Silence Self-Doubt and Own Your Voice | Claire Hayek Keynote on Neuroscience & Leadership

So just so you know, we're supposed to have a presentation, but I have cue cards. Anybody remembers? I mean, I remember those, the days we didn't have presentations. So be patient with me, please. I'll be going back and forth as needed. But no, seriously, I'm really honored to be here with you today. When Michelle extended the invitation, I was ecstatic. I said yes, yes, let's go. And the honor is not only because this is the first event of RIAC and COFAS. This is a true honor because I know what kind and type of woman it takes to be in this room. You manage deals where You were pushed to your limits, right? Yeah. You negotiated deals where your voice had to be sharper to be heard, and still, and still you show up every single day. So forget about the fancy talk. Forget about the sugar coating. Today it will be. Real talk. I'm not here to motivate you. I'm not. I'm here to mirror your strength and your resilience. And maybe, just maybe, help you find a missing part of yourself that you might not have noticed was missing. Are we good with that? Yes. All right. This presentation, this keynote, Own Your Voice, it all started when I was born. So when I was born, my voice was taken away from me. And it took me 50, 5-0, 50 years to get it back. Let me explain. When I was born, my mom's umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck. No breath, no sound, no cry. It took the whole team, the medical team, all the efforts. It was seconds, right? To bring me back to life. for me to utter my first cry. And I did. And here I am. And so this has been a lifelong journey, a lifelong battle for me of expressions, ever since the day I was born. It's that simple. And that complicated. And I'm going to walk you through it today. I'm going to explain to you what own your voice means. So if I continue from the time I was born, I was the baby of the family. Any babies in the families here? Okay, not many, but I think you're going to relate to what I'm going to say. I was teased all the time by my sisters and my cousins. My voice was my shield. It helped me pretty much defend myself. And I did. I did so loudly. I would literally scream. That was my shield. That was my way to scare them away. It worked. It actually worked. Of course, I totally abused my voice then, but it worked. Then fast forward. I don't know if you know this about me. You probably don't. But I was born and raised in Beirut, in Lebanon, back in the '70s. the Civil War. And as a war child, my voice was also something I used. But ironically, it was the voice of silence. Yes. And I always choke up when I talk about this. The voice of silence It's trying to understand what the fear is. What's happening when we're running to a shelter, when we're stuck underground for weeks, no food, no water. But it did help. It helped me go inside of me. And then, of course, when the bombs stopped, we'd step outside. And we'd play, and life was great. The innocence of a child. Fast-forward, postwar, we came to Canada. We landed in Montreal, the land that saved us. And what happened is, I had to fit in. I had to fit in in high school. I had to start over, make new friends. My voice helped me do that. It was my power. It also helped me speak up. It helped me literally, like, having a voice, right? It also helped me defend a lot of people that were bullied. I'm one of those. I'm one of those defending the ones that are bullied. And then I went in to study engineering. And as I was studying engineering, I studied music. I couldn't just choose one. I had to do both. I loved music. It's actually in our family. It runs in our family. I'm a singer-songwriter-producer, so I worked on that, and then I went to engineering school. I'm a metallurgical engineer. You're probably going, what is metallurgy? It's the science of metals turning rocks into gold. Because, you know, gold is more interesting than talking about iron and— Steel, right? Or refining a diamond, right? Okay, so my voice as an engineer had to adapt. Because my true voice was the singer and the engineer. But in an engineering setting, I was forced to hold back, I was forced to shrink, I was forced to play small. and not bring out all of me and my music and my talent, etc. I actually recall once at the office, one of my colleagues, and I'm sure he meant well, OK? And he said, literally whispering, he says, Claire, you know, you don't want to talk about your music in professional settings. It kind of confuses people because you're an engineer and in your social media, you should probably keep it more like professionally related, not really put up your songs and stuff like that. It's just like very confusing for all of us. Yes, that happened. It did. The irony is, that when I was doing music, this was happening also with musicians. And they're going, how? What do you mean? Well, my musician friends would