Finding Your Voice in Virtual Spaces with Casey Erin Clark and Julie Fogh

Many of us spend what felt like a lifetime on Zoom meetings, and perhaps you struggled to find your voice in this virtual space. This is completely normal because the rules of engagement are entirely different online than they are in the real world. 

Today's guests are Casey Erin Clark and Julie Fogh, the Founders of Vital Voice Training, a voice, and communication company that recognizes that your voice is a powerful tool for connection and expression. 

As trained actors and voice and speech coaches, Casey and Julie understand that real communication happens when your voice is grounded in who you are. 

On this show, after hearing about their business aims, we dive into the disembodiment that many of us are experiencing, and Casey and Julie offer advice on how we might reconnect with our bodies once more. 

We touch on the importance of communicating and teaching rules of engagement, particularly in a virtual space where they aren’t so obvious. In-person meetings are not perfect either, so accepting these virtual spaces for what they are can help us feel okay in them. 

Our conversation also touches on broadening our understanding of power and confidence in the world that deifies extroversion, Casey and Julie’s functional authenticity definition, and the difficulty that many of us have with being authentic on social media. 

Our voices are a marker of who we are. 

It is not about talking the loudest or the most, it is about using your voice in a way that is truest to you.  

Here’s a peek at what else we discuss:

• What Vital Voice Training does and the impetus to start the company.
• How the pandemic affected Vital Voice’s business and the meaningful pivot they made
• Four ways of perceiving the body and the importance of cultivating a connection to our bodies.
• There is so much room for creativity on Zoom with all the tools available.
• The difficulty of not being able to easily switch roles when we work from home.
• Our bodies and spirits are not meant to deal with this level of uncertainty.
• Balancing the humility of listening and the power of sharing your voice.
• Why we need to expand our definitions of power and confidence.
• The difference between feedback that men and women receive in the workplace.
• Defining functional authenticity and why it is important to have this expanded definition.
• Why it is so difficult to be authentic on social media where we can curate what we share.
• You can be authentic and intentional; it doesn’t have to be one or the other.

Resources:
Casey Erin Clark
Casey Erin Clark on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter
Julie Fogh
Julie Fogh on LinkedIn
Vital Voice Training
The Authenticity Code
Casey Erin Clark and Voice Positivity (And She Spoke Podcast Episode)
Brain.fm

This week’s Joy: 

For Casey, Tuesday Night Happy Hours with her girlfriends is her weekly Therapy.

For Julie, her 13-mile walk once a week gives her a childlike feeling that brings so much Joy.

This week’s Hustle: 

Taking Breaks For Casey, as a Type A perfectionist, intentionally builds in time for creativity and makes her outputs better.

Using the Pomodoro Technique for Julie is critical for her to do and has been very helpful in focusing and getting things done.

Know Your Numbers

In our business, we're big fans of financial literacy and accountability. Knowing your numbers is an essential aspect of building a successful business and inherent responsibility for any entrepreneur. 

What you focus on grows, so pay attention to your money.

We use Bench for our bookkeeping. It's simple, elegant, and saves us so many hours that would otherwise be spent neck-deep in receipts on the other side of a spreadsheet.

Each month our transactions are automatically imported into Bench and we get on-demand financial reports. We even enjoy opening up our profit and loss statement to review each month. When tax time comes around, we are up to date and ready to go. And this is what Financial Empowerment feels like.

Use this link to save 20% off your Bench Accounting plan for the first six months!

Namastream

This podcast is brought to you by the Namastream software platform.

Namastream is an easy-to-use platform that helps you build and sell your own courses memberships and live-streamed programs. Go from idea to open for business in just minutes. Unlike other startups, Namastream was created by women for women. If you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to build and grow an online business. You can learn more at Namastream.