Your Voice Creates Your Legacy

00:00:00 - Courtney Elmer
Today we're going to be talking about the most powerful tool that you have in your arsenal as an entrepreneur. But chances are you don't even know that you have it because this is one of those tools that's completely free. It's available to you 100% of the time, but it's also one of those things that 99% of entrepreneurs are not using your voice nearly as effectively as they could be. What is this tool, and how can you start to leverage it to join the top 1% and create a legacy that will be remembered for generations into the future? You'll know all this and more when you finish this episode, so stay tuned.

00:00:39 - Courtney Elmer
Globally ranked among the top shows in business and education, we're known for helping overworked online business owners navigate the ups and downs on the way to seven figures each week. You're going to learn how to get the right systems, structure and support in place so you can build a self-sustaining business that thrives in a rapidly changing digital environment and grow through what you go through to create the greater income, influence and impact you deserve. This is  AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™. Most people who want to be known for something hide behind other people's voices, doing lip sync reels, borrowing other people's words and using them as their own. Some are even replacing their own voice altogether by letting AI do the speaking for them.

00:01:28
But where this gets really scary is when the next generation who looks up to you sees you not speaking up for what you believe in. It becomes their norm. Where would we be in the world if Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King had kept their mouth shut? Where will the world be in ten years or 20 years if you don't speak up right now and teach the next generation of Mother Teresa or MLKs that it is important to speak truth to power and to speak out for what you believe in? Here's the thing that most entrepreneurs don't realize, is that your voice creates a ripple that can echo through the future for generations to come.

00:02:16 - Courtney Elmer
It doesn't just reverberate in the ears of people today; it creates an impact that will carry on your legacy indefinitely into the future. But right now, AI bots are stealing our words. They're rewriting our futures. Social media is loud, and it will only get louder, making it harder and harder and harder for you to stand out. Today's top thought leaders are admired and have millions of followers, not because they're the smartest people in the room but because they have the courage to speak up and share their message when most people won't.
And that's what they'll be remembered for. And it's what you can be remembered for, but only if you choose to use your voice to create the legacy you want to see in the world. When I was nine years old, I can remember this like it was yesterday. I was standing in the kitchen, and I was mouthing off to my mom about something. Who knows what?

00:03:19 - Courtney Elmer
I was a sassy nine-year-old, and my mom was trying to teach me how to be respectful and how to speak respectfully. And now, as an adult, looking back, I totally get where she was coming from that day. She was washing the dishes at the sink, and I was going on and on and on and speaking louder and louder and louder, volumes to be heard. And she turns, and she looks at me, and she says, Courtney, your mouth is what gets you in trouble. Go to your room.
And I can remember walking down the hallway to my room, hanging my head, walking down this long hallway, hearing the echo of my footsteps. And for whatever reason, that day, although she had corrected me before for speaking out, for speaking up, that day was the day that I decided if I was going to get punished for speaking out, it wasn't worth speaking up at all. And for the next 20 years, I silenced my voice. That's when I started to bend myself to fit what I thought the world wanted from me, what I thought my parents wanted from me, what my peers wanted from me, and what my teachers wanted from me. And I lost sight of Courtney in the process.

00:04:39 - Courtney Elmer
So fast forward with me. It's two days after our honeymoon. I'm sitting in the doctor's office, and my doctor walks in; she looks at me and says, Courtney, you have thyroid cancer. I was 25 years old at the time, and I am pretty sure my jaw hit the floor in that moment. And she said, here's the deal. The good news is thyroid cancer is very treatable. But the bad news for you is that you've got an aggressive mutation that's already started to spread. We don't see this often. It's rare. We need to get you into surgery immediately. We need to remove your thyroid. And she started going on and on about the prognosis and what was to come next. And I can remember sitting there, gripping my brand new husband's hand, thinking about those vows in sickness and in health and how this was not how I expected that to unfold. And at some point in the conversation, she started to tell me about the risks of the surgery. And the main risk of surgery, of having your thyroid removed, is that your vocal cords could be severed.

