EPISODE 326: When Playing It Safe Almost Cost Her Everything (And the Breaking Point That Changed Her Life) with Tracy Goodwin

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:33:12
Lisa
You built success that looks damn good on the outside, but inside it's costing you your health, your relationships, your energy. And no matter how much you do, it never feels like enough. Welcome to Congruent. I'm Lisa Carpenter, the coach. High performers call when they can afford to burn it all down, but they can't keep living like this either.

00:00:33:14 - 00:00:58:24
Lisa
Here we rip off the mask of success and expose what's real. The patterns that you keep running, the price that you've paid, and how to build success that fuels you instead of empties you. Real success is agency. It's powerful self-leadership to run your life instead of being run by it. To let your drive and your well-being finally work together.

00:00:58:27 - 00:01:11:04
Speaker 1
Because the real win is success. That actually feels good.

00:01:11:04 - 00:01:30:07
Lisa
around you, but if you're honest, it's come at a cost. Maybe your health, your relationships, or the part of you that knows there's something more you're meant to say, Meant to do or meant to be. Welcome to Congruent. I'm Lisa Carpenter, and this podcast is about the truth beneath success. The cost you've carried, the wake up calls you couldn't ignore.

00:01:30:14 - 00:02:04:17
Lisa
And what it really takes to build success that actually feels good. Today's guest is someone I know intimately because she's one of my coaches. Voice researcher Tracey Goodwin, owner of Captivate the Room and creator of the Psychology of The Voice, has taught thousands of celebrities, professionals and entrepreneurs to transform their voices from the inside out. Her unique approach gets to the core of a person's internal voice psychology and the external sounds that are repelling, misrepresenting and costing them 30 to 90% in impact, influence and revenue.

00:02:04:19 - 00:02:25:28
Lisa
I brought Tracy on because her story mirrors what so many of you are living right now. She had a gift she couldn't deny, but showing up with it fully meant risking everything, so she played it safe until playing it safe almost destroyed her. This conversation is about what happens when you know your truth, but stay silent. The self-inflicted torture of hiding your gift.

00:02:25:28 - 00:02:41:03
Lisa
I know something about this and what it takes to finally stop abandoning yourself. If you've ever felt successful on the outside while quietly crumbling on the inside. This one's for you. Let's dive in. Enjoy the conversation.

00:02:41:03 - 00:03:02:22
Lisa
Hey, Hey. Welcome back to Congruent. And around here, we're not interested in highlight reels or polished answers. We're here to talk about the truth beneath success, the cost you carry, the wake up calls you couldn't ignore, and what it really takes to build success that actually feels good. And today I'm so excited to have my guest on is Tracy Goodwin, who's one of my favorite people.

00:03:02:22 - 00:03:31:26
Lisa
She's become a friend. She's also one of my coaches and mentors, and she has developed something called the Psychology of the Voice. And Tracy knows all about what it takes to overcome things that are holding us back in our lives. That usually started from when we were children that are impacting how we are showing up today. So, Tracy, I would love for you to introduce yourself to everybody and tell them how amazing and brilliant you are and what it is you do with people, how you support them.

00:03:31:28 - 00:03:35:15
Lisa
And then I'll dive into all these questions that I want to know. Are you.

00:03:35:17 - 00:04:02:18
Tracy
Sure? Well, thank you for having me. And we may just have to start off with a competition of who adores who more. So let me just throw that out there because I just adore you and all the work that you do and the work we've been able to do together. So I'm thrilled to be here. And the toughest question I think that people can ask me is tell us what you do, because it's there's in many ways nothing.

00:04:02:25 - 00:04:30:00
Tracy
A lot of people will say your voice coach, but don't call yourself a voice coach. And it has taken quite some time to to craft that. I am a voice decoder and a researcher and a voice behavioral list. I work with the vehicle of the voice because the voice holds all of our scars and wounds and misrepresents us through sound in the world.

00:04:30:03 - 00:05:05:27
Tracy
But it's nothing typical voice coaching. It's as you know, there's there's such a psychology that we have to how we use our voice. That started that psychology started being formed before we were five. I work with that psychology and I work with what is what is being held in the body of the voice, in the muscle memory, really ultimately getting people back to who they were put on this earth to be versus who the world told them to be.

00:05:05:29 - 00:05:23:02
Lisa
I resonate with so much of what you said because through our work, you know, you've learned where, you know, I've been afraid of my own voice standing in my own authority. The worst question to ask me is, what do you do? Lisa? Because it's it's such a broad range and I've had to narrow it down so it makes sense to people.

00:05:23:05 - 00:05:44:06
Lisa
I would really love to hear your journey into stepping into that for yourself, because I think so many people see us as successful coaches, but they don't actually see the work that we had to do. The messy middle of the, you know, peeling back the things within us that were actually preventing us from stepping into that level of success or authority.

00:05:44:06 - 00:05:58:25
Lisa
I know for me it's been a tremendous challenge and I know for you it's been a challenge. So I would love to hear about your personal journey. Like, where did you start? What was kind of your wake up call moment and how did you get to where you are today?

00:05:58:28 - 00:06:22:28
Tracy
Yeah, I shockingly was raised in a family where I was not allowed to speak and people say, What do you mean you weren't allowed to speak? Well, it was an extreme version of children are to be seen and not heard. So it was very much starting now. Every time I went to speak, we were not allowed to share or express any emotion.

00:06:23:01 - 00:06:51:06
Tracy
The word no was completely off the table. We were that, especially me. I'm the youngest of four. I don't really feel like my my older siblings got it the way I did. I was to sit there and look pretty and say nothing. That was foundational for the fight that ensued within me to do this work. I knew from an early age I could hear seven layers of sound I thought everybody could.

00:06:51:09 - 00:07:12:25
Tracy
I knew because of the opportunities that were presented to me that I was supposed to be a voice coach, but I had this internal war going on. How in the world am I to be a voice coach who would hire and let me back up a second? Because there were some pretty catastrophic things that happened in my story.

