The work of showing up and having a voice can sometimes be draining or overwhelming. There’s the anxiety of wondering if we are going to say the right thing or that we don’t want to step on other people’s toes.

Joining me today is Megan Hamilton. She’s a speaking, visibility, and confidence coach for women and non-binary people. Megan brings up a lot of useful tips for you to use before you’re ready to speak up.

We also discuss:

  • How to overcome the fear of judgement when doing a presentation or being a guest on a podcast
  • Using shadow work to tune into your intuition and uncover the root problems
  • Becoming an ally in a world where we want more diversity and more inclusion.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Engage with Megan:

Connect with Mary!

Our Conversation:

Mary

Hey, there. Welcome to episode number 38. How Human Connection is Nurtured Through Your Voice and Podcasting with Megan Hamilton. Sometimes the work of showing up and having a voice can be draining or overwhelming. That anxiety of, are we going to say the right thing? We don’t want to step on other people’s toes, or even, like, being the Canadian that I am, passive-aggressive in nature and not wanting to create an argument or maybe that’s the Chinese in me instead, I don’t know. The combination of being Chinese and Canadian has an interesting dichotomy in that for me. Either way, it takes work to have a voice, to be visible, and to speak your truth. So today I brought on Megan Hamilton, a speaking, visibility, and confidence coach for women and non-binary people. She’s also the host of the podcast, Ubu Pod. Megan brings up lots of useful tips for you to use before you’re ready to speak up. Say if you’re doing a presentation or being a guest on a podcast, we discuss why the fear of judgement is the crux of speaking up. But if we use the focus of the importance of making conversation happen, that will really ignite us to speak up and to be an ally in a world where we want more diversity and more inclusion. We also discuss how using shadow work can help tune into your intuition to uncover the root of your fear. Fear is something I talk a lot about in my voice coaching program too. So I’m so glad that Megan has brought this up. So listen in as your first step to breaking down that fear of speaking up to have a more visible voice. 

Mary

Megan, welcome to the show. I’m so happy you’re on. As I said in the intro, you know, we both do voice coaching, you know, in our own niche-specific ways. And a lot of the things that I hear from people in podcasting space is, kind of, what you might probably hear as well. It’s that anxiety and the fear of speaking up. So I just really wanted to narrow in on that anxiety to start with because it is high on the list. Not even necessarily, like meaning, speaking in front of people, like when we used to be in person, but even on video these days doing a presentation or social media lives and things like that. Like people have so much anxiety if they’ll say the wrong thing, if they might sound stupid.

Megan

Mm hmm.

Mary

And in podcasting, it can really manifest itself through not wanting to even start a podcast, even when they have lots to say, or they won’t dive deeper with follow-up questions in an interview or being scared to share, say, specifics of their own life with the fear of revealing too much and being too vulnerable. So, so many things. So what do you see as the biggest reason for people being afraid to speak up?

Megan

Yeah. You’ve raised so many good points, and this is, it really is at the crux of all of this. There’s a whole lot of answers as you know. You know, I could probably give you ten. I’d love to focus on just a couple. So first of all, is the fear of judgement and ultimately I think that that underlies all of the different reasons why we might feel afraid to speak up or to even get started on something. We are conditioned to judge ourselves and judge others. And so, you know, it becomes this sort of looping cycle. But what happens, especially today, is people are afraid of the online pileup, of the getting cancelled, of the judgement, of the comments that people might be having if you say something not in the right way or if you say something that offends somebody. So you’ve seen it online before where somebody posts something or posts their podcast or posts a video and there’s immediate negative feedback, and it can feel really daunting and very scary and can make you not want to venture back out again. So that’s, I think, a really big underlying reason and the judgement. And the other is we have been conditioned to see the world in certain ways and to think of professionalism, of vulnerability, of the “overshare” as being negative. What we’re starting to find, and what I think is really awesome, is that people actually really respond to authenticity, vulnerability, folks who are showing up as themselves, warts and all. You know, instead of the sort of hero worship that we used to have for people who would show up in any kind of recorded media because we have to remember that even 20 years ago, it’s not like you had any gear at your house where you could just start your own podcast.

Mary

Gosh, yeah. No.

Megan

The only, right? The only media we were consuming was through professional studios, through radio stations, through professional audio music. And so now, everybody has the ability to have a platform. Consequently, there is the open door for this, sort of, negative feedback. And, ultimately, that is the first place that stops somebody from even just getting started.

