How Your Environment Influences Your Voice and Confidence with Tracy Goodwin

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 247. I think you're gonna love today's episode. It's a conversation between me and my voice coach, Tracy Goodwin. This is a replay of a conversation that we had on her show, Captivate the Room. And she had me on to talk about the impact of physical and emotional clutter on the midlife woman and her identity, energy, and personal growth. And we also talked about her expertise, which is how to find your most powerful and authentic voice, literally and figuratively, and how you can use your voice to help you step into new opportunities. Tracy is a voice researcher and coach, and she's the creator of Psychology of the Voice, which is her unique method of getting to the core of a person's internal voice psychology and assessing external sounds that are repelling, misrepresenting, and costing people 30 to 90% of their potential impact, influence, and revenue.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:16]:
Tracy really makes the invisible visible so that you can get to your next level in your relationships, businesses, and your overall success. Tracy is an amazing friend, human being, and leader, and I can't wait for you to get to know her better in this episode. I'm very grateful to Tracy for the conversation that we had.

Tracy Goodwin [00:01:42]:
Let's go.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:48]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Tracy Goodwin [00:02:31]:
Hey, Christine. Welcome to the show. So happy to have you back.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:34]:
Hi, Tracy. Thank you for having me back. Really great to see you again. And I can't wait for this conversation.

Tracy Goodwin [00:02:40]:
Yeah, I can't remember if you've been on once or twice.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:43]:
I believe I've been on twice.

Tracy Goodwin [00:02:45]:
That's what I was thinking. Okay. All right. So I normally have people introduce themselves, but because you've been on the show, I talked about you a little bit in the intro, and so I'd love to just dive straight in because I know there's so much we always have to talk about. And I want to start with this. We had a great conversation before I hit record. I always think I Should have been recording that because I could plug it in. But I want to start with this connection that we were talking about around.

Tracy Goodwin [00:03:20]:
Clutter is just a mask for everything else. So I'm gonna let that be your diving board to just tee that up and then we can go from there.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:31]:
Terrific. Tracy is referring to physical clutter. And of course there are lots of other types of clutter, which I also like to talk about and think about and help people with. But physical clutter is, I think, a widespread issue, a widespread phenomenon. And several years ago, a bunch of my clients around the same period of time were requesting that I help them with this particular issue. And I very quickly said, this is the wrong person you're asking because I too happen to have clutter. Some trouble with clutter, some resistance to dealing with clutter. So I really just was being honest and then the requests kept coming and I just said, well, why not, right? I can't really hurt anybody by doing this.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:20]:
So I put together a quick five day challenge with really just what came instinctually, what would help people to get out of a stuck place, which is my specialty, and what would help people to actually move the clutter, which became my new subspecialty, literally getting people to put their hands on the clutter. And the challenge worked beautifully from round one, which was lovely and a nice surprise. But I learned so much about people from dealing with this topic and doing it in a group challenge because people were letting go of clutter from all different areas of their homes, but also all different phases of their lives. Some 30 and 40 year old clients, clutter, if you can imagine. I'm thinking it's dusty, it's heavy, it's emotionally heavy. And I'm just seeing people do this, mind you, within the space of five days. So it's really kind of mind opening. What is going on for people that they just needed the tiniest bit of information.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:31]:
Maybe they needed to get online with a community of strangers, maybe they needed to feel safe. But it just opens up all these other areas of exploration that aren't just about clutter. And that's why cloud clutter, a type of mask, like you say, there are different voice masks. I think there are identity masks hidden in the clutter because people really find their energy when they deal with their clutter. That's the number one, I think, biggest result and the positive result, because typically the complaint people have is they don't have enough energy left over to deal with things they want to, like the clutter. So oftentimes it's not total avoidance of clutter, but there's no energy or there's no feeling of enough energy or they're worried that the clutter is actually going to be additionally draining, which it can obviously be because it's your old life, it's your old identity, it's that old job, it's that old lover, it's all the old things. But that's a problem too, because if you've got all that old life stuff grabbing at your attention, asking for your space, not going anywhere, what does that do to your energy, your present day energy? It keeps it divided, it keeps it sluggish, and it keeps it stagnant. And those typically are not words that we like to associate ourselves with if we can help it.

