Interview with Vocal Empowerment Coach: Terina Maldonado
Why did you decide to start a business?
“Duh, Emily– to make money.” *rolls eyes*
Money is certainly an important reason, but for most– it can’t be the only reason. I believe many of us would say, “I started my business to make a difference.” Whether that is to make a difference in the world or to impact those around us, our “why” is found in the core of who we are. So why are we talking about this?
Have you ever voiced the reason you went into business to someone else? To your audience? Have you ever seen such chaos or a problem– you wanted to voice your opinion, but just didn’t know how so you didn’t say anything at all? Emily’s guest today, Terina Maldonado, is a vocal empowerment life coach that helps her clients to speak up, speak out, and live authentically.
This can take many forms like the scenarios described above, but what about small-scale issues that we face everyday? Maybe you need to motivate your work crew? Steer your business in a new direction? Need to have an important conversation with a client? Terina and Emily latch on to the discussion of vocal empowerment through the words we use. Tune in to find out more!
About Terina
Terina Maldonado is a survivor in every sense of the word. Empowered with resilience, empathy, and determination by living through child abuse, sexual assault, and leaving a high-demand religion. As a coach, facilitator & speaker Terina now helps others confidently claim their voice, and live an authentic life full of purpose in one on one and corporate settings through vocal empowerment. Dubbed by Faithwire News, “The Mom Who Took On Hollywood-And Won,” Terina is also a co-author of the book, Fear to Freedom. Her superpower is her unapologetic vulnerability. Terina has been featured by dozens of national and international media outlets for her harrowing story and powerful message – including The New York Times, CNN, ABC, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, FOX, and The Washington Post.
Social Links
https://www.instagram.com/terina_maldonado/
https://www.facebook.com/Terinamaldonadolifecoach/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTdt726Xv/
Bonus Goodies from a Vocal Empowerment Coach!
Be sure to grab your free Journal and Self-Care workbook below!
Vocal Empowerment – Transcript
Well, hello, everyone, and thank you so much for being here for another week of the No Mercy business podcast. I'm your host Emily Woodruff, and I'm super excited to have Terina Melton Maldonado sorry. Let me start it over. Well, hello, everyone, and thank you so much for being here with me for another week of the No Mercy business podcast. I am your host Emily WOODRUFF And I'm super excited to share Terina Maldonado with you today. Terina Why don't you go ahead and just tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of what you have to offer. Terina Maldonado 5:27 Emily, thanks so much for having me on. It's such a pleasure to be here with you today. Yeah, so I am a life coach. And all of my work is rooted in vocal empowerment and helping people feel empowered to speak up, speak out, live authentically and just be confident in using their voice in any arena of life. So I hope people personally and professionally to be able to feel a little bit more confident in those areas. Okay. Emily Woodruff 6:01 And you're also a facilitator for step into your Moxie. Can you talk a little bit about that and kind of share what that is? Unknown Speaker 6:08 Yeah. So Alexia Murnane is an amazing vocal coach. She's helped me with my speaking and she has a program step into your Moxie vocal empowerment system. And that is what I am certified in. And so I use this a lot in my work with my one on one clients because it's got so many great exercises, as well as bringing it into group settings, whether that be a corporate setting or networking meetings, groups, different things just anywhere where there's a group of people that would like to improve their vocals, empowerment, confidence and skills that would be a good setting to bring in the step into your Moxie facilitation. Emily Woodruff 6:58 Okay, awesome. I'm particularly interested in it because of the name of it. If you don't follow me on social channels, my virtual assistant business is called Moxie assist. Yeah, so it's just kind of a fun little tie in there. So that's really neat to know. Um, so how did you get involved in vocal empowerment? How did how did that become something that you are interested in and pursued being a coach? And Unknown Speaker 7:25 so it's actually a pretty interesting story. A handful of years ago, my family and I, because of my job, were invited to a pre release screening of a children's movie. And in the movie, there was a scene that left me feeling a little uncomfortable, and then that discomfort grew when we're talking about the movie with our kids afterwards. And my daughter cited that very seen as her favorite. And in the movie, the main character, in order to save the day and complete his mission had to allow his genitals to be touched. And I And despite voicing his concerns, and then was coached that to allow this to happen, despite his not wanting it to and his discomfort to just go to his zen place so that this could happen. I felt that sense of very dangerous, you know, could potentially send a very dangerous message to children and was contributing to sexual grooming. And so I wrote an article and shared it on my platform, which was very small, and ended up going viral in the most literal sense of the word like shared around the world translated into different languages like my website had 5 million views or something like that. It was absolutely insane. And the ultimate result of the outcry of parents in results of my article was that the movie ended up being pulled from theaters and the production company edit it