Mary

Yes, I totally understand what you mean by that, too. Like, I was thinking back to what you had said about hero worship, which, oh! It was like a light bulb moment for me. I’m like, Oh yes, that’s what we used to do. And I think we still do. But like you said, it’s shifting a bit. What is that shifting to now that you see?

Megan

I think it’s shifting to relationship, right? It’s shifting to recognising ourselves in the people that we used to only have one-way access to, right? We used to only be able to see people at their studio best. Right? In any capacity of recorded media that we were consuming. But now, we are starting to see people show up without makeup, show up maybe not with the best recording gear, like whatever they happen to have on that very day. Lighting’s not perfect. They haven’t fully fleshed out what they wanted to say. And we’re starting to say, Oh, wow. Having a platform is not just for this elite group of people. Everybody can have a platform. And not only that, you know that sort of upper echelons of folks that we all might know about, they’re just normal people, like me. They started off feeling like I do, worrying that they were going to get in front of a group of people and all of the things we think might happen, right? We’re going to get laughed at. People are going to think we’re stupid. We’re going to say something in a way that doesn’t really represent us well. We’re going to get back fire. We’re going to get judgement. We’re going to get hate mail, right?

Mary

The trolls.

Megan

The trolls. We’re worried about the trust. And for good reason. People show up on the internet and they’re jerks because there’s, there’s nothing stopping them.

Mary

Yeah. We have the computer screen to hide behind.

Megan

Exactly. And anonymity, and certainly that’s understandable. But the reality is once you have your first experience with that or your first few experiences with that, you realise it doesn’t really go anywhere. Generally, it happens quickly and then it’s over. And also the ability to let it go once you’ve had experience with it is increased each time and so you just stop caring.

Mary

Yeah, it doesn’t matter anymore. Yeah.

Megan

Exactly. Because what you have to say is more important than whatever anonymous person on the internet wants to just come on and make a big fuss over pretty much nothing.

Mary

Yeah. Then what about, like, there are the big buzzwords right now with the diversity, equity, inclusion. Yeah! You know, a lot of people and podcasters want to be part of that conversation. But then they’re afraid to speak up for the fear of saying that wrong thing, like we were saying, you know, they, they want to make sure that they are including everyone. So is this the, you know, politically correct phrase, or was it this phrase or should I even say that? Like, is that even right to say now anymore? What can we do to push ourselves forward with our voice in these types of situations?

Megan

Yeah, that’s such a good question. And the fear of hurting other people is real. I think there’s a few different things to approach that, especially if we want to be inclusive. First of all, you know, you sort of have to do the work. You can’t just decide, okay, like I would like to include everybody. There’s work involved to understand where your internalised ways of thinking are still harmful, and you can’t even really be aware of that until you’ve dived in and actually, you know, read some books by disabled people, by people of colour, by people from the LGBTQ+ Community. Folks who have been living these real experiences that might differ from your lived experience so that you can get a sense of what you’re actually talking about when you say equity, inclusion and diversity, we can say that. We can say, I would love, you know, I want to include everybody, I want to make sure I’m using language that’s helpful for folks. And we all probably, ultimately, really do want to do that. However, if we don’t even know what we’re talking about, if we don’t even know what we’re dealing with, then you’re going to show up and you’re going to make a lot of mistakes and people will call you out for that. And then that might stop you from getting past that and keeping on going. Because the truth of the matter is we need voices to speak up. We need people to talk about their lived experiences. We need people to talk about racism and oppression and how to be inclusive and how to be equitable. So the first step really, truly is to learn a little bit about what you want to talk about. And then the second step is to decide ahead of time that if you make a mistake, it’s okay.

Mary

Yeah! Yes. Acknowledge it and just say like, oops, like, for example, pronouns that happened to my partner or, you know, at work. Like he knows this person’s pronouns, but it slipped up and he was just like, Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. But the person was like, No, thank you for trying at least. And they were really appreciative of that. So it’s, it’s a learning moment.

Megan

Absolutely. That’s a really key point. Own your mistakes. Apologize. if you make a mistake and somebody calls you out on it, often we can feel like, well, you know, we get defensive about it. However, if we can put our egos aside and say, this person is teaching me something, they probably have to teach people this over and over again. So the fact that they’re not yelling at me and pulling out their hair in frustration I will be grateful for that, and as you say, use this as a learning moment, apologizing and then doing the work to realise, Ok, well, how did I mess up? How can I ensure that this doesn’t happen again? And again, going back and doing, doing some more research. But the idea that we want to be perfect and never make mistakes, well that ain’t never going to happen. It doesn’t matter what you do.

