Amplify Your Voice & Influence

Speaker 1: [Music] I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the shilp podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated did major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil Community I also love a good workout and dose of selfcare magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go thank you for joining is Angela you are a former TV news anchor and reporter with more than 25 years of media experience you've hosted shows from E entertainment to HGTV and helped launch Entertainment Tonight China in addition to your media experience you are also the author of The Power of the only tell us about what inspired you to write it and how can leaders Embrace being the only oh so nice to be with you the power of the only so grew up a shy Asian girl growing up in an immigrant household in Southern California and I always felt like the only one and then navigating my career path through being a television news anchor reporting in small markets where I was the only Asian girl but I never felt less than right before the pandemic I was at a mastermind I was sitting with another woman entrepreneur coach she asked me how did you start this well I was the only woman speaker on this I was the only reporter and I go but there's power in being the only and she looked at me and I looked at her and we're like there's power in being the only and I just started to feel like literally that's what my life was is that I've always been the only one and I know what that feeling is like a lot of women know what that feeling is like but you can't quite place it but there's always this narrative that it's so hard and it is right it's a struggle sometimes but I've always found power in that and so that led me on a four-year journey of why do I find power in it was it the way I was raised is it the things that I did what happened to me that I found power in it and that being the only is not a weakness but your greatest strength and so I spent four years interviewing I started the power of the only podcast interviewing CEOs filmmakers using my old journalist skills just really digging deep I had five principles but I wanted to find out what made people find power in the only and some people not and so that is what I did and explored and that's where the idea came from and it really is everything I stand for and now I just want to be a voice for all the only whoever felt like they wanted to do more couldn't didn't know how to navigate spaces and as a communication coach that's what I help people do is how to thrive to communicate to own your voice but also thriving is really important because I think when you're an only one it is hard and we all go through this phase of survival and it's not enough and this and that and so it's almost like my book is a leadership communication and self-help book all wrapped up into one and I love that you flip the narrative cuz when you feel like the only one you can make yourself smaller or like you said use it as an Advantage when I worked for the Dodgers I was one of the only women it's interesting because much like you I never really walked around and thought I'm the only woman the only time I really realized it was when I was looking for a female Mentor within Major League Baseball and there weren't a lot but I love that you're saying use that as confidence and step into your power and use that as an advantage yes there are challenges there are things that we fac and you just did it because there wasn't the opportunity to have the mentors now there's more representation people are talking about it more but you don't notice what you've been through until you look back and you go oh well that that wasn't great but that's what the power of the only is it's all those challenges and recognizing all those things you went through and that is your strength because you have the empathy and that is what the power of the only is the power of the only is is seeing feeling and understanding what others don't and the power comes from leveraging that to achieve your goals but also to help create change and to help other people and so I'm not saying it was easy oh it's just great I didn't even know I was the only one and it's so great it's not denying it a lot of the books these days and a lot of experts out there say just be more confident just do this own your power of the only and I'm not saying that I'm saying it was hard and there are things I went through but those are the things that shape me and we're moving in a different direction how can we take that knowledge because I feel and see way more and all the people that I've interviewed that navigated certain spaces they went through things that allowed them to see beyond and that's what we need right now to create the change in the world because when you haven't seen things or understand there's a Nuance that women can seeies can see that others can't and it's hard to place but when you're an only and you resonate with that when you walk into a room you change the room by just being in it and so all those people who see it as a negative I'm not saying it wasn't hard I'm saying I want you to see all those quality so that when you walk into the room you change the room just by being in it versus pushing against it cuz you don't have to wait for the World to Change to step into your greatness and it's also sharing the stories of the challenging moments I mean I remember sitting in a board meeting where I didn't speak up and that was a great lesson there were two women at the table in a board room of 30 people and if that narrative were different I probably would have spoken up but that was a great lesson for me because to the this day sharing the story of me not speaking up I hope empowers someone to decide to do it and that's why it's so important the book isn't just these are the things the five things you need to do to own your voice and everything will be great each chapter starts with what is owning your power what is owning your voice and why don't we that's a big thing and once you know the awareness of why don't I oh the way I was raised oh because I'm a woman because I don't have enough money because I don't have this skill