Tracy Goodwin [00:07:07]:
Yeah, I think that's fascinating. And I think the most fascinating part of it is the way you referenced identity, because that's the whole voice thing. Our voice is our identity and we're covering up our identity. So I want to dig a little deeper in this because I want to fully understand it. So when I keep the baby clothes from 24 years ago and I have nine crates of it, there's a part of my identity that I have locked in that. Is that what you mean by that?

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:47]:
I would say yes.

Tracy Goodwin [00:07:48]:
Yeah, I would say yes.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:50]:
Because part of your present identity is of the owner of nine boxes. Honestly. And if you got rid of, let's say, eight of those boxes, just for hypothetical thinking, your identity would shift. You would really. I think it would change because we change like that. We change moment to moment. We change because we think differently, we change because we choose differently. And I think we undervalue those kinds of shifts and we overvalue things that are kept in boxes.

Speaker C [00:08:25]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:08:26]:
And do we think we need it? Is that part of our struggle to let it go?

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:33]:
Many people tell me they worry and they believe that they're gonna. These are things that are needed. And very recently I've started to coach and teach that that may be true. But in the meantime, you could give it out, loan it out, donate it out to someone who's actually going to use it. And then you get to see what it feels like to experiment with that open space in your heart, in your brain, in your energy. And I think, again, we're discounting the value of that.

Speaker C [00:09:11]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:09:12]:
Why do we feel like we need all that stuff? Christine, we're stuff collectors.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:17]:
Right. I think it's, it's. We're trained from before we're out of the room, Right?

Tracy Goodwin [00:09:23]:
Yeah. Stuff and.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:25]:
Yeah. And I. I know years ago, there was someone I knew who was kind of interested in the gender reveal phenomenon, those parties. And it really was figuring out the gender so that you can get this stuff, which is interesting. Yeah. It's a happy occasion. And of course, it's a miracle process. But it's also about buying the stuff.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:52]:
And so right away, human life is associated with the stuff.

Speaker C [00:09:57]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:58]:
And what color. And our attachment to this stuff, that's where the energy comes in. Because we can give attachment to anything. We can put a thought to anything we see. Which is why they have a tip. When you're going shopping, don't touch the stuff. Because once you've touched something you feel it's yours, there develops an attachment. So we've touched all our stuff.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:21]:
We've already identified and pulled in stuff from the universe into our homes. We're attached to it. And then nobody teaches us how to detach from stuff. So we all know 100% how to want stuff, how to crave stuff, how to envy other people's stuff, but we don't know how to throw stuff away.

Speaker C [00:10:41]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:42]:
And I just had to realize that for myself, too.

Tracy Goodwin [00:10:46]:
You know, I'm actually anti stuff. And so I really don't have nine boxes of baby clothes. I have one that I, you know, could probably get rid of. But I was raised by the knickknack queen of the world. And I mean, everything. Everything. But where I struggle is, like, I was given my grandmother's antique table from the 1920s. Do I really want it? No.

Tracy Goodwin [00:11:16]:
Do I keep it out of obligation, guilt? I should. I don't want to regret it. Does all that play into stuff and identity and feeling and emotion? I mean, it's all of it. Right.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:32]:
I think everybody who's listening heard it in your voice. Because your voice got lower.

Speaker C [00:11:39]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:40]:
And deeper and more serious.

Speaker C [00:11:43]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:43]:
Which is interesting because this is not my area. This is your area. But I heard, absolutely heard the difference in the way you were talking about the table. And the obligation is heavier. It's literally heavy in your life.

Tracy Goodwin [00:11:58]:
And what's so fascinating about that table? You know, not that we're doing this deep dive on psychology, but it also used to burn me up that my brother would say, that is garbage. Get rid of it. And so there was this piece of don't tell me what to do. I'm keeping this thing just because you told me to get rid of it. So there's so much tied up in stuff, isn't there?

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:22]:
Yep. And that's just because he Said something.

Tracy Goodwin [00:12:25]:
Yeah, yeah, totally. I would have gotten rid of it until you told me it was all broken down. Yeah. Now I'm keeping it until the day I die. I'll pay $5 million in a storage unit.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:35]:
And maybe he knew that was exactly the thing to say to tick you off. And there may have been no other thing to do to take you off. He just knew.

