'UNMUTE' Yourself

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gary Sanchez. At the Y Institute, we've helped over 40,000 people discover, make decisions and connect using their why. This show will be much more powerful for you once you know your own why. So head over to why institute.com and discover your why. Today you're going to meet one of the leaders who've discovered their why with us and is going to share their story and the powerful lessons they've learned.

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. And so if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. And so this week we are going to be talking about the why of challenge. To challenge the status quo and think differently. So if this is your why, then you live outside the box. You do not believe in the norm or following rules or drawing inside the lines. It is far more natural for you to rebel against the stereotypical or classical way of doing things. You aggressively seek unique ways of approaching the world and finding solutions that no one else has considered. You like to create and innovate, especially in game changing ways. You have eccentric friends and eclectic tastes and a large variety of both. You may have diverse interests with little in common with each other. As an entrepreneur, you prefer to create new markets versus serving an existing market. You love to be different, think differently and challenge virtually anyone or anything that is too rote or conventional. People with your why often accomplish amazing feats. When you say you want to change the world, you actually mean it. Pushing the envelope comes natural to you. I've got a great guest for you today. Her name is Rachel Drunkenmiller. She is the founder and CEO of Unmuted. Recognized as the number one health promotion professional in the US and a 40 under 40 game changer. Rachel is a national thought leader and dynamic speaker. She is on a mission to empower people to use their voices courageously to speak up, speak out and have a positive impact in the world world. With expertise in resilience, well being and leadership, Rachel is a catalyst who ignites people to live and lead more intentionally so they can thrive at work and at home. She posts daily inspirational videos on LinkedIn, sometimes singing. Rachel, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much. I'm really stoked to have this conversation, especially just teeing up that background for what somebody with challenge does.

So tell me about this sometimes singing thing I just read. What's that all about?

Well, I figure if your company's called unmuted and you can sing, you better sing.

Ah, nice. So I've had on this, my podcast, the guy who was a finalist on the Voice. We may have to have a little competition.

Oh, dear. Okay. Yeah. Well, I was gonna say, let me do some of my little warm ups.

So how did you get into unmuted? Take us a little bit back through your life. Take us through your story. Get us up to speed on how you developed unmuted.

So it's funny when you think about these, you know, these motivators and these whys. When I was growing up, I was somebody who really didn't challenge very much. I sort of was somebody who silenced myself and I stayed quiet. Like, I loved to sing, but I didn't really share my voice. I was afraid to sing in front of people, so I did it by myself a lot. And then I, you know, struggled with really expressing myself in terms of some of the challenges I had with my. With my parents. Marriage being in kind of a tricky place when I was five or six years old. And then, you know, I just really struggled to feel like I fit in growing up. And so I went through a period of time for really most of my kind of growing up years and even into, you know, into high school a bit, where I just. I felt like I was kind of silencing myself and I wasn't really showing up boldly. I was. I wore uniforms, and I just didn't. I wasn't really a very expressed version of who I was. And then studying abroad in Spain, when you live in a country like that that's as vibrant as the Spanish culture is, you can't help but be changed by it. And so I came back from that in college, and I started this gradual, gradual unmuting process, whether it was, you know, starting to sing and gospel choir in front of, you know, 400 people from just my. My audience of one, which is how it was most of my life. And then really going through, you know, assessments and going through and using tools like this, I think are. Are one of the things that can help people have these aha moments about themselves. And so I had one of those about six years ago where I realized that the person that I was showing up as and the person that I really was deep down were two different people. And I had to sort of, in my head, really wrap my head around that of why are you not showing up as yourself and recognizing now that that challenge is kind of my motivator? You know, I'm like, oh, yeah, you just. You were feeling like you had to be compliant, and you were trying to, like, bust out of that box, and you finally let yourself start doing. And that's when you really came live, started getting those recognitions, started standing out and letting your voice be something different, started having a different message of what it meant to be well and what the wellness industry needed to do. And that's what helped position me as a thought leader and to really step out is when I finally actually started to use the thing that I was kind of built to do, which was to challenge the status quo and be a trailblazer.

So take us through that moment. What was that incident that made you realize? Because there's a lot of people that are going to be listening to this, and they're going to be thinking, you know what? I feel like I'm there myself. And so what was that moment? What happened? And how did you come to the conclusion that you did?

