Remembering how to use my voice

I’m 43 and I could fill pages and pages of a blog with all the times my ideas to make a positive impact have been dismissed or ignored. During June 2020 I’m starting to realise how many more blog pages I could fill where I haven’t even opened my mouth to voice ideas which could be ignored. I’m asking myself why I didn’t speak up and the first rationale I have is that I was told some things were unquestionable facts.

For example the fact that athletes couldn’t speak up to champion a sustainability issue as they had to focus on their sport- In June 2020 that sounds crazy and obvious that this statement comes from people controlling the athletes not the athletes themselves.

The second rationale I have is I was surviving.

For over 15 years I’ve built a strong business on bringing the vision of a sustainable event industry to life. I’ve dealt with questions on my motives, feedback that I was acting in a way that jeopardised the industry and I’ve compromised.

I am incredibly conscious of how my voice, approach, attitude, thinking has been shaped by those ‘unquestionable facts’ and the need to survive. I envy my younger colleagues, starting their careers with evidence that speaking up is a way for change to happen rather than the way you learn the barriers of what is acceptable.

I’m excited that I still have another half of my career to go, to explore and question all those other things my ‘don’t rock the boat too much’ brain has absorbed in order to survive.

At this moment in history many of the ‘thats how it works facts’ are being more than questioned they are being disappeared and I have the opportunity to explore how using my voice can move us all from surviving to thriving and I’m pretty sure I won’t be the only person over 40 who is relearning and maybe even considering re proposing ideas from decades ago :)