set whatever it is but once you acknowledge that that gives you the power doesn't mean it doesn't exist and then I give you the tools to tell stories of other people who didn't and why they didn't and how they overcame it so that you don't feel so alone because being an only is lonely but once you start to hear other people's stories you realize ah we're all doing the same things and it's not as lonely as you think you all have that experience so that was really important to me to share people's stories how has your media career shaped your approach to leadership and communication I loved my media career it was hard in the beginning so it shaped it in terms of I think if you interview anyone in the media or talk to anyone they can do anything because the path to becoming a reporter is difficult so the tenacity the navigating the scarcity trying to figure that out and getting to a place where you can actually work but then the working part I love being a journalist interviewing people seeing where they're coming from understanding different perspectives listening people think oh oh you're on TV it wasn't about being on TV the reporters are synthesizers of information storytellers understanders Witnesses and so when I lead or when I do my Keynotes and I coach my clients it all comes from a place of listening as an entrepreneur the tenacity like I can figure anything out I can get any story I can if it doesn't work I'll go a different way and then the part about being a good listener and understanding where people are coming from I know how to connect with an audience because I actually try to understand where they're coming from and that's what I teach my clients the number one thing if you want to be a good speaker a good leader a good communicator is who are you talking to what do they care about and how can you connect with them it's not about sharing you you do want to share your information you do want to sell your product you want to but that's later like first you got to understand who are you talking to and so all those things I loved being a reporter I loved meeting people it was hard being on the the streets of LA I've been to every bad bathroom and all over California but the people that you meet and the stories you understand all walks of life from the celebrity red carpets to the the people in the deepest pain in their moments and trying to be there from them to fun nonprofit life-changing stories and all of it matters I like you I love the story portion of it I love learning about people and taking in all of the knowledge and you're a podcast gu host when I get on with a guest sometimes it's very easy and they'll share stories and you communicate really quickly and other times especially sometimes if someone's very media trained and they're giving very media trained answers you think okay I'm GNA have to work a little harder to pull the stories out of them yeah and I love free form that's why I love podcasts because in media you have what 2 minutes 3 minutes maybe five minutes if you have a long form but with podcasts I do just talk because it's so fun and I leave so energized I love being a talk show host back in the day I mean I was so quick I was like who's next okay what are they about what are they learning these days there's a lot more involved being an entrepreneur there's all different parts of the business what does be you Amplified mean and how can leaders apply it to standout oh yes be you Amplified I had a client years ago and they're like I want to be like so and so and I want to be like you and I want to speak like this they were a spokesperson trying to do videos and I said no you need to be like you but Amplified it's the same thing it just hits you like be you Amplified and so be you Amplified is knowing who you are what you stand for and how you want to show up in the world and I have a a process of the connection formula and a is like how you connect with your audience and how you do that but that is what be you Amplified is it's being you but Amplified and you move the dial based on if you're talking to an individual if you're leading a team if you're on a podcast if you're on a TV show if you're speaking on a stage and you can moderate but you're never changing the you part of you Amplified you're changing the dial based on the audience based on the tone based on what you want to communicate and that's the process I take people through is knowing how to Pivot but never changing the core of who you are and it's also about figuring out who you are so a lot of my work is not telling you how to sit or stand or practice on camera and off it's about getting clear on who you are what you stand for and how you show up in the world and a lot of people forget that piece I can train someone or Media train in an hour for a specific interview but if you're a spokesperson for your company for your business you want to be aligned inside and out and you want to be ready for any opportunity not just the one that I trained you for this is so true and the woman you were talking to you know she was thinking oh I want to be like so and so or like so and so she went out to try to be like them people would see through that if she wasn't being herself and to your point most Amplified version of herself yeah and I had problems doing that too it's it's very normal to want to be like you need a model people have taken off those layers even for someone like you think you need a role model and so when initially when people come work with me they say I'm not ready but it's not about I'm not who I need to be it's more peeling back the layers to get to the core of who you are but it's easier said than done it's like just be authentic people use that word a lot but it's a journey that you go on and the more you do it the more authentic you are when I left the news business I wasn't very authentic because I was a news anchor and that's why I came up with helping people and I went through this process on my own is that I was at a blogging conference where I was a blogger and I got popular and so people were interviewing me and I was like I don't I don't know how to be interviewed to doing the interviewing I know I'm like who am I what do I