Be Brave: How to Show Up Authentically with Nancy Barrows
It can sometimes be difficult for women to be authentic because they feel like they must adapt to every situation. Society tells us that we need to put on a 'social mask' in order to fit in and that being vulnerable is being weak.
In this episode, you learn how to create a brave space where difficult conversations can be had together. This will support us in being our most authentic self.
In This Episode You Will Learn About:
Removing the social mask
Workplace authenticity
Radiating real
Embracing vulnerability with bravery
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About The Guest:
Nancy Barrows is among the Top 50 Most Impactful People on LinkedIn. She is the CEO @ Voice Vibe and Founder of Chief Excitement Officer @The Chick with a Tool Belt. As a Keynote speaker, Nancy's purpose is to inspire and help others discover their true selves by taking off the 'social masks' they wear and showing up authentically.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancy-debra-barrows-m-s-ccc-slp-92124213/
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Resonating with Vulnerability, Honesty and Genuineness
During the pandemic, I found LinkedIn. And I was one of those people who always said, Sorry, LinkedIn. And I take it back that I have a job, I don't need LinkedIn, like, why would I be on there, and I couldn't have been more wrong. So I get on to LinkedIn, and I'm greeted by this amazing community, this community of just people who show up for one another cheerled one another offer support for one another. And I knew nothing about LinkedIn, I didn't know the algorithms, I know what you were supposed to do what you were not supposed to do.
And so showing up ”authentically” happened because I didn't know that there were rules. And over the course of a year, it was just a year this past November. So I'm not good at math, but I'm gonna say it's about almost a year and a half that I've been on LinkedIn. I would post and people would make comments that were very insightful or personal to whatever I had spoken about. But they also said how much they loved my vulnerability and how genuine I was being and how honest I was being and it made me stop and think if people are saying that if they feel the need to comment on it, it must mean that it doesn't happen very often. I need to do more of this, I need to do more showing up just like this. And when I came onto the platform, I had nothing to sell, I had a job. I didn't, I was just there to be an add value in any way I could. And I started by telling my story of childhood trauma, and it's always hard for people to hear it and I always give permission receive it however you do. There's no judgment on my part. But I was sexually abused by my grandfather till I was 16 years old. And subsequently, there was the eating disorder, the major depressive episodes confronting him dropping out of college.
And the first week I was on LinkedIn, I found myself telling the story, because as I started to talk about the childhood trauma, it hit me, you know, I was part of the problem. If I was unwilling to say the words if I was unwilling to show up, tell my story. I was contributing now. Not everybody's there, not everybody's there and able to do it and not everybody is it safe for them to do it. So I share my story for those who can't yet share theirs. But that's really where I started and showing up so vulnerably and so honestly really resonated with people and I went full force I was, you know, doing Gosh, in the beginning I had I had, you know, two shows before I even had LinkedIn live that I was a host and a co host of, and then I do shout out Saturday and what's good Wednesday with Brian Schulman. And I was showing up at this and showing up at that, and about six months, and I was completely burned out. And I took a really big step back.
And actually, what I would tell people is that I just changed how I was showing up. It's just showing up differently, because it's hard to hear you're taking a step back, right, that we judge ourselves for that, unfortunately. But if I'm just changing how I'm showing up, well, I'm still it's still showing up right there and what I'm doing. And over the course of the year, I was meeting people and talking to them. And it was reflected back to me that I'm really easy to talk to. People feel really comfortable with me, which is an honor and a privilege. And I have this gift of the how to eat an elephant gift. People who come will be talking to me about things that they are in and I'd see all the ways that they could be doing that, and be able to share that with them. But first, the conversation was the vulnerable ones like
Who are you?
What's your story?
What's your voice?
What are the things that you like?
How do you want to share that with the world - because that's your clear vision and everything else comes from there. Because ultimately, we want to do business with humans. We want to understand that the person that's sitting across the table on the other side of this room on the other side of the phone can really understand what we're going through. Right? If you show up and you say, oh my gosh, I'm 10 minutes late because the cat vomited on my way out of the house, you know, like and someone can go, oh, gosh, totally get it. You know, my dog did that yesterday, right? But to really be so my career path has been something of a journey of the universe giving me hip checks back into finding where my spot is.
