Episode #18: Authentic Exploration with KC Baker – Full Transcription2018-04-05T00:40:10-07:00
Full Transcript:

Speaker 1: 00:00 Hello you're listening to the Super Power U Podcast. This is Episode #18. Welcome to the Super Power U Podcast when we reveal the mental models and tactical skills needed to activate your inner superhero. And here's your host Lisa Betts-LaCroix. Hello. Hello my lovelies.

Lisa: 00:21 Thank you for coming back and joining me again here today on the Super Power U Podcast. I am so excited to introduce my guest today. Her name is KC Baker and KC was previously an investment banking analyst and an assistant for two U.S. senators. She's an international women's thought leadership and public speaking trainer speechwriter and two time Ted speaker. She's renowned for her unorthodox and highly effective methodologies and most importantly it seems to me KC believes that the key to positive transformation in our world lies in supporting women in unleashing the brilliance of their voices. I recorded this interview with KC quite some time ago and unfortunately there is a bunch of echo in the audio track. But KC shares in our conversation so many beautiful and wise truths that I have to ask you just put aside the sound difficulty and listen for the gems in our conversation.

Lisa: 01:36 We talked about KC's childhood and upbringing and a false start she had, how she woke to her true self and found her freedom and embodied self which then led her to find her own voice and that in turn led to her commitment to help other women find and free their voices. KC shares tips for speaking up and sharing our truth in the face of fear or nerves and a process for finding your Diamond Insight, the message that is unique to you and that the world needs to hear. We talk about healing parental relationships, parenting, self-care and balance, and the importance in KC's life of creativity. So please listen in. Turn down the volume a little bit if it helps with the echo and listen for the brilliance in this beautiful conversation with KC Baker.

Lisa: 02:38 KC, thank you so much for joining us here on the podcast. I'm thrilled that we were finally able to make this work.

KC: 02:42 Me too. Me too.

Lisa: 02:45 We initially met at Exquisite a few years ago. That was a beautiful community building dinner experience around 2011, I think. It was put together by Christine Mason and Taylor Milsal.

KC: 02:58 Yes I remember that party. It was awesome.

Lisa: 03:02 It really was. It later became the Lovespring community.  As I remember it, we practiced eye gazing and eating with our eyes closed. Do you remember that?  I did a talk called “Living An Exquisite Life in the Face of Death” and you, as I remember it did this sensual dance-like spoken word performance.  Do you remember that piece?

KC: 03:31 Oh yes! Getting out there publicly and sharing that piece of spoken word changed my life. It led to the entire body of work that I'm doing now and when I did that piece at Taylor's house that led to…the guy who filmed it, I didn't realize…was the head of the major event and film production studio in San Francisco and he hosted for free the first School for the Well-Spoken Woman because he was so moved by what I stood for, from that message. And Taylor went on to introduce me to all these TedX and Ted speakers who became my clients and that just changed the course of my career.

Lisa: 04:10 I remember watching it and and then over the next number of years watching you transform your beautiful, and so fully self-expressed young woman that you were that night, into this now powerhouse speaker, trainer, leader, entrepreneur and as we'll get into later, badass mama. So there's a lot I want to ask you but I figured that that must've played some kind of role.

KC: 04:38 I love that you remember that night. That night was a turning point in my life. It opened a lot of doors. Yeah yeah.

Lisa: 04:43 I have a bunch of questions I want to ask because I'm looking at this conversation almost like a speed masterclass for my listeners into how people can activate their voice because amplifying women's voices is really important to me, as I know it is to you.  Before we go into some of the how-tos can you talk a little bit about the Well-Spoken woman. I'm not saying it properly…

KC: 05:08 So the School for the Well-Spoken woman was in 2011 and 2012 the big event that I put on in San Francisco and New York City where women got up to give the talks they felt they were born to give, to an audience of all-women who just wildly cheered them on. And that was such a beautiful vision come true. And the women who did that program…I mean, it's been many years…several years now and the whole course of their careers for so many of them changed after that night and they've gone on to become legitimately well known and respected thought leaders in their respective industries and fields. Now I don't do that particular event anymore. I actually paused on that event when I had my son. But that work was the genesis of everything that I'm doing and that has evolved into to the larger more international body of work that we've developed now called WomanSpeak.