00:07:12:25 - 00:07:33:28
Tracy
I was severely beaten in a play because I was not because I couldn't say no. There were many, many things that led up to people starting to find me, to coach their voices. And this was like Yellow Pages days, you know, There was no real. And I fought it. I fought it like a mule being dragged through the the sand.

00:07:33:28 - 00:08:01:22
Tracy
I was Jonah in the belly of the whale. I am not going to Nineveh. And these opportunities kept coming and I had to really wrangle and get it. And it was once I got it, it was quite simple. Once I could see it, that the mess that the training ground happened when I was in the womb, that that all of that wasn't a deficit, all of that wasn't going to prevent people from hiring me.

00:08:01:24 - 00:08:26:09
Tracy
It was going to allowing them to hiring me. Then I became a researcher at literally at that time, but I believe I was a researcher in the womb because I was given this incredible opportunity to learn to navigate the world through a gift of hearing, which I did so by the time I was in my early twenties, I had been a professional speaker already.

00:08:26:16 - 00:08:59:07
Tracy
I had been a professional actor already. Those were platforms for me to be heard where I wasn't heard at home. But people are still finding me to coach their voices. And I finally I was probably about 24 when I got it and I went, okay, okay, I get it. And I was focusing predominantly on dialects. I taught dialects to actors for movies at that time, and back then, 40 years ago, we took dialects away from business people and it was in that discovery process.

00:08:59:13 - 00:09:19:12
Tracy
One day I woke up and I said, Why do I sound Texan? And the Irish sound Irish? I want to sound Irish. They sound really cool. And I went in to find out why. And in that process I discovered the role of the subconscious in creating our voice. And I was that was it. I was like, okay, God, I get it.

00:09:19:14 - 00:09:22:27
Tracy
I'm in, I'm all in. And I've never looked back.

00:09:22:29 - 00:09:39:26
Lisa
Emotional listening to you. I could feel like the emotion in me because so much of my story mirrors yours. You know, growing up in a family where it really felt like I didn't have a voice, and if I did have an opinion, they didn't want to hear it. And that's really played a role in me, you know, putting myself out there.

00:09:39:29 - 00:10:01:14
Lisa
I joke that, you know, once upon a time I had to hire a visibility coach just to, you know, put myself out there. It was such a scary thing for me. And it never really made sense on a conscious level. Right. Which is why, you know, you do the work that you do because so much of how we show up in the world is coming from that subconscious place.

00:10:01:16 - 00:10:14:19
Lisa
So you mentioned this seven layers of sound and don't other people hear that? And I'd love to know more about I'd love to know more about that. How would you explain the seven layers of sound?

00:10:14:22 - 00:10:39:05
Tracy
Well, let me just jump back to something that you just said, because I want to acknowledge it and I'm so grateful that you said that because the number of people that live that every day and logically we can go, why can't I just show up? Why can't I just I mean, logically it makes sense. But that connection to that past puts a hitch in the body, literally.

00:10:39:07 - 00:11:08:25
Tracy
Now, I always could hear the truth of what was happening behind a voice. I truly believe I learned to navigate that in the silence of the oncoming fury of my mother and to to to navigate energy and sound and how do I maneuver based on the layers that I could hear what was really going on after I was coaching.

00:11:08:28 - 00:11:33:28
Tracy
But I believed everybody could hear like me never entered my mind that everybody doesn't hear seven layers of sound after I really the whole dialect thing. And I started working with people. I could not go to the place yet of coaching the way you see me coach today, I still wanted to model what the world wanted, so I did typical voice coaching.

00:11:34:01 - 00:11:54:07
Tracy
So I would say, Well, you just need to speak louder. Lisa But I'm hearing these layers of your story in my head and I'm going, That's not what's happening. Tracy. That's not what's she doesn't she can't speak louder or whatever it is, but I had to deal with my own fear based on my past of people are going to be mad at me.

00:11:54:12 - 00:12:08:07
Tracy
That was my that is what I call a core driver that was a core driver for me. And I went to Texas. I was living in New York City and I went to Texas to teach a workshop and I did a role play with a young man and he rattled off something and I went, Oh, I get it.

00:12:08:09 - 00:12:24:19
Tracy
You fell in love with a girl, but she broke your heart. You moved down here to Texas to be with her. And now y'all are broken up. You don't know what you're going to do. You think you're going to go back to Maryland, but you don't. You don't know if you want to go back to Maryland. I did this whole monologue and he looked at me and he said, How did you know that?

00:12:24:21 - 00:12:56:24
Tracy
And I said to him, Did I get it right? And he said, Yeah. And I looked around the room and everybody, you know, of course, kind of freaked out. They're backing away a little bit. And I said, Did y'all hear what I just identified? And they said, Now we do. Well, that led me on a ten year research study where I truly discovered that I can label it, but the subconscious of the listener is processing it.

00:12:56:26 - 00:13:33:15
Tracy
And I started chasing patterns. I'm a pattern chaser. That's how I figure out a lot of what I do. And every single time these layers, I can always hear seven layers of sound. The first three were always consistently a set of the same thing. The second three layers was always a set of what I call voice masks. And in the seventh layer of sound, I could hear the magic of the real voice that was buried, buried alive, the nuances, the sparkle, the magic, the feeling.

00:13:33:17 - 00:13:56:12
Tracy
And it couldn't get out because it was trying to get through six layers of conditioning in relation to sound. And it was it was classical the same. Now there were variants of it, like people will have different voice masks, but four or five and six there's always a mask. Layer one was always what the person was thinking about.

00:13:56:12 - 00:14:03:03
Tracy
I could instantly identify it through trying to get it right. Are you thinking about what I'm thinking about was classically the same?