say, you know, yes, you know, you're an engineer, you'll be fine. You're not a struggling artist. You have something to fall back on, right? I couldn't really— people couldn't relate to the fact that I could be fully an artist. Even if I was an engineer. And sometimes, you know, they felt a bit uncomfortable because you just analyze too much. Oh, it's the engineer in you. Again, I got teased. I didn't scream that time. But I mean, you know, I got teased about that. So do you see what was happening? Music undermining my credibility as an engineer. And engineering undermining my credibility as a musician. And then fast forward later in my career when I became— I had more leadership positions. I basically, that was the pattern. I would shrink. I would be the chameleon, you know, in certain corporate settings. It was just engineering, professional talk, etc., etc. And then when maybe certain people in a business context, I would sometimes talk about my music, but no, I hid that part of myself. I was not owning my voice at all. I did my best with what I had, trial and error. So the reason why I'm telling you all this today is that owning your voice is not about being able to speak or just Speak up, voice your opinion. It's a bit more than that. And I'm going to get into it a bit later. Owning your voice is all about being whole, is all about being everything that you are. Everything. And God, there's so much. Each one of us, there's so much. So I always talk about the tunnel vision of your life. This is how we live our life. You know, we're heading a certain way. We know what we're doing. We're women in finance. We're engineers. I don't know, doctors, accountants, admin assistants. It doesn't matter. This is what we do. We have a family. This is it. You know, this is our life. But the thing is, nobody teaches us that we are panoramic beings. We're not a tunnel being. So when you widen your view of your life, you're able to look at all the blind spots that are there that you never saw. And then you turn and you go, oh my God, there's a right side? Are you kidding me? That's me? So this is what I'm talking about. That is owning your voice. And so I want to continue on here and tell you a little story. This one is really fun. So you all know I'm a singer-songwriter. I worked really hard, and God knows being a musician is so hard. And I finally, finally got booked in Place des Arts. Right? Ooh! I was like, oh yay! Right? I got booked in Place des Arts. I had just released an album, my first album, that took me all the courage to put together. And here I am backstage. I want you to go back there with me. Backstage. My hands are cold. I'm literally shaking. And I'm a professional singer-songwriter. I was terrified. And I can just peek in and I see the people sitting, right? You see the audience. And I'm taking a deep breath. It's not working. And of course, guess who shows up? My mom. My inner critic. Who do you think you are? You are not good enough. You think you're talented? You're not even close. I don't even know why people are there. You're not going to be able to sing. You're not going to be able to hear yourself. The whole band is going to screw up the song. You're going to forget your lyrics. God, that was just horrible. And it just kept on hammering, hammering down on me. So what did I do? I literally wanted to panic and crawl into a child pose. But the fetus. But what I did, I took another deep breath. Literally like that. It was the deepest breath I've ever taken in my life. And I just— took me all the courage to step on that stage. I stepped in front of the mic. I stood there. And it was all a blur. I sang my first note. And then it all was perfect. I was present. I was in the moment. I was not performing. I was the performance. It felt so good. And I don't remember all the details. I honestly don't remember. I remember just realizing this. And then An hour went by, and all of a sudden, I see the whole audience stand up, and they're applauding. And I'm going, OK, I guess this is for me. Thank you very much. And I'm still not quite understanding what's happening. And then I really, in that moment, all of a sudden, it hit me. I felt present, I felt solid. I felt I had clarity under pressure. I felt— I felt like I was me. I was finally me. And there was no voice. There was nothing. It was just presence. And that was the defining moment that I told myself, I will no longer be managed, Criticized and controlled by my inner critic. I refuse for my mind to control me. I refuse for my brain and my mind to work against me and sabotage me. I will train my brain. I will train my mind to work for me, with me. Not against me, because I saw the difference. That you know that moment where you realize what you were missing all this time. And so owning your voice. What does that mean? What does it mean? It's a pretty nice slogan, actually. Own your voice. Woo hoo! Well. Owning your voice