Tracy Goodwin [00:12:43]:
Right, right. And so. So you said something earlier, and I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was about change, where we're all changing, we're evolving, and yet this. We want to keep these things.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:00]:
Yeah. My area of focus recently is midlife and beyond. So because that was the group of women who were coming to me and I couldn't explain why, but I just said, okay, let's go. There's. There's a lot for me to learn about current and future. Me too, in working with this set of ladies. And what I realized was that psychological development meant. And emotional development is constant.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:27]:
It does not stop after young adult stage. And I don't think we hear much about the stages beyond young adult stage. There's a recent uptick in menopause conversation, but then there's also, you know, problems with information and resources for women of a certain age. But that's a whole other issue. But I do think I realized, wow, there are just so many developmental issues that midlife women have to face, including what's happening with their nest. Is it empty? Is it not empty of children? Your parents, are they healthy? Are they nearby? What kind of responsibility do you have towards them? Their care, their finances, their medical visits, their property, the stuff they left behind when they left the earth, all this stuff. Layers and layers. And every person has a different variation.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:30]:
But I do believe that every person that I've been working with has so many different layers of responsibility. It's energetically really overwhelming and life overwhelming because in midlife there's also no guidance counselor in the school. There's no school. There's no steady source of regular trained support. And we're just supposed to be just really competent and experienced and knowledgeable about how to navigate bureaucracies and health systems and grief and change and moving and retirement and things like that. So I just, I've just found myself in this world of stressed out people with a lot of things that they're carrying that I myself might have carried, but I'm not currently carrying all the things at once. But some people are really carrying four or five heavy life stressors in the same time zone. Same time Window.

Speaker C [00:15:32]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:15:33]:
And every piece of it requires a voice piece.

Speaker C [00:15:38]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:15:39]:
Which will link in here. But I want to go back and ask a question for a minute. So all these women in midlife, were they asking about clutter?

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:50]:
A lot of them were, yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:15:51]:
But it just happened to be the consistency. Was women in midlife dealing with clutter and then dealing with. In a way, I think, and I don't want this be taken as a negative at all, because I don't mean it as a negative. But would you consider all these external things clutter as well? I have to deal with the emptiness. I have to deal with finding the ways of the. Like there's. I think of it as noise, not so much clutter. But is that the same or.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:25]:
No, I don't tend to think of those things as clutter.

Tracy Goodwin [00:16:29]:
Okay.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:30]:
I think the thoughts that are attached to those events, like emptying your nest, can be mental and emotional clutter. So there are, you know, I think parents, I'm going to include them in here, really have all different reactions to their kids leaving for college. You see it right around now is the time when we're seeing the social media posts. Some people are talking as if they do not know how to function going forward. And then others are partying and, you know, they've already booked the vacation and they're already feeling free. And of course, everybody's allowed to have their reactions and we have to check to see are you still personally operating within your own full story of your life?

Speaker C [00:17:21]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:21]:
Okay, so as a psychologist, that's what I'm looking for. Are people impaired somehow by the beliefs that they're holding? That's what I'm naturally drawn to seeing and hearing and listening for. And of course, we do that to ourselves because we block ourselves, as you know, from things that might be really great for our lives all the time.

Speaker C [00:17:42]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:43]:
Fear, confusion, distress, overwhelm, lack of time, bad boss. All these things could lead to you sabotaging your happiness. And, you know, misery is actually more. It's easier to see in the world and find than there is joy, unfortunately, even though there's so much joy to be had, I think it's just way easier to complain and feel stressed and there's a lot of stress around. But my wish is to show people how to just open the door to joy. Using mindset, productivity, action, changing their stories about themselves. You know, much like much overlapping the work that you do. Also improving your voice and how you show up for yourself with your voice.

Speaker C [00:18:35]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:18:35]:
Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. I Think something that I hear in this is it's really at the end of the day about the energy suck.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:45]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:18:46]:
And the other thing that I just thought about when you were just saying that was do we accumulate because we were, you know, I'm trying to, to merge the worlds and I'm always working from the world of the five wounds. Do we accumulate because it is just simply too hard to look at the fact that we feel unworthy or sense of abandonment or judgment or does are.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:14]:
Those connected in any way the accumulation and the, the emotional stress?