Lisa: 06:03 So I know it is true that you're passionate about helping women share their truth but I really want to go deeper and ask you to share some of your secrets about how you help women prepare to free their voices. But before we do, can you talk a little bit about how you came in your own life to realize how important it is for women's voices to be heard and for you in particular, and the women you support to speak up and show up. Do you have a personal story that led you to realizing this?

KC: 06:33 Oh, well I mean my life story! So I'll give you I guess what feels like the most I don't know, essential and I guess for the sake of this, also entertaining bits.  I mean, really the truth is that I was raised in a very high-achiever based household. And I went on to do all the things…the Ivy League school and investment banking and so I was great at achieving around that. And I grew up in a home where we did a lot of public speaking. My dad was the national champion. And we practiced writing talks and giving talks at home. And so I had sort of been in my bones, right. My grandfather was a preacher and this was all a part of my family and upbringing. But I was always so good growing up, very intelligently, in a way that was very well-spoken, sharing other people's ideas and synthesizing other people's ideas and maybe my opinion about other people's ideas but nothing that I would that was original from within myself.

KC: 07:45 And so when I graduated college and went onto investment banking I just entered into this time period of like, “what am I doing? This is such a wrong turn” and I quit that and I ended up traveling for five years around the world. And during that time I went through…I mean it was a massive period of awakening for me, a spiritual awakening of shedding this identity of everything that I have been lovingly molded to become, to find out who I really am and during that time I not only…I guess the way that I would say it is is that it was an awakening that was also an awakening in my body. Dance became so alive for me and that the power of living in the moment through my body became the root of everything in my life. And in that space what began to emerge was this voice of incredible creativity and insight and compassion and wisdom…but I felt so much self-doubt about sharing it.

KC: 08:47 I doubted so much the value and the…”who am I to share this?” was the big conversation that was going on in my brain at the time. And the feeling of being held back from that which wanted so much to emerge and to give and be supportive and seen…the suffering and feeling held back was so intense.  And so for several years my path was a deep inner profound angst and unwinding of that deep restriction within myself.  And the big turning point for me really was when I traveled during my journeys to the West Bank in Palestine and I had friends who were Israeli and friends who are Palestinian that I had met in my travels. And I stayed with a Palestinian family in the West Bank during a very scary time. It was right after Arafat died, not long after the Second Intifada and it was a lot of bombs going off and things but I still went and I had a life changing experience there becoming very dear friends with a young woman my age who lived in the West Bank.  And when she shared with me about her dreams of going to travel the world and going to a wonderful university to study psychology so she could help her people deal with the intensity of anger that they felt about the situation with Israel in a way that wasn't violent.

KC: 10:12 She felt like in this lifetime she was being punished by God because she had all these dreams but she could not actually logistically do any of them because she could not get outside of the wall of the West Bank.  And that was the moment for me when I realized that as an American woman anything that I dream or want to create or do logistically I'm completely free if I want to do it or dream it, I can! But the place where I'm held prisoner is in my own mind. And that was a defining moment for me where my quest to liberate myself and my voice became about something so much bigger than myself. I knew that the liberation of my voice was tied up in the liberation of every woman's voice on this planet and it was my responsibility to free myself and do everything I could to support other women and their freedom and liberation of their own voice, and their own mind and wisdom and the value they want to give. 

KC: 11:14 There's so much more that I can say about how things unfolded from there but that was the big turning point for me and it is still what I come back to all the time.  Because I still feel self-doubt and I still feel fear and I still feel angst about these new levels of bringing my work in my own voice out into the world. But when I connect to the commitment to that which is greater than myself and that I have a responsibility to do this not just for myself but for others there's a strength and a freedom to act in that that I have found to be more powerful than anything I know.