And so where it's landed now is I continue to be a speech-language pathologist. And I bring all those skills with me, of course, but I became a keynote speaker, six months, seven months after joining LinkedIn, and I continue to do that and love that. I'm still alive show host. And I love that as well. I love the immediate interaction. And I started the radiating real campaign which came from all of the places of people saying Wow, your real you showed up and how much that meant to them. And I started the chip with the tool belt, I am the chief excitement officer of the chip with the tool belt. And I call myself a Sherpa. Because really what I'm doing is I'm given the privilege by my clients to journey with them, to journey with them to finding what it is, who they really are, how they want to bring that to whatever it is they're showing up at. And then what to do with it, so to speak. So I had a friend that was an accountant and she loves to bake. She's like, I don't like being an accountant. I've always had this dream of baking, like baking breads and like not having a bakery, but being able to sell them to other plate and we sat down and three sessions in. She's, she's got her logo, she's got all her social app, she has, you know, applied to be a different trade show. And it's just a privilege to be in that moment with someone when they have their aha. And so that's really, you know, yes, I'm a speech pathologist that's always going to be part of my career.
But what is nourishing my soul and making my heart sing these days are the things that I'm doing with other people to help them have a similar journey that I did where I took off my mask, I showed up 100% real 100% of the time and was able to receive that unconditional love and unconditional acceptance that made me want to do it more.
I had a very similar experience and you really pour into how LinkedIn has Isay. LinkedIn changed my life. And it I had LinkedIn for years never was really on it kind of saw it as a job search platform. And I was going through a really difficult time in my life. It was a year where the My husband had just came home from a year deployment, the pandemic hit and my mom was taken by suicide all within a three month period. And I was going through a lot of emotional turmoil and challenges and guilt because my mom and I had been estranged for some period of time, and I started posting on LinkedIn. And I just started to take as you say, take off that mask and be okay to be vulnerable and be okay to be authentic. And through that process. I found it to be very healing, very healing to just release all this everything that's been going on, be honest about it. And then from there, people started to say, thank you so much for sharing that post. I've been through it like you said, been through a similar experience.
Overcoming Your Challenges are Your Superpower
And then what I've learned is sometimes your superpower is the challenges that you've overcome. So you've had challenges, you've learned to overcome them, and then that becomes your superpower. Because then you're able to empower other people with those same tools. And what I've learned is resiliency is one of mine, and being able to turn life's biggest challenges into your greatest strength and transforming self doubt into competence and courage, just like yours is how to show up authentically. And I truly would have never thought very similar to you. We had our careers, this is what we were doing. And yes, that is a part of it. But I have now started a business just like you. And we get to be a part of really transforming lives by helping people see their superpower and providing them with the tools to overcome their challenges and do what they want to do. So I'm glad that you share your story. Because I, I always talk and I always encourage people to get back on LinkedIn, you know, especially because some of the other social media sites are becoming much more cluttered with all sorts of stuff.
But I find with LinkedIn, it really is a community where they support you, they connect with you. They provide you guidance and suggestions. And I learn something new every single day from LinkedIn and the people that I've been able to meet all over the world that I would have never interacted with. If it wasn't for some of the relationships I've forged on there that have been opened the doors to several possibilities, just like you speaking engagements and, and coaching and things along those lines that really fill up that cup with purpose.
