The Merilyn Show

332. The Power of Your Wow Voice | Merilyn

• Merilyn Wilson Beretta

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Have you ever noticed those competing voices in your head? The one that spirals into doubt, questioning your progress, and another that whispers wisdom and reassurance? During a peaceful evening by my cottage fireplace, I experienced this familiar internal dialogue - what I call my "Woe" and "Wow" voices.

This episode explores how to recognise these distinct inner voices and strengthen the wise, powerful "Wow" voice that often gets drowned out by our noisy inner critic. 

I share a profound revelation that changed everything for me: "You'll know you're there not when you're rich, but when you stop needing money to prove you're worthy of being heard." This insight applies beyond finances to any external validation we desperately seek.

The transformation happens when we realise that money (or any measure of success) doesn't respond to begging or desperation. These resources want to build with us, not rescue us. Becoming your empowered 'Wow' self requires courage rather than confidence, changing on the inside before seeing evidence on the outside. 

Most people who seem to "make it" don't feel any more ready than anyone else - they've simply stopped waiting for the world to crown them and claimed their role first.

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Website: merilyn.com
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Speaker 1:

Well, hello, I'm Marilyn. Welcome to my corner of the podcasting world. One of the many things I adore about this adventure that was one year and now it's turning to two of living by myself in a country cottage, are the winters, the fires. Yeah, I'm a little bit over lugging firewood and chopping firewood, but there's nothing like being curled up by the fire. So last night I did that. It's become a bit of a ritual for me. I put on this jazz in the background playlist from Spotify. I just poured a glass of wine and my cat that adopted me, the stray cat Kitty, she's sitting there purring on my lap and look. Honestly, it was ideal. It felt really peaceful. I'd intended to read a book, so I grabbed it. I had a pencil in my hand, but I thought I'd just check on my phone one more time. A few minutes later, I think I was on Instagram.

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My thoughts started spiraling. The old thought crept in, like it still does sometimes Marilyn, what's the point, why is it taking you so long? Like a muscle memory. But then a quieter voice stepped up. It's more steady, like, and it wasn't dramatic and it didn't march in and declare war on that windy voice. But she said Marilyn, you're not behind, you're exactly where you are meant to be. Now I have names for these two voices woe and wow. No prizes for which is which. And that moment in front of the fire last night and it'll probably happen again tonight it reminded me that we don't always feel powerful. We don't stop thinking. It's about learning to hear that wow voice faster and that's what this episode is about and how to follow that voice, that wow voice, even when the old fears try and take the mic inside our head and our body.

Speaker 1:

So here's what I want to talk about today, and it relates a lot to money, which is the great test often of where we are at in our thinking, our beliefs, of where we are at in our thinking, our beliefs and our emotional regulation. Now, most of us have been trained, like I have, to equate arrival, success, arrival with proof. You know, money in the bank, a number on the bathroom scales, the partner in the bed beside us or, for those of you listening, who are building your great life, work might be a business, might be a work of art, career. We measure it by the followers, the fans, the bookings in the calendar, the P&L, the eyebrows raised in admiration. But here's the real truth and the one that set me free.

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You'll know you're there, not when you're rich, listen but when you stop needing money to prove you're worthy of being heard. You can replace money with anything else. I'm going to say it again You'll know, and these are words that my inner voice said to me, my wow best said to me you'll know you're there, not when you're rich, but when you stop needing money to prove you're worthy of being heard. You'll know, because the urgency will actually lift the shame of being behind, will go quiet, instead of hustling and taking all the action for evidence. Instead of hustling and taking all the action for evidence, the proof you'll start, like I did magnetizing, attracting opportunities from a place that doesn't feel like you are pushing a boulder up a hill, or we use that word hustle, which has actually been given a bad name. There's nothing wrong with hard work absolutely but when we're pushing and pushing to find that validation, that's when we get burnout and that's where things like putting in the effort and taking action or hustling is given a bad name. The irony here is that that's exactly when money starts showing up Fast clean. Let's use that word alive, not because you need to prove something, but because you finally don't Try on this new belief for size.

Speaker 1:

You're not chasing wealth, you're becoming the person it wants to sit beside, or sit in the lap and purr like a cat or a dog, because money doesn't respond to begging. Money wants to build stuff with you. Whoa, money doesn't respond to begging. Money wants to build stuff with you. Okay, I know what you're probably thinking right now. This sounds good, marilyn, but it feels way out of reach. I like to be practical, I like to be real. So let's go deeper. Let's go, rorer.

Speaker 1:

Let's explain it in another way. You ready? How do you become that person who knows this in your bones, especially when there are debts to pay, or especially if your bank account? That's where it really hits the road? You don't become this by trying to feel better about your debt or having one of those positive affirmations that you're trying to talk yourself into feeling better about it. Whether it's debt, whether it's your bank balance, whether it's just unmet expectations, we can be making a million dollars, five million dollars, 10 million dollars, and still feel frustrated because someone else or our expectations are wanting to make $10 million. So it's not some trick of positive thinking.