So, I mean, it happened over a couple different moments. But the moment I'm talking about six years ago was we had brought in. Our organization, had brought in this assessment tool, and it really asked you two primary questions, essentially, how do you think people expect you to show up at work? And it looked at different dimensions, like dominance and extroversion and patience and formality. And then the other question within the same assessment was, and then, how do you see yourself? And we sat down. Each of us got to sit down one on one with the HR director and walk through our results. And I got my report back, and I literally looked at it, and I said to her, I said, these are two different people. Like, is this why I'm so frustrated? Because I'm trying to be the thing. I'm trying to be, like, the collaborative, compliant thing people want me to be, but I don't actually want to be that person. I want to be the person who actually asks questions and who does things differently and who challenges convention. And I'm not always feeling like other people want me to be that person. And it was this moment where I had this realization of, oh, my gosh, I've been holding myself back. Sort of like, Dorothy, you could go home anytime you want, click your heels together. That's sort of. And I love the wizard of Oz growing up, but, like, that's what it felt like. It felt like this moment of, yeah, okay, so now show up differently. You don't have to be defined by what you thought you were. You can choose in a moment to make a change. And it was four months later, I think, that I got the recognition as the number one health promotion professional in the country and stood on the stage. And it's funny, because when you talk about status quo question breaking that I quoted. I did the Apple quote at the end of my speech of how. And I'm, like, forgetting what it is right in this moment, but basically, how. Basically the world be different. Apple's motto of kind of be different.

And so all of that resonates with me so deeply. And then when I had this opportunity to just totally be myself, that was my first big speaking engagement. I was like, oh, man, this is. It was like I was hooked. Like, this is what I'm meant to do. I love this, and I want to continue down this path. So it was just a really cool series of a couple of months where things completely shifted for me in my career because it's almost like I let. It's like I let myself out, almost.

Wow. Yeah. And what did people think about you that knew you in high school or have any of them that knew you in high school or middle school and now see what you're doing and say, really? That's. How did she get there?

Well, you know, it's funny. We have these perceptions about ourselves. So one of my perceptions is that, like, I was this nerdy kid who people didn't think was cool, who didn't really have any friends. Like, this was a perception. This is a picture I painted. Right. We have these. We have these pictures we paint for ourselves based on labels that we. That we use. And they're not always rooted in reality. It's really our perception. And so. So much of how I perceived isn't necessarily how other people perceived me. So I met up with a friend. Well, a girl. We weren't even close friends. We knew each other from high school. We hadn't seen each other in, you know, almost 20 years. And we met up in Denver, I don't know, sometime in the past year or so. And she was just like, oh, you always worked really hard and you were always really nice. And, you know, I wasn't somebody who put myself out there. She sang, and so I otherwise would have been in choir with her. You know, a lot of people were like, I didn't even know that you sang.

Because I didn't let you know that I sang because I was afraid to put that out there. But, like, I avoided theater classes, I avoided Debate. I avoided any kind of public speaking classes. I avoided choir. I avoided basically everything that I do now I avoided in high school.

So why did you do that?

Because the reason I'm asking you that is because that's one of the really common things about the why of challenges. They feel like they're a misfit. They don't feel like they fit in. They feel like they have to mute themselves. They feel like you have to hide that. Nobody's going to understand me anyways. I don't see the same world that they see. So how are they going to. I can't even relate to them on any level because we don't see the same thing. And so you mute yourself. And then what happens to some people, actually is they medicate themselves to kind of get away from themselves. And it takes them down this spiral until they finally figure out, hey, I'm pretty dang cool, I'm okay, right? I am okay now. Let me be me.

Yeah, you know, gosh, it was a series of things. I mean, one, my dad has always been somebody who has made me feel totally okay with being who I am. So I always had at least one person in my corner that I really felt like. He's kind of a misfit, too. And so I always felt like it was okay to be a misfit because my dad was a misfit. And I like my dad, and I look up to my dad. So part of it was I was. Even though, like, I didn't feel like I fit in. And I was sad at times that I wasn't invited to things. And I didn't really feel like I kind of belonged socially. I was sort of. I was like, okay, well, I'm not gonna not be who I am in the sense of, if it means that I don't get to hang out with you, I'm still gonna just, you know, just beat my own drum over here. And so I did that at times still. But I think in terms of what really, you know, started to maybe why I did that, why I was holding back, it was a fear for me. It was a fear of not being impressive. So I wanted people for my whole life. Cause I got rewarded for this. From the time I was like six, from the time you get a report card, I was rewarded for being good and smart and following the rules. And so I did. I was a very compliant kid. I never got in trouble. I never got a detention. I never got a demerit. My friends and I were well behaved. I didn't smoke I didn't drink. I didn't swear. I mean, I'm telling you, like, I was like, as vanilla as you can get.