is the difference between holding back in a meeting versus calmly stating your idea. It's the difference between shrinking yourself and denying your worth versus negotiating for what you deserve. It's about playing and living your life at your own terms and your own terms only. This is not about being arrogant. This is not about not being empathetic. It's about being who you truly are. That simple. So owning your voice Is actually a quite interesting thing because if we're being really, really real, we all struggle with this. I struggle with this. I mean, I'm not Superwoman here. I struggle with this still. So here's some examples for you. Who bites their tongue every now and again in a meeting because you're like, I shouldn't say that, you know? Right? Let's put— let's have this interaction here. Me. Okay, here we go. Biting our tongue when we have something to say. You don't have to put your hand up if it's not true. Good for you, right? Good for you. So let people speak over us. Sometimes. We doubt our expertise when we know, we know, we know what we know. We second-guess ourselves. Uh-huh. We second-guess ourselves. So why? Why the heck do we do that? Fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of sounding irrelevant. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. So The interesting part is that throughout the trial and error of my life and the ups and downs of claiming my voice and gaining it back and losing it and finding it again, which by the way, I lost many times, 50 years, remember? 50 years. Throughout all of this, working under pressure, When all the stakes are high and everybody's staring at you, then we break. We doubt. And neuroscience, the good news, there's good news. Neuroscience, actually, there's research out there that explains all this. And what's actually happening inside our mind, inside our brain, inside our inside our body when all of this is going on. This is the good news. Knowing what's going on is the first thing, but being able to do something about it is another thing. And training your brain, training your mind is the way to go, because now you're able to create your reality, create who you want to be, Whether you're being true to yourself or you're just being ambitious about, I want to be that person. I no longer want to be scared. I no longer want people to cut me off. I no longer want to second-guess myself. We are able to do that. Why? Because the brain is neuroplastic. Yay! That means we can just rewire it. We can rewire our brains. That's crazy when you think about that. So our brains. You all know to a certain extent, neurons firing and wiring a certain pattern because that's what we do, we did all the time for a long time. Then when you break a habit, you break a pattern and you create something new. What you're doing is you are— when you stop doing that, those old habits, they are being unfired and unwired. And the brain is firing and wiring Those new patterns. This is what's going on. I'm not sure actually what time I started. I just wanna make sure I don't go over time. We're good. Okay. So neuroscience explains it all. And what I want to talk to you now about, if you haven't noticed, I'm sorry. neuroscience. Okay, I'm the geek in the room. Okay, I'm the geek in the room. I'll own that. Okay, I'm an engineer. I love science. So I'm going to do that for you. You don't have to geek out on neuroscience. Are you good with that? Yes. You're good with that? Okay. First thing, DMN, default mode network. Anybody knows what that is? I would have had a nice image, but you know, I You're not supposed to know what that is, by the way. Like, no pressure. Here I am talking about how do we lead with clarity under pressure, and I'm throwing pressure at you. Okay, so the default mode network is literally our brain functioning on autopilot. I'll paint the picture here. So the voice in your head going, Over the same scenario. Something happened, you go and I see smiling faces. I know you're feeling me here. Okay, so yeah, you know, I gotta pick up groceries after work. Oh God, I forgot the meeting. Oh wait, I should probably be rehearsing this presentation. Okay, let me rehearse the presentation. So you rehearse the presentation. So that's playing in your mind. And then you're like, oh my God, the groceries. Okay, I'm gonna go and do the groceries and so on and so forth. Right. Like driving in a sleep zone. Yes. Yes. So this is our DMN, our default mode network. It's the autopilot. Your brain literally is wandering, is going off. We're not really conscious of what that dialogue is. It's just going on and on and on and on and on. Now, what really happens when you have an overactive DMN? Oh boy. When you have an overactive DMN, this is where anxiety creeps in, fear, self-doubt, stress. Now, that's called the inner critic. Okay, do you see the parallel? Okay. So what happens is when you have an overactive DMN, Your body's probably