for content, which has never happened before or seven. And so it was rather historic. And so that kind of gave me this evidential experience of the fact that my voice matters. And my experience matters, because I feel like part of the reason that it was received so well and shared so broadly, was a couple of things. One, I shared the fact that the lens through which I was seeing this was a survivor of child abuse myself, and I did not ever say don't go see this movie. I did not rail on Hollywood are the directors are the actors, how could they How dare they? What I did was I said this content is here. Be aware before you make a decision whether to go or not. And regardless of what decision you make. Let this be a reminder to have an important conversation with your children about body autonomy. And so that really helps me to gain some confidence in the fact that my story and my experience my voice matter. As well as reminding me that the way that we speak can really influence the impact that we're capable of having. So I just got kind of launched my career and helped me to kind of gain the confidence that I needed. To follow this. Whispering I've had in my soul for years that my experiences are meant, and the lessons learned are meant for more than just me. Emily Woodruff 10:39 Hmm. That's beautiful. Well, that's really interesting, first of all, and like you say, I mean, it's not like there are obviously warnings and things on movies, but they don't they don't give you any insight to what's really going to happen in that warning probably doesn't even trigger what that what that movie that you saw, really shared and showed and so you go and kind of blind and don't know what to expect. And this was really you peih Unknown Speaker 11:08 Gee, so Oh, not expect that to be in that kind of movie. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 11:11 Yeah, for for morphic animals. You know, talking dogs, it's, it's supposed to be cute and silly for children. But yeah, it's very dangerous undertone to it in that scene. Emily Woodruff 11:26 Yeah, well, I didn't know that I was talking to somebody on the grassroots of something like this but that's exciting. Good for you. So now you work with others to to be able to basically like speak their truth and to be able to say, tell me a little bit more about what what voice empowerment is, I guess. Vocal. Unknown Speaker 11:51 Vocal empowerment is a combination of things and the step into your Moxie system. It is founded in self empowerment, social justice, roleplay and trauma sensitivity. And so through combining those things, we really help build your inner voice help you feel comfortable with the physiological sensations that arise a lot of times when we're getting prepared to speak up or speak out in high stakes conversations, your messaging your presence and moving people to take action. So that's kind of the the the largest content within the step into your Moxie program. For me, the way I love to help people use this is to feel comfortable, to use their voice or make decisions regardless of what other people are gonna think of that. So a lot of times there's a lot of fear about disappointing family or doing something because it goes against social norms. Or maybe you were raised in a religious home where the choices that you're making now don't align with what your family told you was the only way to live a happy life. And so you need to be able to feel comfortable to show up that way. And a lot of times within business, you're going to find yourself needing to take a stand on something where you feel really strongly and you need to be able to be rooted in your own vocal empowerment to be able to do that in an effective way. Emily Woodruff 13:39 That's neat. That's really neat. So do you you work with one on one do you do group coaching and things like that too, with different teams? Or is it mostly the one on one? Unknown Speaker 13:50 So at this point, it's just one on one but I have been toying with the idea of opening up a group program because I think that there's a lot of value to be gained when there's a community of people supporting each other through this type of journey. So you know, keep tabs it's in the work yeah. Emily Woodruff 14:06 I could, I could see it being really beneficial in like small workplaces. Not necessarily for conflict with one another because usually in those areas, you're pretty close, close and tight and comfortable, you know, but like I work in a company, our office has 12 people in it. But sometimes we work with multimillion dollar leaders multibillion dollar leaders in there's times where it's like, I don't feel comfortable with this or this comes across or you have to learn how to be able to keep your ground and keep our ground you know, and make sure that our best interest is protected. And I could see things like that being very, very useful in that realm. Unknown Speaker 14:47 For somebody, you know, yeah, there's been a study done that shows that when an employee does not speak up, it can cost a company up to $4,000 and I believe it the percentage of employees that feel uncomfortable speaking up about different topics within the workplace is really unfortunately high. And so it's really important to be able to help teams feel more connected, help teams be more successful because when you empower those people to share those ideas, even when they might not be sure if they're going to be accepted or jumped on. Then you empower your great thinkers to become better leaders. Emily Woodruff 15:34 Yeah, no, that's great. I love it. Um, so how do you connect with your ideal clients like what's what's the best way that people find you or that you find them? What kind of spaces do you put yourself out into? Unknown Speaker 15:50 Well, I have my website, which is just my name Terina maldonado.com. And I also am all over social