And so that. What?

So that I. Part of it, I think, developed when I was, like, my parents were dealing with their stuff in their marriage, and I was like, well, that's a hot mess. So if I have it together all the time and I am in control, then everything will be okay. So it was almost, for me, it was the way I coped. It's the way I coped with some of the chaos I was experiencing was, okay, I'll be the golden child. That's fine. That can be a mess. But I will have it together always. And so for me, anything that would be considered risky or that would be something where I'd have to put myself on the line and potentially fall on my face and be embarrassed, I was like, absolutely not. Not willing to do that. And so I held myself back. I mean, I remember I went to all girls high school, had a phenomenal choir. They had their long black gowns and pearl necklaces, and it was amazing. It was an amazing group of singers. And I sat in the auditorium for four years through every single one of their concerts, like, wishing I was up there with them. And it was my own insecurity about having to be remotely vulnerable. So part of it is I did not want anyone to see me struggling at all. Like, I have it together all the time. You cannot see me struggle. You cannot see me struggle emotionally. You can't see me struggle academically. You can't see me struggle relationally, because I am the one who has it together, remember?

Yeah.

And that's what I did. And so I held myself back from. Interestingly, from taking certain risks, even though, like, there's no reason to think I wouldn't have made the choir. Like, it wasn't even a. It wasn't even, like, a logical lack of effort.

Yeah. So then you were able to come to. So that. How old were you when you figured out, hey, it's okay to be me?

Oh, geez. Still figuring that out.

I feel like it's really been over the past four or five years in particular. One is I started telling my story. So when I got that award at that Wellness Council of America, the top health promotion professional, I keynote. I was asked to keynote a year later at their conference. And I had gone through a series of really difficult health issues. I had had chronic ear, nose, and throat issues my whole life. Then I had acid reflux for a decade and was medicated for it. And I had gotten to the point where I had become malnourished and underweight, and I wasn't healthy. But as a wellness person, I had lost, like, 20 pounds. And so everyone was like, oh, gosh, you look amazing. And I couldn't tell them that my body wasn't working properly because I was getting praised. And that's what I always wanted was, let me show you how impressive I am that I can even conquer weight loss. And I did that until I basically made myself sick without even realizing it. And then I gained 15 to 20 pounds back. And I shared my story. I shared it in a blog post. I was so terrified to press publish on that post because I called the post the Courage to be Vulnerable, my untold story. And that was December of 2015. And that was the first time I felt like I was really honest about something like that publicly.

And I told the story how I was afraid I'm the wellness person, and I'm not supposed to gain weight. And I was terrified to do that. And I never thought I'd gain this weight back. And what are people gonna think of me? It's like I let people in in a way that I had not before. And then I shared that in my. And I just noticed that I got more courage the more I was honest about the things that I hadn't conquered and the things I was struggling with even in the midst of them, the more I realized that people actually, people connected to me more when I wasn't impressive.

Yeah. And that gave me time.

So being impressive didn't connect you. Nobody likes to be around somebody who's too impressive.

Right. It was like, oh, you're human. Oh, let's have a conversation.

Yeah, I can talk to you.

