How to AMPLIFY Your Voice: The power of Focused Energy EYV79

Hello and welcome to the Empower Your Voice podcast. Today's episode is probably going to feel different than any other episode that I've recorded before. The energy is going to be different, and that's because I'm sitting in my meditation chair. I'm sitting in the place where I'm usually quiet and to myself. And in this episode, I'm inviting you in. I'm inviting you to join me as I explore some of my own issues and vulnerability around the subconscious saboteurs that have caused some of the decisions in my life. The topic that's on my mind today is how many different ways We scatter our energy. And what kind of impact does it have on our self-consciousness, our actions, our focus, our self-doubt, our imposter syndrome, our fear of speaking out, our stage fright, performance anxiety, all of these things? How much are all of those negative incarnations of us made stronger if our energy is scattered and not focused. This story is of a man that I know who is a professional saxophone player. He is incredible. He's so good. But he has other skills. He has people skills. He has management skills. He's reliable. And all of those things combined together to make him somebody that others want to put to work for their causes. Because of that, this professional has managed so many different organizations and is currently the dean of a music school. Does being a dean feed his soul? No. No. He's doing it because he thinks he's supposed to and it helps pay for the bills and it pays for his retirement. His self-image and his respect are tied up in those things. But boy, oh boy, he is not feeding his heart and his soul. His heart and his soul are fed by being a musician. His entire goal was to be a professional musician. And now he's supporting other professional musicians. He is their support. He's their dean. The problem that we see here, and I'm sure you can see this too, is that he's not living his authentic self. In his opinion, you'll have to trust me on that, he knows he's not happy. Why is he not happy? Because he's not doing the thing that he was built to do. He's doing the shoulds. He's living up to other people's expectations. And he's following the rules of how our society says a man should want to be. Keep rising to the level of advancement until they stop advancing you anymore. You should never say no to a promotion or a job or a new responsibility. That's not our way. In his case, it would do him a huge favor if he would leave the university. No guarantees that he'd make the same kind of money. No guarantees that his family would be as comfortable or that he'd get a retirement or any of that, but he's got one life and he's living it unhappily. So definitely not my decision to make for him. It's his decision to make. I have not had to make a decision like that. Well, I probably have, but, um, let me go into this a little bit about what's going on right now, and that is that I have been trying to provide my knowledge to the world about empowering your voice in as many different ways as possible, as many different platforms as possible to get the word out there, right? And on top of that, I have the Studio Boss Publishing Company. I'm training a couple of new people to work for me. I'm trying to provide everything to my bookkeeper that they need in order to do my taxes. I've taught some voice lessons recently to some former students who needed extra help and attended a conference or two. All of this is to say I was doing so many different things, trying to do them all the best that I could, showing up with an A, A+ if I could, but doing so many different things. I'm capable of that, right? You're capable of that. We're taught to be capable people. Of course we're going to step up and try to achieve as much as possible. We understand that we've only got one life. So how can I say no to anything? Because everything is possible. I've known that since I was a kid. And we owe it to ourselves and the planet to do everything we can. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we need to spread wide. What's more useful is if we do everything we can in a narrow focus. The gifts that you've been given set you up to be very, very successful in one specific task that can make a real difference in this world. So the question is, what's the downside of doing so many things? What's the downside of scattering your focus? And I'm going to give you another example. This is from myself. If you are busy being a student with all of the different classes that come with that and the different homework, and you've got a part-time job, and maybe you're in a relationship, and maybe you've got a sorority and a fraternity, and then you need to practice and learn your music or learn your talk, whatever it is you're doing, that's really scattered focus. Right? Can you imagine what would happen if you had an intensive instead? I bet you can because I bet you've done this before where you focus on one thing. Nothing else really catches your attention except for that one thing that you're focused on. Which one, which method are you going to show up with confidence on the stage or when it's time to share your voice? The one where you're actually focused. Where you don't feel all these other things pulling you in all kinds of different directions. Now, it turns out that I was far too scattered over the last several months, and that was starting to show up in my relationships. My relationship started to feel like, Nancy's so busy, the people that I love and care about, she doesn't have time for us. I don't know, she doesn't really need us. She's got so much going on. And so the thing that's most important to me in my life, the people that I love and care about, they didn't feel like they needed to show up anymore because, like, I wouldn't even notice, they thought, which isn't true. It was actually the other way around. It was actually that I was trying to fill my time with other things so that I didn't notice being a little bit lonely. So there's the vicious cycle that One thing was paying the price for my focus on so many other things. The most important thing was paying the price, the relationships. And what I realized, I was told actually, is you need to get your scattered energy into focus. What can you stop doing that does not serve your purpose? And when I was asked