable.
0:35:28 - Michelle Pualani
We spend so much time Making ourselves small. We, and we did. We just released a podcast episode specifically on this and your experience learning about that K, even from childhood, of being told to be quieter, to tone yourself down, to make yourself more appropriate, to fit the space, to make other people more comfortable. And I think, as a woman, we are Consistently whether that's consciously or subconsciously, or openly or under wraps or behind closed doors but we are consistently being told to be quieter, to make ourselves more appealing for others, to Soften the blow of what it is that we have to say, whether that's in the workplace or in the home, or to be more amenable to other people. And so I think it is really important, as a female identifying person, as a woman, to start to Uncover, like you said, uncover and unveil those things about yourself that are truly unique to you, that you can then present to the world and openly own. And it's not easy. If you're listening, I want you to not feel like why can other people do this, but I can't? It's not easy, it's not something that you just wake up tomorrow feeling like, oh, I've uncovered this piece of me and I'm now I'm gonna start talking about it openly. We had Liz Clancy on another episode of who ha speaking about her experience with abortion, and that's not something that she just overnight was like oh yeah, I'm gonna start talking about this. It took years to be able to share with the world and the power of that message is gonna continue to be felt. But it's something that also takes time and iteration and experimentation and, as Joana saying, as we film and record these podcasts, that she's starting to uncover and better understand herself. You're not gonna sit down and just do this in a worksheet or in a journal and figure it out. It's not that simple and I'm sure, Cate, you take your clients through this and that's the experience.
When you're considering brand clarity and your story and these pillars and these themes and this vibe, don't feel like you have to just figure this out and have your perfect pitch or your Instagram bio or everything that you say be in alignment with what that is. The more you start to uncover About yourself, the more that you start to establish with your story, the more you're gonna be able to share and, again, just identifying that. It takes that action to create the clarity, it takes Saying things, it takes starting to speak up, even if you say it the wrong way, even if it doesn't feel good at the time, it's a matter of pushing yourself to do that, especially if you're creating that online brand presence. So one of the things that we actually spoke a little bit to, joana and Cate, you mentioned kind of being a woman, being a female identified person, and the ways in which we're often told that we have to turn ourselves down in some way, we have to be muted, we have to be smaller, we have to be more controlled, we have to be less intense, less loud, whatever that looks like and I'm sure if you're listening you can relate to that in some way being told that you need to Change yourself in some way to meet other people's needs.
Our podcast and the mission behind what it is that we're doing with her First, is really encouraging more women-owned businesses, coaches and creators to speak up, to put themselves first, to really prioritize their needs, their wants, their vision, their mission and get that out into the world. So, Cate, I'd love to hear what's your experience with being a woman in your industry. Are there any ways in which you found your work specifically challenging as a female identifying person?
0:39:06 - Cate Scott Campbell
Absolutely. When I had my podcast that I co-hosted for five years, we got all kinds of criticism about our voices when we were doing that podcast. And in fact there's this great anecdote that I heard on another podcast episode that one of the hosts of the podcast 99% invisible literally created an auto reply for all of the emails criticizing the female identified hosts of that podcast and what she found is that the male voices were not criticized at all. No, maybe that's not fully true, but people weren't writing emails about the male identified hosts. We know this as women. We know that women's voices get criticized, censored, the voices of every marginalized group experiences this.
Speaking as a woman, I have heard and you know I went to acting school and I studied voice for three years and it was wonderful. But before I got there, when I was using my voice a lot, I mean I heard all of the things that I sounded like a valley girl because I was from California I was doing up talk or vocal fry or all of those things that, by the way, men do many of those too. There's a great sizzle reel of all of the very famous male radio hosts all using vocal fry, and if you're not familiar with what vocal fry is. That's that quality of voice where you talk like this. You talk on your cords and so many people do it, right, it's a way of talking. The point is that really, what is all that come down to? Well, in a lot of ways, it's a lot easier to criticize the quality of a woman's voice Then to just tell her to stop talking, right. Or to say the fact that you're using your voice is powerful and you know this is conscious or subconscious, right, and so I'm uncomfortable with that in some way. So it's easier for me to say you know what, you're using too many fillers, or you know it would be great if you did this, this or this right. It is very easy to become our own sensors of our voices. For good reason, right, because we have heard all of this criticism and because we know how powerful our voices are, because in my own experience, I know how much I sweat every time I use my voice, and that to me, is always an indication of yeah, I'm doing something really courageous here. We know that, based on everything we've been talking about, that voice is powerful, and so when I am working with someone specifically on speaking Because this is a great example of everything we're talking about, although this applies across the board for social captions and emails, etc.