00:05:47 - Courtney Elmer
And I remember being terrified of losing my voice. Pretty ironic for someone who chose not to use it for the better part of 20-something years. Because I didn't realize what a powerful tool my voice was. I was taught that I shouldn't use it, that if I did use it, I would be rejected, and deeper than that, that I would be unlovable, that I would be abandoned. Since then, I've started to reclaim my voice and use it to its full potential to bring about positive change in the world, but not just that, to help other people do the same thing. Because here's what I believe, when you use your voice to its full potential, it allows you to step into the fullest expression of who you're meant to be while impacting people around you. And here's how I know this. I was reading a book recently by a scientist named Masaru Imoto. He's a late Japanese scientist who spent the better part of his career studying the effect of our words on water. Now, he's the first person in the world to ever do this.

00:07:17 - Courtney Elmer
And he got this idea because he knows that our words carry energy. And when we speak, we put a certain energy out into the world that others receive. We know what it's like to receive negative words, and we know what it feels like to be affirmed, to be acknowledged, to receive positive words, and the difference that makes literally on our psyche and in our very body. So he wanted to see if water could absorb that energy and if there was any scientific way to tell the effect of words on water. And what started out as a fun experiment turned into a career.
He took water from different parts of the world, different types of water, water that was pure spring water, to water from the tap in different cities. And he began to test the water. And the way that he would test it is that first, he would just write words on a piece of paper, he would wrap it around the glass bottle that the water was in, and he would essentially expose the water to the words. Now, I know this sounds far out, but stick with me, because the results were pretty incredible. What he did next was then he took that water, and he would freeze it.

00:08:41 - Courtney Elmer
And then, using these special cameras and special lenses, he would take pictures of the water and look at the formation of the crystals. Now you can go Google this. I dare you. Go Google hidden messages in water. Masaru Emoto clicks images in Google and looks at what comes up.
I wish I could show you this right now, but we're going to have to use our imagination. So here we go. When he would expose the water to words like love and gratitude, the water had the most beautiful, perfect crystals that you've ever seen. And then he started exposing water to words like, thank you, and you're cute, and let's do this. And every time, even though the crystals were all different, they were all perfectly formed, then he exposed the water to words like, you fool.

00:09:46 - Courtney Elmer
And then there was water that he just ignored completely. Those crystals didn't even form. They couldn't form. And then he got really curious about this because he was like, okay, this is a little crazy. Am I making this up? Here. And he began to do all of these tests, and every single time, whether he wrote the words on paper, whether he spoke the words to the water, whether he exposed the water to beautiful pictures of nature or to music, the water changed shape, and it was physically apparent in the formation of the crystals. Then he began to replicate these experiments, and he began to speak at different symposiums and conferences and share this. And it was amazing, the impact when people saw these pictures, how they could actually see physically the impact of words, the impact of the energy of your voice.

00:10:58
Look at your kids. If you have kids, if you're a parent, kids respond differently to a firm tone, to a harsh tone, so I'm going to tell you what to do tone than they do to we've got this tone, let's figure this out together tone. I can tell you right now my son will call me and Alan out and say, Stop speaking in a firm tone to me. We do not speak like that in this family. And what's really funny about this is he raises his voice to do it because that's how he is trying to get his point across, which is pretty ironic. But in those moments, he calls us out, and he catches us, and we're like, you know what? You're right, buddy. And we take a deep breath, and we try again. What does this mean for us as entrepreneurs? What doesn't it mean for us as entrepreneurs?

00:11:58 - Courtney Elmer
Sharing your voice is what makes you a thought leader. I haven't seen a single thought leader become a thought leader without actually voicing their thoughts. Have you? Your voice is a great gift. It's like a fingerprint because no one has the voice that you have. Think about it. And in a world that is increasingly crowded, where there's more noise than ever, what's going to be the thing that makes you stand out? It's not the latest trend on Instagram. It's not what all the other influencers are doing. It's your voice. And speaking up is what you need to stand out. And as entrepreneurs who are mission-driven, who have deep core values, who are here to make positive change in the world, it's our responsibility. It's your responsibility as much as it is mine to use our voices for good. And when you realize this, when this really begins to sink in, the power that your voice has, your voice, which is unlike any other voice that is out there, becomes like your superpower in business.