Speaker C [00:19:20]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:21]:
Yeah. That is not my deep area expertise. I do know and I've interviewed some people on my podcast who really are working with the trauma history and the problems with letting go of stuff and the living in spaces that are overwhelming and are reminding hearkening back to more stressful times and learning nervous system regulation first and learning that clutter and clutter removal can feel safe. And as you can imagine if you're from a trauma background, that having stuff can be a real source of comfort, can be an identity of. I have stuff, I'm resourced. Can make you feel stable and having somebody remove it, especially someone who's not you, is going to feel like a threat. So that's my basic understanding of the relationship. But I know that so many people trauma background and not purchase things to comfort themselves.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:29]:
Yeah. Purchase things to fill a boredom even so maybe not even distress. But it's habit. It's a lot of habit. And what I love is that we call it a habit because that means it can be changed.

Speaker C [00:20:45]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:46]:
So every habit can be changed. And there's so much more to life than stuff and that you find whenever you just kind of grow up, I think, you know, you. You decide to explore a bit and you realize, huh, they don't do this in this country and huh, they don't do this in this family next door. You know, and it's really eye opening. I remember going to college and thinking, man, there was so much I did not know and thank goodness for things like college.

Tracy Goodwin [00:21:14]:
Yeah, I'm from Texas and everything is bigger in Texas and you know, we always had these big houses and lots of stuff and my mother would just drove my dad nuts. She would keep stuff from, you know, 30 years ago. I often wonder if I was the happiest in my life when I lived in New York City because I had two tiny closets and you switched out your winter and your summer and you didn't have a lot of stuff and.

Dr. Christine Li [00:21:38]:
You were lucky to have two Closets.

Speaker C [00:21:39]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:21:40]:
I was living big. I was living big. Well, okay, so let's go back to these women that all this midlife stuff, all these demands. We've got the parents, we've got the empty nest, we've got all of this. So what do you find happens in those, among those demands, the things that we were talking about earlier that you see come up and a lot of it's related to voice, that in midlife we have all this new bucket of demands and we really don't necessarily know how to communicate our way through it.

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:20]:
I would agree. I think I'm going to ask for your help in kind of teasing this out because I kind of wandered my way into this zone and I'm not sure I know I pitched this as an idea for this episode, but I haven't really thought through my own thoughts about the role of voice in protecting yourself from overexertion, overwhelm. And creating relational harmony in difficult situations, like navigating which sibling is going to go visit the parent next or take responsibility for the finances. Those things all have to get done. And I'm sure it's done very differently in different families. So that I would ask you what you've seen in terms of how much it helps to have voice training and voice coaching when you've got some family stress to be negotiated.

Speaker C [00:23:20]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:23:21]:
Well, this is an easy answer, actually, for me, because this is what I see. I see the way I approach voice is all about unhealed wounds and what's left from that is left in the body of the voice. So I think what happens is we do like what you were saying. We cruise along in our 20s and our 30s and we're doing the thing and we're aware of a couple of things and then in relation to how we communicate. And then all of a sudden we get probably. It starts. I see it in women and especially in women, but all my people, I don't work. I don't have a lot of 23 year olds.

Tracy Goodwin [00:23:56]:
I have a lot of 40 and up.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:58]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:23:59]:
And they get to their 40s and all of a sudden I cannot get my sister to listen to me. I cannot go tell that doctor to shut up. And we're not doing it that way. I cannot stand up to my ex husband. And they realize that they never had a voice and it comes crashing in that they were never heard, they were never seen. They never could set a boundary or they struggle to set a boundary or they talk too much or they talk too little. So all of A sudden, this opportunity has evolved to recognize some of my relationships suffer because I can't say the thing. And honestly, Christine, this was the truth for me.

Tracy Goodwin [00:24:48]:
Everything I created, I created because I needed it. So I was probably in my 40s when I realized my sisters could not see me beyond 1973. And I had to communicate differently in order for them to hear me and see me. And I kept trying to communicate the same way we had always communicated.

Speaker C [00:25:12]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:25:13]:
And thank goodness you had that realization and you went with it. I know. I know. I have benefited and so many of my colleagues have from you and so many people in this audience. And I think you really painted the picture accurately. That this is why people get into therapy, by the way, is because their former habits and strategies and ways of communicating are just not getting the same results, or they're getting worse results all of a sudden because they're older, because they've maybe risen in status or their job responsibilities have intensified, and they just need deeper, richer resources from within. So we're talking tools and skills, but it really is that kind of energy, power, trust, belief in yourself kind of energy that you and I are both trying to talk about. And the voice is that representation of.