the question, "What am I meant to do?" I know the answer to that. I am meant to change lives, empower voices from the stage where I can impact hundreds of people all at the same time. So what have I done today to help make that happen? On the day that I was asked that last week, the answer was nothing. And I literally had a speech to give on the stage the next day and I had done nothing to prepare for it because I was doing stuff for my bookkeeper and the people that I was training and the people whose books I'd published. I was doing everything for all of that and not focusing on the one thing that I know that I should be doing, the one thing that I know I was put here to do that nobody else can do like I do. No wonder I was feeling unhappy, tired, like I just can't take anymore, I'm just, ah, I quit, you know. Can you relate to this? Can you relate to the fact that you have a driving passion in your life? One thing, not five, but one thing that when you go to your deathbed, you're going to be like, this, if I don't get this right, I'm going to have regrets. How much stronger— okay, let's give you two things. You can have two things, not just one, but two. How much stronger are those two things than anything else you need to get done? Are there other people who can do the anything else that needs to get done? Are you willing to give up control of scattering your energy in so many directions? As if that's control anyhow. You know that's not control. One of my pet peeves is when people say, Nancy, I'd love to talk to you. I know you're really busy, but— because All I want to do is say, "I'm not really busy, thanks." Now it turns out lately I have been really busy and I'm sure that showed up in my energy for the people that I spend my time with and that I cherish the most. So if you're one of those people whose call I didn't return in the last few months, I've learned the error of my ways. And thank goodness before I gave this talk last week, this message, this enlightenment, Got through to me that, oh, okay, I'm not going to teach that, and I'm not going to do this, and I'm not going to do that, because really they don't matter like this one thing. So then I put all my focus on that one thing. I was immediately rewarded. The abundance was clear. The manifestation could not have been clearer. It was just amazing. You now, Nancy, got it right. You're doing the right thing. You're moving forward in the right way. The manifestation showed up in the form of money. It showed up in the form of impact, and my relationships have already started to turn around in just a few days. It's been awesome. It's been awesome. So that's why I'm coming to you today to talk about scattered energy. Will scattered energy make you a little bit nervous on the stage? Yeah, probably so. Now I've been reading, you know, I read a lot, and this is the reason I'm sitting at my meditation chair, because this book was here. Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion. Richard Rohr is a Catholic theologian of the most liberal kind possible, so liberal that he can't believe he's still in the Catholic Church. And in this particular book, he talks about the Holy Spirit which I am also very comfortable calling just Spirit, taking it out of the Bible and calling it purpose or God's word through me or the universe or the message or the connection that we all share with each other. He says, Richard Rohr says, Father Richard Rohr, the Holy Spirit is never created by our actions or behavior. I'm going to read that again. The Holy Spirit, the spirit, is never created by our actions or behavior. You can't do yourself into spirituality, but it is naturally indwelling. In Nancy's words, it is inside of all of us. Father Rohr says, our inner being with God. He goes on to say, in Catholic theology, we called the Holy Spirit uncreated grace. Uncreated grace. Culture and even religion often teach us to live out of our false self of reputation, self-image, role, possessions, money, appearance, and so on. It is only as this fails you, and it always eventually does, that the true self stands revealed and ready to guide us, although some enlightened souls surrender to this truth and presence much earlier. I'm going to read that list to you again, and I want you to think of the trumpet player who's the dean at the school, and I want you to think of Nancy who's scattering her energy way too thin, and I want you to think of yourself. So here's that list again from Father Richard Rohr: Culture and even religion often teach us to live out our false self of reputation, self-image, role, possessions, money, appearance, and so on. It is only as these things fail you, and they always eventually do, that the true self stands revealed and ready to guide. Although some enlightened souls surrender to this truth and presence much earlier, The surrender doesn't happen just once. I know personally that I have surrendered to this truth at least a half a dozen times in the last year and a half, maybe even more often. And last week was another one of those times that I am surrendering to the truth. The truth that all of those are false. They're of this world. And unless we follow what the spirit dictates, our focus will be shallow. The deep focus, the focus that helps you free your voice, the focus that helps you do what needs to be done to empower you to change the world, that is the spirit coming through you. And none of those other trappings make any difference. I don't care about your house, your car. I don't care about your skin, your hair, your clothes, your image in any way. What I care about is that you are selflessly, authentically, unabashedly, and vulnerably living the Spirit through you. Then you will come to realize the empowerment that we're talking about. That's enough for today. Thank you very much for joining me on Empower Your Voice. You will find me on social media under Nancy E. Bos, E for Elaine, and I post articles and other things throughout the week there. So I hope you join me on social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Have an amazing week. Take the time, take the time to think about this. Listen to this episode again. Go deep on what is your true authentic self? What are the risks of not acting on that? What are the risks of not narrowing your focus and doing what you were meant to do? I suspect they are far too great.