00:13:22 - Courtney Elmer
So after I had my thyroid removed, I can remember waking up from the anaesthesia, and my doctor was standing over my bed, and she had her hand on the guardrail next to my bed, and she looked at me with the kindest eyes, and she said, Courtney, welcome back. Are you okay? Can you say my name? And it wasn't to see if I remembered my name. If the anaesthesia had worn off, it was to see if I could speak.
So in my career, I never in a million years, never, never thought that I would be this top-ranked podcast host, much less be guiding others to do the same, to leverage the power of podcasting to grow their business, to reach a global audience with their message. But more than that, deeper than that, to create meaningful change in the world with their voice and to use their voice to create their legacy. And now, looking back, although my road to where I stand here with you today has been incredibly bumpy, I can't imagine doing anything else. And the day that I decided to launch my podcast was not because I was all of a sudden all about the voice. And I'm going to step fully into my fullest expression of myself, and here I am going to be using my voice, and it's going to be great.

00:14:50 - Courtney Elmer
No, not at all. In fact, I was terrified of using my voice when I started my podcast. I started my podcast because I wanted to have a deeper connection with you. Full stop. That was it.
I was tired of burning myself out on social media, creating content that I knew was good, content that was highly valuable, content that would get buried in the newsfeed after 24 hours, that would make zero impact because 0.1% of my audience was even seeing it. And I just wanted a way not only to reach more people with my message but to connect with more people through my message. So the day that I launched my podcast was the day that I discovered that taking full ownership of your voice is the vehicle. It is the thing that allows you to fully express yourself and become the fullest manifestation of who you have been created to be.

00:15:59 - Courtney Elmer
I get so excited about this when I think about this, and you might be listening, like, Courtney. Okay, you were going to tell me about a tool today on this podcast that 99% of entrepreneurs aren't using. What is this tool? When are you going to get to the tool? I've been talking about it since I started this episode.
I'm talking about using your voice because this changes everything. Using your voice isn't just the vehicle for your message. It's the fingerprint that makes you you, and it creates your legacy. So it is our duty as entrepreneurs to learn how to use it effectively. But here's the thing.

00:16:38 - Courtney Elmer
It's hard. For years, I bought into all the same fears and lies. What if people hate what I have to say? What if they hate me? Nobody's going to listen to you, Courtney. Are you kidding me? You don't have the skills yet. You don't have the expertise yet. Who's going to want to hear what you have to say? There are already people out there saying the exact same thing who are saying it better than you ever could.
So why bother?

00:17:10 - Courtney Elmer
And chances are, if you're listening to my voice right now, you've experienced some of these same fears you've bought into and maybe are buying into right now as we speak, buying into these lies, these beliefs, and it's holding you back. And guess what? It is affecting how your message is received. If your content is going out there and you're not getting DMs every day from people asking how to work with you if you're getting low engagement on your post, four people like it, eight people comment and seven of those were spam comments, then chances are you have not yet tapped into the full potential of using your voice. You have not fully connected with it yet. I don't claim to have fully connected with mine. I am still very much a work in progress. Have I come a long way? Absolutely. Do I have a long way to go?

00:18:00 - Courtney Elmer
Absolutely. But what other option do you have? You can continue borrowing other people's words, plugging your message into templates, hoping that this template or that template, or saying it like this person tells you to say or that person tells you to say is going to be the thing that suddenly gets people to listen to you, and that gets their eyeballs on you, and that gets them following you, and that gets that traffic to your business and that generates sales and income so that you can then measure your impact. But I'm going to tell you right now, and I'm going to be straight with you, it's not going to come from a template because it's not about what you say; it's about how you say it. That will get people to connect with you; that will get them to buy into your message, to know you, to like you, to trust you.

00:18:56 - Courtney Elmer
And you and I both know as entrepreneurs that trust is essential for sales. Sent an email out to our list recently, and I said, here's the one equation you need to know as an entrepreneur time plus trust equals sales. Right now, you, we are getting smarter about how we spend our time in our businesses. We know we have to be smart, we only have a limited amount of time to work, and we need that time to bring us a tangible return. But guess what?