00:14:03:06 - 00:14:26:28
Lisa
And if I just understand the layer one is what the person is consciously thinking about while they're speaking, that's the first thing you hear. Layer two is the beliefs that they're working from the masks, as you call them. Whatever stories are occurring in the subconscious as the second layer you hear, and the third layer that you hear is the actual truth of their voice underneath all of the garbage.

00:14:27:02 - 00:14:28:13
Lisa
And my understanding that, yes.

00:14:28:14 - 00:14:45:24
Tracy
If you put it, if you were to put it in buckets, bucket one is layers one through three and I'm going to hear a variety of things. I will hear a character trait. I can instantly say, Oh, I get it, your outcome driven problem solver, no nonsense to the point of no time for Idiocracy. Right? Right. And the person will go, Yeah, how do you know?

00:14:45:25 - 00:15:08:20
Tracy
Because I hear it in your voice. And so that becomes the first sound the listener identifies. But yes, Bucket one is all around things that are happening in your head. Bucket two is all sound based protection. Sounds are what masks are, and then that magical level three.

00:15:08:23 - 00:15:26:25
Lisa
So what I've always been drawn to you with your work is your work and my work is so similar, but we do it in a different way, right? I can hear the words under the words that people are saying. As soon as they start telling me about themselves, I can identify exactly what's going on in their life, where it's come from, what's driving it.

00:15:26:28 - 00:15:49:29
Lisa
I still, to this day, can't explain how I do that, so it's never going to fit into a nice, neat marketing package. But in knowing this, this has been part of my struggle around stepping into my authority. And I'm assuming even with your research, because we often go to research as a way to like validate us so that we can show up and say like, no, no, this is a real thing.

00:15:50:02 - 00:16:08:09
Lisa
I want to hear. How did you peel these masks back for yourself? Because it's one thing knowing that we're super human. And some of the lessons that I've learned over the past, I don't know how many years now is we can escape being human and we can be world class coaches. We can create like amazing results in other people.

00:16:08:16 - 00:16:31:07
Lisa
But it doesn't mean that we can bypass our own stuff. And we're often not as good at pinpointing our own thing. So I'd love to know how you went from like, Oh my God, I have this gift. I know I can do this because I've had this moment to to then making the shifts that you needed to make in order to start to step into your authority and really claim your leadership and success.

00:16:31:09 - 00:16:58:11
Tracy
Yeah. And it's a it's a combination of a couple of things. I will often say everything I teach was created from a survival tactic I needed. Conflict is a perfect example. Or we could go back to when I said I struggled to be able to say, Well, Lisa, you're coming across condescending and that is not landing. Well, you know you're not.

00:16:58:11 - 00:17:24:09
Tracy
But I'm giving you an example because I had so much programed in around people pleasing. It was survival. It was nervous system based. It was catastrophic results. And I would see these things in other people and I would fix them and I would see them. They would I would see them myself, and I would come up with a strategy and a solution.

00:17:24:11 - 00:17:44:01
Tracy
I love to talk about how I created something around conflict. That's one of the biggest things I deal with with my people. They're afraid of conflict, so they will put on a bunch of masks to around conflict. I was terrified of conflict because, I mean, I would move out of state, change my hair color before I would have a conflict because of the way I was raised.

00:17:44:03 - 00:18:08:09
Tracy
And I would sit with it. Lisa and I would go, okay, what? I would work my own process that I was formulating and creating for people based on what I heard. I would work it on myself and I would have to go within and really unravel the layers, just like I do with people of what's really happening. And then I would create a tactic.

00:18:08:11 - 00:18:30:08
Tracy
Go back to the conflict example If somebody would attack me, let's say I'm teaching a class and somebody like, I'm not doing any role play, this is stupid. I'm not an actor. I all my stuff would be triggered and I would I would create, okay, what is the strategy for me to be able to handle conflict? And I would test it.

00:18:30:11 - 00:18:48:26
Tracy
So I was my own specimen of my own test subject. So it was this push and pull of what's coming up in me. What am I going to create to heal it in me and what am I seeing in others, and what am I seeing in others that is creating something in me.

00:18:48:28 - 00:19:20:08
Lisa
Right now I want to reflect something back and for everybody listening, this level of awareness and being able to work your own process is a skill you've learned. It. I've had to learn it, but it's it's not an easy thing to do to create that, to create that level, because it comes with high level of personal responsibility for what's happening in the moment and the courage to face yourself and to be honest with yourself about what am I experiencing?

00:19:20:08 - 00:19:45:05
Lisa
And so many people are disconnected from their emotions. They they're not even aware they leave their bodies when these things happen. So in these moments feel more triggered, whether it's with conflict or whatever it may be, the ability to stay in your body and see for yourself what is happening. Acknowledge it because as you know, for many people, especially around conflicts, avoidance is right, exit stage left.

00:19:45:07 - 00:20:01:25
Lisa
And what most people are doing is they're also avoiding the stuff within themselves, which is why they stay wrapped in these patterns over and over and over again. So I just want to reflect that back to you because you're like, Well, I just worked my processes, I made my own processing. Okay? Not everybody is has the capacity to do that.

00:20:01:25 - 00:20:22:09
Lisa
Most people don't have the ability to do that. And that's such a it's just one of your gifts. It's one of the reasons why I chose to work with you, because, you know, it's not easy for me to always find mentors that can work with me in the way that they're going to be able to match me. Yeah, it makes sense.

00:20:22:15 - 00:20:49:16
Tracy
Oh, it it does. And I was just committed from a very young age to have I even want to say this. I was committed to healing my way through the incredible pain I suffered as a human at the hands of the people that were. And I don't have any angst against my family or my siblings or anything like that.

00:20:49:18 - 00:21:18:23
Tracy
But that was that was part of my purpose, I think. Lisa And maybe you feel the same way that I had no option but radical honesty. There were there was no other in fact, I think awareness is a gift and sometimes a kryptonite in a way, because I am so aware of what is going on around me that it is I just have to filter a lot.