Lisa: 11:49 You started to touch on the fact that we all do have fear, we all have constraints and self-doubt and voices that say “You're not enough.  Who are you to speak up!?” And I see that over and over again not only of myself but in my community and at all ages. It seems that we all face that. And since you are an expert at helping women and I think soon, men too right!? 

KC: 12:13 Almost everything I do is for women, right. All my group programs, private clients — I'm a speechwriter; I help women write their talks. But I have had men privately come to me and increasingly in the last year to support them and it has been such a joy because the men that I've attracted are men who have these deeply, clear — I guess in some ways what you would call these feminine values. So I have definitely opened the doors to working with men privately in crafting their talks and messages. One of the big things that that is shifting…Last year I went to speak and teach at the Unite Nations. I went and I spoke and I taught but I also did workshops where I brought together women and men about the kind of environment or listening that really supports the genius of the feminine mind and how the feminine mind thinks. Yes, supporting women's voices is essential but it has got to happen in concert with men.

KC: 13:07 What's probably the most valuable thing for me to share in this moment is that what we're seeing at this time with the #metoo movement is a growing, agreed upon consensus that it simply is not OK for women to be walking around in fear. And it was like this awakening that's happening, understanding how much attention has been arrested, how much attention it has pulled for us subconsciously living in a world or in organizational environments where women are managing that whole dynamic with men and their own feelings of discomfort or lack of safety under the radar. Rather it's something that's existing in the moment or because of abuse that's existed in the past that is now coloring our present moment experience. And underneath that pull of attention is so much incredible creativity. So much of the deep well of the feminine genius mind that we're about to see just a complete other level, an explosion of that a range of creativity. And women feeling safe is a really important aspect of that and just bringing that to light and having men in our life who genuinely care about it and who seek to understand the impact of that is such a healing. It's such a healing. And with that comes an even greater sense of freedom. It just frees things. It's like when you think about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. When your attention is caught in the lower levels of safety and security it's really hard to access these higher levels of self actualization and high high levels of creativity. So I think that having these conversations and asking how can I be your support is a healing balm of a conversation in and of itself to begin with.

Lisa: 14:58 Happily there are many great men who are participating in that way.

KC: 15:03 Yes. There are so many phenomenal men in this world.

Lisa: 15:07 So as far as the women's role…you offered to share a few tips for how women can move beyond the fear and the self-doubt that does hold so many people from speaking up…to share some specific strategies or tactics for doing so.

KC: 15:22 Yes.  Now there's a couple of different arenas in which this plays out. There's this speaking publicly on stage and all the fear that can come with with doing that and the feelings of being held back in the intensity of the experience inside our bodies. Before we speak –I know it; I get it very intense inside myself but there's also the intensity of speaking up and sharing the truth whether even in private conversations, speaking up in group meetings, whether it's personal conversations or having brave conversations that you need to have in your work environments. How can we do that and feel an internal sense of safety in those moments even when it actually legitimately does feel intense so that we can speak our truths…so that we can be clear what we want to say and say it clearly and in a way that actually creates impact and change.

KC: 16:15 So the first thing to understand is that that intensity that you feel inside of your body, it is part of it. It's not like you have to get rid of that completely in order to be free to speak publicly or to speak your truth in that moment. You are accessing a place of power within. It's like you're being plugged into a socket and the universe is just sending you bucket loads of Chi and pure energy to support you in that moment of speaking your truth. So the first thing is to realize, is that this intensity is not something horrible that is happening to you, that you're victimized or that you need to get rid of it or numb it out. The secret is to say yes to it and to recognize that this is a feeling of intense power inside of your body. It's not comfortable but when we transform our relationship to it then we find incredible states of freedom and so the changing of the relationship to it looks like first of all saying yes to it…and the more we say yes to it and drop the resistance something switches.