releasing a whole bunch of cortisol, and then that feeds into it, and now it's all kind of hyperactive and this all inner critic talk. So now, not only you're ruminating and you're wandering and you're talking about this or that, you're actually repeating negative thoughts and things that are really spiraling you down and not lifting you up. I'm not good enough. I don't know what I'm doing here. Oh, I don't like my hair. Oh, you know, I'm too overweight. I'm not fit enough. I'm not healthy enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough. So on and so forth. So that's your DMN. Again, the good news is we can stop the critic. We can actually get our DMN under control. And the way to do that is to point, to point at the inner critic. Just like, okay, I'm listening. I see what's happening. Self-awareness, mindfulness. And then what happens is all of a sudden, oh, I see what's going on. It's the judge telling me this, this, this, that. I see you. I see you. The inner critic, the judge. Reframe your thoughts. All right. Thanks for the info. The I'm not good enough and all that. And I'm going to take that. I'm going to— we're going to freeze there and I'm going to change my dialogue. I am good enough. I am smart. I am capable. I'm going to kill that presentation. I'm going to get that raise. I'm going to get that deal. I'm going to negotiate the— out of this deal. And I'm going to get exactly what I want. Mental fitness. Okay. Next geeky part. How excited are you? Yes. Okay. The RAS, the reticular activation system. So the RAS is your brain's filter. So think of it as this filter that needs to get the information outside of us under control. Let me explain. So did you know that the human body is receiving 11 million bits of data per second. I mean, I just received probably like in the last 3, 5 seconds now, 55 million bits of data. It's crazy. So what data I'm talking about? The color of the thing outside, the trees, the shape of the trees, the light of the camera filming right now. your very pretty pink top, your facial expression. I don't see all that right now. It's just a lot of information. Sensation, not only visual sensation, the temperature, maybe a drift, the noise, the sound, all the sensations of the body, 11 million bits of data per second. Can you imagine that? Okay, so if we are able to absorb 11 million bits a second of data, we're probably— I mean, I don't know, we're probably God, right? But the human brain has the RAS for that reason, because it filters all this information and brings it down to 40 to 50 bits of data per second. 40 to 50 is what we actually are able to process. Our brain is able to process the RAS. So what is really, what does that mean? Okay, so the RAS, because it has to filter all this information, it's a lot of information to filter. It's not a lot of information to let in. So it's gonna focus on the information you tell it to filter in. It's fascinating. Are you fascinated yet? Absolutely. Okay. Okay. So imagine, imagine this. I'm freaking out. Okay. When I learned this, I went, what? Why didn't anybody tell me this? What is happening? Okay. So if you're telling your thoughts, if you're telling your RAS, I'm going to do this presentation. And everybody's going to be bored. Okay? Nobody's going to show up. Let's focus on everybody's going to be bored. Nobody's going to pay attention. What is the RAS doing? The RAS doesn't have like, I'm a good person, I'm a bad person. There's nothing of this biology. It's science. It's your brain. It's circuits, electricity. So the RAS will interpret that and Filter out, filter out all the people that are interested in your presentation. What? You're kidding me. Okay. What is it going to filter in? It's going to filter in the person that is checking their phone. The person just that is going to step out. The person that is talking. That's what it's going to focus on. It's just doing what you're telling it to do. It's that simple. So do you understand what I tell you? Your thoughts matter. What's going on in your head matters so much. It's the essence and the foundation of everything. So if you don't know the thoughts in your mind, whether it's inner critic, whether it's positive, negative, I don't know. You know, we're very, very imaginative. You have a lot of imagination as human beings. But if you don't know what's happening, Well, you don't know what your reality you're creating around you. So this is your reality, by the way. What you tell the RAS, what the thoughts is your reality. Hello? Hello. Oh my God. So if you want to be successful, You need to have the successful thoughts. You need to be grateful, positive, not just pretend that, you know, I'm always gonna be positive no matter what. It's hard. Life is hard. It's tough. Okay, we do what we can. But when we're aware of the thoughts in our mind, the idea is to reframe them. By reframing them, you're opening up To possibilities. You're opening