00:21:18:25 - 00:21:33:24
Tracy
But I was willing to walk through the pain and I have siblings that will not even open the door. And I and I was able to watch that and go, I will not leave this planet. Having done the surface level for me.

00:21:33:26 - 00:21:55:11
Lisa
So were there any specific like wakeup calls, like moments that really shook you, that drove you forward more into this works? I know in my life there were very specific moments in time that really moved the needle for me that really said, like Lisa, this is an opportunity you can go right or left. We always have a choice, right?

00:21:55:11 - 00:22:08:27
Lisa
But you it sounds like like me are always going to take the the the choice that grows. You even if it's incredibly painful to work through it. Were there any specific moments in your life that really were that catapult for you?

00:22:09:00 - 00:22:32:20
Tracy
Well, the the young man story that I mentioned was a huge one. There's another one that that I probably was the biggest, though. As I mentioned, I was teaching, I was in I was already in New York City. I was coaching for Mike Nichols school. But I'm I'm dancing on the edge of working from the gift. And it almost made me lose my mind.

00:22:32:23 - 00:22:59:20
Tracy
And so one day I said, I'm done. I will be a furniture refinish or refinish finisher. My best friend was my super in my building. Big muscle guy. So we started a business together. He would bring all the furniture in and I would sand away the layers of varnish and paint and take these extraordinary pieces of furniture that we would find on the streets of New York City and make them beautiful again.

00:22:59:22 - 00:23:17:00
Tracy
And the phone would ring and the phone would ring and the phone would ring and people would want to hire me. I wouldn't answer the phone. I wouldn't call anybody back. I am my furniture refinish or now. And one day in that sanding away the layers, I literally heard the voice of God say to me, What are you doing?

00:23:17:02 - 00:23:46:19
Tracy
I didn't put you down there to finish furniture. I need you back in the game. And I said, All right, God, but you're going to have to show me how to do it the way you put me here to do it. Because I'm afraid. And within 24 hours, the concept of psychology of the voice was crystal clear. I mean, the pieces had already been being formed because I was already in probably two or three, maybe four research studies.

00:23:46:19 - 00:24:08:16
Tracy
By then I was dancing on the edge of what I knew I needed to have, what I knew I needed to do, I had to do. But I needed that push. And it was years before somebody on a podcast looked at me when I told that story and said, Do you realize what you just said? And I went, No, what did I say?

00:24:08:19 - 00:24:24:23
Tracy
And she said, That's what you do for people is you sand away the layers of the fabricated image of what they think they are supposed to be. And that was that was a big one. That was an insight.

00:24:24:25 - 00:24:47:27
Lisa
That is a big one. Which then leads me to the question. So I, I started I rebranded the podcast and named it congruent because what I see over and over again is there's this disconnect between what we're feeling on the inside and what we think success is supposed to feel like versus how we're presenting on the outside. But really, it's about the cost of what happens when we're not congruent.

00:24:47:27 - 00:25:04:04
Lisa
So here you are sanding furniture, which was actually, you know, the universe showing you like, hey, pay attention, this is what you do. But what was the cost to you when you weren't living in alignment with what you were put on the planet to do?

00:25:04:06 - 00:25:33:00
Tracy
Well, I think it started even before I was a did the furniture stunt. I think it happened. I think it was happening when I was teaching typical voice coaching and knowing I could hear what I could hear and not having the courage to say it, I, I say it almost jokingly, but not jokingly. I thought I was going crazy in a way because I could hear these things, but I was in a paralysis.

00:25:33:00 - 00:26:03:02
Tracy
To take action on them. I had to keep myself in a place of safety, and it was miserable. It was all miserable. I mean, even the the I mean, the furniture sounds fun, you know, it was creative, but it was torture. Every time the phone rang and somebody wanted to hire me. And just that knowing the truth that I wasn't supposed to be upfront before I even heard a voice tell me to stop it became this existence.

00:26:03:04 - 00:26:18:03
Tracy
It was so multilayered. It moved from fear and and people pleasing. And what are people going to think that torture that was a self-inflicted torture to the existence of Is this all there is?

00:26:18:06 - 00:26:41:24
Lisa
Yeah. That lack of fulfillment. Totally not lack of fulfillment that I see with so many people and the cost to their emotional well-being. Because whether they realize it or not, right, their subconscious is fighting for love, safety and belonging. But their soul is like this isn't really safe, right? So we've told ourselves a story that this is safe, this is the way it's supposed to be.

00:26:41:24 - 00:27:07:05
Lisa
I'm doing the right things, but it comes at such a tremendous cost, you know, health, wealth, relationships, you name all of them. So that's really, really powerful. So if you were to go back in time, I'm going to ask a question about success. If you were to go back in time 30 years ago and I asked you how to define success, how would you have defined it back then?

00:27:07:07 - 00:27:11:09
Tracy
Easy. I would have been famous. Okay. Yeah, right.

00:27:11:11 - 00:27:12:27
Lisa
Famous. And all the money in the bank.

00:27:13:00 - 00:27:47:03
Tracy
Yeah, well, and I don't even know if it was about money, but it was. It was about. And this is why I believe that I found acting at a young age. There was very, very early in my late teens and early twenties. I was an actor. I made a living my living doing television commercials. And my goal was to be a celebrity, to be famous for everybody, to see me is what it really I mean, I can unravel now what the whole thing was about, but that's what I would have said to be in Hollywood, to be an A-lister and to be very famous.

00:27:47:08 - 00:28:03:09
Lisa
Okay. So as your career progressed, you're doing your research and you're working with people. When did you hit that place where you realized that you needed to redefine what success was for you? And how do you define success for yourself now?