Yeah. Right. So that's really. That's what started to happen in 2015 and 2016. Really. I started to do that, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is great. Oh, my gosh. I can be honest. This is so liberating. And then a year later, being somebody who's the chronic overachiever, pushing myself too hard, I burned out and got Epstein Barr virus, which is an acute form of mono. 2017, totally burned out. Lost my voice for a period of time. Sleep 11 hours a night, not feel rested. I was exhausted. And I had to reset some things, like prioritizing relationships and asking for help and admitting even more when I was struggling. And not just telling my after story when it was all done, but telling, like, I'm in the middle story. The vulnerable part of, like, hey, I'm really having a hard time right now, and I'm not really sure what to do about it. That was something I would not have done before. And the more I got comfortable just being honest about all of myself and not just being honest about the part that I knew would immediately get a seal of approval from people, I started to see myself as more of a whole person. And I latched on to a couple. Even, like, symbols, like butterflies initially were my symbol of, like, I was in that cocoon really, really tight. And then I feel like I was starting to kind of emerge. And a peacock is another symbol that's really been present for me the past three years. Because peacocks, they just like, show up and they're like, hi, I'm here. I'm not apologizing, I'm not hiding. I'm not putting my feathers down. And like, I'm not demanding gays. It's just, you can't help but look over here because of what's going on. But I'm not gonna demand it, I'm gonna invite it. And so I started to realize that, well, what if I just start being more of myself? Whether it's like being silly or witty or just sharing more of myself fully. And the final catalyst for me, I would say, was last year I went through a speaking program, training called Heroic Public Speaking with Michael and Amy Port and this community of 75 people from all over the world that were also passionate about sharing their messages through speaking and learning how to, you know, the art and science of speaking. I have never been part of a community that was just so for each other and so committed to growth. And that was when I started incorporating singing with my speaking. And I just, like, I came alive, like, so, so much. And that was the thing that was like, Rachel, you are leaving this full time job of 13 years and you are going and doing your own thing, what you want, the way you want to, when you want to do it. It's your time, like, spread your rings and fly and go do this. And I did in September.

That is so awesome. And so that's where unmuted came from.

Yeah, it was that series. It was for me, that process of like taking this person who was so tightly wound and he was so like, what's the right thing to do and follow the rules and da da da. To being somebody who is more comfortable kind of being okay with being different and recognizing that that's something that can make you memorable and that's something that can make you. Your differences can be Endearing. And it can lead for people to differences, create interest. You know, when people are different, we want to understand, we want to know why. And so I've just been getting more comfortable with being myself. And it's been.

From somebody who was a very shy, timid, reserved, quiet, sort of shut down kid. Like who I was then, to me now is not all that recognizable, to be honest with you.

Wow. And so what would, just thinking about it, what would you, if you could go back to high school, being who you are now, what would that have looked like? So if so, you know, I'm thinking about a ninth grader that's listening to this and they're thinking, you know what? I've been, I am muting myself. And how could you help somebody at that age to unmute themselves? What's the process like to unmute somebody?

Yeah, I mean, I'd say one of the things, think of what makes you feel alive. Like, what are you doing? I come alive when I'm doing what and do more of that thing. Like part of it for me was like, oh, singing makes me feel alive. Do that by yourself with the door shut in the family room. I don't know how alive that person feels. And I just shut it down because I was so afraid of what other people would think. So part of it I would say, you know what, what other people think of you. I think there's a quote, I forget who said this. What other people think of me is none of my business. If it makes you feel alive and brings you joy with the world, you know the Howard Thurman quote, The world needs people who have come alive. So if there's something, if art brings you joy, if running brings you joy, if singing brings you joy, if playing saxophone brings you joy, whatever it is that brings you joy, like we need more of that in the world, we need people. And when you do the thing that makes you feel alive, you're going to feel more alive when you do it. And so I would just say, oh, here's what I would say. There's a voice coach that I've worked with named Darcy Webb at Heroic public speaking. And one of the things she said that I love, that has stuck with me so much that her voice teacher told her is she said, forget the notes, sing the intention.

Oh, I love that.

It's like, forget the notes, just sing the intention. What's it? What do you feel? Because we've all heard even professional singers be on stage and be sort of pitchy, but when you can tell their Heart and soul is in it. You don't even care.

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You know, back to thinking back to the ninth grader again. Well, let me ask you this. Is there anything that would have worked for you when you were that age, or was it a matter of having to get older to be able to see it?