KC: 17:22 There's still a lot of sensation in our bodies but there is something else that comes in…there's a grace that comes in. There's a freedom.  There's a spaciousness that comes in and it's palpable. And that in, and of itself, right there, that's the space where that freedom lives.  And then the second thing I would say is there are so many practices that I teach about how to be with this intensity of energy in a way that's really effective. That brings us a sense of internal safety. That also gives us a lot of presence and charisma. There's a practice that I teach called the Caress of the breath and it works like magic. It takes a second!

KC: 18:00 When you feel that intensity in your body without trying to make it go away, without trying to change it or make it anything other than it is, you bring your attention to it and like your breath is some kind of loving hand, just like you would to a child. You just breathe into it without trying to make it go away. This practice can create so much freedom in the moment and it creates a sense of internal safety.

Lisa: 18:25 So the practice is…what would that look like?

KC: 18:28 So imagine you go and you walk on stage or you're standing in front of someone and you're about to have a really important conversation that feels edgy, right. And you have all this intensity in your body. The practice is to, in just even one breath, and you can use as many breaths as you need, without trying to make that intensity in your body that we usually call fear go away. Without trying to get rid of it, without trying to numb it out or anything. You see it and just, using your breath like it's a loving hand, just caress that intensity inside of your body and in a moment it shifts you from a state of being in fight or flight or total fear into a place of internal safety. And in that space of internal safety it may still feel intense in your body.

KC: 19:23 But there is a deeper part of you that comes in, that shows that for that experience and is able to, from that place, communicate from your essence. Not from the fear or from some kind of performance that you put on top of the fear but from your actual authentic essence…to deliver that truth, to speak that idea, or to have that conversation.  And that breath is very powerful. And there's so many different domains of life or you can use this but in the realm of speaking truth publicly and important conversations it's like gold.

Lisa: 19:58 So since we're getting this amazing opportunity to learn from you right here in this moment and a kind of sneak peek into your knowledge base let's keep on going. I know that so many of my community are people at a turning point in their lives and beginning to ask themselves “Is this really the life that I want? This is my life. What do I want to do with it?” And people sometimes are leaving careers and relationships and they're getting ready to head out into a little world in new ways that they maybe haven't been engaged in for a while.

Lisa: 20:26 And so they're people that have so much potency and so much potential. But for many clarifying exactly what it is they have to say before they even are ready to do that Caress of the Breath but really, understanding what their message is… sometimes that can be really challenging. What are some of the starting points for thinking about that or what's one strategy that people could use to get clearer on their message?

KC: 20:51 Yes. So what one of the most important things to access in getting that clarity…there's a Tibetan teaching that says that compassion and wisdom live on opposite sides of the same coin. So when we want to access this well of our transformative ideas and the clarity about our message the place to start is with our compassion.

KC: 21:14 And so the first thing I would say is to really feel into the situation.  Or the challenge that's going on in the world that you feel really deeply called to help transform. And that vision of another way that possible and to feel into the actual experience.  It's not so much a head thing or a mind thing but more the heart thing and your feeling sense. The impact of the situation is for people and without needing to change it without needing to make anything different than it is just like that Caress of the Breath, we send care!

KC: 21:54 And love to those people, to that situation. That's the flow of compassion.

KC: 21:59 That is the flow of compassion. So, now we're in that flow. We're actually there. It's a heart-felt body-felt experience, not just thinking about it. And from this place, we can ask some really important questions because now when we access compassion our mind settles down into what I call the heart of the mind.

KC: 22:21 This is where the wellspring of wisdom lives within us. So from this place then we can ask some clarifying questions. And some of the questions maybe if you had this group of people in front of you or a group of people who also genuinely deeply care about the situation and care about another outcome or possibility in our world for the situation, is to imagine that they're sitting in front of you and to think to yourself “wow, this is the only time I may get to talk to this group of people. This is it.”