One of the first things I will say is don't worry about how you sound. How does it feel? How does it feel To really allow ourselves to go in right? Because the process of voice is also a process of often moving from what is familiar to what is natural. It may feel familiar to us to not be able to use our voices in the size that we want. It may feel familiar to defer to somebody else, but it actually may not be natural.
I love what you said, Michelle, about what a process this is and how challenging this is, because if there's anything I can leave anyone with in a conversation about voice, it's to give yourself so much love and kindness. In the work of voice, we assume two things. We assume that you have a powerful, kaleidoscopic instrument that can do so many things. We also assume that it's been through a lot of shit, and both things are true. So it's really a process of coming back to your own instincts, to understanding that you already carry logic without having to fit into anyone else's formula, and to allow yourself to stumble forward and let it be. You know it's so much easier said than done, but when all else fails, like you were saying, Michelle, the act of saying okay, knowing all of that, I'm still gonna do what I can to speak and to share my voice, that's really what matters.
0:43:18 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and I love what you shared, because the reality is is we're going to face criticism when we come out and show up in the world, and I think we've discussed that. Women do tend to be criticized more harshly than men. There's a lot of research and people's experiences to back that up. But what we have to do is not just go silent because we're receiving that criticism, because there's also a reality that maybe some of that criticism is legitimate. Maybe some of that is something we should work on, and that's something you have to do.
When you get criticism, think, okay, is this them being off, or is this something I need to work on? You know, as an example, like using lots of filler words, this is something I do, but if I never speak, I'm never going to get better at it. I will just continue to use too many filler words. If I speak and record myself and show up in the world and try, I will get better at it, but if I stop, I won't. And I think about some early like social media content videos I made. The lighting may have been worse, the angles I chose, like I have gotten better at creating content online by doing it and putting out stuff into the world that wasn't as good, because then you can see it. You can see the reaction. You can think, okay, what can I do to make this better? How can I show up better? But you don't do that by saying, oh, I'm bad at it, so I'm going to stop. That's not the solution. If you want to be good at something, you can.
And I think for me, like as a child and throughout school and throughout a lot of my life, if I wasn't good at something, I've had people be like well, you shouldn't do that. You're not good at it, and that makes absolutely no sense. If I want to do it, I can learn, I'm capable. You know what I mean. I can figure out how to do it. Now, maybe that's not what you know. We talk about strength finder and working in your strengths and all of that. There could be a maybe. That shouldn't be for me for one reason or another. But if I have passion for it and want to learn, I can get better and I can learn and I can grow. And I think sometimes a lot of that criticism is meant to get you to stop.
0:45:30 - Cate Scott Campbell
That's absolutely right, Joanna. I love what you shared about your own journey with filler words, and what I would say about that is yeah, I think it makes total sense to you know identify in your own voice. Okay, here's something that I might want to work on. This is something that I would love to be in an area of growth with and sort of see how I can develop over time. Right, I think what can so easily happen is that we hear something in our voice that we think isn't going to be taken seriously or doesn't sound perfect or whatever, and it's easy to forget that vulnerability is a window to communication as well.
When I was doing my podcast, one of the most listened to episodes was one of the episodes that I it was the very first episode and I, when I listened to that the first time, I was like wow, I said the word like probably 50 times. I was also really sharing authentically my experience in that moment and that resonated so much more than you know. If I had gone back and said we can't publish it because I'm saying like all of these times and or we need to redo it and I'm going to become some like great, well-presented version of me, in no way would it have had the same impact that vulnerability and that ability to connect can also mean a lot to people, right?
0:46:50 - Joanna Newton
If you are so perfect and so perfectly put together, then you don't have that relatability, then people don't see you as a human being. You know, I put out a video once on TikTok and, like I have gray hair and I had my hair up and there was like one sticking straight up and I thought, oh, I'm not going to post this because I have a gray hair. And I was like why people have some gray hair? This is a thing that people have. Who, who cares? I'm going to post it. It's better to post it than not post it at all, just like you with your podcast. It doesn't have to be perfect.