Dr. Christine Li [00:26:11]:
That reaches the other person definitely. Right. The hopefulness, the ambition, the idiosyncrasies that we all carry, that gets felt and seen eventually. But the voice is your tool.

Speaker C [00:26:26]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:26:26]:
The voice is your master tool, as I've learned from you, of course.

Speaker C [00:26:29]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:26:29]:
It's the vehicle for sure. And so now we're in these. Like you were saying, we're in these scenarios that we've never had to be in before. Mom's in the hospital. I've got to talk to the nursing home. I've got to. It could be any number of things. And then we have the sudden real, even the empty nest thing.

Tracy Goodwin [00:26:53]:
Talking to your children differently, talking to your spouse differently, because a huge portion of what your life was centered around is gone. And I watched that happen with my parents. My mother thought she wanted my dad to retire, and then he came home, and now it was like. I mean, the way she spoke to him was just abysmal. But that really can be tracked all the way back to something that was never healed in relation to her using her voice. She talked to him that way because she operated from a place of. He's not going to hear me.

Dr. Christine Li [00:27:30]:
Yeah. And that's where the core belief structures everything that comes after that.

Speaker C [00:27:37]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:27:38]:
What she saw, what she perceived, how her voice came out. You know, you taught me this Stuff when I told you about a recent speaking event that I did, and then I saw my voice kind of bringing the old habits back in, like using the word just. And using the word right when I didn't want that. And I don't like hearing that. But you said that was because you were in a situation that was an up leveling for you, and it brought back the old protective tricks that your voice was going to do. And I just, you know, that was immediately registered in my body as the right answer. Right. And there I did it again.

Dr. Christine Li [00:28:28]:
And I, I love the examples that you're giving because we're. We have realizations all the time. We feel it in our body, we hear it in our voice. We hear it when our voices comes out and we have no idea why we use that inflection or somebody reacted to us in a weird way and we didn't mean it. You know, the evidence is everywhere. And you. Yet in midlife, the danger is that you're so overwhelmed by these events and overwhelm and overdoing it and not taking care of yourself and not sleeping that you miss the cues, that this is the time to speak up. Right.

Dr. Christine Li [00:29:07]:
That frustration that you feel, the voicelessness, the irritability, the awkwardness, any of those things you could read as, oh, let me pause and figure out what is going on right now. What is it that I need? What is it that I reacted to? Why did I get so hot all of a sudden?

Speaker C [00:29:28]:
Yeah, right.

Dr. Christine Li [00:29:29]:
And there I do it again with the right, I need more help from you, Tracy. And when you see it from a little bit of a detached place that you can be super kind to yourself. Because of course, midlife women need to be really kind to themselves. Then you have a shot at reading what the cues are, at asking someone for help, at saying, hold on there, let me think about this before I agree to something new or different or additional. And that kind of detachment is very healthy, maybe brand new for people like your mom and can be game changing. It can literally change how your schedule feels across the week.

Tracy Goodwin [00:30:20]:
Well, and I think people also realize with these things that are coming at them now that are new, that they realize, oh, wow, I've never been able to say no, oh, wow, I didn't realize I was a control freak. So there's opportunities now that maybe didn't exist before, but because we were existing differently, that now give us opportunity to see the places where our voice has betrayed us, see the places where we're not being heard. Really look at, oh, wow, I don't know how to communicate with this person. I'm intimidated by them, and I'm giving all my power away. Where prior to this, maybe we didn't notice or we didn't see or we didn't look, but in this conversation, I'm really thinking about, and I've not thought about it before, but does that become the catalyst for that comfort?

Dr. Christine Li [00:31:17]:
Buying what becomes the catalyst?

Tracy Goodwin [00:31:19]:
Well, my sister doesn't hear me, so I'm just going to run over to the mall.

Dr. Christine Li [00:31:24]:
Yeah, I don't think we need that many excuses to go to the mall.

Speaker C [00:31:29]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:31:29]:
Doesn't have to be that deep.