00:28:03:12 - 00:28:27:08
Tracy
I think it was a progression. I do think I was probably in my twenties when I moved away from the whole celebrity thing. I could care less. I got very disenchanted at a very young age with with that concept of what I thought I wanted to be. And I would say in my thirties, I'd probably moved into the money thing.

00:28:27:10 - 00:28:57:19
Tracy
I want to make a lot of money. It was definitely a progression. When I hit 50, I woke up the morning from 49 to 50 with a very clear mission of I have a gift that when I leave this planet no one will have access to. It is time to touch every life on this earth that must hear from me before I am taken away.

00:28:57:21 - 00:29:16:02
Tracy
And that is how I that is to me, success. And it's not even like, well, Lisa, I'm going to I'm going to coach a million women. No, it's please put me in front of everyone whose message I have so that I can impact their life.

00:29:16:04 - 00:29:40:25
Lisa
That's how success moves into this place of feelings of creating legacy and fulfillment and impact. And you start to realize that, you know, none of the other stuff matters. I know when I turned 50 and I've joked about this on the podcast that, you know, I'm halfway to dead and something shifts when you realize that there are less years in front of you than behind you.

00:29:40:27 - 00:30:07:04
Lisa
And when you've been given gifts and you've been given this beautiful opportunity at a life, stop fucking around, stop wasting it. And that's like and that's the battle that I've been in with myself. This is continues to be the journey of like what else is available to me if I move past some of the things that are still stopping me from really experiencing some of these next levels of joy and fulfillment that I want.

00:30:07:06 - 00:30:29:28
Tracy
And I think we all deal with that. You mentioned you said something earlier, and I don't remember exactly what you said, but you think I've got it all together, Think again. I mean, it was something to the effect of of working on our own staff or people can look people can look at me and go, well, you know, I'll never be able to do it like you.

00:30:30:05 - 00:30:46:22
Tracy
And and you think I was doing this 25, 35, 45 years ago. Know I have walked my talk every day for as long as I can remember. And every day I get a new opportunity to work through something new.

00:30:46:25 - 00:30:53:20
Lisa
Isn't that the truth right in this? Is that I think that this is where people can get caught in self-doubt element.

00:30:53:23 - 00:30:55:17
Tracy
This level of true, this.

00:30:55:17 - 00:31:18:21
Lisa
Level of perfectionism. Right. Like there's a place to get to. There's a destination. I'm one day I will have worked out all my stuff and the gates of heaven will open. Yes, they will, because you'll be dead. Your lessons are over when you return to your creator. But there, there is no end destination. We are never going to not have an opportunity to discover something new about ourselves.

00:31:18:21 - 00:31:40:10
Lisa
Because who I am today, who you are today, is different than who you were when you were 20. So of course we're going to unearth new things because we're constantly, every single day in new territory. But, you know, the opportunity to continue to explore our gifts because with all the stuff that we discover that we're like, Oh, I don't really love this.

00:31:40:13 - 00:32:24:19
Lisa
There also comes discoveries of things like, Oh, I really love this. I didn't know this was here. How can I move towards that more? And I think that that's the power of doing this work and is it opens doors to things that you maybe never thought possible. But if we stay in this narrow definition of how people are seeing success, if we stay in this place of not allowing ourself to be fully expressed or really experienced joy, if we stay in this place of perfectionism, overworking, being super busy, I'm sure you got caught up in some of those things as your career expanded to being busy over 500.

00:32:24:26 - 00:32:34:21
Tracy
Well, I was raised by a workaholic father and I and I think that is a it's an illusion, but it's a trap. Well, I love what I do.

00:32:34:23 - 00:32:35:13
Lisa
Oh, yes.

00:32:35:17 - 00:32:56:04
Tracy
So I'll just do it 80 hours a week, you know. But yeah, that's a battle. That is a that is definitely a battle I had to get on the other side of. And I think so much of it all goes back to something you said in the very beginning when you when you even asked me to introduce myself, you said something about talk about all your greatness.

00:32:56:06 - 00:33:10:00
Tracy
And I think we have to get to a point where we're willing to own our greatness and own our magic and own that we really are worthy of something beyond 80 hours a week of work.

00:33:10:02 - 00:33:36:18
Lisa
What do you believes is the biggest thing that prevents people from allowing themselves to stand in their greatness? However they wanted to find it right? Like become 100% of who they are. I try to stay away from like, you know, buzzy coaches words and make it like a tangible thing. Like people talk about playing small. What is it that you think is the the kind of some of the biggest pieces that stop men and women from really moving into what's possible for them.

00:33:36:21 - 00:34:02:04
Tracy
Is when I listen to a voice, I hear those seven layers. But I'm always in that a layering process that I'm doing. I'm always listening for a why behind why behind the why behind a sound and again, pattern chasing decades ago, I realized it always goes back to one of five words fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, sensible longing.

00:34:02:07 - 00:34:25:06
Tracy
And am I worthy? That becomes the driver to if I own my greatness, well, they're probably going to reject me if I believe I'm fabulous. Ooh. But I better not say it, because that could. I'll be judged. That wound has not been dealt with and therefore it's playing out in voice choices.

00:34:25:08 - 00:34:52:09
Lisa
Well, I would say that that's true, right? I talk about it as love, safety and belonging. Which kind of wraps up all of those specifics into it. And I mean, we live in a world right now that literally reinforces it's not safe to speak up. It's not safe to be yourself in a variety of reasons. So we're not just wrestling with our own subconscious beliefs, but we're also having this input from the our external environment that reinforces that.

00:34:52:11 - 00:35:10:20
Lisa
So how do we how do we navigate finding that way? Because if you try and push past a part of you that truly believes it's unsafe, you're always going to snap back. So how do we truly move past these things where they don't hold us hostage anymore?

00:35:10:23 - 00:35:47:16
Tracy
This is something I'm especially sitting with today as I as things unfold in the world and I am always looking at what's the next evolution for me before I leave this planet. And one of the things, the first thing that I thought of when you said this, which I think is true, it may not be the answer that people want to hear per se, and I really maybe need to think through it a little bit more because I do think we're dealing with factors of safety, factors of so many things.

