It is time to get solar powered. We welcome you to the solar powered podcast. My name is Ryan Hall from Royal Hearts Media and boy, did we have an episode and we have an announcement, a big announcement for y'all here today. Back in the line, I'm a little nervous about this episode because this this, it's it's an announcement of a project that I've been working on for some time now and also one of the reasons why I have been absent from this podcast as of late.
But before I rolled the recording here today, I flashed on just a really beautiful song by the remarkable band, the Lake Street Dive. It's off of their album that they put out in 2018 called free yourself up, and the song is called I Can Change. Believe the primary songwriter was their lead vocalist Rachel Price, and it's just a simple song. It's got a, it's got a little acoustic guitar figure and, maybe a little, I think it's a pedal steel guitar.
But it's a really, it's a really beautiful song, and there's one verse that I wanted to read to you. And I will include a link to the song, to the to a YouTube video of the song in the description of this podcast down in the show notes. But there's a verse in the song, and I'm not gonna try to sing it because trust me. Well, I can sing. I am no Rachel Price. She's a professional at this. I'm just a I'm just a guy with a decent voice. But the but the first reads like this.
And there's a distinct chance that I'll make it choked up reading this. Tracing an old pattern, drawing the lines from where I am and from where I wanna be. Forget that old adage. The history continues to keep us from the world we wanna see. I am scared that I won't get it right, but fear won't rule my heart tonight. And if you know me at all, you know why that why that verse is so poignant to me.
Because I spent I have spent really a majority of my life in a constant state of irrational, inexplicable fear. Fear that nobody will like me. Fear that nobody will take me seriously, that nobody will understand me. Again, inexplicable, irrational fear. And I've had a I had a lot of trauma in my life growing up. When you go to as many funerals as I have gone to and have seen as much well, if you've seen as much shit as I have seen growing up.
First of all, it's a little wonder that I've been in therapy for the past 3 years. But second of all, it's a little wonder why my voice just sort of shriveled up. It shriveled up. I won't say that it died, but it became dormant. Because I spent really a majority of my childhood in my room with the door closed, with the bedroom door closed, afraid of everyone. Everyone. Starting with the little boy in the mirror.
But, I mean, afraid of my classmates, afraid of my teachers, afraid of my own family at times. Again, it's little wonder why my voice just sort of shriveled up. It's a little wonder why I stopped talking, why I stopped interacting with people, why just why I stopped. And it's really only been within the last few years, within about the last 6 years, that I have started to learn how to express myself fully, completely, and without apology.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I still have moments, many, many moments where that scared little boy comes out, where that scared, afraid of everything little boy comes out. I still have those moments. They are plentiful, but I can see it coming. I can absolutely see it coming, and I can do the work to get past it. Or if I don't see it coming in enough time to stop it, I can at least recognize after the fact. I can at least recognize after the fact when I let that stop me.
You know, there is a story that that I wanna tell that I believe is very poignant and very, well, actually, it's quite appropriate for our conversation and for the announcement that I wanna make. And that story is this, I was on a session with my with my former coach a number of years ago, and I was feeling incredibly insecure about how slowly I was speaking.
I think in a way this was my own insecurity about being southern and being slow and maybe speaking a little slower, having a little bit slower reaction speed to certain things. Believe it was my own insecurity coming out because I always had it that I always had it that filling in the spaces, filling in the gaps in conversation was really the key to, I think was really the key to being a good conversationalist. And my coach called me out on this.
She says she kept encouraging me to speak in this way, to speak in this slow, deliberate way throughout the rest of the conversation, throughout the rest of our session. And by the end of that conversation, by the end of that call, she says something to me that's gonna stick with me for the rest of my life. She says, Ryan, speaking like this, showing up like this, I have never seen you as clear and as completely as I see you right now, right in the way that you're showing up.
And I sort of took with that I I sort of took that and ran with it a little bit. Because one thing that I do notice that when I slow my speech down, there's a point to my story. Just bear with me. But I noticed that when I slow my speech down like this, the way that I'm speaking right now, that when I slow my speech down, speak more from my diaphragm, more from my chest. I feel like, I feel like I speak a lot more coherently, a lot clearer. I also feel like I, I don't know.
Like, I I don't stutter and stammer as much if at all when I do this. So I sort of took that and ran with it. And I remember a, I remember standing. I I've taken some I I have taken some courses from from a personal transformation company called Landmark. And one of the things that would absolutely scare the shit out of me was the mere thought of getting up and speaking in front of these classes because these are large classes, couple hundred people at a time.
But I remember I actually get towards one of the latter courses that I have taken. I remember getting up and speaking in front of this class. I felt no fear. I felt no fear staring out over that microphone over a to a sea of several hundred people. I felt no fear, like it was almost where I belonged.