Dr. Christine Li [00:31:31]:
But I do think in midlife, it's important to be careful about these choices because guess what? When you go to the mall, guess what? You have more eventual clutter, more future clutter. Some of the most powerful social media content around clutter is what comes to mind is this one woman facing filled garbage bags of stuff. And in the background, there's a voiceover that says, I just think this all used to be money. It's very powerful. If you're feeling short on finances, if you're feeling like you're working too hard, look around you and see where has the money gone. And we have a say in all of this. Everything is connected. Our voice, our finances, our identity, our future selves.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:18]:
And when we say, okay, it's time to become the boss of this system, that's when everything can shift.

Speaker C [00:32:26]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:27]:
Your voice, your opportunities, your peace inside your heart. Because you can can say, I give up the need of being validated by everyone and their sister. I just do. And you, way back when, said, I give up the idea that I need to be the same Tracy that I've always been with my family members, and that started everything anew.

Speaker C [00:32:53]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:54]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:32:55]:
I want to jump back to something you said a minute ago about the web. Well, you didn't say what it was. Maybe I'm not supposed to say it was okay if I say okay. And there's. There's always these level ups. This is something we were talking about. I said, you want to know who's getting a divorce? I can tell you. You want to know who is struggling financially, I can tell you, I think we have these level ups vocally.

Tracy Goodwin [00:33:22]:
And it's not that the work wasn't done, the work didn't stick. But I think it's always this evolution of leveling up. Yeah, you're fabulous. Oh, but hold on. This affected you. Oh, you're fantastic. But hold on a minute. This got in the way and so we're always looking for those outside things that make us wobbly for a minute.

Tracy Goodwin [00:33:45]:
And I think that's exactly what happened. And the right thing. We can even pay attention to what's happening societally. And it comes in our ears. And now all of a sudden everybody's saying, right, right. Constantly. It can be a psychology of the voice thing. But I, I think there's a piece of voice and it may, there may be a piece of clutter as well.

Tracy Goodwin [00:34:07]:
That as humans, we're always wanting to be a part of the tribe.

Dr. Christine Li [00:34:11]:
Yes, absolutely. We know that.

Tracy Goodwin [00:34:15]:
Yeah, I know.

Dr. Christine Li [00:34:16]:
I'm, I'm very much like that. I'm always about the social group and the people and getting more people into the tribe.

Speaker C [00:34:23]:
Yeah, yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:34:24]:
And that's that concept of keeping up with the Joneses. We buy stuff because the neighbor has it. We buy a new backdrop because that really successful entrepreneur has that backdrop. And I think we do those things vocally as well, because we want to belong, we want to fit in, we want to be a part of something. And I think those are, I think those are really connected.

Dr. Christine Li [00:34:46]:
You just made me think about this webinar that I did. So Tracy mentioned It was for WebMD. So for me it was an up level. I was really do. Was the first webinar of a new collaboration between WebMD and Attitude magazine. Add it to magazine. And so I was very happy to be in this position and I was prepared. And I had practiced the delivery one time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:35:16]:
And for me, that was both enough, but maybe not enough. And I was in between feeling great and calm and happy and curious whether I had underdone it, underdone my preparation. So there was at least that level of anxiety in there. And midway through the presentation, I thought, huh, I'm really doing this. I am getting away with this. And then I started the right, right, right thing. Maybe because of interesting fatigue or just wanting to be personable or anxiety again, like you said, it's, wow, I'm doing this and there's nothing wrong. So let me throw in something that I don't like people doing with their voice accidentally.

Tracy Goodwin [00:36:02]:
Yeah, well, and checking it. You know, I have some remnant of imposter syndrome or who am I to be doing this? Or wow, I can't believe I'm doing this. Let me sabotage it or whatever. It could be a remnant of anything. Then that old habit is connected to that remnant. And all of a sudden we start going, right, right, checking in or will our just is oftentimes a subconscious recognition that you're really standing in authority and you're really laying down some tracks that some people may not like. And the subconscious kicks in to that, whoa, whoa, whoa, we gotta protect you. It's all about protection.

Tracy Goodwin [00:36:47]:
So we're gonna just get her to throw in a couple of. Just to soften the blow.