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You've heard that sort of advice before you become this person by letting the debt or the expectation lose its grip on your identity, when you stop measuring your worth by your money, your followers, book deals, even breakthroughs because when we're really honest with ourselves, most of us are looking for external breakthroughs, things that come from the outside. Breakthroughs, things that come from the outside. Let's go even blunter Debt is a number, money is a number. The person you're becoming, the person I'm becoming and I'm going to use her because and she a lot. You can just change that pronoun however you want the person I'm becoming actually pays her debt, not with panic or fear, but with power. It's leading with that identity. It's not avoiding bills and pretending you're someone you're not and pretending it's not there. It's seeing them and seeing them.

Speaker 1:

Okay, this is a bridge. This is almost like a test. This is an experiment. This is an opportunity to practice, not just listening to that wow voice, but choosing to take on that identity. And choosing it's not faking confidence, it's not pretending, it's not performing. It's choosing that identity that your wow zone is actually behind, linked to, and it's choosing it. And this involves courage rather than confidence. Before the world catches up, before reality catches up before anything changes. Because often and you've heard this before, but maybe it'll land this time differently is we're waiting for the outside to change, to give us evidence so that we can feel different on the inside. But the trick is to, or not even the trick. That sounds like deceptive, doesn't it? It's the truth. Let's say the truth. The truth is change on the inside, then the outside response. So here's the thing to do Every time, the pressure to fix something let's use debt as an example rushes in.

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You've got that pressure rushes in. I need to fix this, I need to change this. And you know that feeling. There's a little bit of panic, there's a little bit of fear. Ask yourself what would that person do? That wow zone person, that higher self, that? What would that person do? The one who's already free, already trusted, already known.

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Now, bit by bit, as you do that, the gap between where you are right now and who you're becoming, it disappears. And notice I said becoming not fixing. So I don't believe that we need fixing, I believe that we just need to unleash that other one inside us. Well, the gap disappears every time we practice this, every time we experiment with it, and in its place is a person who walks like money's already following us, already in our laps. It's not a oh, I feel like it. It's actually a decision that's outside of feeling. This is one of these areas where you do wait for action first, not the feeling, and those of you in tall poppies you'll know what I'm talking about there, on our power looping. It's an action to take, it's a decision.

Speaker 1:

And here's a truth you probably don't want to hear, because I didn't when I first had this revelation. You ready, you haven't made the decision yet there it is. You haven't made the decision yet. You've been waiting to become this person that you know you want to be, you know is probably inside. You just haven't made the decision yet. And if you're like me, it was like taking off. I just didn't go into the air, I just kept laying down the runway. I'm going to become this person, I'm going to do that, I'm going to be that. But I kept myself grounded by laying more track on the runway. But it was because I just hadn't made the decision yet and I didn't realize that I had it. I was still scanning the room for permission. I was still checking my bank account for a sign, still asking is it safe to believe in myself now?

Speaker 1:

Now, a lot of this was subconscious. I didn't know this was happening and so, please, when you hear this, watch that voice, the woe voice who wants to condemn and shame us. But if I'd allow the doubts to linger around instead of shooing them off with that wow zone voice, higher self, the greater self, then I'd probably go to bed depressed and wake up depressed. Most of us and I say me first are still auditioning for the worthiness we were born with, instead of just choosing it. Okay, so how do we become this person? You stop waiting to feel like it first and you start acting like it, even when it's awkward, dry mouthed, wildly inconvenient. It's not about faking it till you make it. I don't mean that. You've probably heard that before. Let me divert for a second just to explain something. It's just my little theory, but it might help because it helped me Deep down.

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You probably know there's three of you, and I don't mean you're schizophrenic or bipolar. Firstly, there's the powerful, wise, quiet one that we've just been talking about. Then there's the noisy, fearful, scratchy one, the mean one, and, honestly, if we spoke to other people or our kids or our partners. The way that voice in us talks to us, we would be considered incredibly mean, probably very lonely, by ourselves. So there's the wow voice and there's the whoa voice and then there's the you, who can see both of these voices and it's funny, really like a soap opera going on. One is loud and bossy, the other is quiet and whispers and is respectful, but we sometimes think the noisy, fearful one is the only only one, but it's that one that wreaks havoc on our nervous system.