Mary

Being human is not perfect.

Megan

Exactly. And that’s such an important element of, especially, you know, we were talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’re all going to make mistakes no matter what side of whatever table we’re sitting at. And so recognising that in advance and deciding that you can learn from this instead of feeling embarrassed or angry or frustrated, move through that, learn something and then, you know, decide you’re going to do better next time. But one of the ways that we can control the anxiety, because, you know, you were talking about that a bunch at the beginning is through breathwork. When we practise something called controlled breathing, we are sending a message to our brain that we’re not in danger. Because the first thing that starts to happen when we make a mistake and we’re called out for it, or we perceive that we’re being judged, our stress response starts to activate, our fight, flight, or freeze. And when this starts happening to us, a whole lot of physical things start happening. So, elevated heart rate might be one of them, sweating might be one of them shaking hands, shaking legs, shaking voice might be one of them. Your voice might go up in pitch. You might have a stomach ache. You might stop losing your ability to access certain parts of your brain. We call that foggy brain or cloudy brain, and that is a really huge one, right? If you are getting up and giving a presentation and you are feeling really anxious and suddenly you can’t access certain parts of your brain, you can’t remember certain things because of being in that stress mode, that’s not good. You don’t want to be in front of people unable to give the presentation that you so carefully memorised for the last month simply because you’re in stress mode, right? So when this starts happening to us, the quickest way out of it is to practise this thing I’m talking about called controlled breathing. So what is that?

Megan

Control breathing is literally any time your conscious brain controls when you breathe in and when you breathe out. And there are so many different examples of this, and even if you just type in controlled breathing into Google, you’ll get a ton of different exercises that you can try to find one that works for you. What I like to teach right off the bat is breathe in for three, hold for three, and release for six. The key is to release for longer than you breathed in. That stimulates something called your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and digest, which is the opposite of the fight, flight, freeze.

Mary

It’s calming you down.

Megan

Calming you down. And physically, what’s happening to you is that your brain recognises that you’re not in danger, so it stops pumping cortisol and adrenaline into your bloodstream, which are stress hormones. Which are creating all of these different physical manifestations of stress, the shaking, the elevated heart rate, the pounding in your chest, the inability to access certain parts of your brain. It sounds like this neat trick that you’re like, Um, that sounds like it’s pretty cool, but does it actually work? It does. It’s quite amazing to see it in practise. I always suggest practising it even for 2 minutes every day. Breathe in for three, hold for three, release for six. Your brain starts to recognise, Oh, okay, this is what we’re doing, this is what we’re doing. And so when you do get into those situations where stuff comes up quickly before you have a chance to react, you say to yourself, Breathe in for three, and your brain goes, Oh, okay, we’re good, we’re good, we’re good. Stop, stop the production of the stress hormones, everybody. And you get out of that state quicker and you don’t get to that state, you know, that, that heightened state of anxiety because you catch it before it gets there.

Mary

Yeah. You got to train your brain for these things too, because your brain is on autopilot. It just does whatever it wants to do until you say, No, wait, stop for a second. Let’s take a breath. Let’s calm down because your brain is a muscle. You got to practise that.

Megan

Absolutely. We’re so used to certain ways of behaving, certain ways of reacting to things. These are neural pathways that were carved for some of them as far back as childhood. It often will happen that we have a response to something before we even realise what’s going on. Our brain recognises a couple of key, key things that we are, that we associate with certain types of danger. And then it goes, Oh! Here we go. And we’re like, Wait a minute, hold on. What, what’s even happening? So practising the controlled breathing allows you to take a step back. Say, Okay, this is difficult, but this is okay, we can manage this and you sort of form this alliance with your brain as opposed to, you know, some kind of combative thing. Do you know that it’s a, a meme that’s going around on TikTok and Instagram and it’s Dwight from the office saying, Do you want to form an alliance with me? Do you know what they’re talking about?

Mary

I think I’ve seen it in passing, yeah.

Megan

Yeah, you know, I saw it so many times. So I decided it’d be pretty funny to make a reel about that, where it’s my brain and me and we’re talking about joining forces instead of fighting all the time…

Mary

That’s awesome.