KC: 22:55 And so what is it that we need to do and what is the most important essential thing that I need to say to them that will have them shift the way they see things so that another way becomes possible for them or for the way they see the future of the situation in the world. If I can give them one shift in how they see things, one shift in perspective that would transform the situation for them for the better, what is that shift in perspective?  And another way of saying this is to write down these phrases. “Most people think “X” but the reality, or the truth is “Y”…whatever that is right. That's a shift in perspective right there. We are meeting people where the current thinking is and walking them through into another way of saying things and that's very important because we have to meet people where they're at. You can't just dish out all the wisdom without first talking about the situation or the struggle it's at hand because that's what creates the relatedness and the trust that you really get the situation.

KC: 24:08 And then they're primed and open to hearing your wisdom.

KC: 24:14 So give yourself five to ten minutes, after you felt that compassion, of writing down “most people think ‘X' but the reality or the truth is ‘Y'” and then after you've created that list to go through and think to yourself “If I could only share one, if I only had the time and the opportunity to share one, what is the most important essential shift in perspective that I might share?  What is the one shift in perspective I cannot leave the audience without giving to them?”

KC: 24:42 And that is what I call your Diamond Insight. That is the idea or the shift in perspective that is at the core of the message. That's the one that you want to make sure you get out there and share as much as you can see all the time. It's the great gift of the message of your work in the world. Finding that clarity is priceless.

Lisa: 25:04 That's beautiful and actionable, that's doable. People can sit down and do that! So thank you for sharing that gem.  So my next question is kind of self-serving. It will apply for other people who are just starting out but also for people like me who have a reasonable amount of experience speaking but want to expand their reach. How might they start a career as a speaker and begin landing speaking engagements? How do we strengthen our platform and mobilize people around our message? What are some tips for approaching that?

KC: 25:34 Regardless of where you're at, at any time in your career the first thing I'm going to share with you is that, it's the road to landing quality engagements as quickly as possible…and it is to start with your current network and to let people in your network–and that could be friends and that could be family, but it could also be people that are colleagues or even kind of distant colleagues that you've known from afar and maybe are connected on social media– and that is to reach out and get connected around the message and get connected around the vision. And what that looks like is, for instance, reaching out to someone or to a group of people in your network and saying what it is that you were committed to in your work…to creating in the world through your work and through your message, sharing your message. And that you are committed to getting out there and speaking about this as much as you possibly can to audiences who are ripe for this information in the next year, let's say. Is there anyone that you know that you could connect me with who you feel would be the right fit to have me come and share this message– either a company that you feel is aligned with this vision and message and that may come and with them and be in service to what they're doing. That right there is an enrolling conversation. That doesn't have to do with “hey, I want to be a speaker, can you help me lands of speaking engagements?” Because that's all about you. I find it's also a little harder sometimes to reach out when it's just about yourself but when you're connected to the vision that's greater than yourself it enrolls people who believe what you believe. People who care about the same thing will want to support you in getting out there not because it's supporting you –although maybe there's some people who genuinely really love you and they want to see your success—but because they care about that vision and that message and this is a way they can be in support of that vision…through helping connect you. So that is a very powerful thing and I've had extremely high-leverage speaking engagements that have transformed the face of my whole career in the last few years that were brought to me because people knew what I stand for. And they said to that organization you have to bring in this woman. This is what she stands for. And so it wasn't about me. It's about the message.

Lisa: 27:54 And the Diamond Insight process leads perfectly into that and really sets you up to know what it is you're wanting to put out to the world. Exactly. Fantastic. Thank you.  I want to talk a little bit about parenting because like we mentioned earlier you have metamorphosed from your young pre-child beautiful self into a beautiful badass mama…so maybe just say a little bit on parenting what it's been like for you.

KC: 28:21 My gosh, parenting and what it's been like for me…

Lisa: 28:23 I mean I know that's a broad question and I could drill right down to something more specific but…

KC: 28:30 I mean it's just completely changed my life in the most beautiful ways. My child and has supported me in becoming a woman who is living deeper in my self which is required in order to really show up for him and be deeply present for him. I'm also part of this generation of women who are having children a little later in life. So my kid is 4 and I'm 40 and that has not been easy physically. So I have definitely learned a lot about how to take incredible care of myself and I'm still learning. I mean like a whole other deepening of that phase right now. But that's another aspect and so I'm actually feeling more at home and in tune with my body as a result of being a mom, than I was before and I was pretty in tune. I mean it's just been it's so challenging sometimes but mostly the more that I feel deep self-love and self kindness for myself the easier everything is… being a mom, being with the tantrums, being with the wildness of running a company and having a kid. So it's an incredible lesson and deepening into love and the power of love, every day.