00:35:47:19 - 00:36:04:03
Tracy
But the way I operate from is I operate from completely surrendering the outcome and always trusting that I'm going to be okay. Yeah, that's where I.

00:36:04:05 - 00:36:04:23
Lisa
Am from as well.

00:36:05:00 - 00:36:29:19
Tracy
Yeah, I can't control the outcome and I refuse and I'm not. I take this very serious as someone who has even had death threats, I take it very serious. I want you to know I'm not just whatever surrender the outcome. No, I get it on a really deep level. But I think we have to couple surrender with trusting that.

00:36:29:22 - 00:36:42:29
Tracy
That everything is working in our favor, everything is working out, and that there is good and purpose in all of it. And then we step into it. Otherwise we have we won't.

00:36:43:02 - 00:36:45:10
Lisa
Know because fear will literally trap you.

00:36:45:13 - 00:36:46:08
Tracy
Yeah.

00:36:46:11 - 00:37:10:19
Lisa
Yeah. That's very much the place I have to work from is that even when it looks like things aren't working out, and even when I can't make sense of things that it may be, it's not my job to make sense of it. But what in what in me do I get to look at? And where am I using other circumstances that are happening as a way to fuel my fear so I don't have to go do the things that I know that I'm supposed to do?

00:37:10:19 - 00:37:35:01
Lisa
And it's always this balance. And, you know, right now, with a 14 year old in the House, it's these are very interesting conversations, right? We want him to be his fully authentic self. That's so buzzy. Right. And also have that level of discernment to decide, like, when is it when is it really, truly safe for me versus when is it not?

00:37:35:03 - 00:37:38:03
Lisa
And that that's a hard thing to teach for 14 year old.

00:37:38:06 - 00:38:12:23
Tracy
Yeah, well, I think it's hard to teach a 40 year old fair, you know, and I love the word discernment and I think we have to function in this world so incredibly present that we can process in the moment. And I think that's a challenge for people. We don't want to be present. You mentioned earlier we're just so disconnected and so checked out and and we've got to get back to being present and therefore have to be willing to suffer in that presence of that uncomfortable feeling.

00:38:12:23 - 00:38:29:13
Tracy
I don't mean I want everybody suffering. That's not what mean. But I have this amazing coach, you know, I love coaches. I've got to you know, I always have a ton of them. And I remember my very first coach in my twenties one time she asked me to do something. I said, I'm not doing that. And she said, Well, would you considered it now?

00:38:29:13 - 00:38:46:04
Tracy
I'm not doing it. And she said, Well, would you be willing to do it? No, I'm not doing it. And we got to. Would you be willing to be willing to be willing to be willing to consider doing it? Tracy And I said that I will do. And maybe that's what we have to do, that maybe I love that teaching tool 40 years later, I'm using it.

00:38:46:10 - 00:39:01:11
Tracy
Maybe we just have to be willing to be willing to consider being present and feeling uncomfortable and utilizing that discernment rather than completely operating from that wound.

00:39:01:13 - 00:39:26:22
Lisa
Yeah, I you know, one of the things that I invite my people into is understanding that creating what it is you want in your life, moving away from your wounds, healing yourself however you want to phrase it. Becoming the best version of yourself requires that you expand your capacity for discomfort. The discomfort that's within you. There's no way of getting around that.

00:39:26:25 - 00:39:47:22
Lisa
Like there's no way. Even if you look at nature, right? Nature doesn't. Everything's dying here now, right? We're going into fall, but in spring, for that flower to bloom, it literally need the seed needs to, like, break apart, and then it has to force its way up through the soil so that it can finally get sun on its face to bloom.

00:39:47:24 - 00:40:05:02
Lisa
When we think about that process, nothing about it is like gentle, like nature is not gentle when we want to bloom. So I know a lot of people use the metaphor of a butterfly. I think it's a bit overused. That's why I try and go to like, like think about a seed that is growing the food you're going to eat.

00:40:05:03 - 00:40:13:19
Lisa
It's going to nurse your body. But man, the process to go from seed to plant is pretty disruptive.

00:40:13:21 - 00:40:49:06
Tracy
Absolutely. And I think my favorite is this is about the ego. You know, I'm a I'm a half breed Choctaw Indian. And my father was a my father was a full blooded Choctaw Indian. And he well, that's a whole you know, that's a whole other episode. But the story of the Eagle at some point, the and I'm probably not going to tell it right but the eagle has to decide because their beaks wear down and they have to decide, am I going to die or am I going to knock this beak off and form a new beak?

00:40:49:06 - 00:41:08:23
Tracy
And they go, they fly. Hi. Hi. High up in the in the in the mountains. And they pull all of their they use that big to pull all their hair out and then they slam that beak on the rocks so that they can create a new bit. I can't even fathom that. I can't even wrap my mind around that.

00:41:08:25 - 00:41:29:07
Tracy
But it's it literally becomes this choice. And I don't think it has to be that dramatic for us. But just to validate what you're saying, no, nature is not that that eagle has to willing to survive and be willing to go through the pain and suffering and the recreation in order to survive.

00:41:29:10 - 00:41:33:26
Lisa
Amazing. Wow. I've never heard that. I've heard about monsters.

00:41:33:28 - 00:41:34:15
Tracy
Yeah. Yeah.

00:41:34:15 - 00:41:37:16
Lisa
Lobsters. That's another one, right? That's another.

00:41:37:19 - 00:41:38:08
Tracy
Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:41:38:09 - 00:41:53:22
Lisa
Yeah, yeah. To, like, literally grow a new shell. So you talked about working with coaches and I work with coaches. Obviously, you're one of my coaches. How has coaching been instrumental for you in terms of redefining success, finding more fulfillment in life?