Dr. Christine Li [00:36:52]:
I really felt that that must have been what was happening. That couldn't necessarily be fully confident. That would, that would be weird. So I'm going to throw a question to you just about this. How do you overcome that? How do you step into an up leveled situation and feel that you could really trust that you're not going to bobble?

Tracy Goodwin [00:37:15]:
I mean, it's just that simple. So there's new. So you and I worked together probably eight, nine years ago because I was still in California.

Dr. Christine Li [00:37:23]:
Yes.

Tracy Goodwin [00:37:23]:
And that would have been nine years ago. So it could have even been 10, 11 years ago. And I'm always researching, I'm always evolving, I'm always adding new things to what I teach. Two of the things that I hear in this is one, we have to get rock solid in trusting that we know and trusting yourself. And you've done the yards you've done. I mean if you were right out of college, this would be a harder sell. But deep down, you know, you know, and deep down do you believe you can deliver this information confidently. So the window, the gap becomes the old safety mechanism.

Tracy Goodwin [00:38:02]:
So you can, you can literally go, yeah, I can totally nail this. I've got it. I know what I'm talking about. I know if it goes sideways I can save it. I'm totally good. And the subconscious goes, yeah, but what if you don't? And then you go, yeah, but what if I don't?

Dr. Christine Li [00:38:17]:
Yes.

Tracy Goodwin [00:38:18]:
And so it's this literal. I am never questioning that. I can't pull it out. I love that. You know, there was a talk, you may. You knew I did it. I don't know if you were in the room or not, but last year at a conference we go to, I had a 40 minute talk and nobody was coming in the room because the person who asked me to do the talk was teeing it up and was talking about how great I was. And 5 minutes went by and 10 minutes went by and 15 minutes went by and 20 minutes went by.

Tracy Goodwin [00:38:51]:
And that whole time I'm sitting there going this talks out. But I trusted that I could stand on that stage and deliver something and it's so rock solid that it becomes unwavering. So it is just exactly what you said. You've got the proof you've done the work. But it's really the second piece of that trusting. And people bristle when I teach this, when. When I bring this into my groups. Now, it's the concept of owning your greatness.

Tracy Goodwin [00:39:25]:
And I don't think anybody gives us a permission slip to own our greatness. They give us a permission slip to, you better not sound arrogant or like the B word. And I teach people to own the greatness, and I own that. I know. There's no doubt in my mind. I know. And there's no doubt in my mind that whatever you throw at me, I will be okay. And that's how you do it.

Tracy Goodwin [00:39:49]:
But we have to surrender that that's going to be arrogant. And that's the problem, is the subconscious intervenes and says, what do you mean, own your greatness? You're going to get up there and be like an arrogant a hole. No, we're going to work from the place of gratitude, of wow, I was put on this place, on this planet with this gift. I can't wait to change these people's lives. That's what I mean by owning your greatness. Because the truth is, the whole thing could go sideways and you would know exactly what to do. And it doesn't matter if it's for the dog in the office when nobody's listening, or the biggest platform you've ever been on in your life, you still know what you're talking about. I don't know.

Tracy Goodwin [00:40:35]:
Does that, does that give you something to work with?

Dr. Christine Li [00:40:38]:
I love it. Thank you. When you started with that piece, my mind went to. It's just really easy to think that it's going to go south.

Tracy Goodwin [00:40:47]:
So easy.

Dr. Christine Li [00:40:48]:
It's so easy. Yeah.

Speaker C [00:40:50]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:40:50]:
I call it the 50% rule. And I'm sure as a psychologist, you've probably. You probably know some. I'm not the one that created this, is basically what I'm saying. But the way I look at it is if there's a 50% chance it can work and a 50% chance it's going to go down the toilet. When it comes to using our voice, we're always going to pick the toilet. We just are by default because that. That breaks the fall in case we do.

Tracy Goodwin [00:41:21]:
And I teach my people, you pick the 50 that says, get us. Sit down. I got to change your life. Because you can pick one or the other, but the brain wants us to pick the safe one, which is, ooh, you better. I don't know, that could go bad. And then we're ready for it. When. If it does, that's not the way I operate.

Speaker C [00:41:43]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:41:44]:
I'm getting close. I will say proudly, I'm getting close with your help and with your guidance and with some old teachings from you. And practice, really just practice being open and very grateful that I can share what I know and be confident about it and know that it can really open some minds and energy. It really is a cycle that's very gratifying.