media like any other elder millennial out there. I'm trying to run a business. And I really love to have fun on my social media. And so I like to bring a lot of fun and personality there. So that's a good way to connect. So those are good spaces. Emily Woodruff 16:17 Okay, perfect. And then so you have you have free that you want to talk about. Why don't you go ahead and take some time for that? Unknown Speaker 16:27 Yes. So before I mentioned what it is, I'm going to share why it's related to vocal empowerment. Because sometimes when I mentioned this, people are like, Wait, is that how do those go together? Um, so I think that the very most foundational piece of vocal empowerment is having your head and your heart match. So when you stand up and you speak to your ideal client or customer, and you're telling them how wonderful and amazing you are, I want your heart to match that. I want you to feel that deeply inside. And so that element of self love and confidence in yourself is crucial. And it's really the foundational piece. So you might think that speaking up to the 100 million dollar CEO is about your presence and it's about what you're going to say and it's about your body language, but really, it's rooted in loving yourself, and really accepting yourself for who you are. And so the freebie that I have is a self care and journal workbook. And the self care really helps us to cultivate that self love when we're taking time to take care of ourselves. And I know often as business leaders as entrepreneurs, self care can get pushed to the side because we have so many big dreams, so many ideas, so many goals and we're driven and you know, taking 10 minutes to do something for yourself might not feel as important as getting the next launch done or creating the next copy that you need to have perfected. But all of that leads to burnout. Anyway, that's a whole other story. Right? So it's really important and a lot of times journaling seems fluffy to people. Right? And like how is journaling gonna help me in my business journey in my entrepreneurial journey? Well, if you're stuck, it can help spark your creativity. It can help move the flow of what you're needing it can help get you off of that rut that you're in and help you get something else out that might be blocking where you need to be in your business. And so it's a workbook that will kind of guide you through some of the foundational most important things of what self care truly is. How to start implementing that in a more sustainable way in your life. And it gives you journal prompts to really kind of get some more introspection in your life. Emily Woodruff 19:03 That's really exciting. I think that's great. I think that's a super useful tool for our listeners too. So if you are on my email list I will be sending that out. When this episode is live, which I guess you'll know by now, but I'll send it out and you'll have access to it and it'll also be in the show notes. So that you can you can get that and you can start working on your own journey and getting yourself a little bit more prepared. That's great. I'm super excited for them to get a chance to take a look at it. Unknown Speaker 19:34 You Me too. Emily Woodruff 19:35 Yeah. Is there anything? Is there anything like if you were able to give one piece of advice for somebody who's seeking out a vocal empowerment coach or looking to better their skills of vocal empowerment? Um, what kind of advice would that be? You're just kind of a one liner for him. Unknown Speaker 19:55 I would say get deeply rooted in loving yourself, because there's going to be moments that come where people are going to disagree with you. Or maybe where you accidentally cause harm because we're human, and that happens. And so you need to be so rooted in your knowing that you are worthy of love and belonging, regardless of anything else that you can. You can navigate those difficult situations so that you can have the courage to speak up and know that you your voice and your story matter. And so, work on those things. It's really challenging. Sometimes we've been given so many messages from childhood about how we need to be and we're so aware of all of our flaws and imperfections and our lack. So it's really powerful to get to a space of knowing that you're worthy. You're worthy of love. You're worthy of belonging. You're worthy of sharing your voice and your message in the world. And also remember that everybody listening today has a service or product that changes somebody's life for the better. So when you choose to play small, when you choose to be quiet, who are you not serving and who is missing out? Emily Woodruff 21:13 That's great. That's really great. Well, I thank you so much for your time today and appreciate having you here with us. And I hope that you have an awesome, awesome day and thanks again. Thank you, Emily, Unknown Speaker 21:25 you too. recording stopped. Well, yay. Thank Emily Woodruff 21:30 you so much. That was great. Unknown Speaker 21:31 You are welcome. Thank you. Yeah, Emily Woodruff 21:34 so I will I'm a couple of weeks out right now I'm kind of getting caught up from Christmas, New Year's break. Um, a couple of weeks I'll send you this recording the transcription and then when I make the graphics for the episode, I'll send you that too. And then any other links or anything that come from it and you're welcome to use it anywhere that you want to. Unknown Speaker 21:57 I try and include that podcaster reviews in my blog on my website and share them in my newsletter as well. Okay, not always the greatest setup, but it's my understanding Emily Woodruff 22:08 I understand completely well. Cool. Well, thank you so much. Unknown Speaker 22:13 You are very welcome. Thank you, Emily. Emily Woodruff 22:15 All right. Have a good day. You too. Bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
