In order to have a powerful personal brand, you need to have a voice. Not a voice that’s marred by the ideas of everyone else around you, but a loud, proud, real voice. So today I want to discuss why it’s important to own your voice.

“I am the master of my soul and the driver of my rain, and in choosing to live whole sometimes my joy comes laced with pain. Yet with every step I walk, I know I’ve pulled the cards I’m dealt. And with every word I block, I’m hiding all the things I’ve felt. So I’m running towards my joy, and not away from pain, and in my magic I employ, as I find myself again.”

~ Chris-Anne (The Muse Tarot)

This is the poem related to the Tarot card I pulled this morning. From the suit of Voices. So this inspired me to write this post.

What is voice?

Let me be clear here. This isn’t about liking the sound of your voice. I have a high pitched, squeaky voice. And often get told I sound like a chipmunk. If I let that stop me from showing up, I’d not just be doing myself a disservice. But also everyone who will benefit from my unique message.

What I’m talking about is sharing your message (i.e. your voice) in your way. The definition of voice (aside from it being the sound that comes out of your mouth), is “a particular opinion or attitude expressed.”

Whether you think you have a brand or not, you definitely have a voice. You may be sharing memes, photos, stories, live videos, blogs, or any other type of content. Anything you share online forms your voice. So does anything you say to people you encounter in your day to day life.

What is brand voice?

Brand voice is the way you talk to your customers. It’s your brand’s style of communication. It can have any style as long as it feels true to your values and who you are as a person.

Just as you would communicate in a specific way with your family, friends, partners, colleagues etc. There’s also a way to communicate specifically with your customer base.

After all, personal branding is all about how you make people feel. So your brand voice should help you to form a stronger emotional connection with your audience.

Defining your brand voice

Every time your business launches an ad, updates website copy, sends an email, speaks at an event, or posts on social media, you showcase your brand voice.

So it’s smart to define your voice. Because in a perfect world, everyone would recognise your logo without any content. But we know that’s not the case for most brands out there. This means you have to rely on building a brand voice on platforms like social media to help distinguish yourself from every other brand.

When you are clear on what you stand for and you communicate that effectively you stand out. This doesn’t mean you have to be an advocate for every cause out there, just get clear on a few things that are important to you.

For instance, my brand voice is passionate and authentic. And you will see this shining through in all my content. I have strong opinions, I share what’s on my mind, and I don’t hold back. I’m not afraid to speak my mind and share what’s important to me. Because my biggest value is to be authentic. I don’t care about engagement as much as I care about being real.

If you were to review some of your recent content, would you be able to define your brand voice? Be honest here. Are you truly sharing your voice, or are you mimicking the voice of others?

Why it’s important to own your voice

When you don’t own your voice, you’re likely to be hiding your truth. Just like in the poem I shared above.

I get it. We’ve been born into a society where the truth has been twisted. Where we’ve been led to believe that our worth is determined by how many people like us, and how much stuff we own.

And it can be scary to share our truth.

There’s many reasons why people don’t share their true voice.

Fear of judgement. Or shame or guilt about what they really feel. Again leading back to worrying what other people will think of them. Fear of being alone and misunderstood. These are all valid. But these low vibrational feelings are what keep you feeling unseen and unheard.

True worthiness can only be determined within. And that means feeling all your feelings, and owning your truth. Sometimes it might be painful. And you don’t have to share every detail with your audience. It takes time to heal, to grow, to move through feelings.

However, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. The more you allow yourself to feel, the easier it becomes to share your true voice. And the more you share your true voice, the deeper impact you will have on the world.

Your voice is worthy of being heard

You have a worthy story. You have an important message. Your opinions matter. One of our deepest desires is to be seen and to be heard.

So many people go through life feeling this way because they’re not willing to look themselves in the mirror first.

Until you’re ready to fully see yourself, you’ll only be sharing a fragmented version of yourself with the world.

The more you hide from your truth, the more painful it becomes. Until you have to make a choice. Face off with yourself, or continue to suffer.

I know this, because this is the journey I’ve recently been on. I always thought being successful meant you had to show up in a certain way. Always positive and bright, always well put together, always in control. But recently I found myself repelled by those ‘perfect’ looking and sounding brands.

It all started to sound the same to me. And I was bored! Then I thought to myself, if I’m bored of everyone else that’s presenting themselves in this way. Then I’m bored of myself too.

Because while I was being authentic, I wasn’t sharing my full story. I wasn’t owning my voice fully. I was showing the part of me I was comfortable with sharing. But I was still allowing other people’s ideas and opinions to cloud my judgement and confuse my voice.

And I wasn’t showing up in all the ways I wanted to be. I had so many thoughts swirling, so many half written posts that never got shared. I wanted to write blogs, but I thought I had to be doing other things to grow my business, so I kept putting those things first. And I was feeling pain because I wasn’t allowing myself to be fully expressed.

Are you ready to own your voice?

The moment I drowned out all the noise, was the moment I truly owned my voice. I’m now writing more than ever and my words are being published on larger platforms as well.

So I want to encourage you to own your voice too.

Whether you want to sing on a stage, record a podcast, start a YouTube channel, start a blog, write a book… or anything else. You can do it!

Because YOUR voice is so worthy of being heard. We don’t need more carbon copies in business, we need more real people sharing real stories and voices.

If so, I highly recommend checking out my earlier posts about Why Spiritual Brands Are More Powerful & How to Build a Powerful Personal Brand in 2020. These take you through all the tools and practices I’ve recently discovered which enabled me to fully own my voice.

How you know you’re owning your voice

Interestingly, just as I was about to hit publish on this post I got a call from my Dad. We started with our usual chit chat, and then we got onto the topic of a few of the posts I shared on social media recently.

Particularly one I wrote about my experience with our Religion. He said I should stay away from these topics because I don’t want to draw attention or have people saying bad things about me. I said this is the exact problem I’m trying to raise.

This is how I know I’m owning my voice. Because I’m no longer afraid to go near uncomfortable subjects.

So many people don’t share their true voice, because they’re afraid. But we need to overcome that fear. We need to realise that it doesn’t matter if people don’t agree with us. Our opinions are valid because they’re based on our own unique experience. Like I said in my recent post, it’s thanks to other people sharing their truth, that I felt confident enough to share my own.

And the more we continue to share our voices. The more we give permission to other people to use theirs. It causes a ripple effect which leads to massive change. As long as you’re sharing your voice from a space of love and you’re truly speaking from the heart, you will be met with love. And if there is resistance, respond with love, knowing it’s nothing against you. The person responding has different views based on their experiences.

When you realise this, the fear goes away.

If you’re ready to start owning your voice and showing up in a more powerful way, you can start by following my Magical Story Formula.

As usual, thanks for reading. And if you enjoyed this post please feel free to like, comment and/or share. Your support means the world to me.

Jade xo