Lisa: 29:59 I think you must be just hitting on something that is central to so many of us who have children we want to be passionately engaged with and also lives and independent lives as adults and as women that we want to be passionately engaged with. And so it takes a lot of attention and consciousness to balance that with the needs of family and kids. And I think you're right that because we are of a generation…I had my first child when I was 33 and my second when I was 40. And it's something that I think our generation really does face a lot more and we also in some ways have that vision for ourselves, maintaining that part of our ourselves in the world, you know, is forefront in our minds.

Lisa: 30:43 So it's not an easy dance but I think it is a really important one. And I have seen your passion and engagement. Just seeing your involvement and how you do a dance practice in the morning, I think you shared a few times. And so I'm kind of interested in you talking a little bit more about this idea of following your passions at all costs. I think you wrote “Don't talk yourself out of it. And something like I remind myself to express my passion in the midst of a lifestyle that's filled with so much responsibility and how we must nourish our souls by making time in our life for creativity no matter what.” So I'm wondering if you share a little bit about your own practices and processes.

KC: 31:22 I thank you for catching that. Most people never talk about that when they ask me things about what I'm up to and that actually, right there, is the most important inner dialogue that goes on with me every day. I am, it's not even just a believer.  It's a matter of, honestly sometimes, my survival. I have to feed my creative passions every day. If I don't I consider that to be a dead life. And I want to be alive. I'm very aware of the preciousness of the time that I have in my life. I've been gifted with a very rich exploration with death in my life and I'm not kidding myself. I know there is no guarantee and what really has me come alive, what has made me feel most connected to this mysterious force that guides my life and my company and my business and everything, and what makes me really happy is being alive in my body and expressing. And for me that is through dance. Sometimes it is through writing. But it's through the aliveness that I feel in my body so I built, I took a shed that I bought from Home Depot, it's like a 10 x 12 shed and I converted into my dance shed on my property. And every day I'm committed to dancing or doing this beautiful feminine Chigong practice that I do down by the creek. Spending time in nature. Yeah this is what really fuels me. And I feel it's so important. I'm a better mother.  And I'm more connected and creative and have the energy for everything I'm doing with this major company that is growing so quickly right now. When I am overflowing from my love of life and my passion and doing what feeds me. So when I don't have a lot my life is hard. I feel more prone to suffering. I feel more prone to stress and being overwhelmed and unhappy. And that comes out in less than loving ways with my son and with myself. So I am just very committed to being a force of love as much as I possibly can and feeding my passions and this is a central part of that.

Lisa: 34:02 So I want to just jump off onto that because I lost my mom about a year a little more than a year ago and it's changed me and I found ways too. And you touched already on death and how it teaches us about the preciousness of the time that we have here but also our relationship with our parents really does influence our inner work of parenting and how we patterned our relationships with our kids on what we've learned from our parents. And so I know you've done a lot of work and a lot of thinking on attachment issues and exploration and I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about what you learned from that journey.