To say that I have gone that I have come a long way from that little boy who stayed in his room 22 hours a day, and I'm not exaggerating, to the guy who would actively seek out not just moments like I had in that landmark course, but speaking at virtual summits to taking improv classes, to singing karaoke, To say that I've come a long way is a huge understatement. To say that I have overcome a lot is a massive understatement.
To say that I have transformed I don't even know if understatement is an appropriate word for that. So I think it's time. I think it's time to make the announcement that I have been eagerly eagerly excited to share. I have written a new book. I have written a new book all about my own personal transformation and how I found my voice. And that book is titled Mining from My Voice. It is a deeply personal, incredibly vulnerable, and 100% to my knowledge, nonfiction.
I say to my knowledge because memory your your memory can twist things around. But I have been working on this for a number of years. I have been working on this book for a number of years and I really find memoirs fascinating, Just incredibly fascinating. Like one of the most important memoirs that I have ever read, I read a few times as I was working on Hello Again. And that now and that, and that memoir is Greg Allman's memoir, My Cross to Bear.
Now I drew a lot of inspiration for Jimmy Holiday from that book. Now don't get me wrong. Most of Jimmy Holliday is based off of Tony Hall, but I drew a lot of inspiration off of from his story arc from that of Greg Allman. Because Greg Allman really and if you think about it, yeah, he was a he was just a beautiful songwriter. He was never a flashy keyboardist, but he really knew how to build tension and build drama in his songs with his, with his keyboards, especially his organ.
But he's best known for his voice. Now he was he became the vocalist of that band almost by necessity. He was a very he was a hesitant front man. And a band that he was in before he and Dwayne put the Allman Brothers band together, the band called the is it the hourglass? I honestly can't remember, but they tried to package him into the they tried to package this band into kind of this bubblegum pop thing.
But in their hearts, Dwayne and Greg were these long hair hippie motorcycle riding rock stars, rock and roll musicians who loved the blues, who loved Howlin' Wolf, and, and, Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson and all the usual suspects. But you don't mean to tell me that e that even after Dwayne Allman died almost 50 years ago, that band remained together over 40 years off and on, obviously, but they remained together almost 40 years.
And even after Dwayne died with that guitar, they became first of all, they became known for hiring some of the baddest guitar players in the world, but because that's how a lot of my favorite musicians, Derek Trucks, being at the top of that list, managed to get their big global break is playing in that band. However, what was the one constant? What was the one constant that never left that band? Greg's powerful enduring and endearing voice.
The human voice the human voice has the capacity to rattle the foundation of humanity. I want you to sit with that. The human voice has the capacity to rattle the foundation of humanity. That was the one biggest the biggest lesson that I learned during my process of my own personal transformation was that my voice is important. My voice can rattle the foundation of humanity. Now I am under no delusion that mining for my voice is going to be the next can't Hurt Me by David Goggins.
I am under no delusion that that is what I'm after. But if my words, if my story, if my transformation can help one person, remember that they have a world changing voice inside them, my work is done. That's the entire purpose of my writing this book and publishing this book and exposing myself in such a terrifyingly vulnerable way. I have just recently finished writing it. It's in the editorial process right now, and I plan on getting that published this fall.
And if you're listening to this podcast and you wanna get your hands on a copy even before if if you wanna get your hands on a copy for your Kindle device, even before it hits the bookshelves, even before it hits Amazon this fall, I want you to do one thing for me. Send me an email. Send me an email at royal hearts coaching atgmail.com. Simply indicate I want a copy of mining for my voice because come November, it's gonna come out to the world.
But I wanted to before I wrap this episode up here today, I wanted to circle back to I wanted to circle back to that song, I can change. This this book is a huge breakthrough for me in sharing my voice, in sharing my story, in encouraging others through my own personal transformation. However, I have a deep deep seated fear that I won't get this right. But the real shakeup of humanity isn't in holding it back while it isn't in holding it back while you while you worry about getting it right.
It's about not letting fear rule you. I'm very afraid. This book makes me very scared. People are gonna see a side of me and my family and the people in my life that really scares me. But I know there's a bigger message, a way bigger message that the world needs to see, and that's why this book is coming out. And with that, I'm going to wrap this episode up of the solar powered podcast, a presentation of Royal Hearts Media. I'm glad I got that out of the way.
For more information about Royal Hearts Media or about me, you can simply follow me on the social media machine at Ryan Hall Wright, on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. Yes. I got my original Instagram back, or you can simply send me an email, a good old fashioned email at royalheartscoaching@gmail.com. But that will do it for this episode of the solar powered podcast. Until we meet again, this is Ryan Hall saying thanks you so much for listening. So long for now. I love you all so much.
And please go get solar powered and rattle the world with your voice. Take care.