00:41:53:24 - 00:42:21:24
Tracy
I think it has become very much a vehicle. What lights me up more than anything is to pour into people and to hold space for discovery for people. And I think in the early years of my career, I thought about myself more like a teacher. In fact, before I did this work, I thought I was going to be a college professor until I did it.

00:42:21:27 - 00:42:53:17
Tracy
And I realized very quickly, I am not cut out for this. And I moved on and created what I do today. But I think I thought of myself as a teacher. Let me instruct you on data points and information rather than seeing myself as a vessel of information that I have been gifted with, that I, I am so grateful to be able to pour into people to see them on their way, to see that.

00:42:53:19 - 00:42:58:04
Lisa
A safety mask for you, hiding behind the data and giving instruction.

00:42:58:06 - 00:43:14:27
Tracy
I may be, but I think it was more I didn't I wasn't open to the possibility of my gift at that point. When I was a college professor, I was still pooh poohing the fact that I could hear voices. Not only did I think everybody could hear them, but I thought, what's the big deal about that?

00:43:14:28 - 00:43:38:02
Lisa
Well, let's face it, data and knowledge has been held in high esteem, past feeling and intuition. You know, I would never call myself an intuitive coach because people are like, What the hell is that? There's no value in that. But that's actually where the value lies in the the feeling in the body, the emotion in the body. So that's why I asked was the the data points in that way, was it a safety mask for you?

00:43:38:02 - 00:43:41:21
Lisa
Because a lot of people use that.

00:43:41:24 - 00:43:42:07
Tracy
Toll.

00:43:42:12 - 00:43:45:10
Lisa
Themselves, right. Like I got the facts in the data here.

00:43:45:13 - 00:44:06:25
Tracy
Oh, yeah. Well, I think in different ways it absolutely was safety. Well, this is what we do. You don't come into a college classroom at a university and start talking about seven layers of sound. You do a slide deck and you do it and all that stuff is what ultimately made me almost lose my mind because I was so out of alignment with it.

00:44:06:27 - 00:44:32:25
Tracy
I was out of alignment with the system as the way we had to be in a in the universities. And I'm not discrediting this. For me, this was very out of alignment. But that's one of my biggest gripes is if I look at the trajectory of the way people are taught, information data don't upset anybody, get it perfect, get it right, do the thing.

00:44:32:25 - 00:44:53:23
Tracy
So by the time people get to me, they're borderline traumatized because a college professor or boss or a parent or someone destroyed them over data. I feel the same way about reading the room. You know, people just flip out when say, I don't want you to read the room. What I've been taught that my whole life. Of course I have to read the room.

00:44:53:29 - 00:44:56:12
Tracy
Okay, Read the room. But don't change who you are.

00:44:56:14 - 00:44:57:04
Lisa
You know.

00:44:57:07 - 00:44:59:27
Tracy
Based on what you think. You see.

00:44:59:29 - 00:45:14:27
Lisa
Such powerful work. Such powerful work. Now, I have to ask you, because you dropped this earlier and I was like, what? You've had a death threat before, Tracy. Who would possibly threaten death of you? Is that a story you're willing to share?

00:45:15:00 - 00:45:45:27
Tracy
Well, you know, I don't even remember a whole lot about it, but I'm happy to talk about not just the the death threats. It was because I wouldn't accommodate someone's request is where it came from. But at that, in the early years of my career, the amount of hate I received for my concepts, I was so radically out there when I made the switch to psychology of the Voice that I was decimated online.

00:45:45:29 - 00:46:15:11
Tracy
I will I will often almost joke with my students and say, okay, you're okay because you don't have any hate clubs. International We hate Tracy Goodwin hate clubs that were formed. You weren't requested to come on national television to be humiliated on purpose. You weren't threatened with day after day after day, for as long as I can remember receiving emails about what an effing piece of, you know what?

00:46:15:11 - 00:46:43:11
Tracy
You shouldn't exist. You should be dead. Because I was showing up with concepts that were really radical back then when everything was about technique. And I think in retrospect I can say maybe somehow I knew that judgment would come. And so I stayed in the safety of just speak louder. Lisa, Just just put in some pauses. And it was hard.

00:46:43:13 - 00:47:10:26
Lisa
Well, I can imagine, because facing all of that is literally everything. All the beliefs you've held about yourself, it's not safe to speak out. I don't have a voice. People aren't going to listen to me. I'm going to be misunderstood. Whatever it was, the universe is like, okay, we're going to mirror this all back to you. Are you truly committed to healing those wounds so that you can move forward and actually do your work in the world?

00:47:10:29 - 00:47:33:19
Tracy
Yeah, and I think, you know, I don't remember a ton of details about it because I've worked through it and moved it out. If I didn't, I would never be able to show up today. I would never be able to show up again. But I think it was also I was given so many opportunities to recover my power from people.

00:47:33:21 - 00:47:42:28
Tracy
And what a way to recover your power from people, to have your life threatened because you won't do what somebody wants you to do.

00:47:43:00 - 00:47:44:11
Lisa
Powerful story.

00:47:44:13 - 00:47:45:16
Tracy
That's major.

00:47:45:18 - 00:48:01:19
Lisa
It is a major story. And that's what I mean. Like, we do have these catalysts in our lives that really force us to say like, how do you want to move forward? Because if you don't release the stuff that you're carrying, you're going to keep getting more of it. If you don't want any more of it, let's let it go.

00:48:01:19 - 00:48:16:06
Lisa
I had a I had a counselor say to me once, you know, Lisa, nobody can push your buttons if you know what your buttons are and you heal your brains, then you don't have those buttons anymore. Because I was, you know, I was complaining about somebody pushing. I always pushing my button. She's like, Well, then don't have buttons.

00:48:16:08 - 00:48:19:08
Lisa
Yeah, it's a radical concept to me at the time.