I think so much of it's the journey. I mean, we're all insecure when we're 14. Not all of us, but a lot of us are. And I'd say one of the things that might be helpful is connecting to strengths. And I didn't start taking these kind of. And I don't like to be defined by an assessment. I mean, I'm reading a book right now by Benjamin Hardy called Personality Isn't Permanent. And I think it's important, one to recognize that who you've been does not have to be who you're going to end up as. So just recognizing that in most cases, and one of the studies mentioned in there is they took a group of people that were in. I think they were in high school, they were teenagers, and they took them through this battery of personality assessments. Then there were still a group of them. They were connected to, like 50 or 60 years later. And it's really hard to do a study like, of that, you know, that kind of longitudinal study. But they were still able to capture several hundred people. And they found that people were almost like, fundamentally different than who they had been when they were teenagers. So I think part of it is just recognizing this is a season of who you are. This is like a season of who you are. And at any moment, at any moment, you are not bound by what you have been. And you have the choice to become who you want to be by just making a different choice, by showing up differently. You want to sing? Go try out for the choir. Guess the worst that's going to happen is you don't make it in and you still sing by yourself, which is all you were doing before anyway. That's like the worst that'll happen. People aren't gonna. You know, I think we're always afraid of the worst case scenario of like, oh, people are just gonna shun me and make fun of me if it doesn't. Okay, let them be in their low zone of doing that because those aren't people you wanna be friends with anyway. Like, I also wouldn't care so much about like whether or not, whether or not people like you, like focus on the people that do and don't care so much about being popular and don't care so much about, you know, Easy to say now on the other side of this, right? 36, but you know, just find who your little tribe is. Even if it's like two or three people that really accept you, be with people that accept you. You know, don't try to, don't try to get people. So often, you know, we're concerned about making sure that the opinions of people that we actually don't even care about, that their opinions supersede the opinions of people that actually know us. And one of the things Brene Brown writes about in her book Dare to Lead is she like talks about this 1 inch box. Like draw on a piece of paper, draw out a box that's one inch and put the names of the people whose opinions really matter to you in that box.

Yeah, exactly.

Whoever's outside that box, if they don't approve of you, guess what? You still have the box people. Pay attention to the box people.

I love that. So when you speak about unmuted, when you're, what is the, you know, what are you speaking about? What do you talk about? What is your presentation about?

So I mean, I look at being unmuted in a couple different levels. One, I look at it kind of unmuting compassion and grace because a lot of us can be really not kind to ourselves in our heads, especially right now, especially when we're going through anything that's uncertain. For instance, we can beat ourselves up and be really unforgiving. And so one of the things is unmuting the voice of kindness in your own head. So practicing self compassion. Because when we have a triggering event, something that happens that spins us out, we get stuck in the automatic negative thought and we just let that cycle through several times and then we just stay there and we stay stuck. And so we have the choice when we have those negative thoughts spinning around to then pivot and say, you know what, it would make sense. I'm just acknowledge how you're feeling in the moment. I'm feeling really frustrated right now. Okay. It's okay to feel frustrated. That's a normal human emotion. And to remind yourself of the shared human experience of feeling frustrated. Well, a lot of people would feel frustrated in a situation like this. So that tells you you're not alone, which also creates compassion. Then say, okay, I'm doing the best I can with what I have in this moment, and that's all I can expect of anybody else. And so what am I going to do about it? So when I get caught in that trap, what am I going to do? Am I going to reach out to somebody? Am I going to play a song that helps me shift? Am I going to go out and take a walk or go for a run? You know, what am I going to do? Am I going to pick up a book that encourages me and read that to make it? Am I going to reflect on something I'm grateful for? So, I mean, I think part of it is really unmuting those kind voices in your head and telling the ones that are really nasty to you to take a hike. So that's like, one thing that it is about being unmuted is doing that. And it's about unmuting our bodies. Because a lot of us silence our bodies. We silence pain. We have a pain in some way, whether it's emotional or physical, and we medicate it somehow. We medicate it with alcohol, we medicate it with addiction to some form of technology. We medicate it with a lot of different things, and that prevents us from actually dealing with whatever it is that's causing that source of pain, and it's going to show up somewhere. So, for instance, I had a therapist one time I was talking to, and I told her, I said, all my issues, most of my health issues throughout my life have targeted my throat. So bronchitis, laryngitis, strep throat, acid reflux. I was like, they're all, what is that about? And she said, there's one theory in psychological theory or psychosomatic theory, that we store emotions in different parts of the body, and the throat is where we store sadness. And so think about it. You're a good girl, good boy. You're not allowed to be sad or angry. And so that was one of the emotions that was kind of off limits to me.

And so I didn't let myself really experience that fully. I would kind of run into my room and shut the door and journal or cry to myself or do something like that. And I just hit it from other people. And so.