0:47:24 - Michelle Pualani
There's a conversation here of quantity versus quality and of course you want both, especially in the online space, since you are vying for attention on a consistent and regular basis. But when you look at quantity creates quality, you start to have a different idea around it. You have to put the practice in, you have to trial, you have to experiment, you have to improve Same thing. I have improved in voice, in video, in audio in so many ways and full transparency behind the scene. I did the post production for this podcast and, Joanna, you have absolutely improved in terms of presentation. We both have because we're doing it, because we're out here, and so you've got to kind of just leap and have the faith at some point and know that everyone who started was also not very good. If you look at anyone's initial content initial poems, initial songs, initial videos, whatever it is they're acting. Have you seen Leprechaun with Jennifer Aniston? Come on. So you've got to start somewhere and just knowing that you can take that leap and the net will appear somewhere down the road. So put in that quantity in order to get the quality.
Now, Cate, you mentioned that you already carry the logic within without fitting into someone else's formula, which I just love that quote.
I think it's a beautiful way to look at this process of establishing your brand voice and showing up with clarity and presenting yourself to the world in a way that you feel good about and aligned with.
That can also be received in a positive way For me. I've really really struggled with this in the past and I think part of that has been trying to fit into the box and do what's quote, unquote right as opposed to what feels good, as opposed to what feels aligned, and I kind of struggle with tapping into that emotion and tapping into the deep wisdom and understanding of myself when I'm trying to kind of meet what's expected of me. So there's a lot of advice in the online space specifically to copy this, follow this script, try this template, just use this hook or in some way mimic what someone else's success has been in order to grow, in order to get the engagement, in order to convert. So, when we're talking about tangible practices or things that people can do, what advice would you give to someone in terms of following the advice not following this advice that's in the online space and also some strategies that they can start to use to uncover their own voice if they struggle with doing something like this, like I do.
0:50:06 - Cate Scott Campbell
Such a great question, Michelle, and I want to start by noting what you just shared about allowing yourself to do right, Allowing yourself to try and practice and share your voice. However, it currently is One of the reasons I call Ecstatic Voice a voice lab and a communication studio and I don't say like a voice, I know it's because we are continually by we I mean me myself and I and everyone I work with in a process of experimentation, right Of saying, all right, I want to give this thing a try, and then I'm going to be able to take some feedback, both internally. Maybe I'm going to ask for some feedback with some trusted friends or people who I feel comfortable with right, and then decide what I want to do from there. So my overall response is I don't think that there's anything wrong with trying a template, trying something out. You know, seeing how it feels on you, especially when you're sort of figuring out okay, you know, I think I do would benefit from a little more structure here, and so let me try some stuff.
I think where the challenge lies is that so often it's feeling like, ooh, if I don't try this thing, I'm not going to get a number of opens on my email or whatever, and then you very quickly go away. Right, where are you in there? And so one of the things that I will recommend if somebody comes to me and I can tell that they're in this kind of advice paralysis, because they're taking in so much different input is sometimes I will suggest going on a little advice fast, right, maybe let's not look to the accounts that feel like they're doing it already. Let's not look at them for a while. So let's put those templates aside, let's put those tips and tricks aside, right, just to go. Okay, you know what? I don't have to take any advice for a moment. And even being in that space, okay, where does that lead me? Right? And then, all right, so say, I have this email and 15 people have told me that I should do this A B test or whatever on it. Right, all right. Well, what is this email really about? What is the me who really feels so excited to share this thing that I want to share, and who is it for, or who am I talking to? I think something that can happen when we're getting a lot of advice is, all of a sudden, our quote, unquote audience becomes this like mysterious mass of people that we're like oh okay, I've got to appeal to everybody Instead of thinking about all right, who really needs to hear what I want to share and sometimes that's a younger me needs to hear what I want to share and then allowing yourself uninhibited to write a love letter to her in your own hand, to record a voice memo so that it's just you talking.