The Two Strongest Tools for Authenticity
I agree - passion and purpose. I found passion and purpose with LinkedIn. I've learned and this is what I teach others really is that two of our most powerful tools on any social media, but especially LinkedIn, there's something very special about LinkedIn that's different from the other platforms. But it’s that personal content and that vulnerability that are two of our strongest tools if we use them on social media in general. But especially on LinkedIn, like you said, it's a special community. And I don't know if that I always say I don't know if that's because everybody on LinkedIn that I have met has met me right where I am today, as opposed to like your Facebook, I went back and found people that I had lost touch with or they found me or you know, I don't know, Instagram is just like people like my stuff, you connect with them. And LinkedIn, there's something about someone meeting you right where you're at, and taking a step towards you. As opposed to like away or just not just sort of watching from afar, like you're an animal in the zoo, like with a curiosity kind of thing. And I think that's the amazing thing is, that's what I find that LinkedIn community does, it's like, you open up, you share your personal content, you get vulnerable, and they step forward. They're the people who stepped forward. And they in turn, have given me the opportunity to do the same for them because they're getting vulnerable to, and we talked about safe space, I like to call it brave space. Because it's a space that we enter into together. Safe spaces like, Danielle, you're going to bare your soul and we're all going to support you right. And we guarantee we're here, we support you, brave spaces, like you know, Daniel, you'll go first, I'm right behind you, I'll go second, we're all gonna get vulnerable. We're all going to do it together. And there's something transformative about stepping into that space.
And I encourage everyone, of course, it's a passion of mine to really learn to take off that mask, learn to show up as you are. Learn to step into the power of vulnerability and your personal content. You know, there's, again, you reached out when you were in need, which is incredibly challenging for most of us to do, right. I have gotten much better at it over the years. And I know when I asked for help, the response is overwhelmingly positive. And so another thing that I work with clients on is like, what's true and helpful? Like, what's your what's your glow? What's your grow? And what's your let go from this experience, right? So your narrative wants you to take away something that never happened. You're feeding a narrative that when you ask for help, people are gonna think less of you think you're weak, they're gonna say no, they don't care. No one shows up whatever your personal narrative is. But if you look at it, and you glow grow and like go, like, Where's the place for me to learn here? Right? I did a really great job. I did this I posted this that was really hard for me glow. Your grow is look, people responded. I'm putting this in the file in my head, and I'm changing the narrative and you're let go is the stuff that's not serving you. It's not true. It's not helpful. Let it go. And doing that well. Not easy and starts with a level of awareness, of course, that it's happening. has been so powerful for me, which is why I share it with other people. But there are so many people like you and I who didn't start sharing our stories, expecting anything in return. And what we found was, again, passion purpose, this community, a family I never knew I had in a community I never knew I needed, quite frankly.
You nailed it right on the head when it comes to meeting you right where you're at. And I've learned from my some of the challenges that I've experienced, overcoming severe postpartum depression, and in a position where I needed help, to take care of myself to be able to take care of premature newborns, it was learning how to take care of myself. And part of that was asking for help. And what I found is a lot of people changing that narrative, we get so caught up sometimes in the Why don't want to be a burden to people. The reality is people want to help, they just don't always know how. And so if you're able to say, hey, I need help. My mother-in-law was amazing. When I was having my newborns, she took care of cooking and all of those things so that I can get better so I can eat and then I can take care of my newborns and but some people don't always know what is going to be the best help for you. And so being able to be honest with yourself, and as you say, like go from those negative stories that we're telling ourselves that don't serve us. And most of the time, they're not even true stories. Absolutely. And ask and be vulnerable.
What Authenticity Really Means
We hear these words - authenticity and vulnerability, and they get thrown around a lot. But what does authenticity mean to you?
I agree, we hear it all the time. What is it, that genuineness, that realness? But what is that for me? It was making a commitment to show up 100% me 100% of the time. And for me, that meant I had my ugly, unsexy snotty days, still showing up still putting myself out there. Because we're all living life. We know how hard it is, we know how oh my gosh, day to day, we know how hard it can be. But we're not willing to put that piece out there. That piece of our struggle the piece of the like, today was a frustrating today day, I'm a positive person, but you know, and I wanted to hit everybody I came in contact with today, you know, whatever it is, or, you know, just like whether I'm crying or you know exactly what it is and you share that. And I guarantee and you can come back to me personally and say you were wrong, that if you share something that's causing you the dark, the ugly, the unsexy, the snotty, there's someone else who is either there now at the same time, or someone who has been there and people will show up for you and you're showing up is going to help the people who are there and think they're alone.