up to opportunities. You are focusing on the person that is actually going, yes, I know what you mean. Yes, I'm interested in your presentation. Yes, I'm listening to you. This is what you see. So summary, RAS, it's the real deal. You want to get your RAS under control. Okay, so When people say, I'm going to manifest, I'm going to visualize, I'm going to envision a vision of my dream. Absolutely. This is what we're talking about. Science confirms it. It's research. This is not me and my theories. So if you are going to focus and you have the vision of where you want to be in your life, how you want to behave, who you want to be as a person. Okay. Let it be clear. And let this be your focus, your anchor, because that's going to be your reality. And we can do that. We are actually extraordinary beings, and we're not even tapping or scratching the surface. Remember? RAS. I don't think you're going to forget that one. Brainwaves. Oh God. Okay. Brainwaves, brainwaves, brainwaves. Okay, we're in beta right now. So there's 5 different brainwaves. I'm not going to go into all of them. It's usually a nice little picture. Beta waves is— we are in beta waves. Our brain, basically, what are brainwaves? It's basically the neuroscientists measured the electricity through our brain, and they noticed that the wave was much faster when we're awake, we're speaking, or having a glass of wine, or working on a presentation or panicking or under pressure and under stress. And then there's different beta waves. There's the beta-1, beta-2, beta-3. Beta-3 is when we're like fight or flight, under pressure, freaking out. Me backstage in Place des Arts, beta-3 like galore. Okay? Beta-1 is that, you know, we're focused probably reading a book, but we're fully awake and we're engaging in something, right? Beta 2 is kind of like, this is beta 2. You're animated, you're excited, you're so happy to be somewhere with women in finance looking at you and actually listening. Yay, that's beta 2. No pressure if you're not. I love you anyway. It's all good. It's all good. I manage my RAS and you're filtered out. I'm sorry. All right, so that's beta. Why am I talking about beta and alpha? Bear with me. Alpha waves. Alpha waves is that relaxed state where you're in flow. Remember, like sometimes you're working and you feel like you're so focused and you're getting, you're getting things done. Things are just happening. That's alpha waves. So the idea is when we own our voice, when we master our mind, We want to be in alpha waves. We want to be in the beta-1, basically, wave. We don't want to be in the beta-3, the fight or flight. This is leading with clarity. This is leading with confidence. This is leading under pressure. This is, throw whatever you want to throw at me, I got it. I know who I am, and things are just going to slide off of me. You have no grip. And that inner critic, hey, I see you. Thanks, but no. Alpha waves. Okay, alpha waves. And alpha waves are actually related to the right hemisphere of the brain. So a lot of people talk about the left and the right. I actually have both overdeveloped because I'm an engineer, which is the left side of the brain, and a musician, which is the right side of the brain. And so I tapped into both, and I was confused about it. I mean, I wish somebody told me. It's like, it's great, good for you. It took me time, trial and error, but neuroscience confirms it. So it's not about being in your alpha waves all the time. It's just about balancing both. It's not about being on one end and not the other. This is what I'm talking about. This is about the grounding I'm talking about. Now, prefrontal cortex, that's the last one, I promise. Are you still with me? Yes. Are we still interested? Yes. Oh yeah, I love this crowd. Okay, prefrontal cortex is basically what it says, is our front side of the brain. The prefrontal cortex, you want to remember this, It's the brain CEO. Okay, the prefrontal cortex is your brain CEO. It's the one making decisions, sending all of the signals all over the brain. It goes through the prefrontal cortex, so you're able to make a decision and then do whatever you need to do. If you're not in your prefrontal cortex, Most probably, you're probably in your amygdala. Amygdala is in the back of the brain, and it's really when you're angry, you're not thinking, you're 100% taken by your emotion, which is fine, by the way. But when it's to the point that it's hurting you, it's stressing you out, it's leading you to burnout, that's not good. So that's beta-3 amygdala. You're not thinking straight. You're not leading with clarity. You're not even here. You don't even know, you don't remember. What am I even doing here? Why do I bother with this? You're not in your prefrontal cortex. You're not. Okay, so owning your voice, prefrontal cortex, where you really want to make clear— Decisions. Decisions, where you want to feel that you're present. You're not being