Speaker C [00:42:10]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:42:11]:
And the voice is the piece that we need locked down to make sure that we get to see the full arc of this. Seeing the new people, seeing the old people. Continuing to do well, maintaining your own health of your voice over time as you learn different things over the years. These, these arcs we've gone through and just keeping fresh too, which means up leveling, which means walking into situations that you never thought you'd be able to be welcomed in to in the past. And they're happening. It's great. And you. Yeah, our voice needs to come too.

Dr. Christine Li [00:42:50]:
We can't.

Tracy Goodwin [00:42:51]:
Totally, totally. And even for these things that you were talking about, you know, communicating and relationships and, and self care and I'm not going to do it saying no, having a conflict, all these things that we cannot. Well, I guess we can, but it's not the easy path to ultimately avoid these things throughout our whole life. I know some people do, and that is tragic.

Dr. Christine Li [00:43:23]:
It's a choice and it's. It's one where you, you definitely are losing. You're losing a lot of exploration potential, a lot of growth potential, a lot of exposure potential. And not everyone needs to want or love exposure. But you have access to that through your voice.

Speaker C [00:43:45]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:43:45]:
Well, you know, my TED Talk was about. The title of my TED Talk was six Voice Masks that Determine youe Reality. And I truly believe that your voice determines your reality because of what you were saying earlier. It's the instrument of decision. It's the decision maker for people. And are they hearing something that says to them, yeah, you can run all over her. Are they hearing something that says, you better listen to her?

Dr. Christine Li [00:44:15]:
Well, this was good.

Tracy Goodwin [00:44:16]:
Anything else, Christine, on this topic that we didn't cover, I think we covered a lot.

Dr. Christine Li [00:44:21]:
I'm really grateful to how you run conversations and interviews. I really love them. I loved the last one. I remember that too. And I would just say a note of encouragement that that's really the underlying message is that there may be bobbles in your voice and you may subconsciously be self sabotaging and you might not think anybody's going to listen to you, you might be in that state right now, but our conversation day really reminds people that there's so much more out there that you have access to, that you could learn to access, that you could learn to let go of something holding you back so that you have a new space to explore whatever you want. It doesn't have to be linear or organized or structured or what your next door neighbors are doing. It could just be something new. And so if you're looking for new stuff, maybe check in with Tracy about your voice.

Dr. Christine Li [00:45:18]:
Take a challenge, clear some clutter. Yeah. And allow the learning to happen. You're fine. You're always fine. I think that's what Tracy just reminded me of with her coaching just a minute ago. We are all fine. And we need to make sure that we're representing that part of us, the 50% that has got it locked down.

Speaker C [00:45:41]:
Yeah.

Tracy Goodwin [00:45:42]:
Well, we'll put the link in the show notes to the challenge. When does it start?

Dr. Christine Li [00:45:47]:
So I'm hosting the challenge. It's the re energize your home five day decluttering challenge and it starts Monday, September 8th. So come in, come in quick, as it always does. And I do this challenge several times a year. This will be the 10th round. So, you know, it's really locked down. And I do five days of very quick tricks and tips and explanations for why these tricks and tips will help you get over the old stories about me and the clutter. It's not going to be that story of, oh, we don't like each other and we don't look at each other.

Dr. Christine Li [00:46:27]:
It's going to be more like, okay, what do we do now? And you're going to get in there with your hands and with the other people in the challenge and you're going to do substantial work in this decluttering by the end of the week, it's totally free. And the way to join is to go to procrastinationcoach.com/goodwin, procrastinationcoach.com/Goodwin and you'll get an opt in form and we'll start together on September 8th. So thank you, Tracey, for helping me to promote it.

Tracy Goodwin [00:46:59]:
Yeah, for sure. And I will put that link in the show notes, but go sign up. I know this will be a great, great week for all of you. Christine, thank you so much for coming back on the show. It's always a pleasure to have you with me.

Dr. Christine Li [00:47:11]:
I'm so glad we did this. Thank you so much.

Tracy Goodwin [00:47:14]:
Yeah. And thank you, listeners. Always great to have you. But that's it for today and I'll see you next time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:47:21]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also Visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making Time for Success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:48:02]:
Talk to you soon.