00:19:34 - Courtney Elmer
We're trying to figure out where is the best use of our time in our business, especially when it comes to marketing, especially when it comes to creating content and what platform to be present on and build a presence on so that we can get the most return. While we're figuring that out, your audience is becoming more and more mindful of where they're spending their time-consuming content. And I heard recently that now someone has to spend upwards of 7 hours with you before they're ready to make a buying decision. That's how long it takes the average person to develop enough trust in you, in your method and your methodology and your expertise in you as a person to want to buy from you. 7 hours.

00:20:23 - Courtney Elmer
If you're doing Instagram reels, let's say on average a 15 2nd reel, that's 1680 reels that you would have to create and that that person would have to consume. And we know that everybody out there on social media doesn't see all of your content. They don't see every single post. Even if they're following you, even if they have your alerts turned on, they don't see every single thing that you post. So not only would you have to create that much content, but the person on the receiving end would have to consume that much content before they trust you enough to make a buying decision.

00:20:59 - Courtney Elmer
That's a lot of time. So this is why, for me personally, when I went from unheard expert to globally ranked podcast host, I saw firsthand the meaningful impact that you can make with just using your voice. And now I have the best job in the world. I get to help business owners start and grow their podcasts to give their voice the platform it deserves so that they can create real positive change in the world. You're listening to my voice right now. And chances are you have other podcast hosts that you love that you listen to as well. Think about your favourite podcast. And it doesn't have to be mine. I won't fault you for it if it's not mine. But don't you feel more connected to that host just simply by listening to them week after week and thinking about it within a handful of episodes, 7810, twelve episodes, depending on the length of those episodes? You've already built that relationship with the host.

00:22:01 - Courtney Elmer
The host has taken the time and build that relationship with you. 7 hours is all it takes. So when you get this, this is why I get so excited about this. It doesn't just change your business. It changes your life. Because using your voice builds your personal power. Using your voice, it's your greatest asset as an entrepreneur. It is the vehicle for your message. It's what makes you unique. And it's how you bring about positive change because you can literally speak it into existence. So, going back to my friend, this Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto, for a minute, there was a related study that someone did after hearing about Dr. Imoto's work. And they did this on bowls of rice. They took three bowls of rice for the next month. They proceeded to speak words over these bowls.

00:23:06 - Courtney Elmer
So the first bowl, they would bring it up close to their mouth, and they would speak, and they would say, I love you. I'm grateful for you. Thank you. And then they would put that down, and they would take the next bowl, and they would put it next to their mouth, and they would say, you fool. How dare you? How could you? And then the third bowl, they just ignored, ignored it. Do you want to know what happened? Within days, the third bowl, the ignored bowl, turned black and rancid, growing mould. All sorts of disgusting stuff smelled bad.

00:23:47 - Courtney Elmer
The bowl that was spoken, the negative words, the you fool. That bowl took a little bit longer, but it did. The same thing turned black, mouldy, rancid, disgusting. The bowl that spoke the positive words of love and gratitude remained beautiful and white and smelled perfectly fine for at least a month. The whole duration of this experiment. I know it sounds crazy. I know. Go read the book for yourself. I'll put it in the show notes for you. Hidden messages in water.
Words are the expression of your soul. I had a voice coach once who told me that using your voice is the orchestra of your heart. And right now, if you are buying into the beliefs that you're not good enough, that you're not enough of an expert yet, that there are other people out there who have more important things to say than you, this was a big one for me for a long time. Then that is going to be what's expressed through using your voice. When it comes to doing your podcast, when it comes to recording that next video, when it comes to this sales pitch on a sales call or in your webinar, you better believe that that is going to come through using your voice.

00:25:14 - Courtney Elmer
Those beliefs, even though they're unconscious, will be influenced in using your voice, and they will be received on the other end by the person you're speaking to. Have you ever been on a sales call with someone or a webinar where suddenly there's, like, a shift in energy when they switch from the teaching part, where they're, like, going on and on, and it's all this exciting stuff, and they're teaching you all these amazing, valuable things, and then there's this shift in energy when they switch to the sales pitch. Have you noticed that it's palpable and it's coming from the six inches between their ears? So that's the practical part of voice work is first understanding what are the beliefs that are preventing you from using your voice to its fullest potential right now, and then tackling those beliefs and reframing your perspective around that so that that no longer comes through using your voice. So that when people hear your voice, they feel an instant connection with you.

