The joy of speaking
Leading a workshop on wellness with the Women of Berkeley Business School.
Before we get to the blog, Team Joy is partnering with Daymaker to support children from non-profits across the country with gifts this holiday season! My goal is for the Team Joy community to collectively donate 100 gifts! To participate go to Daymaker.com/TeamJoy. 🤗 The more we give the more we receive. 💙
Dear Team Joy,
I have a confession. I have always loved the microphone. There is a family heirloom story of me hogging the mic at my grandfather’s 75th birthday party when I was supposed to be sharing it with my brothers to sing him a birthday song…at the age of 3.
I was asked to give a speech at an event on entrepreneurship for Rice donors in college. After the speech when I returned to campus giddy about my experience, I told my boyfriend at the time that I wished I could get paid to speak all the time; doing it made me feel alive. He said something along the lines of, “Sadly that’s not a job,” and unintentionally implied that my desire to give speeches was narcissistic.
But here’s the thing, it turns out speaking and facilitating IS a job…and I want it to be part of mine. 🤗
Speaking at Berkeley
A couple of weeks ago I spoke at Berkeley business school at their Women’s Leadership retreat focused on wellness. This opportunity was generated by my friend and Team Joy collaborator, Hannah, who is currently at the business school. When she heard the retreat was focused on wellness she went to the organizers (unsolicited by me) and said she had a coach who could help make the day amazing.
This experience crystallized the power of having collaborators in my orbit who operate with this level of generosity and continue to inspire me to do the same. These kind gestures reject the popular narrative that ambitious women are threats to my own success and remind me to view them as enablers!
The organizers interviewed me, and then over the course of two months we partnered together to create a custom workshop for their group.
As I was designing this 1 hour workshop, I knew I wanted to begin by telling my professional story authentically. My decision to join McKinsey, my continued search for alignment inside of the organization, and how my attitudes toward wellness have shifted since getting diagnosed with Crohn’s and starting my own company.
Here was my main message:
Wellness leads to more energy, connection, and purpose in our lives.
Traditional systems of work, tech, food etc. are not designed to cultivate wellness.
Therefore, wellness begins with the decision to listen to and validate ourselves over the external messages we are receiving.
A good portion of the room was heading to or coming from the consulting world. They would be or had been working inside of systems that are not designed for wellness. My best advice to them was not to not be a part of this world — I learned incredible skills from being there. But rather, I wanted to remind them that if and when your internal voice is saying “Hey, wait a minute this doesn’t work for me,” you can honor that feeling, tell yourself you aren’t crazy, and then listen to what you need next. This decision to validate yourself does not come at the expense of your success; it’s actually integral to it. Beginning to trust ourselves is the revolution.
Leading the room and staying present
I have helped to facilitate professional workshops, but I have never designed an agenda that included me speaking for 10 mins open-ended, authentically, in front of a large group. While this opportunity was both incredibly exciting and intimidating, I had this little reassuring voice within me saying I was meant for this.
Part of this reassurance unexpectedly stemmed from my experience as a dance instructor over the last year. One of the hardest things I have had to learn is how to hold a room energetically. During each hour-long class the whole room is looking at me for what to do next. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by this level of attention and go inward; is the class ready to move on, do I look weird, are people losing interest? When I go down that line of thinking I lose the room.
What I have found I need to do is take all the attention coming towards me, absorb it, and have the confidence to ground the room around me. When I stay focused on the room, instead of going internal, I can react to what is coming up live. I prepped the content for the workshop thoroughly, and then told myself when I was in the room to let it go, stay present, and allow my words to flow.
Honoring my desire to take up space
Here is the truth, I loved it. I spent the day with the Berkeley women taking in their ambition, authenticity, and struggles. I got to live into my purpose of helping to empower ambitious women to claim their internal compass, and then to use it to claim their power. In turn, I had to push myself to claim mine.
It’s easy for our voices of doubt to creep in and say, “who am I to take up this much space?” But each time I find the courage, my sense of what I’m capable of grows, and I learn to hold space to honor my power. Speaking in front of a large group is one path to claiming space, but so is speaking up honestly in a meeting, or having a truthful conversation with your partner.
So Team Joy, I am sending you love, encouragement, and inspiration to take up more space.
Have a great week!
Love,
Isabel
Reflection questions for this week:
What is one area of your life that you want to take up more space in?
What is one small, tiny, step you could in that direction?