Megan

…for who gets to win.

Mary

Exactly. And you know what? That just becomes really tiring when you’re fighting with yourself or fighting with your brain.

Megan

It really does.

Mary

The alliance is such a great term for it. I love that.

Megan

Yeah, me too. I know. As soon, I was like, oh, this makes so much sense. And it’s also, we so often want to fight with ourselves or we feel like what we’re doing is wrong or bad, and we use harsh language internally and, you know, that is not helping us at all either. You’ve never bullied yourself into being calm.

Mary

Yeah!

Megan

That, that’s not how being calm works.

Mary

That doesn’t even sound like that’s possible.

Megan

No, exactly. And so the concept of being gentle with yourself, being compassionate towards yourself as you’re navigating these difficult waters, as you’re figuring out how to not get into a very fast fight, flight, and freeze mode, as you’re figuring out how to speak up for yourself, how to advocate for yourself or for others, how to speak out against stuff that you think is really important. These are the tricks and tips that we can use in order to, ultimately, and, you know, this may come off as cheesy, we’re trying to be the, the best version of ourselves that we can. That’s not happening if we are fearful of judgment, ultimately.

Mary

Yes, totally. And you know, I was thinking along the lines of, you were, you were talking about how some of these pathways are from our childhood and we need to do the work, but also doing the work on ourselves. And this is something, you know, is only through doing my own personal work and having to actually edit someone else’s podcast that I came to know the term, shadow work. Is this what you’re talking about?

Megan

Yeah, definitely. That’s one of the things, absolutely. So shadow work, it’s a very broad concept and there’s as many ways of practising shadow work as there is of practising breathwork really. It’s an early-term from Carl Jung and it is, sort of, about diving into the mucky stuff within us that we would rather not, right?

Mary

Sounds like fun!

Megan

Yeah. it’s, it’s the stuff, it’s the bad behaviour that we know about ourselves that we just ignore. It’s past situations that we are embarrassed about. It is things that have happened to us that we try to forget. It is everything that’s living in the darkness of your subconscious that you either purposefully ignore or are unaware of. I started doing this work myself a couple of years ago. I got interested in it from just stuff I was reading and I started doing this practise of journaling. When stuff would come up, I would journal about it to just let myself dive into it. What really is this? Where does this come from? So let’s say, for example, I get really, like my back gets up when I feel like somebody doesn’t think I’m smart. A lot of us can relate to this, right? And so my behaviour might shift, I might get short with that person, I might try to show how intelligent I actually am, which can be embarrassing, right? If you’re, if you’re trying so hard to show somebody how smart you are?

Mary

Yeah.

Megan

It changes the dynamic. We can’t really meet anymore in the middle and have proper communication because I’m just, like, on the defensive. So I took a look at that and circled it back. So like, where does this come from? What are the times that I have felt this way in my life? How far back does this go? What’s the earliest I can remember feeling this way? Why does it even matter to me? You know, what does it say about me if I’m not as smart as the person who’s talking to me? I sort of started this practice on my own and, you know, through taking in a lot of different people’s takes on it, including Debbie Ford, who I think has done an incredible job with shadow work. And then I started realising that I was a better coach because of it, so I’m a speaking visibility and confidence coach. Not only was I leaning more into myself and really understanding myself at different levels than I had been able to before, you know, I’ve been to therapy, I have taken antidepressants, I’ve dealt with my mental health most of my life. But this specific way of doing it, for whatever reason, has been so effective. And so then one day, I was with a client. We were trying to figure out what it was. She has such a hard time getting up in front of others and speaking, and this is part of her job. And so every time she would have to get up, she’d have to take a beta-blocker just to be able to get through it.

Mary

Oh, wow.

Megan

And I mean, we’re talking like once every week or two, she would have to get up and give presentations. She would like, she wanted to not have to do that any longer. And so we started talking about, you know, feelings and thinking about this. And then I sort of started asking her the same questions that I asked myself when I’m doing my journaling and it turns out that this ex-boyfriend from high school told her that her voice was annoying and she sounded stupid and that’s it.

Mary

That was the trigger. Yes.