00:26:17 - Courtney Elmer
Not like you have up this wall of glass, keeping people just at a distance. A lot of people do that. It's really fascinating. If you were to look at some of the influencers out there today, some of them have done this work, they recognize the power of their voice, and they have built incredibly loyal communities because of it. And if I were to put a video of them side by side with other influencers who have not done this work, who have still been successful, who we still look up to and admire, but who have not done this work. The difference would be obvious. You would hear it in their voice. Alex Hormozi, whom I have the deepest and utmost respect for, launched his second book last week. And out of curiosity, I joined in on the live stream just to see how he did it, just to see how he does what he does and how he was going to launch this book. So Alex had 90 minutes carved out for this presentation.

00:27:17 - Courtney Elmer
Now, the big thing about Alex, if you're not familiar with Alex's hormones, if you're a longtime listener, you know I talk about him a lot, and I do; I respect the guy so much. But if you're listening for the first time and you have no idea who Alex is, first of all, look him up. Incredibly smart. But second of all, what Alex is known for is that in his line of work, he only helps people who are at the 3 million per year in revenue or greater mark, and he helps those people scale. But what he does is his whole mission is about making solid business advice accessible to the masses, to those who are not at that level yet, so that they can get to that level. And then, hey, presumably to work with Alex, right, because you've developed that trust with him. Totally genius on Alex's part the way he has structured this. But his whole mission is to make sound business advice accessible to you and me, to the masses, not gatekeeper behind some $50,000 a year. $100,000 a year mastermind. So Alex is giving this presentation, and the chat box is fired up.

00:28:23 - Courtney Elmer
I mean, there were over 20,000 people on this live event, live streaming it on YouTube, on Zoom. I was on the zoom. And when Alex switched to the pitching part, he went into this pitch. And from a marketer's perspective, I saw exactly what he was doing, and it was brilliant. He was building a pitch. First of all, he was demonstrating what he teaches as how to structure an offer, how to pitch an offer, and how to stack the bonuses and different things that are in that offer and declare the value of what those things are. And you've seen this happen before, right? You've got these marketers out there who do the same thing, and they're like, oh, and you're going to get this, and it's valued at this. But wait, there's more. You're also going to get this, and it's valued at this, right?

00:29:11 - Courtney Elmer
And they stack it like, five, six, seven things, and then they're like, the total value is this, but you're going to get it for this, right? And it helps with price. Anchoring, there's a lot of psychology that goes into it. So this is what Alex was doing, and as he started to do this, two things happened. Number one, Alex's energy started to shift, and he was talking so fast. There were people in the chat like, slow down, dude, this is fast. Why are you talking so fast? And he was talking faster and faster and faster because he was trying to get through the pitch. I know why he was trying to get through the pitch because in the chat, at the same time, everyone, I say everyone, 99% of people were in the chat going, Scammer, how could you possibly do this? I can't even believe it. You F and this F and that like calling him all kinds of names.

00:30:05 - Courtney Elmer
And Alex can see the chat as this is going on. And people, because he started to stack this value, people were starting to think he was selling to them. And Alex has always been known for giving free information, so the majority of people at that presentation thought he was launching a new course or something, and they were mad about it. Now, two things happened after that. Had Alex actually launched a course that cost money at that point, even if it was $1,000, he would have lost the trust of so many people in his audience.
There would have been a mass exodus of followers, I guarantee it. But at the very end, what Alex did is he said, and it's yours for free. The energy totally shifted. They had a moment there where they were showing people on Zoom who were on camera. I was conveniently off-camera for this, but they were showing the people on camera, and they were crying.

00:31:10 - Courtney Elmer
They were like, oh, my gosh, they had their arms in the air, they were like hands on their head, like they couldn't believe that Alex was giving them all this stuff for free. And right there at that moment, not only did Alex repair the trust he was potentially about to lose, but had he actually sold the thing, the energy shifted. Now, I could do a whole other episode on this, and we could pick this apart. But for the sake of today, what I want you to take away is that, first of all, the voices and the energy behind the voices of the people in the chat calling Alex a scammer and all kinds of horrible, degrading things. Alex received that energy.