For me, I think part of the unmuting was giving myself permission to feel that. And then also listening to my body. So as somebody who had chronic acid reflux, I believe part of that was because I had a figurative fire in my belly that I needed to let out. And I kept pushing it down and silencing and didn't let that. I didn't let that vibrant, alive person out. I, like, locked her up in there. I didn't let the singing voice out. I didn't let my speaking voice out. I didn't let my feelings out. And I think part of that, my interpretation was my body's way of being like, you gotta get this out, Rach. And so for me, whether it was that or a dream of drowning, like, we do different things. We have trouble sleeping. We just take medicine for it. We don't address the issue. We have headaches, we take medicine for it. We don't maybe address the root cause. We have chronic anxiety. We may not ever do anything to get to the root of why that's there or to do anything to make it better. And so I think another part of unmuting is unmuting the body and then really doing an inventory of, okay, what in my body am I silencing? What's not getting voice that's been trying to get my attention, what's been whispering at me? So to really. For each of us to take a moment and reflect on that.

And what would it look like if I gave that voice? And then one of the things I love doing, I was doing this yesterday with a group of women leaders in the food industry, and then I was doing it last week with a group in the tech space talking about knowing and owning your strengths. And so, for instance. Right. Knowing what your why is and communicating that to people. Knowing what your character strengths are and knowing what. Knowing what your other strengths are. And I have people do an exercise called your reflected best self, where you get input from 8 to 12 people in your life that know you well about a time where you showed up at your best. And you start to document that and collect themes and find that out. And people are reflecting back to you who they see when you. When you're at your best. And that's another way to get unmuted, is to connect to what is my genius that, like, is so present to me all the time that I don't even notice it, because it's just, like, who I am. And I think it's kind of easy and natural. And what can we do to invite people to get more connected to what those things are? So they then have a vocabulary to communicate with confidence. Hey, this is What I do really well, when we get in these situations, these skills that I bring to the table can help us through those challenges. So it's this combination. And then it's also, I do some stuff around communication and connection and teaching leaders how to listen more empathetically and to ask questions and to get curious. So it's as much about listening to your own mind and body and giving those things voice instead of just ignoring it or silencing it or medicating it over medicating and not dealing with it. Obviously, there's certainly a need for medications. I don't want to dismiss that. And then it's also about how do we get unmuted in our strengths and how do we get unmuted in our relationships so that we can speak up when someone's hurt us or we can have a conversation when we're scared? And it's like a whole life. It's like a whole life shift in terms of what it is to be unmuted.

You know what I hear you saying? What I think I hear you saying is that it really starts with curiosity of self.

And being curious about who am I really, what is my kind areas, what is going on with my not so kind areas, what's going on with my body, what's going on with my strengths, what's going on with my relationships. Like stopping for a minute and being curious about yourself versus letting other people just dictate or trying to be impressive for other people.

Nailed it. That's exactly. And that is the thing I talk about often with leaders. I'm like, hey, if we could pick up two traits as leaders, if we didn't change anything else, but we became more curious and more humble, the world would change.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that does sound like curiosity and being humble to really express truthfully and honestly who you are, which will give you the courage to really be you.

Yeah. And, you know, part of it is I heard my friend Kevin Monroe, we were having a conversation one time, and he talked about something. It's called the cycle of grace. And so often we think I will be accepted once I achieve, once I. As a result of my accomplishments, that will get me to a place of acceptance. And it's really that it starts with acceptance, that when we feel accepted. And this is what I had a conversation with my friend Tori several months ago, and I said. I said, you know, I've always labeled myself an introvert. Like, I had the book the Introvert's Advantage.

In Middle school or high school. I was so Hung up on the fact I was so connected to the identity of being an istj. Right. And I was like. But I'm, like, super extroverted. I'm an external processor. I get energy from being around people. Like, I'm a natural energizer. Socially, I was like, I'm an extra. I mean, I'm an extrovert, you know? And she said, well, maybe you just never felt safe enough to be yourself.

Yeah.

Do you think you could be who you are now without going through what you went through then?

No.

Was the point then to change.

The trajectory? Is the point then to have not been who you were? Is the point to help people sooner? What's the point.

Of getting unmuted or.

Yeah, of unmuting. And, you know, to me, it's really. It's interesting when we look at where we are, it's because of where we've been. Right. And finally understanding yourself to then go being more of a designer of where you're going versus a participant on the journey.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I think that so much of. I mean, I had a friend who sent me when I was going through my burnout recovery, sent me a quote that just, like, really hit home for me. I'd never heard it before, and I think it captures the essence of sort of what we're talking about here is you've been assigned this mountain to show others it can be moved.

