Finding our voice (but losing ourselves)

When I was 18, I won a World Championship. It was at the World Schools' Debating Championships in Johannesburg, South Africa, and I also ranked 9th best individual speaker in the world.

Winning a world title (yes, even a pretty dorky one) at eighteen gives one an unusual perspective, to say the least: it seemed, well, obvious that anything was possible with a lot of hard work and practice.

I had come a long way from the shaky, red-faced ten-year-old who used to use about 400 palm cards for a two minute speech!

But here’s the thing.

I think I won because I played the only game I saw around me: I was stern, adversarial, and hyper-aggressive.

And while I was obviously good at being those things, the experience left me with a sense of longing: I had won the tournament but lost something of myself.

I look at photos of me from that time and I see a self-conscious and defensive-looking young woman, carefully calculating exactly how to show up; calibrating just how angry I was allowed to be.

I don’t see the full me.

And it stayed with me, this feeling of incompleteness; of not knowing how to show up as my true self.

It didn’t go away because I won the trophy: if anything, it only revealed itself to me even more.

This is the challenge of powerful likeability - and what I'll be writing my book on, which will be out later this year.
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(Don't worry - I'll tell you all about it when it's available for pre-order!).

Hit reply if you've had an experience of finding your voice but losing yourself - I'd love to hear about it.