Speaker 1:

And this whole podcast episode and, honestly, the great life work of mine, is to help us all tune into like tuning into a station on the car radio that inner voice. That is the powerful, wise one, the one I've been calling your wow zone. Okay, so let's get back now to what we were talking about before how to become that wow zone person. Answer the very next email like she would Record the next video you make, like she would have the next conversation like she would. And stop feeling you have to explain yourself all the time. She wouldn't do that. And when your body flinches or it's probably your head and says this isn't me, don't make that mean to stop that powerful. You isn't behind the fear, she's actually behind the choice to show up anyway, the choice to go, or what does the wise one say? And sometimes there's so much noise going on up there that we don't hear, but she's there.

Speaker 1:

It's not about confidence, as I said before. It's about a word that we don't use enough calibration, calibrating to that inner voice or tuning in like the radio. That's a really good analogy. We're actually born with that, but society, schooling our families, junk trained it out of us. When you calibrate to this voice and make the move first, your nervous system will catch up. And back to your money, so will your income.

Speaker 1:

This is the breakthrough, because most people stop right here when it gets foggy and uncomfortable and you don't feel like it. And it's not yet embodied, it's not yet a new muscle memory that you've laid down to listen out for this wise voice. But after listening to this episode, not you or me anymore and I'm not saying you won't have that woe voice screaming in your ear, crying, whinging, pointing out everything you haven't done yet. You will still have that voice. But it's about recognizing quicker every time, quicker where it might take a day before or months before, and now only takes you minutes or split seconds to allow that other voice to come in as well and not berate the woe voice, not shame it, but give it compassion and grace. Why don't you decide that from this second on, you'll start giving airtime to that wow voice inside you?

Speaker 1:

We often talk about the 1%. The 1% that seem to make things work in life. They seem to make it in life. They actually don't feel ready either. They've just stopped waiting for the outside world to crown them. They claimed that role, that wow zone role, before the world handed it over. So we're kind of talking about two things in this episode this ability to listen to these voices, but also your decision to step into the identity of the wow zone. And that's what we're actually up against An old identity that says I don't know her, I don't know how to act like her.

Speaker 1:

I've got a quick invitation, if it's landing and you're done waiting to feel ready, ready and you'd like to learn some practices, to power loop, what we call power looping in the Tall Poppy Society. It's a practice, it's a rhythm to hear these voices and to flip them around really quickly. Where your inner voice becomes your, you know your higher. Inner voice becomes your normal. Where your inner voice becomes your, you know, your higher inner voice becomes your normal and where calibration to this turns into a rhythm or a movement in you, and where leaders, or as I call them, tall poppies, stop hiding. Come and join us. It's probably nothing you've experienced before. It's a live subscription, a support subscription, a community subscription, a practice of these things that I talk about. It's not a library like a Netflix library for you to watch. It's not like a course for you to go through. It's real, live support for people building their great life work. And I call it Tall Poppy Society because that's who we're operating as tall poppies, those who are wanting to stand up, probably afraid to do so because of the connotations of when you stand up and you step up and you become more visible, the world wants to knock you down. Come and join us. The invitation's there.

Speaker 1:

So let's get back to that practical way of unleashing that tall poppy inside you, that wow zone inside you. Here's how to start. One, give her a name, choose a name that makes you giggle or feel taller when you say it. I've shared mine the wow voice or the wow zone. Maybe borrow the name tall poppy or great one or the boss, or, if it was for me, my name's Marilyn, I'd call her big M. You could do that. That's a good one, big M, small M.

Speaker 1:

Number two give her a five minute role right now or straight after you've heard this episode. Now I don't mean a whole rebrand, not a TED talk, just one little thing a DM reply or reply to a text, a voice note, an outfit, one tiny, tiny action that belongs to her. Not the current you or not the whingy you, the small you. A third thing is perhaps set some kind of ritual before you open your laptop, light that candle that's over there that you always forget to use, get some matches and light it. Take three breaths and talk to her and say show me how you would do this or see this, and then do what she says. Don't stop and overthink and overanalyze. And if you really want to collapse time, here's a bonus exercise Grab a journal or a piece of paper or an old notebook and write out a short script called the day it all changed and describe today from your future.

Speaker 1:

So imagine it's a year in the future or 10 years in the future and you're describing today how you were driving along or doing the gardening or the housework or doing something, where you're listening to this podcast, something clicked inside you. I want to encourage you. She's not far. She's not this impossible dream that you have to keep reaching for. She's actually already in you and she's patient. She doesn't mind waiting. She just responds to you saying yes, come on. And she responds to you moving, taking action. Even the shaky, awkward movement where you don't feel like you know what you're doing and occupying and embodying more and more and more the identity that she gives you. This is what separates the 1%. They've chosen to live in that identity. Sometimes we see it as arrogance or cockiness or overconfidence or audacity, but that's what separates, and you're on the inside edge of it now. So let today be the day it all changed, the day where you decided to listen to and act on what your inner wow voice, your inner wow identity is saying to you Go and don't give up.