Mm. Yeah.

And that's what I feel like. I couldn't. How could I. How could I authentically talk about the importance and the power of social connectedness without having the experience of what it is to feel lonely and excluded? Like, truly, because it is. It is deeply painful to feel like you're not wanted. It's deeply painful to feel that way. And because I had that experience, I have deep compassion for people who don't feel like they fit in and for people who feel like other people don't like them or for people who feel misunderstood. I have a tremendous amount of compassion and empathy for people in those situations. And so much of what drives my work, at its core, really, is a desire to create spaces where people feel seen, heard, accepted, known. Not just noticed, but known.

And loved, and to feel like they matter. I mean, that is the motivator that drives what I do. And I've experienced all of those. I've experienced feeling like I had to hide myself. I've experienced not feeling heard and not feeling understood and not feeling accepted. And.

I think because of those things, I have a tremendous appreciation for what it is to feel seen for who I am. To feel known and not just noticed. To feel accepted, to feel heard. To feel like we can have a conversation like this and somebody would want to listen to it. That's really an honor.

Scott Mann, who's a green beret that I had on an earlier podcast, it's does a one man play, calls it the generosity of scars.

And it's sharing those scars that you have to help somebody else that's there now and is looking for a way out. And that's what you've done. You got the gift of living those challenges in order to share the successes and say, hey, you know what? I've been both and I know which one is more fun.

Yeah, well, I think it's also. I think it's not. I think in the book Personality isn't Permanent. I was reading Tucker Max's story, and he's like, he looks back on who he was when he. He was his most miserable self, and he's like, you know, I have sympathy for that guy. You know, like, I'm not mad at him. I don't hate him. And so when I look at myself growing up, I'm like, man, you were doing the best you could with what you had, and you didn't even realize, Rachel. Like, you had so much love around you and you maybe weren't even aware of it, and maybe you were more accepted than you thought you were. Maybe you were just like, trying to do something to make yourself feel different, almost like how to lose a guy in 10 days. Maybe you were inadvertently doing things for people to reject you, to prove your own point that you believed about you yourself.

I have a challenge sometimes with a lot of the what I hear out there, and that is that you have to change and you have to be different and all the rest of this. And I don't know that that's exactly from my perspective. Correct. I feel like you just need to be who you are and you were muting yourself and you were not being you. And that's not saying your personality was true back then. It's just. It wasn't you.

Yeah, it wasn't me fully. It was parts of me. When I was in eighth grade, our teacher, 27 kids in my class, our teacher passed around a piece of paper where we put our name on the top of it. And then everyone wrote a word or phrase about something that described us. Okay, so this is 23 years old. And some of the things on here. See what I had a lens. I had a perspective that Was just looking to. I was looking to confirm how. What I already believed about myself. Right. That's confirmation bias. Oh, I just think people think I'm smart and nice, so I'm just gonna look, oh, smart, nice, wise, brainy. People just, they just think I'm the smart person. I was like, well, no, there's also trustworthy and generous and kind hearted and always there for others and cheerful and funny. Cool to be with. To my belief of, like, you're uncool. Like, somebody literally wrote cool to be with. Like, that's a total contradiction. So part of it is like, sometimes we need to question the things we believe about ourselves because our perception, our perception is our reality, but our perception is not always what's actually true about us. And so part of it, I would like, man, I would be a little gentler with myself. I was really hard on myself for most of. I mean, still.

I am harder on myself than anybody has ever, than anyone has ever been. But.

I would just cut myself a little bit of slack.

Well, Rachel, if there's somebody that's listening to this, and there will be, that wants to connect with you, they want to learn more about you, they want to have you come speak to their organization, what should they do?

Well, LinkedIn is probably the best place to get me, so a message on LinkedIn. I'm on there every day doing something and on my website. My website is unmutedlife.com so that's another way to contact and connect with me.

I love that. I love that. But thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us and share with us all about being unmuted. I'm totally in agreement with you. It just seems like such a better life when you're unmuted, right?

It is. It's so much freer and fuller and more alive and a heck of a lot more fun.

Well, that's awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I'd love to stay in touch with you as we go on our journeys.

Oh, absolutely. Definitely.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thanks for listening to today's show. But before you go, let me ask you a question. Would you like all of your communication to be easier and more productive? Take the essential first step to clarity now@yinstitute.com.

Sam.