Is this you?

When you go to speak up in a meeting, your voice just won’t come out. Five minutes ago you felt fine, but now you feel like you have no control over the volume or tone of your voice. Your throat feels tight and dry and suddenly everything is gravelly and you keep running out of breath.

Or this?

It’s your throat feels fine, but for some reason you find yourself rushing, mumbling, speaking in a monotone, using a lot of filler words, or that stutter you thought you cured when you were a kid has returned with a vengeance.

Or this?

Your boss has told you that you need to work on speaking up more or speaking more clearly, and you feel a little vulnerable about it and you’re not sure where to start.

First of all…

You are not alone and you are super normal.

The voice is the window to our identity and a lot of people who are new to speaking up in competitive professional settings need to develop new communication practices.

In my world, vocal issues like the ones above are, more often than not, the symptoms of an underlying fear or misalignment.

Over the past 15 years, I have worked with more than 1000 people from 22 countries and 60 companies throughout the Silicon Valley ecosystem, and here are 9 of the most common reasons why folks can’t get their voices out in a meeting.

Which ones describe you?

 

1. You are a high achiever with cultural expectations of success.

You are highly educated, you worked hard and you graduated at the top of your class from one of the most prestigious schools in your area. You walk into a meeting and realize that everyone in the room is highly educated and most likely graduated from one of the most prestigious schools in their area.

At the forefront of your mind, perhaps you feel a little intimidated as you figure out how to both fit in and stand out at the same time in this highly energized and competitive environment.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you may be feeling confronted by the pressure of your culture or family of origin to be successful, and you know you need to change your approach to success in this situation, but you’re not sure in what way or how to do it

 

2. You don’t want to look dumb.

This can show up in a few different ways, such as:

• You think your idea is stupid or too basic so you keep it to yourself.

• You think your idea is super clever, but if you thought of it then others must have thought of it, too, so you’ll just wait for someone else to say it.

• You bravely shared a really meaningful idea one time, but someone else cut you down for it, then said the exact same idea in a different way and received a lot of praise.

• You want to share an idea, but you’re afraid someone else already shared the idea and you somehow didn’t hear it and you don’t want to look like you weren’t paying attention. (Even though you were and you know that nobody said it.)

• You can speak confidently to the data, but if there is any type of brainstorming involved, you feel really nervous.

 

3. Your idea is highly complex and nuanced.

This is the opposite of not wanting to look dumb. It is the fear that your idea is so complex and nuanced that nobody will understand it unless you really break it down and explain it. You’re not sure you’ll be able to simplify the concepts enough for others to understand them while at the same time preserving and highlighting their genius magic.

 

4. Non-native English speaker challenges.

Even though you courageously and expertly execute 97% of your life in English (which is your 2nd or maybe 3rd language) like a total badass – from going to the store to navigating the healthcare system to ordering DoorDash, you continue to feel insecure about your accent, especially at work.

Either there are words/sounds you are afraid you’ll mispronounce, or you’ve been asked to repeat yourself a zillion times, or people speak over you a lot and you just generally don’t feel like you belong.

In addition to that, you may come from a culture in which personal opinions and individual voices are not accepted, respected, or invited to the conversation. Now you work on a diverse global team with a variety of social norms and it can be tricky to even understand when it’s your turn to speak in the first place.

 

5. Elevated stakes.

You have an easy(er) time in weekly team meetings, or bouncing around ideas with your peers, but the moment you are chosen to represent the project or the team, or your boss’s boss’s boss walks in the room your heart starts beating quickly and your mouth goes dry as the panic takes over.

 

6. Context switching.

You’ve had 4 meetings back-to-back with no scheduled break to rest and reset. You’ve been asked to think and speak about so many different facets of so many different ideas that your brain is starting to literally melt.

You’re also possibly still thinking about the weird face that one person made when you said that one thing during meeting number 1, or you learned in meeting number 3 that there is a problem with the project that is going to make your workload more difficult to balance this week, and this is all taking up a lot of emotional bandwidth and distracting you from being present in the current meeting.

 

7. That one dude on the team is kind of a d!ck.

You’re too nice to say it, but I’ll say it for you. That guy is a total bully whose snarky and aggressive behavior sucks the oxygen out of the room, derails entire meetings, and causes everyone to be quiet and give in because it’s just not worth it to tangle with his attitude. You know you have better ideas but, man, it’s really hard to stand up to this jerk.

 

8. You’re the only woman or BIPOC in the room.

It’s great to have a seat at the table and you love what you get to do for work…but it’s also really hard to get in a word at these meetings, and when you do, you either get shut down or they take what you said and treat it as if it was their idea.

You’ve been conditioned to take up less space and live within the confines of all the double-binds and even when you’re brave enough to step up, your voice doesn’t always follow.

 

9. You’re burnt the f—k out.

Too many meetings in a row. Not enough days off. Tight project deadlines. Half the team just got laid off during a ‘restructuring’ that saw the investors win and everyone else lose…and now you’re worrying ‘am I next’? You’re ‘so busy all the time’, you aren’t sleeping well, your diet isn’t that great and you don’t have the energy for the activities that fill you back up.

Time to tally it all up…

How many of these described your experience?

 

Your voice is more than just the sound.

It is the whole mind/body/soul experience of being a human. Certainly, you can learn some pretty straightforward vocal techniques to improve your ability to speak, and I highly recommend that.

That said, it’s equally important to understand the underlying reasons why the sound of your voice is blocked in the first place, and clear a smoother communication path for yourself.

There are many, many, manyyyyyy tools to help you break through all of this noise and communicate impactfully.

You can bring the full force of your intellect and authenticity to your work and the greater world around you…and you can feel safe and seen while doing it.

 

Feel free to reach out.

I have spots on my 1:1 coaching calendar available for anyone who wants to unlock their voice. I also offer corporate and group trainings for those who’d like to build voice and communication skills at the team level.

Beyond that, I’m also available just to chat and help you feel less alone or afraid in your experience. Whether you’re ready to dig in on some coaching or not, you are worthy of support and camaraderie and I love talking to you all. <3