You know that no one's going to listen to it, unless you want to share it, right, but to be in the process of talking out loud, you could delete that voice memo. You don't even have to listen to yourself, but to allow yourself to have an open channel to what you really want to say outside of the structure, outside of the form, and then maybe, taking a little time after that, you might go back and maybe you've written this, you know, scrawled this love letter to who you want to receive this email. You go back and say, all right, are there any? Like if I were looking at this is something I was reading. You know, what do I notice is coming through like oh my gosh, I use the word horizon five times. Oh, that's really interesting. Oh my gosh, that could be a cool name of this thing. All right.
So I would say first, if you're really in that place of I've got to do all the things yes, we don't live in some kind of pastoral bubble here. We want to have some structure. But first we want to make sure that you are, your heart is beating in the middle of all of that and that your voice is feeling like it gets to play. Another thing that I will often say is, when you have written something like an email, read it out loud, see what it feels like when you're really talking about it. Does it feel like a conversation that you would have, that you want to have, and how does it feel in your own voice? And if something, you know, some tip or trick isn't yours, you're going to feel it right away. You're going to go like whoa. Who is that Right? Or maybe not right away, but as you practice more and more.
0:54:31 - Joanna Newton
In what I do every day, I spend a lot of time helping creators, subject matter experts, turn their expertise into like sales pages and marketing copy. You know I help people create online courses and in that process you need lots of sales copy, lots of things, and there are certain structures and certain information that has to be there. But what I mean my team work on, is how do you not take someone's personality out while putting it in that structure? And one of the things we do to help with that process is, as we're working on something we ask them for like stream of consciousness, answers to questions how does someone feel after they take your course? Don't write me a sales page.
Tell me how someone feels after they take your course and then you take those words and those tidbits and apply it to a formula that you know works. But then you're using that kind of language and I think that really helped to not necessarily see when you're creating content, the just like stream of conscious how does it feel? Voice memo writing a love letter, like not thinking of it being content is going to get you that messaging the words, the real thing you need. Then you can take that and apply that to a structure and you take that and move it rather than write to the structure, right, that's like a different strategy.
0:55:58 - Cate Scott Campbell
Absolutely, Joanna, I love that. And I was just putting a sales page together for a workshop that I'm sharing soon. I was so resistant to doing my own sales page and I was like, all right, Cate, well, what is that about? And it was really about what we're talking about here that I didn't want to feel like I was moving into some kind of a formula and that I was losing the heart of what this workshop is all about. And so I thought to myself, okay, well, if I could host this workshop anywhere, like, where would it be? What would it feel like?
For me, that's always like a dusty rehearsal room with big windows, surrounded by trees, you know. But really the reason why and when I'm working with somebody, I will ask very specific questions, all with the goal of opening up the sensory experience, opening up the embodied intelligence, because it is so easy to get so cerebral when the front part of our brain holds some intelligence, but not all of it, right? We hold so much more intelligence in our bodies and in our imagination and in our senses, and so I always want to start there. You know the way that I see voice, the model of voice that I use, is that you are the heartbeat. You are right at the center of that and everything else, your actions, your words, your actual voice that's all extensions, right. That is all you getting to share, all that is inside of you. So to your point, Joanna, yeah, templates without that substance are going to feel like that. But for you to really give yourself the gift of going deep, you're going to have so much material to use.
0:57:41 - Michelle Pualani
And to close the loop on my own story, you know, when I put my sales page together, it ended up having all the important sections in it, but they really felt like they were mine, that I was getting to guide them, having that balance between the structure and the fluidity, that masculine and feminine approach that's something I'm trying to integrate into my life is really understanding that I tend to be logical, rational, very critical thinking, problem solving, and so, with that line of thought, I tend to be rigid and not as intimate, not as relatable, not having that human quality, and so the work that I'm doing is really to bring in emotional, feminine, intuitive side of myself so that I can merge the two, because I think that is so important to have both. You need to have the structure and you need to have some sort of process in which you approach this with and then bringing up the fact of are you going to do it yourself or are you going to have someone else do it? There's benefits to both, there's pros and cons to both situations and as a business owner, you have to decide where it's important that you invest your time and where you spend that energy, and sometimes that's going to be a little bit of a trial and error. I know that in the past I just wanted to hand things off With someone like Joanna and agency model. I kind of wanted to just put that on them and say, oh, you write all my copy, you put my pages together, but they would come back with things that weren't necessarily aligned to my unique brand voice and how I wanted to show up in the world.