pushed around by your inner critic or the outside environment. This is what I do. This is what I teach, and this is what you deserve. And I'm really passionate about it, in case you haven't noticed. So training Your brain, it's like perfecting an instrument. You know, all instruments can be tuned, they can be refined, they can be amplified. And so does your brain. It could be rewired, rewired exactly how you want it to be rewired. You decide. Nobody else is deciding. It's your brain. It's your mind. But you need to decide. You need to be aware of what's happening, get it under control, and have it work for you and not against you. And so I just want you to imagine, what if you can get exactly what you want? What if you can stop working and struggling under pressure? What if you can lead with clarity? What if you can visualize exactly where you're heading? What if your focus is so sharp? What if you can own your voice in its entirety? What if you can live your life in a panoramic view? No blind spots, no doubts, no inner critic. I'm lying. Okay. The inner critic will still kind of get its way in. The difference is when you own your voice, you master your mind. The difference is You're turning down the volume of your inner critic. It's still going to be there. You're turning down the volume on your self-sabotage. It's still going to try to get in and get its way, but you know it's there. You see it, you can hear it, and you can redirect it. You get your brain to work for you. You got your RAS to filter in exactly what you want, exactly the reality that you want to live, the life that you dream of, whether it's working— I'm going to be very ambitious here. 20 hours a week? Is that far-fetched? Yes. Okay. So this makes it even— so this makes it even more relevant. What if you can work 20 hours a week? What if you can create a career, be in a position to only work 20 hours a week. Because you are not being tortured and bombarded by all sorts of things that are sucking the energy out of you. Because you're in control, you know what's going on inside of you, you know exactly what you're going to let in. And you're going to know exactly what you're going to focus on. Doing less, but way at a whole different level. Stepping into your power. What if? This is a nice goal, isn't it? Yeah. Let's call me next year. So the path of owning your voice It's simple. It's a journey of mental fitness. It's your commitment towards training the most powerful asset that you have, your mind, your brain. So let this be my invitation to you. Speak up. Take up space. Don't just define and deliver. Say it all. Don't just be seen. Be undeniable. Undeniable. Because when you claim, Your voice, everything changes. You don't owe anyone the version of you that keeps them comfortable. You don't. You owe yourself the version of you that is whole. And again, when you claim that, you don't just rise. You soar. You lift 1,000 others. 1,000 others. You inspire. And when you do that, you'll be that woman that points to and says, she gave me permission. You will be that woman. Wouldn't that be great? So today, if nothing else, if nothing, nothing else, forget about the RAS, forget about the DMN, forget about the inner critic. If nothing, nothing, nothing else, let this be your permission To be heard, to shine, and to stop performing leadership and start living it and embodying it. Your voice was never, never the problem. It's the beginning of everything. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Oh, oh, I can. Do you want me to? Oh God, what am I singing? Okay, actually I'm gonna sing something that will really help, will help you. I'm done singing about heartbreaks and Boo, boo, boo. You know, I'm really done. I'm so done. Oh God. Again, nothing wrong with that, but I'm not there anymore. I own my voice. Okay, so I'm gonna start and you're gonna sing along though. Can you do that? Yep. Yeah? If you set your intention when you wake up, anytime during the day, if you can when you wake up, it's perfect. But if whenever you remember, you remember you're taking a shower, do it. Okay, this is a great way to manifest because when we sing, not only we're in our voice, in our body, we're fully there. We're fully present. Okay, and it doesn't matter if you don't sing well. That's not a that's not a condition. So it goes like this: Today is going to be an amazing day. Today is going to be an amazing day. So if I tell this to my RAS, what's gonna happen? It's gonna be an amazing day. Okay. So it goes like this. Today is gonna be an amazing day. Today is gonna be an amazing day. Today is gonna be an amazing day. Today is gonna be an amazing day. Louder! Today is gonna be an amazing day. Today is gonna be an amazing day. Well done. Hey, thank you, Claire. On behalf of COFAS and the Receivables Insurance Association of Canada, we want to thank you for coming today. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you.