00:48:19:10 - 00:48:19:24
Tracy
Yeah.

00:48:19:26 - 00:48:45:06
Lisa
That I didn't have to respond or react in that way, but that this person was literally showing me what was already inside me, had nothing to do with them. It was like what was living in me. So. So now you know what it feels like to be out of alignment or incongruent in your life. How do you identify when that's happening now, and what do you do to shift yourself back into that place of congruence?

00:48:45:06 - 00:48:48:14
Lisa
So you are in a place of peace and ease and fulfillment.

00:48:48:16 - 00:49:11:10
Tracy
Happened this week because and I will I will tell my students, I'll say, you want to you want to challenge me on walking my talk, put me on a customer service line or, you know something where there's a scripted concept and I don't feel heard. I still have to really walk my talk. And so I go back to some of the things that we've talked about.

00:49:11:18 - 00:49:40:05
Tracy
One I have I always have coaches, too. I am always aware of what I'm doing. I will I know when I'm spinning out and it may take me a minute to I may have three spin outs before I go down that row. And then I do this evaluation and I immediately look at, okay, what is causing me what is really going on here?

00:49:40:12 - 00:50:05:11
Tracy
Yeah, they won't send you the title so you can get your new plates and they're not hearing you. But what else? And I will immediately, when I recognize it, do the work. The work for me is still in catching it sooner. The things that still can get to me. And what's fascinating to me, I was even just reflecting on this this week, it's something around a car type, you know all of this.

00:50:05:14 - 00:50:23:11
Tracy
How many layers are there going to be from that silencing and that because that was still that was still a remnant, I call it remnants of the reason you're so upset, Tracy, is no one is hearing you.

00:50:23:13 - 00:50:30:26
Lisa
In those moments. Are you have you also gotten really good at meeting yourself with compassion?

00:50:30:28 - 00:50:31:23
Tracy
Yes.

00:50:31:23 - 00:50:33:11
Lisa
And that was that was a pause.

00:50:33:16 - 00:50:57:10
Tracy
Yeah, it was a yeah, I have to say yes. And I think that's been the hardest part of my journey because I've operated under the you know, and again, I don't say this from a place of anger, but probably up until the time my mother passed away, I was still receiving text in all capital letters. Why are you such a problem?

00:50:57:12 - 00:51:15:18
Tracy
And this was maybe five years ago. That is probably been what I have struggled with the most is not being as hard on me as the world has been. I think that's for me, that's one of the the greatest places of continued work.

00:51:15:20 - 00:51:31:29
Lisa
And that is a big piece of work that I do with most of my clients. Most of the men and women that I work with really struggle to be self compassionate because they were taught that being hard on themselves or having be hard on them, they've they've intertwined that with like, that's what love is.

00:51:32:02 - 00:51:33:11
Tracy
Yeah, totally.

00:51:33:11 - 00:51:55:01
Lisa
And it's not so learning compassion feels like what to want to be too soft on myself. And I just want to be clear about, you know, whether you use the word congruence or alignment, it's not about perfection. Like nobody is 100% congruent all the time. And we're constantly having to look and evaluate and say like, where am I out of sync?

00:51:55:03 - 00:52:14:08
Lisa
But part of goal of this podcast is to let people see that it isn't a perfect process, but the more you can start to catch yourself and like, where do I need to bring myself back to center, the better your life will continue to get. But being 100% congruent is not actually the goal.

00:52:14:11 - 00:52:18:02
Tracy
No, no. And maybe not even a reality.

00:52:18:04 - 00:52:19:14
Lisa
No, it's not.

00:52:19:14 - 00:52:40:03
Tracy
I don't actually even know if I want that reality because I want to continue to learn and grow. For me, it's about tightening the window. You know, I remember when I would have a conflict or I would get upset about something somebody said and it would be months. I'm carrying that now. It's minutes. That's the goal.

00:52:40:05 - 00:52:59:10
Lisa
Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much for coming on there. Anything that you want, like last words of wisdom you want to give to people about this work or living a life of of congruency for you. Anything you want to say? I give you the give you the final words here, Tracy.

00:52:59:13 - 00:53:26:16
Tracy
Well, this has just been such a fantastic conversation. And thank you for having me and having this conversation with me. I think the thing that I would probably leave people with is to find the way. However you get there to understanding that you have a message and not from the perspective of let me just throw out some buzzwords like speak your truth, know your words matter.

00:53:26:16 - 00:53:55:22
Tracy
I don't mean that. I mean your voice is your identity. It is the literal orchestra of your heart. There is someone waiting for that message, so find your way to revealing it, whatever that is. Because I promise you, there's somebody that's desperately looking for you to hear it.

00:53:55:24 - 00:54:17:28
Lisa
I love that so much. And that's why I'm so grateful that I found you, because, you know, I've had such a wrestling match with my own voice over the years. There's things that I'm being called forward into doing that require me to really make peace with my voice. And it has been a very, very interesting journey because it's not about, oh, how to I don't know how to write the keynote.

00:54:18:01 - 00:54:39:26
Lisa
Like, I realized it's not about that for me. I speak every single day, but What is it about that specific on stage speaking, And these are the things that I'm still unraveling and I think, wow, like what is possible for me on the other side of this? So these are places where I'm still trying to get back into like congruence with myself.

00:54:39:26 - 00:54:45:08
Lisa
So tell everybody where they can find you so that they can experience more of your magic.

00:54:45:10 - 00:54:57:27
Tracy
Well, I am captivate the room just about everywhere except LinkedIn. I'm Tracy Goodwin, but Instagram Tik tok all the things I'm captivate the room are captivate the room dot com.

00:54:57:29 - 00:55:07:20
Lisa
And it is in your best interest to know this woman better. So thank you so much for coming on Tracy Thank you for being such an amazing guest and being so open about your stories. I appreciate it so much.

00:55:07:23 - 00:55:09:11
Tracy
Thank you.