stand for what what am I want to talk about what do you mean and so I I was good at winging it so it worked but inside I was really nervous like I don't actually know who I am and so I had to sit down with myself and I put myself through you Amplified who am I what do I stand for what do I want to put out in the world what's this purpose and that's what I did to myself and then slowly through the years I've peeled off or I've tried to I'm still pretty anchery sometimes because that's just part of my style I like being polished I like being ready and I don't think that's a bad thing but I am a little more free when you come from that anchor always being ready always being professional background it took me a while to transition to online and being an online entrepreneur and coach and it's been years so I've peeled a lot of that away but it's a constant journey to your point it depends on what you're doing if standing in front of a room full of hundreds of people there's a certain part of you that needs to come out it's easier to hide behind that camera and be more laidback as a person being to to you to your point but sometimes you need that feeling of knowing who you are in a way of being media trained to come across as yourself in front of hundreds of people or thousands of people yes when you are aligned like you take the time to actually ask yourself those questions then your true self can come through more naturally it's not not so much memorized as it is you embody it and the only way you embody it is if you think about it practice it and you're like oh I get it it's a feeling one of the parts of being you Amplified is audience message as well as feeling F it's like a I go down the whole list if you'd like more it's on my website I give it away for free it's the connection formula but the feeling is so important and the feeling is how do you want to feel when you're communicating and how do you want other people to feel and that's the energy that you bring into a room and that's more important that's just as important as saying the right things standing the right way a lot of people focus on those external things but if you're not aligned the feeling that comes across in your communication shifts and it's a mental note that you make but it makes a difference in how you connect and I have to say we met at Reese Witherspoon shine away one of the things that I do remember is your energy you brought in such a great energy into our group when we all met each other oh thank you so much and I go to a lot of conferences but certain conferences have good energy actually most of the conferences I do have good energy but that you could tell that even ree puts a lot of energy into what she produces the people she surrounds herself with that comes across and it's a feeling you can't quite place it you just know it when you're there but same thing I loved your bright energy and it was super casual we just sat down I was like oh hey let's my feet hurt let me take a break and then we all started chatting and and then it was very natural from there which is important especially if you start networking a lot or going to a lot of conferences I'm done with the days of I don't have an agenda it just was like oh what are you working on energy is important to me but thank you this was fun to learn you won Miss California National teenager at 15 how has that influenced your confidence this is why I started the podcast it's like what happened in your life or what are the steps right they're all layers I was 15 years old and I didn't have money and I remember watching Miss Teen USA on TV and I wanted to win scholarship money and I go mom can I enter this this was an like you go to you fill out a form I didn't have parents that knew about anything like this I wasn't a pageant person it was a scholarship program and it was so innocent it was girls you they looked at your grades and all the different things and I had entered some speech competitions I'm like I want to do this and so I went there like a newbie not knowing anything but I had practiced in my room by reading a book about how to win a pageant and I was like okay well I have the grades I can interview and when I won it was the biggest shock I thought maybe I'll make if I just get up like top 15 or I meet some cool girls and get some experience that'd be great and so when I won it actually was a big factor in my confidence because I had no idea literally my mouth is open you other girls cry like oh my God I'm a pageant Queen I just sat there with like my mouth wide open like a fly catcher like huh oh okay and it was the beginning of I met people I went to openings that's when I started mcing events I I gave speeches I met really cool people but I had to learn it all pretty quickly and I just stepped into it and that's why I always tell people it wasn't about the pageant necessarily if you have an opportunity to do something so you learn by doing and I remember the funniest thing is I grew up on like Taco Bell and Sizzler salads and so I went to this fancy opening and they had salad that wasn't Iceberg and I had to know how to sit and talk at this event and I'm 15 years old and I was like oh what's this grass like I never had like a fancy salad that experience was actually quite lovely I don't necessarily follow the pageant world now but as a young girl that was just learning it taught me a lot of things about speaking interacting with different women not knowing something and figuring it out being on stage and I have other stories about I had a fever and I almost threw up at the Nationals but it taught me a lot about grit and just understanding people and being with people I love that you took the leap and said I'm just going to go for it and try and figure it out along the way we look back at the things in our lives that we did when we were younger and you think I can't believe I did that but it seems like it probably set you on a path throughout your whole career because you took the leap to do it and it's so interesting I I literally I think I saw Miss Teen USA on TV and it wasn't te USA I was in a different pageant but the Teen USA on TV and I wanted to win money for scholarships not that there was tons of