Nice Work: Four years of Active Voice 🎂

Hey there,

Four years ago this week, I announced Active Voice to the world.

Exactly two weeks later, the World Health Organization declared that we were in a pandemic.

Talk about bad timing.

I was terrified. Of Covid, yes—but also of losing my livelihood. By the beginning of 2020, I’d already spent a few months winding down my consulting work while I finished up coach training and started working on branding and messaging. I hoped to make a splash with my announcement, and start getting at least a few clients right away.

Instead, I felt lost in a sea of global panic and workplace chaos.

Those first few months were strange, uncertain, and more than a little weird—hell, all of the past four years have been strange, uncertain, and more than a little weird. But Active Voice is still here. In fact, we’ve grown—from a solo effort to a team of three, plus some pretty rad collaborators we get to call upon from time to time.

That growth has been scary, too. Hiring Emily, our ops manager and producer, felt like an enormous risk back in 2022. Her work keeps the back of the house in order—which meant it was on me to book enough clients and workshops to keep us both paid. Eek. But I also made that investment for a reason: I believed that Active Voice could be bigger than myself, and I knew I needed help to get there.

When Jen joined full-time last spring, it was a stretch, too. But I knew that while it might mean paying myself a lot less in the short run, I’d figure out how to make it work in the long run. (That’s one good thing about working with people on self-trust: I’ve gotten better at it myself.)

Much more important than the money, though, was this: I knew I’d be happier in the long run with Jen as part of the company. She and I share so many values and priorities—but have wildly different strengths. Having her on the team has made so many things gel.

But it still shocked me recently when more than one person told me that Active Voice seems grown-up. Polished. Successful. “Us?!?” I thought. “But we’re barely scraping by. We’re still deep in the muck!”

Here’s the thing, though: they were right. And so was I.

That’s probably the biggest lesson I have learned in the past four years—and the number-one thing I hope you take away from this: Two things can be true at the same time. It just depends on your perspective.

But a lot of us have learned to see the world as a binary: Success or failure. Right or wrong. Good or bad. And when we apply that thinking to things that aren’t either/or, our brains tend to go a bit haywire—because no matter which side we pick, we’re unsatisfied with the answer. Our interior monologue starts sounding like Twitter on the day everyone was fighting about that dress. “It’s definitely blue!” “Are you out of your mind? It’s 1000% gold!”

The dress turned out to be blue—but in real life, the answers are rarely so definitive. Instead, we end up trying to resolve the irresolvable…and wind up exhausted, but just as uncertain.

So what if we changed the question? Instead of asking, “which perspective is right?” try asking yourself, “what can I learn from looking through this lens?”

When I look at Active Voice as scrappy and struggling, I see the months I cut my salary because I was worried about keeping everyone else paid. I see prospective clients that went dark, workshops that didn’t sell well, and how hard it’s been for me to get comfortable with marketing. All those things are true—and when I acknowledge those truths, I gain insight. I know what to prioritize. I stretch myself.

But when I look at Active Voice as successful, other things come to the surface: the partnership and connection I feel with my team. The clients who feel freer, more like themselves, after working with us. A budding community of people who share their truths and lift each other up. All that is true, too. And when I acknowledge this side of things, I feel proud of what we’ve built. My self-trust deepens. I get new energy to keep going.

It can be hard to remember both of these perspectives—especially in those moments of self-doubt, when my brain is dead certain we’re teetering on the edge of failure. But the more I practice, the easier it gets—and the less stuck I feel. It’s been a powerful shift for me, and I hope it helps you, too.

Thank you for being part of the past four years. Here’s to another four.

– Sara

From our community

This week we’re sharing talks and articles written by folks in the Active Voice community. Do you have something you’d like to share with our audience? Reply to this email and share it with us.  

Maring Eberlein wrote about how and why you might want to change your mindset about networking: “I never intentionally ‘networked’ with anyone—they were necessary working relationships with people I respected and enjoyed. I’d worked hard over a long period of time, took care of my relationships, and put myself out there when I didn’t always feel like it.”

Lauren Tormey wrote about improving her hiring process by asking applicants for feedback: “My goal is to create the most inclusive and considerate hiring process I can. Making that process open to receiving feedback is a great way to reach that goal.”

Katie Attwood shares how to become a “trojan mouse” for change in higher ed: “Nothing will change until something (you) changes. Unless you start, you’ll never start. Initially focus on what you can control and begin where you are.”

Shannon Leahy spoke about using everyday office tools for UX work: “Coming into my career, I had a lot of doubt and impostor syndrome around, ‘is it OK to use these low-tech, no-tech solutions to do my work?’ Now, from the seat of experience, yes! I confidently and proudly declare that these are some of the best design tools around.”

Laura Constantino, Laura Lopez, Rosie Olaivar, Camila Pechous, and Susanna Agababyan just released a new episode of Content Design with Friends, all about finding the courage to speak up, featuring guest Bobby Roshdi: “When I started, just the idea of speaking up when you’re new already made me nervous… To get over that, I just started asking questions pretty regularly. Questions are the default way of being heard without putting pressure on yourself.”