I used to be very self conscious about my voice. Not my speaking voice, though truth be told I am still prone to pitching up, lisping, or lapsing into my Rhode Island accent (i.e. Brooklyn brawls with Boston) if I get excited…
No, I am talking about my creative voice.
My leadership voice.
I am talking about my inner wellspring of confidence, passion, value, and values that melt together to create the impression of me in creative or leadership dialogues.
Over time I discovered things about myself.
I have carved an interesting path to creative direction and design that traversed the world of execution. In other words I came up from the trenches, which is not entirely common for my current vocation. SO I had knowledge and experience about process that my contemporaries didn’t enjoy.
I studied acting in college, and had always enjoyed debate and opportunities for public speaking. I had a weird facility for jumping up in front of groups of people and being able to wing it. I wasn’t sure how best to put this to use, but it gave me confidence with the mechanics of communicating.
Also, I am an enthusiastic fan of science fiction. I was always thrilled to dive into dense space operas, but I also really enjoyed the work of science fiction authors that wrote about a very near future. This passion exposed me to predictive ideas about what might happen to culture, technology, and human experience.
Taken together, these three things ended up being the perfect ingredients to become a Creative Director and Producer who is expert in immersive experiences and interactivity. Their intersection was my superpower. They gave me vision to see things, an ability to communicate them well, and an understanding of how to make them happen. I had found my intersection of interests.
I had found a voice I could work confidently within.
Here’s my prompt for you:
Where are your passions ?
What are your interests ?
How have you gained useful experience ?
And powerfully – What makes you uncomfortable ?
Look closely at the venn diagram created by these questions. In the middle is certainly a voice for you to use.