Megan

That caused a deep neural pathway that over and over again brought up every time she had to get in front of people and speak. She has this dude’s voice in her head telling her these awful things. And so once that came to light, it was like, whoa. And it doesn’t. So and like to clarify, it’s not like you have this sort of like huge aha moment and that’s it. You’re good. Changing behaviour is work. You still have to, you have to recognise, okay, I’m going to get up in front of this group, I’m going to do this thing. You know, your old patterns will creep up and want to do the same thing that they’ve been doing for the last 20 years. But the work is in recognising, No, no, no, I don’t have to feel this way anymore. I am safe. This person is no longer in my life. There are 25 other examples of people who think that I am smart, that I do have good things to say, that I am good at presenting to a group of people. And so, over time, you shift that perspective of yourself and you do that sort of shadow work so that you, you start believing the truth instead of the story that you’re telling yourself from some offhand comment, some crappy dude said to you 20 years ago.

Mary

Exactly.

Megan

But that’s where so much of this comes from. Like it’s bananas.

Mary

Yeah, I do very similar things too, with the questions that I ask about my clients. And, you know, one of the big ones is what’s the earliest memory of what someone have told you about your voice? And usually, from there, they’re like, Oh my gosh, this happened when I was a kid, or it wasn’t even about the voice, but it was just a certain situation in their life that propelled them into their habits.

Megan

Yeah, it’s amazing.

Mary

Yeah. It really, really is. You know, for myself, my story is that when I was growing up, I was born in Vancouver, but my parents are immigrants from China and Hong Kong. They’re very traditional. And my dad being the man of the house, you know, always told me to shut up. You know you don’t need to speak up right now. It’s not your turn. And so I was just this quiet little person for quite a long time until I realised, Oh, that’s why I’m so quiet. And then I couldn’t stop talking after that.

Megan

Oh, I love it. And, you know, I don’t know your dad or anything, but I’m assuming your dad wasn’t trying to hurt you or quash you or…

Mary

No! It’s the generational things that happen, right? Like, his dad probably told him the same thing and his dad before him. So it was the only way he knew how to be a parent for us.

Megan

Yep.

Mary

Yeah.

Megan

Yep but on your end…

Mary

It didn’t feel that way. Yeah.

Megan

Yeah. And, and this is so true for most of us who struggle with feeling like we’re not going to be taken seriously. We’re not going to be seen properly. We’re not going to be understood. People are going to dismiss us. What we have to say isn’t really that important. What if we make a mistake? These are all things that can often be traced back to previous situations where we were hurt.

Mary

Yeah. And, you know, even today, I still sometimes, you know, have that what I like to call the gremlin on my shoulder, second-guessing myself and saying, oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And I kind of still need to coach myself, even before every time I speak and I coach podcasters, you know? So what’s your process before you speak? Especially, well, like before you came to speak with me on my podcast? What what’s your process?

Megan

Well, today I took the dog for a walk.

Mary

Nice.

Megan

And I do actually, I do actually think that a good walk ahead of doing something difficult is, is a really good idea because I’m also a performer and play music in front of people. I do have a few things that are absolutely important to me to do ahead of getting up and presenting in front of an audience, whether it’s giving a talk or whether it’s getting up and performing music. I need to have quiet time by myself so that I can get grounded so that I can breathe, so that I can get focused and think about what I want to do and how I want to do it. The way I do this, quite frankly, often is in a bathroom stall, so yeah.

Mary

Solitary time.

Megan

Exactly. And nobody’s going to bug you.

Mary

Yeah.

Megan

This is of course, again, when we’re in the together times but I have this tool that I made which, you know, talk about our breathing. It’s on my website in the tool section, and I keep it on my home page of my phone and it’s simply a breathing exercise. So it tells you when to breathe in, it tells you when to hold and it tells you when to release. And I pull it up and I practise controlled breathing. And that reminds my brain because, you know, usually I’m feeling a little bit of nervousness. I’m feeling a little bit anxious about whatever’s going to happen. I want things to go well. I really want to be able to enjoy myself and be in the moment. And the way that I can do that is not by getting distracted ahead of time and by just really zoning in and connecting with myself, remaining calm and preparing. And that’s that’s how I prepare. And so I pull up this tool that I have and I practise controlled breathing. And sometimes we can’t go to a bathroom stall.

Mary

Yeah.

Megan

So, you know, I had a job interview a few years ago to teach at a local college, and I really wanted this job and I had to wait in a waiting room. So I pulled out the app. I put it on my phone. I was practising controlled breathing while people thought I was just checking my email.

Mary

Beautiful.