So for me it's again it's showing up how I am however that is I have and that's the hashtag radiating real campaign right. It's post a picture or a video talk about it talk about how hard it is to show up fresh faced or you know, you're so used to being you know, it started with take a picture when you woke up in the morning and then we realized as I was going through with all the people were posting, I realized I can't dictate how you radiate real it's different for everyone. Right? So for some people, it's that fear of my hair isn't done and I have no makeup on for other people. It's you know, showing up crying or showing up and telling what's going on in their life, but the whole idea was just show up. Just show up as you are, give yourself that permission to receive the unconditional love and acceptance that we all deserve, like bare minimum deserve. And so I have radiated real crying, I've radiated real in my bed exhausted, I have radiated real with mascara all over my face. Because the night before I was so tired that I didn't take my makeup off. And guess what, like, hey, that's all of us. I've radiated real by sharing parts of my story. I really real by asking people to celebrate with me to celebrate me, right? Sometimes it's not even just all the hard stuff, it's like, I need to be celebrated a little bit here. Like I need to be reminded,
I have another thing that I do with clients, and I say as three of your best friends family member, someone who you know, loves you unconditionally, to write you an email about how they see you. It's a really powerful exercise. And for me, what's happened over time is between having done that myself with people paying attention to the comments people make, or the DMS I get or the phone calls I have, you get to a point where I started saying to myself, and no one I've shared it with has come back to me and said it doesn't work, I'm willing to hear it doesn't. Like, I'm not smarter than all those people. I can't be so arrogant to think I know better if they're all telling me that I am kind and generous, or whatever it is smart, successful, beautiful. Who am I to think I know better? When these people who love me wouldn't tell me this if they didn't believe it. And all these, you know, there's all this evidence again, that narrative, right? That internal report card. And so to get to that place where you share yourself fully, and all different ways. It can be a picture, it can be a story, it can be a video, it can be sending an email to someone and saying please, and I say email because it's good to have that tangible thing to go back and look at you can have the phone call, you can do it, you know, that kind of thing. But I think it's best to do it, where you have it to see it. And learn what real is from doing it that way from starting and I will say real is not about cracking open your chest and telling everybody every secret you've ever had. Like that's not real at all. Nobody does that. We're all entitled to our secrets and our privacy. Right? There's nothing that says that because I show up wearing makeup that I'm not radiating real. It's still me I'm still here today I felt tired. I wanted to look like I didn't feel tired as you know, not only for myself, but the people who will see me to let them know you were worth the effort. Like I wanted to be here in a way that you were worth the effort. I got myself together for you because you're I value you and I see and hear you really, if I can make people feel seen, heard and valued. I am the luckiest woman on the face of this planet.
Radiate Realness is Different for Everybody
I like how you say that radiating reel is different for everybody some of the feedback that I received as we did this. I was with an organization and we did what's called a 360 review where they provide you get feedback from the people that directly report to you you're the people that you work with in the same level and then also your manager and so actually the feedback was not authentic and not a risk taker and that was when that happened it really hit me to the core I remember crying and going well what does authenticity mean? What does being a risk taker which now I don't think anyone would ever say that because I've shared everything about my life some of the struggles I've learned along the way I've started a business and taking a risk but I what I heard you say was showing up real is different radiating real is different for everybody. I was teased my entire my most of my upbringing up until I got contact When I was junior high, I was teased for the way that I looked for the way that I talked, I, acne, everything. And so, and part of me building confidence in myself is getting ready each day. So my way of radiating real is that makes that feels my soul. Even if I see anybody you're not, it's not that I'm doing it necessarily for you, I'm doing it for me. And some people will say sometimes, like, well, you're always done up, you're not authentic, because you're always gonna know that is my authentic self. my authentic self is I enjoy getting dressed up because it's it. I like that feeling me wrong, I still, you know, go catchy when I'm going to my kids soccer game, but I just like it. So I'm glad that you speak into that radiating reel is different for everybody.
