Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I've interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. To join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk That's S-E-E Change Happenn dot Co dot UK. Of course, you catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places.

So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode 105 with the title Voice for Change and I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Fiona Brennan Scott. Fiona is a trainer, coach, speaker and author of Breathtaking Communication. When I asked Fiona to describe her superpower, she said she can identify the strengths people have with their engagement skills and key changes that will be transformative. Hello, Fiona, welcome to the show.

Hello, Joanne, and thank you for having me here.

Absolute pleasure. So, Fiona, voice for change, how does that resonate with you?

I love the description. Thank you very much. I say in my book that our voice has got a voice with a small v and a capital v, because the small voice is the physical thing, what's made in our voice box. But voice with a capital v is our identity. It's who we are. It's what differentiates us from all other living creatures, because we get to use words and language to express ourselves and put ourselves out there in the room.

Oh, that's beautiful. I think that's really beautiful. I can relate. So much voice is so much more than just the noise and the sound and the waves that resonates in our ear. As you say, the identity expresses our happiness, our sadness, our passion, whatever it may be. I think that's truly beautiful.

It also helps explain why there is so much fear around public speaking, because to put our identity out into a space is an extremely vulnerable act and we take speaking for granted because we've been talking all our lives and we think everyone should be able to do it. But actually, to stand up and speak is sharing our story, our thoughts, our feelings with the world, and to be rejected, to be dismissed is an extremely painful act. So when I work with the client, I hold the preciousness of that identity and seek to honour it in my work with them. So I consider it a very. It's almost emotionally surgical to do that work and to help them have the courage to grow and change and dare to achieve their. To accomplish their full.

Because when you are public speaking or standing up in front of a group, whether you're a leader, briefing the team, state of the nation talk, or leading a project, whatever it may be, or professionally speaking, you are effectively putting yourself out there. Your ideas and people are going to judge you. We're very judgmental species, aren't we? How you look, how you sound, let alone way we think and what we're telling people. There's a whole judgement there. And if you're not used to that, that fear, and it's a real fear, isn't it? That of being judged or rejected, that all comes into this public speaking error, doesn't it?

Yes. And my mission is to level the playing field, because there's only a small, select group of people, particularly in the UK, that are stepping up and speaking out, especially in government. And what if we could level the playing field and give everyone the courage, whether it's gender, race, whatever identity group they belong to, to be heard and not fear the rejection? I think we would have a true democracy where we would have people representing us who are good people.

That's an interesting saying. Talk about good people. Are people fundamentally good or bad? I think there's a perception that people are fundamentally bad or out for themselves. But studies I've seen show that people inherently believe they are good people. Everyone believes they're a good person from their own perspective. No one wake up and say, I'm an evil person, would they? They all believe they have a perspective, that they're doing good for some reason.