KC: 34:42 Wow it's incredible. So the big thing that I will say, you know…I think that the thing that I realize for me with my son who is the constant teacher for me… There was a place where this last year things were just really challenging. Last year it was a very difficult year. A lot of change and a lot of profound healing. I found myself so easily avoiding connection through work. I found myself easily, easily frustrated and angry with my kid and overwhelmed and isolated. And I realized that I had some deep things within myself as a child that had been left unattended to, and were playing out in my life in many ways and affecting my son. And I wasn't ok with that and I had really distanced myself from my parents because I felt like I just couldn't be who I really am with them. And there was so much unhealed stuff that going home felt so unsafe for me and so I reached out to my parents who missed me so much. And I have my mother my father and my stepmother. And I expressed to each of them individually how much I really want a real relationship with them. That I know how precious this is and that I want to spend it with them but that I want it to be really real and connected and I want deeper connection and love with them and would they'd be willing to do intensive therapy with me? Each of them individually. And they all wrote back, “How soon can we do it? I couldn't…I mean, I was so blown away. I know that that is not common for every parent to me that way. I'm very blessed. I mean, I just have tears in my eyes thinking about it. I'm very blessed. And so I did. I have this wonderful therapist who (I can give names). She's amazing. She's based in San Rafael, California and she has for over three decades, she has spent helping people who are in a relationship, either romantic or marriage relationships or relationships with their families, re-pattern from what they call attachment wounds…places where in a relationship we either avoid or feel anxious in love and that starts usually from our childhood and it carries through in our adult lives until we have someone we can feel that with. And she helps facilitate that. And so I did two-day intensives with each of my parents individually with her and we just heal the past. And it was incredible. It was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had about the power of genuine care…and love and how in just a moment something that has been a wound for someone's whole life, to be met in the space of just genuine care and no defensiveness, can be healed in an instant. And so now I have this incredible thing with my family –where my parents are all in their 60s and 70s — where we've healed the past. I feel so free to be myself with them and we're reinventing our relationships now in the way that we communicate. And it's so wonderful. It's so incredible and it's had me personally relax more into relationship with everyone in my life.

KC: 38:13 I've been more of the sort of, like a mix of the anxious-avoidant type and now I feel this place of deeper security and connection and that I also know that I have the tools within myself and the power within myself to share my voice in service of healing. In truth that needs to be spoken in relationships so we can maintain the field of love.

Lisa: 38:35 Wow that is amazing and beautiful and I have to say that it's just another example of my experience of you, even though it has been distant, is just that every time you speak you have such a power of deepening, of going into the deep into being authentically, emotionally expressed. And so I just felt so much of that power of that experience and just thank you so much for sharing that. And thank you so much for being a model that kind of authenticity. Thank you so much.

Lisa: 39:12 I always ask my guests what their Super Power is and sometimes they have a word for it and sometimes they don't. My theory is that a lot of times Super Powers are hard to identify because there are so natural and normal to us. But do you have a word for your Super Power? To me, it seems like something about authenticity.

KC: 39:32 Well it's so interesting. There's this personality assessment tool, which I never pay attention to those things, but I was roped into doing one of these about four years ago with a guy that's his specialty and he works with companies and whatnot. I did it. And what we came out with at the end is that the number one driver my whole life is Exploration but my navigation system is authenticity.

KC: 40:05 And that just feels…I mean that's so me! I mean I've lived so many lives in this life and so much adventure and constant reinvention and you know just the quest to reveal even more what is true and what is true and what is true…to create from that place and love and live from that place….is everything.  So I feel like you're right. It feels very true.

Lisa: 40:24 Yeah. I mean I think you're also underlining something that is one of the characteristics of Super Powers…it's the thing that you see repeating itself over and over in your life no matter what the career, no matter the relationship, no matter the circumstance or the age. It's the skill set or the inclination or the operating system, the powerful operating system that shows up time and time again. So thanks for outlining that also. I really want to appreciate you and I also want…you mentioned WomanSpeak and your growing company. If you can share a little bit about what WomanSpeak does and who it serves and how people can learn more about it.