Nancy Barrows
And I think especially for women, right? Thepiece where, unfortunately, we are judged so harshly whether we “get it right” or we don't, right. Like, here's all the things you're supposed to do. And now you're gonna, you know, reasonably say something about oh, she always She's always got her stuff together. She's radiating real she has four different colors in her hair. She's not radiating real, like, you know, like, whatever it is like, oh, yeah, well, you know, it's easy to radiate real when you're pretty or you know, whatever people because I've had all of it come at me. One of the first radiating real post, I put up actually, a dear friend, and it was my biggest fear came right at me, a dear friend, DM to me and said, Okay, you can tell me you use to filter. And I was devastated. This is somebody who knows me so well. Like I, I'm, I'm a makeup if I feel like it kind of go, I'm gonna do my hair. If I go out my pajamas, like, I just depend on how I'm feeling that day. And all versions of me are real. They're reflecting my inner authentic self and how I'm feeling that day, that moment, whatever's going on for me. And I thought, gosh, if that's what she's thinking, someone who knows me so well, I've damaged this, this effort, like I've damaged the campaign. And I actually went back and made a post because what I realized was instead of backing off, really what I needed to do was move forward, and you need to just address it, I needed to say, Hey, listen, I get that. Some of you look at this picture. And think that maybe I filtered it and I went through like my life like what's happened I've been discriminated against because I'm pretty. I've had people not like me, especially in work environments, where it's like, oh, well, she's getting that because she's pretty, or other women, same thing I've been judged for, that I've been judged for. It's funny, because when I was anorexic people judge me because they were envious, that I was so thin, like I was sick, but you know, like, right, but I got told to eat a hamburger. And people think it's really nice to tell me I'm skinny. I actually don't like the way that feels or sounds, I'm healthy. I happen to be thin. But I don't go around judging anyone because of their weight. You know, it's, again, our experiences anyway, radiating real, and I've gotten off track and probably don't remember where it was, but is about each of us confronting our fears are learned, you know, are learned and created masks. I, I were so many different masks because of my abuse, you know, till 16 I had to be perfect because nobody knew I was captain of my volleyball team, president of my class. There was no I did volunteer work. I was socially a chameleon. In every group, there was no reason to look at me twice. That's what I thought I was supposed to do. Right? That's how I had to survive. And I went through life with the you need to get married, right? By a certain age, you need to get married, you're gonna want kids, right? You're definitely gonna want kids are gonna want to buy a house or you need to, need to, should, should. And I did get married and I got divorced.
And guess what? Radiating real. They were both important steps in my life. Finding gratitude for each piece, which you sort of said earlier, right? Because we learn in each of those steps. And everything I've been through gives me the ability to empathize with not just an understanding, but in knowing when somebody else is in the same place that I've been I am. And that's a gift. And yeah, I've been through a lot of crap. But it it took hard work and time for me to say, You know what, I like who I am. And what I've been through has made me who I am. So those two things exist together in a way that allows me to invite my past to walk alongside of me instead of trying to outrun it, which is exhausting. And so to everyone else, it's radiating real and yes, as women we get judged if we do it right, we get judged if we do it wrong, “and I know there's pressure for men”, it's not that they have pressure for their physique as well. And you know, are you bald? Do you have hair you know? Do you have dad dad jeans on you know, it's you If we're all scared, because the bias comes from the things we've been taught, some of which were taught to us well, before we had the opportunity to learn any differently ourselves.