Megan

Yes! And I got myself into this state that I wanted to be in so that I could show up powerfully, confidently and with a ton of clarity because it helps to take away that brain fog that can happen when you’re feeling especially anxious. And as somebody who has grown up with pretty intense anxiety, I mean, I was having panic attacks almost every day in grade seven and grade eight. So my body tends to shoot quickly. Let’s just say. You know, knowing that about myself, I know what I need to do in order to be ready to get up there. But sometimes things happen, right? Like you and I both know before I showed up here, my mic crapped out about an hour ago, my headphones were giving feedback for you, like all this weird tech stuff was happening. I wasn’t practising controlled breathing consciously, but I was mindful of making sure that my breaths were deep, that I was breathing out slowly so that I could continue to show up and do a good job today…

Mary

And be present.

Megan

…to be present.

Mary

All right. So as we wrap up, we are going to definitely add your link into the show notes, so people have that on their phone as well to have some breathing and centring before they speak. I know you have your own podcast, The Ubu Pod. What excites you most about podcasting right now?

Megan

I love having conversations with people. It’s my favourite thing. My podcast is interview style. I could have made it into training, basically. Here’s how we deal with anxiousness. Here’s how we develop a resonant voice. Here are some things you can do with your tongue in order to crispin’ your enunciation. I could have done all those things and it didn’t excite me. But talking to people, hearing their stories, especially about the stuff that’s my jam, right? Confidence, visibility, showing up for yourself, working through difficulty. I walk away from these recordings feeling so energised, so excited to authentically connect with somebody, to hear their stories of bravery and of overcoming challenges. That is the only way that I want to show up in the podcasting world. And that is truthfully what excites me is connection. Human connection, to put it simply.

Mary

Yeah, especially right now in the pandemic world.

Megan

Exactly.

Mary

It’s such a great way to connect with people.

Megan

And you have those. So, okay, I’m just going to, I’m going to quickly branch out for a second. I also read tarot cards and the tarot card for 2022, the sort of universal tarot card, is The Lovers, which is card six, right? So you add up two, plus zero, plus two, plus two and get six. Usually, with the lovers, we think about romantic love or we think about intimacy. I have been telling folks that I really feel like this card is asking us to reconnect with those one on one conversations. Those conversations you have that leave you energised, that leave you better than you were before, that have human connection, especially after this pandemic. And so I feel that my podcast and being a podcast guest is a great way to remind myself it’s important to put intention into making those conversations happen because it’s so easy for us to just hole up in our houses right now and not have those meaningful connections, so it’s those meaningful connections. It’s that, it’s the excitement that comes from that. It’s the opening up your brain to new ideas, to new connections, to enthusiasm, and the only way that we get that, by having those conversations that really ignite us.

Mary

Yes, that’s a beautiful way to end. Thank you so much, Megan, for having this conversation with me. And I hope it created a bright spot in your day.

Megan

It absolutely did. Thank you so much, Mary. I really enjoyed this.

Mary

I love that Megan brought up the tarot card reading at the end because it brings a different perspective on 2022. Whether you believe in tarot or not, that whole woo-woo side of thing, her perspective. I love it. It’s this idea of reminding ourselves to make these conversations happen by being a guest or host. your own podcast. As Megan says at the beginning, stop caring about what other people think in order to speak up. Yeah. It sounds easier said than done, but once we do the work and connect human-to-human, it will become easier over time. With this work too earlier, we had touched on the equity, diversity, inclusion piece by reading books by diverse authors, a book that I didn’t mention during the interview, but will recommend Now is a book edited by Shakirah Bourne and Dana Alison Levy called, Allies: Real Talk About Showing Up, Screwing Up and Crying Again. It has a collection of 17 true stories from young adult authors getting real about being an ally, meeting an ally, and showing up for friends and strangers. These are raw stories of racism, invisible disabilities, and sharing powerful moments that will have you thinking and acting differently. I, of course, being an audio person listen to the audiobook version of the book which showcased each author’s own voice, which I believe makes the book even more powerful. You get to really connect, as we keep saying, human-to-human on their emotional level. Either way, get the book, read, or listen to it and show up by doing the work to be an ally. Again, it’s a book called Allies edited by Shakirah Bourne and Dana Alison Levy. If you’ve read this book or have a different suggestion of a book you’d love to share, I’m all ears. Please do send me some feedback to visiblevoicepodcast@gmail.com or leave a voice note with the ‘Send Voicemail’ purple button. Thanks for listening and sharing your book recommendations.