KC: 41:06 I would love to thank you.  It makes me so happy to talk about. So there's something we've created which a lot of people are familiar with Toastmasters, which is really the most widespread longest standing place where people can go and have consistent practice in public speaking. But it has a more masculine style. It teaches a masculine style of speaking and what leadership and professionalism looks and feels like. And even though it's an amazing system and people get enormous value out of it what so many women need is to understand that they can be fully who they are as women and not have to cut off a part of themselves. Turn off a part of themselves in order to be taken seriously, in order to be trusted professionally. And we provide the alternative that supports women and feeling totally free to be themselves and to learn how to actually harness the power of our feelings our feminine nature the gifts of being so powerful and communicating so clearly and compelling from that space and we have a whole body of work that we've developed. Now we have transitioned that into having women all over the world —we have over 100 circles which is mind-blowing to me in such a short period of time.  We've hit a nerve and it's growing so quickly. Any woman can start a WomanSpeaks circle in her local community. We provide all the curriculum, all the training. And she gets paid to run the circle her members came with a membership dues leader to make a commission and the members get to join these circles and get skilled in speaking their truth in any circumstance…public talks, group meetings, writing and delivering epic talks, feeling really skilled at getting clear on what they want to say, speaking spontaneously in the moment, powerful storytelling…so they come to these circles twice a month and they practice their public speaking. And it's just so fun because our culture is so rooted in celebration and dance and being in our bodies and the speaking from that place.

KC: 43:14 And so even the most professional buttoned-up women have found such a deepened level of freedom and clarity and power in this body of work. It fits into anybody's model of wherever they're coming from and they're now all over the world. So that's WomanSpeak. Anybody can become a leader and anybody can join a circle in her local community. And then what we also have for this year, we're going to have our first WomanSpeak International Festival. It's happening in April in Sedona. And just imagine it's like three days of being in the most beautiful places on the planet with tons of other women celebrating the rise of women's voices, cheering women on as they get up on the stage to speak.. doing so themselves. Workshops on all of these different modalities, from speech-writing to storytelling to transforming fear into freedom. All kinds of things and we have an epic dance party and we're going to have our first GirlsSpeak gala so whenever a woman joins a WomanSpeak circle a portion of her initiation fee finds a high school girl to go through GirlSpeak. We're going to have our first GirlSpeak graduates and we're very excited about. So it's going to be an awesome, fun, super juicy incredible weekend. So we're excited about this.

Lisa: 44:32 Well wow that's amazing. I will include links in the show notes to WomanSpeak and to all the things that you've mentioned already. Is there any other way that my listeners can learn more about what you're doing, follow you on social media or just generally connect with you.

KC: 44:47 Well the one thing I would say is we have a free four-part video training series that helps women in transforming the fear of speaking truth publicly into freedom and turning self-doubt into really natural authentic confidence and knowing the value what you have to say. So this is at speakup.kcbaker.com and it's free. So that's a great great place to just come into our world and experience the unorthodox but very effective teaching we've got going on. That's what I would say is right the best way to come in and get a taste of what we're up to.

Lisa: 45:27 So KC I just want to say again thank you so much for being a model for women in the world and for supporting women in finding their voices. I appreciate you and I appreciate all that you are doing for the world. Thank you so much.

Lisa: 45:43 So that's our wrap up for today. As always, information can be found in the show notes at www.lisabl.com/18. But there's a couple more things I want to point your attention to. At one point in our conversation KC talked about the amazing therapist she worked with and she said she would mention names but she didn't.  So I just want to let you know, that therapist's name is Carista and her work can be found at www.confusedaboutlove.com. Also KC mentioned WomanSpeak. I'm going to be attending the festival. And there's still time for you to register now since it takes place on April 20th to the 22nd. You can find out more information at WomanSpeak.com. I'm really looking forward to being there. Please do reach out to me if you'd like to join or go straight to the web site. You can contact me at hey at lisabl dot com and I will also be starting a women's speaking circle, probably based on WomanSpeak in the San Francisco Bay area. That's another thing, if you're interested please do reach out to me. Say hello send me an email and absolutely join the Facebook page at Super Power U on Facebook. And the group page there as well.

Lisa: 47:05 I look forward to being more connected. And to all of us working together to access our authentic selves and to find our voices and our stories so we can bring them forth into the world.

VO: 47:18 Thank you for listening to the Super Power U Podcast. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes and get more information at Lisa B.L. dot com.

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