00:31:55 - Courtney Elmer
He could see the chat, and he physically responded to that by talking faster and faster and faster to try to get through the pitch. What Alex was doing was genius marketing. It's marketing 101. He was anchoring the value of what he was going to give because had he just said, hey, and I'm going to give you this thing for free, we all know what it is, freebie seekers, right? We all have those in our community, and it's just the people who download the free stuff, and they never do anything with it. And we're like, Come on, there's a ton of value in there, guys like, do something with it. Had Alex not anchored the value, people would have not. Understood how valuable the thing was that they were actually getting for free. So he had to do that. He had to go through it.

00:32:36 - Courtney Elmer
But as he was talking faster and faster and faster, trying to just get through it, he was, in his mind, I'm sure, trying to get to the part at the end where he could say, and it's free, guys, it's free, because he knew he was losing people. That had to be really hard for him. But then it ended on a high note when he did say, oh, and it's free. And everyone was like, oh, my gosh, Alex, you are the legend. You're the effing goat, you're amazing, blah, blah, you know, and it was like, oh, how fickle can we be? And I sat there in the coffee shop on Saturday watching all of this. It was fascinating. It was a fascinating social experiment. But my point here to you today is the power of our words, the power of using your voice, because the world is going to try to take your voice from you. I witnessed it on Saturday.

00:33:27 - Courtney Elmer
The people in that chat room were literally taking Alex's power away from him through this exchange of energy. I know it sounds a little woo-woo and out there, but we've all experienced it. And my favourite line in Hamilton, and those of you who know me well know that Hamilton, dude, I queue that up on my workout playlist, and I'm there rocking out to you know, and nobody knows that it's because, in my AirPods, nobody knows I'm listening to that. But pretty good stuff. Okay. I'm a huge fan of Hamilton. Every time it comes into town, I go to see it. We'd be here all day if I were going into the genius behind Hamilton. But what I want you to know is there's a line in the show, and Aaron Burr comes in, and he tells Hamilton, he's like, dude, every proclamation guarantees free ammunition for your enemies. And it's true because the world is going to try to steal your voice.

00:34:26 - Courtney Elmer
But what a story we could write if we collectively stopped giving our power away to other people's opinions, letting them steal our power, our voice from us. How different would the world be if more entrepreneurs like you and me used our full voices to create positive change in the world? Building each other up, not tearing each other down, connecting, not dividing, loving and serving, not spewing hate and gaslighting. We would give voice to so many good things. So thank you.

00:35:18 - Courtney Elmer
Thank you so much for joining me here today for another episode of AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™. You matter to me because you're here listening to my voice right now. You are helping me live out my calling and the work that I am here to do in the world. And I owe you. I am deeply and eternally grateful to you for allowing me the privilege of living out my mission for you and with you.

00:36:00 - Courtney Elmer
So if you liked this episode, if this spoke to you, ha. See what I did there? You know me, English Lit, background, all the puns. I can't help myself. But if this spoke to you, if you like what you hear on the show, it would mean a lot to me if, number one, you would simply hit the share button, send this episode to a friend, and if you would also take a moment and share using your voice with me and leave me a short review. It can be a sentence. Even one sentence helps because what it does is put positivity out into the world for someone else to receive. When you leave a five-star review on my podcast or any other podcast, you might not know this, but there are listeners out there right now who are looking for shows to listen to, to solve very real problems that they're experiencing in their lives. And they might read your review, and that might be the thing that gets them to click play. So as a host, it means the world when our listeners take the time to leave a review. So if you would take the time to do that today, I would be so very grateful. 

00:37:09 - Courtney Elmer
Now, next week, we have got a very special guest joining us who is going to bust the biggest myths of running a seven-figure business. This episode is wild because there are so many things that we believe to be true about running a seven-figure business that just isn't true. They're not true. So what she's going to reveal is what no one tells you about scaling to seven figures and what you need to be aware of if you want to make more money, more sustainably in your business, so that you can put your life first and actually run your business, not the other way around. So join me back here next week, and until then, let's go out there and grow through what we go through together.