So radiating real is truly about, if we're talking about the risk, each individual taking that risk themselves. So if to you, you're going to feel super vulnerable, showing up without makeup, to somebody else's, that's your radiating real, right? If you're radiating, I cannot tell you what radiating real is because it truly is, like we're saying individually to each person, what is it that you hide from the world that you don't really want to, but you feel like you have to, those are our radiating real moments. I would never have talked about being sexually abused or, or even having an eating disorder, or even being divorced, was something that like, people aren't really comfortable about, I thought it was failing at divorce, literally, and you don't fail a divorce, there's very few things you fail at. Because every time we “fail”, we're learning something. So you haven't failed. It's not wasted time or effort. But I thought it was failing a divorce because several women in my circle that I was close to had been through it far more gracefully in my head than I was handling it. And here's where radiating real would have helped me a whole lot. I saw what they were comfortable willing to put out to the world because, again, they thought they had to show the world that they were fine, right? I'm going through a divorce, I'm fine. I can do this. I can handle it. And so I thought it was failing because I wasn't okay. I was losing my best friend, I initiated my divorce. Again, somehow I'm the bad guy for that I initiated my divorce because my ex-husband and I were amazing roommates. But we both deserve to be fully loved. And every day I woke up intending to fully love that man and I failed every day. And slowly was impacting him and his confidence. So I didn't have a good tangible reason. There's judgment there. If you guys were such good friends who had such a good life, we did. But we were holding each other back. And we were slowly eating away at each other what made us each ourselves. So there are some really big things that we all agree we have to hide. And then there are some other things that we choose to because they're scary for us. And because we've been part of conversations where other people are judging when it's not about us. So I can't say it enough. And I've been in circles to say in a million times. Reading real is all about that piece of you that you really want to share with the world, but you are holding back. And when you share it, you're radiating real.
That story that you say about failure on divorce and whether to tell people I remember there was a family member who said I was divorced when I was 25 Law people don't actually know that just because I don't talk about it very often. But they were saying, don't tell people your divorce, don't tell people your divorce. And I was 25 years old. I was very young. And when I finally and I felt like I was wearing the scarlet letter, you're divorced. And before I got remarried, it was no one's gonna want you because your divorce did they think that you've given up on your last marriage. So you may give up on this next marriage. And finally, and the people that were kind of judging me for it, I finally looked at them and said, I'm not going to wear the scarlet letter anymore. I don't regret my divorce, that divorce shaped me into who I am today. I would not value the person as much as I do now. If I didn't go through that divorce. Well, after going through that divorce, I learned what were my non negotiables Yes. 100% I gained confidence myself to not settle again. i Every day I tell my husband, I'm like you are my biggest cheerleader. And when he when I say things like I want to go do this with my business or I want to go here he's like, Okay, babe, I'll support you no matter what. I never got that with my ex husband. I never did I remember the time that I earned my first President's Club Award and I called him and he said, Well, what are you doing right now? i You should have called me more his expectation was that I called him five times a day while it wasn't my national sales meeting and that's just not me. I don't like talking on the phone. So it's it's taking off that mask and showing authentically you and not looking at some of your experience in life as failures. It's, they've shaped you into who you are today and when you've learned to overcome them.
Three Steps to Claiming Brave and Authentic as Your Superpowers
Find something about yourself that maybe nobody knows and put it out there.
Look at something in your life, something about yourself that you've been hiding for a really long time, and start with that. Or start with other little pieces. It doesn't even have to be this big, bad secret. It can be just something nobody knows and put it out there. Put your toe in the water and start to start to see the waves. The reality is we want to show up for one another. And the bottom line is we want to see one another succeed. So I encourage you to find something that's deeper and will feel very vulnerable. And if you can set that as your goal.
Write an honest letter to yourself.
It doesn’t even have to be a full letter or formal writing. Take a piece of paper and write “I am” and if you're not sure to how to get started, mine would start “I am a 49-year-old woman who loves…” and just write something you love. I've written them to myself over the years and when I go back and find them I love it. You find all that they make me smile ear to ear because this is a place where I am being if I was to make a list of all the people I was 100% real with would my name be on that list? In this note to yourself, be completely honest.
I am afraid of this.
I am held back by this.
I celebrate this.
I love this.
Connect with people.
I love to connect with people. I am the Chief Engagement Officer at Voice Your Vibe because I love people. So please reach out in a DM. You can go to my Calendly and sign up let's have a conversation. If you are taking a journey and you know you want to get somewhere and you're not sure how to get there, let's talk about that. If that's not the case, let's just talk and be human. There is an abundance of good humans in this world and the more of them than I can connect with and bring into my world, the better human I become.