So there did need to be more work from myself to better understand how do I want to impact people, how do I want to share what it is that I'm doing? How does my mission, my vision, come out? Through the words, through the language, through the communication, through the video, through the content, through the scripts that I'm creating? And then, eventually, how can we merge the two? How can I work with a team or delegate or assign those tasks that I'm maybe not uniquely qualified to do?
Clear copywriting is not something that I'm uniquely qualified to do, Cate. That's your background, so you're much more impressive on that front. But if it's something that I struggle with, how can I figure out what I bring to the table with articulation and how can I find that person who's going to best support me in that creation and that model? So thank you so much for joining us, Cate. This has been a wonderful conversation. We're going to wrap up with some final thoughts in just a moment. But first of all, where can someone find you? Where can they connect with you? Where can they follow along with what you do or get your support with brand clarity and brand voice?
1:00:11 - Cate Scott Campbell
Oh, my goodness. Well, first of all, thank you both of you. This has been such a fantastic conversation. I love how deep and thoughtful you go. I could talk with both of you for literally days and months and years, so we'll keep it going. Ecstaticvoiceco is my website, and there's all kinds of roads to other places there At Ecstaticvoice on Instagram is where I spend most of the time on social media, and in the last couple of months, I recently launched a sub-stack called the Ecstatic Review and that's ecstaticvoicesubstackcom. That's really fun because that's a weekly conversation where we do really get to go deep and talk about all of the nuance and layers of this continual journey of fully and freely expressing ourselves. So that's where you can find me.
1:01:03 - Michelle Pualani
So go follow Cate, find out more about what she does with Ecstatic Voice. And just to wrap up our episode today, what are some final thoughts and takeaways for our audience?
1:01:12 - Cate Scott Campbell
The first thing that comes to mind is what I like to share with everyone I work with, which is that there is nothing wrong with you. Truly, there is no right in the work of voice. There's only what is true for you, and I really appreciate how both of you spoke to the ongoing walk that this is, and it is a beautiful walk that is generative, it is full of self-awareness, it is full of connection and really, when it feels like, should I be doing this? Should I be doing this? Should I be doing this, see if you can really take a moment, find what feels like, even in all of the confusion, the next best step for me, and trust that that's going to continue to carry you forward.
1:02:01 - Joanna Newton
It's amazing and super powerful and I really appreciate all of your insights today. I feel like I learned a lot and got some clarity for myself along the way. For me, the biggest thing that really stood out to me was just the concept of connecting the dots for yourself. I think, for our listeners listening, doing the work to connect the dots of the why for yourself, why you do what you do, why you love what you love to do because I think that really is the start of this and is how you can really present yourself in the world. I know sometimes that can feel super self-indulgent to be thinking about yourself and all of those things, but I think it's really important work if you want to show up in the world in a powerful way To close out.
1:02:47 - Michelle Pualani
today, one of the things that's coming to mind is that we're talking a lot about communication and oftentimes, how that communication is received. I do want to bring it back a little bit that sometimes it can feel frustrating and really disappointing when you're putting yourself out there into the world and you don't think that it's being received the way that you want it to. Does that mean you have to change, you have to pivot, you have to figure something else out so that people get you or they understand you? That's not necessarily the case. There's actually a quote from Jay Shetty that he found when he was doing his work that as soon as he let go of being understood, he felt like he could then more openly and communicate in the way that was more in alignment and in integrity to who he was as a person. That's kind of when the things took off for him. I think there's an opportunity here to again look at how you are understanding yourself, how you are in alignment with your own why, your own voice, your own mission and showing up in integrity for yourself. Yes, hopefully that communication happens when people understand, receive what it is that you're doing, but you don't have to hold on to it so tightly. You don't have to control it so much or be so rigid about that approach and be a little bit more intentional about finding what's true for you and really speaking to that.
Thank you again. So much, Cate, for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it with a friend and leave us a review. We would absolutely love to hear from you. Thank you so much for tuning in. Be sure to catch our next episode Before you sign off. What is one thing that you can do today to prioritize you in business and life?