money but I grew up in citos which is a suburb outside of Los Angeles and my parents were supportive but they didn't know if I wanted to do something like hey can I do this can I try out for the volleyball team no go study I'm like well can I do this like no go do that and I'm like well I want to enter this pageant what's this pageant right so I had to be the initiator because my parents were immigrants so they were supportive as much as they could and so I think that tenacity of trying to figure things out was good what is the most common communication barrier you see and how can leaders and people that you work with overcome it people that are nervous to speak are always thinking three steps ahead versus actually listening and you do have to think a few steps ahead you have to have your communication agenda or whatever you want to get across like in your hip pocket but I think what people Miss is that when you're nervous you're always you're you're just not listening at all right you're just like okay let me just say what I need to say whatever and then as a leader people think that a good communicator is someone that's the loudest or the biggest in the room and sometimes the best communicators are the ones that are the best listeners and then you can have something to say because you understand what your team needs what the room needs needs what your audience needs whatever it is whether it's you're leading a team or doing a podcast that's important when someone reads your book what's the biggest takeaway you hope that they take away when they read the power of the only twofold well obviously the main point is that being the only is not a weakness it's your greatest strength but what I move people through is this journey of owning your opportunity owning your power owning your voice and then actually the Tactical parts of how to communicate effectively but the last four chapters are are really special to me because it's how to own your future which is you move from surviving to thriving what's different about my book is that most books like just go for it own your power do this do that but we don't recognize the parts of that's hard right it's like so what I want people to take away is like keep doing all the things that you're doing but honor that what got you to where you are isn't necessarily what you need now to get to where you're going and so the end of my book is about honoring your own vision and not even listening to me if you don't want to right it's like I'm giving you all the stories I'm giving you these tools and you get to decide how you want to own your power it's listening to all the stories I tell about that worked for this person that didn't work for this person oh I'm going to go do that and you get to create your own vision and it's a coaching book so it has exercises of creating a vision for where you are at your life stage right now who I was when I was the young girl shy girl in the neighborhood versus the 15-year-old girl that won the pageant the young girl wanting to try to be a reporter the young mom I'm all different what I want people to take away is that there's power and being the only but you get to decide what that means and to honor your journey and to go from surviving to thriving that it doesn't have to be one way or anyone else's way magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy we talked a lot about business today what is one way that you make sure to find and live your joy that's a big part about going from surviving to thriving as a go-getter as an only people navigate spaces I've always been like what's the goal get the goal here's what I'm going to do and do the goal and you skip the joy I mean the joy for me in the early years was getting the goal and as you get older you're like no the joy is in every in between moment every pocket life gets harder with kids and aging parents the joy is a little different than I'm just going to be as soon as I get that job in La then I'm going to have joy now it's like the joy in eating a salad with flowers on it like I love I love food with flowers on it but I write about that in my book celebration is so important it's a key component of owning the future and finding the joy in each moment and celebrating all the big wins and especially savoring each of the moments so I consciously make an effort like I'll be sitting outside and the sun's on side of my face or I'm I'm tired but I'm having a salad with flowers on it and I'll literally like look at all the flowers and they make they bring me joy or I'll think about a good moment versus maybe something I got into with my teenage daughter but I'll think of a positive moment but those moments of Joy allow you to savor and there's actually science behind that when you Savor Joy when you Savor something it actually moves from your short-term to your long-term memory and then it allows you to appreciate things more and there's actually something happening in your brain that makes you more productive so yes I love joy and it's where I choose to live my life now I try to find as much joy as I can although I am still a type a person so when I have deadlines I think in the last eight months I probably could have brought a lot more joy as I was writing my book in my office alone but in the those moments I would sit outside and I would be like this is very joyful yeah it really is all about the little things and that's why I started asking this question because you're right a lot of our listeners are type A people I'm a type a person but I talk so much about business that I want to dive a little deeper and what do you do when you're not outc Conquering the world and whatever business element that that looks like so I love asking that question thank you so much for joining us today please share with us how and where we can find you thank you so much I'm at angela.com and my book is on all the platforms but it's the power of the only own your voice and thrive in any environment on Amazon Angela chi.com and on social media I'm at Angela Chi TV on Instagram Facebook and YouTube thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil website or @ sheb builted on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave