Beyond the Mask: From Armor to Aliveness

What happens when the voice you’ve been told you have to use isn’t your own?

Executive coach and organizational change consultant Dana Baugh joins Soulful Speaking to share her journey from corporate leader—where she was encouraged to “man up” and mask her true self—to a more heart-centered, present, and authentic speaker. Her story reveals what can unfold when we follow the quiet voice urging us away from external achievement and toward inner alignment.

Together, we explore what it means to stand at the crossroads between societal expectations and soul truth—between performing who we think we should be and expressing who we truly are.

If you've ever felt like success and fulfillment should be the same thing, but aren’t… if you’ve struggled with feeling like you have to put on a mask to speak… this episode is for you.

Tune in for a soulful conversation about intuition, energy, and the power of showing up as your whole self. Dana’s journey offers both inspiration and grounded, practical wisdom for anyone feeling the disconnect between outer success and inner fulfillment.

TAKEAWAYS

1. Our intuition knows before our mind. When something doesn’t feel right—whether it’s a job, a path, or a speaking style—our inner voice usually notices first. Learning to listen to that quiet inner voice can change everything.

2. Success and fulfillment aren’t the same. We can follow all the rules and still feel like something vital is missing.

3. Embrace the third way. We don’t have to choose between staying silent or wearing a mask that doesn’t fit. There’s a third way to speak—one that honors who we truly are. 

4. Presence is the foundation of soulful speaking. When we’re grounded in body, breath, and energy, connection happens naturally.

5. Everything is energy. Whether we’re with horses, people, or an audience—authentic presence and deep connection are felt beyond words.

6. Community matters. Surrounding ourselves with others walking the same path helps us stay aligned with our truth.

7. Simple practices help us return. Movement, nature, and quiet listening bring us back when old patterns creep in—and that’s part of the journey.

8. Speaking is a full-body experience. Moving beyond the “tal

Story Magic
A Soulful Speaking Playshop for loving rebels on a soul-driven mission.

Join me for Story Magic — a live, interactive Soulful Speaking Playshop where you’ll learn powerful secrets from the ancient art of theatre for telling engaging, dynamic stories.

The Speaker Alter Ego Quiz

Take the Speaker Alter Ego quiz to find out which protective mask hides your natural radiance so you can learn how to get present, connect deeply, and share your vision when it matters most!

https://voice-matters.com/speaker-alter-ego-quiz/

Chapters

• 1:51 The Early Years: Speaking in a Corporate Suit of Armor
• 4:07 Walking away from success
• 11:29 Life-changing lessons from horses
• 14:51 Everything is energy
• 21:26 The power of community
• 25:00 Soul Suckers and Speaker Alter Egos
• 31:13 Living life out vs figuring it out
• 35:43 Movement, nature and presence practices
• 38:43 Listen within
• 40:17 Dana's Pivot Pivot

Transcript

Lauri: 1:08

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Soulful Speaking Podcast. My guest today is the beautiful Dana Baugh. Dana and I have known each other for so many years now. Another Dana introduced me to her. She's an executive coach and an organizational change consultant, and I'm going to let her story tell you. Even more consultant, and I'm gonna let her story tell you even more. Dana, where did your speaking journey?

Dana: 1:40

begin, I would say, my speaking journey began when I started my career in corporate. I worked for GE, I was a manager at GE and I was in a role that I thought I really wanted. I thought I really wanted to be a leader of a GE business at one point, and so as part of my work towards that, I needed to speak in front of groups. And I'm introverted, so that does not come natural to me. Introverted, so that does not come natural to me. And my mentors at the time gave me all kinds of advice about you know, be tough and put my boots on, and just kinds of things about, like you know, man up, kind of advice. So that's how I entered speaking to groups.

Lauri: 2:30

And how did it feel when you were trying to take their advice way back then?

Dana: 2:39

It felt well. I completely bought into it first of all. So there wasn't a like whoa, is there another way? I completely bought into it. But it felt really hard. It felt really artificial. It felt like I was slipping on a fake suit. That wasn't me, yeah.

Lauri: 3:02

And what kind of impact did that have in your life at that time?

Dana: 3:18

I think it. I did it well enough to get through and do my job, which a lot of it, you know. I did have to get up and speak in front of people quite a bit, so I did it enough to get through that. I think the cost of it was that I thought that's what speaking was and so I thought, speaking I always have to put on the mask, put on this artificial suit of armor and be somebody you know, step into somebody else. That was acceptable and I wasn't acceptable and so part of it felt very soul crushing.

Lauri: 3:50

Mm, hmm, how did your whole journey evolve and how did your speaking journey evolve from back then? Kind of tell us where that went.

Dana: 4:03

Yeah, my whole journey evolved where this dream I had of continuing to ascend the corporate ladder. The more I moved in that direction, the less fulfilled I felt, and I felt very flat and one-dimensional and very sad and I thought that is really weird, that this thing that I think I want and have dreamed of and I'm moving towards, the closer I get, the worse I feel. So I tried to ignore that for a long time because I didn't know what else to do. But at some point I went something is trying to tell me something and I need to listen, and so I decided just to quit, to walk away and try to go figure out. And I didn't know what I was going to do, but I thought I need to walk away, give myself space and I will figure out what I need to do next, which is unlike me. I'm a much, very much a planner. I like to have control and certainty. So that was a big deal to walk away because I felt like life was calling me to something else.

Lauri: 5:20

Yeah, and where did that lead?

Dana: 5:25

It led me at least to figure out what I like doing with my life. Again, I thought I wanted to be the leader, but what I actually found out is that I love supporting leaders. The thing that I found that I really just I never get tired of is being a coach listening to leaders' stories and really understanding sort of what makes them who they are and how do you unleash the best of who they are and how just to free them up to be who they are and yeah, so that I never get tired of that. So it led me to figure that out. What it didn't lead me to do is I still had this thought of success and fulfillment, which I thought were sort of the same thing. I thought it was attaining power and status and money and being successful in the eyes of society and the ways that we externally measure that I had never done any internal work no-transcript.

Lauri: 7:01

So listening to the moment where your intuition was saying walk away is an example of a moment of internal work. You listened and then drifted back and went into corporate and had more to learn. What was the next step in your speaking journey and I know you may go back and forth between speaking and your overall life journey.

Dana: 7:21

Yeah, I think it was realizing that I wanted to use my voice and speak to people. I wanted to use my voice and speak to people, speak to groups, recognizing that the only way I knew to do it like when I tried to do it again, it was in this masked up, you know, armored persona, and it was like for a while it felt like either or Like well, either I don't say, you know, I don't get up, or I do that and I, you know, I'm trying to figure out a different way. And it was slowly in different ways, recognizing that there was a different way that you could show up. It didn't have to be an either or there was a both.

Lauri: 8:08

And in there, yeah, I love that and I want to highlight that the idea that if you don't look like what the rest of the world is telling you is a leader or a speaker, then you're not one and you're not supposed to speak. I feel like there are a lot of listeners out there who have that impression of they've got this inner thing calling them to speak, whether it's on a TED Talk stage or in a corporation or in front of a green camera light shooting a video. And yet to a part of them it doesn't make sense because it doesn't match that masked up only one way version. That is sort of infiltrating out in the world and your intuition again was having you. You know, stay with it, keep going until eventually the third way of oh hey, I can be me and speak, I don't need to do it. The way they're doing it Revealed itself and it sounds like in this moment from you. Staying with the doesn't really make sense and I'm going to keep feeling it out, I'm going to stay curious, yeah.

Dana: 10:44

Yeah, I really appreciate how you said that, because that describes the journey well and it was part of that journey was recognizing that I'm more than my head, I'm more than my intellect, because part of that was I thought that was my whole worth, my value was my intellect. So this journey of trusting that I could be me and speak led me into really understanding. Wow, beyond my intellect, I have intuitions, I have sensations.

Lauri: 11:22

I have emotions that are all valuable information.

Dana: 11:23

Just really understanding the wholeness of the energy that I possess and tap into, and it's not just the talking head thing which I did not understand that before.

Lauri: 11:35

Yeah, and how did you come to understand that?

Dana: 11:41

It was with horses. With horses I went to, I think I was led to go to this horse ranch, which I had no idea why I was doing it All kinds of reasons I wouldn't have done it but it was a place called Vista Caballa, out in Dove Creek, colorado, and horses are your teachers for the week that you're there. And it was.

Dana: 12:15

Horses are excellent at biofeedback and the idea was that when you're present, you can do things with the horses and work with them and get them to interact and do things. When you're not present, they want nothing to do with you interact and do things. When you're not present, they want nothing to do with you. And so, in real time, through those days, I got to see what it was like. Every time I got in my head or I was being a talking head to the horses because I'm given things to do with them, and none of it worked unless I got present. And yeah, I'm in my body, I have a body, I have a soul, I have a mind, I have a heart, and once all of that came online, the horses loved to interact with me, and so I got to notice what that was like.

Lauri: 13:06

Yeah, yeah, I did a horse thing with my leadership tribe and you just reminded me.

Lauri: 13:17

You know, you can kind of shy away or you can push, and there was a moment where someone was trying too hard and got kicked by a horse and it's kind of funny now, only because he was okay Like it was quite a bruise on his leg that you're in its boundaries and it's sending messages to you of I don't like that, I don't like that.

Lauri: 13:45

And then eventually, when you're continuing and the boundary goes too far, it kicks and it was an incredible bruise and fortunately not a kneecap going the wrong direction. So as you're talking, I'm kind of reminded of that and I'm wanting listeners to understand what kind of a range there can be with the horses from if you're trying too hard, I will kick you because you're in my boundary, or I'm just going to go off and hang with the other horses or the other people and have nothing to do with you, or they can be playing with you and present with you and connected with you. And over the course of the week you got to the point where you had the playing with you and deeply present with you and connected with you.

Dana: 14:42

And it's just amazing to really get to understand with this idea of what you just said about connected with you, about how energy works, and all of a sudden you realize how everything is energy and just to feel the energy when you are truly connected and they're connected with you is yeah. It opened my eyes to that idea of everything is energy.

Lauri: 15:05

Yeah, what did the energy feel like to you when you were connected to them and they were connected to you?

Dana: 15:13

Well, I remember I shared a story with you. I'll just give the part about what it felt like. That was like a Tuesday afternoon. We're out in this pasture out in Colorado, and when we connected, when I finally got present and they it was a number of horses came to me and we were interacting. I remember feeling my feet on the ground very clearly and I remember looking up in the sky and seeing like this bluest blue sky. I remember the wind blowing my hair and just how good that felt. And I remember the flowers they're like dandelions, I think yellow flowers and green grass and how everything seemed to be technicolor and just I was feeling and seeing and experiencing everything together at this really, really deep level. It felt really unusual and then my big takeaway from it is like oh my gosh, this is how we're meant to be. We are meant to experience the world like this and we rarely do because there's so many distractions.

Lauri: 17:29

Yeah, yeah. And how did that impact your journey in your life and your journey in speaking impact your journey in your life and your journey.

Dana: 17:40

In speaking Once I felt that and I'm sure in other points in my life, like my example when there was a voice telling me to leave GE, even though everyone thought I was a bit crazy because I was doing really well there I think I have tapped into this deeper knowing, whole knowing, beyond my mind, before connection. I think that at that point it it was like there's no going back. I do not want to go back to how I was before, where I thought living from my head was all there was, and not that I stay here present to what's present all the time, but that's my intention.

Lauri: 18:26

I just saw an image of like two roads in a wood, or two paths, and in that moment, after the horses, there was a road that was like this is the direction you would go if you were going back to living from the head the way most of the world, most of the Western world, is doing it. And then a road, another direction that was if you take this other path, you will feel that again more often. Path you will feel that again more often. Not you're with the horses all the time and everything is technicolor all the time, not like it will be instantaneous, but knowing if I take this other road, I will have that more often, I will feel that again. And if I take the original road that I used to be on, i'm'm absolutely not gonna have it. What has your road to feeling that more and more often been like?

Dana: 19:25

Well, I found communities that embrace that and understand it, that there are other people out there that, for whatever reason a lot of times it wasn't my case, but exactly but a lot of times it's trauma Something traumatic happens, it could be an illness, it could be a death, some kind of loss, and you, by virtue of that, you find yourself, you know, searching for meaning, and in that search, some people end up with this feeling and understanding. So mine was this, it was this idea, like that, I had done everything I was taught that I should do to have a successful and fulfilling life.

Dana: 20:19

Um, I did the playbook and you know had the awards and accolades to you know show that I'd done the work that I was told to do.

Dana: 20:28

and then it was like all of a sudden realizing this is not what I want at all or this is not what this is not brought me, as it brought me success, but it didn't bring me fulfillment. And so this think what's helped me on my journey is finding other people that, for whatever reason, were snapped into like whoa. If this is an illusion, then what do I want my life to be? What is real for me? And finding those communities and some of them are like I find the soulful speaking community, the speaker studio, one of those places I'm part of a it's called the Healing Den. It's a presence-based community where we do presence practices and that's, you know, other people who understand that. It is something you have to be intentional about.

Lauri: 21:40

And they're all walking their version of that path to have it more and more and more. And I believe, of course, the more time we spend in community safe spaces, sacred spaces that are looking for that, from yoga to the healing den to the speaker's studio, the more time we spend in spaces like that, it's like we build up an escrow for that, that sort of turning the volume down or decreasing the escrow of live from your head, follow this playbook and turning up the volume and building the energetic escrow of this presence. Intuition path.

Dana: 22:33

Yeah, yeah, it's making me smile because since COVID I don't travel as much, but when I used to travel a lot more, it would be like I'd get built up with my escrow of okay, I've got my practices and you know, I feel really solid and grounded, I can really experience all of me, not just the mind. And then I off, I'd be running, traveling from thing to thing for business and making the rounds in these corporate places, and then all of a sudden I would. It was, yeah, like I was back where I was before.

Lauri: 23:15

Yeah, yeah, and back where I was before. I've come across a lot of people who in their lives they're pretty far along on that presence path and then they go to speak on a stage in front of a green camera light and they find themselves feeling like those old masks, that old armor is coming back, um, like an old. It's like you putting on a pair of shoes from when you were a teenager and it doesn't really fit you where you are now. How does that align with your experience of speaking? Very much so.

Dana: 24:01

I'm just always surprised and I have to laugh at that. Even with what I know and what I've experienced, which it feels like that should really solidify me, being able to hang in the space of being present, what is present and letting all of me come through. When I'm speaking, I still get knocked right back into the like. I can just feel like my energy is from here on up, and, yeah, being a talking head. Yeah, yeah, and I still have to work at not doing that.

Lauri: 24:43

Yeah, yeah and it um. What was your, what's your top mask in the speaker alter ego quiz.

Dana: 24:55

Was that the one? The nervous Nellies?

Lauri: 24:58

That's the soul suckers. So the soul suckers are the part of us. We're complex. We've got our soul and our inner teenager and many, many, many parts inside us, and the soul suckers are the ones that are trying to protect us and they tend to suck the soul out of our voice and they are the part that often is guiding us to go grab the mask yeah so the nervous Nellies are nervous I don't have enough time, I don't have enough time, I don't have enough money, something like that.

Lauri: 25:32

And then if we speak, they're like okay, if you're going to do it, go over here and grab this mask to keep yourself safe. That's it. This feels safer, yeah, yeah. Yeah, this feels safer. It doesn't feel as present or alive. Feel as present or alive.

Lauri: 25:50

The masks are the heady hipster, the porcelain doll, the deranged mannequin, the jiving jokester and the peppy pleaser. I think mine's deranged mannequin. There's a lot of deranged mannequin energy in the corporate world. It's my top. So I love telling people this because a lot of people feel like that has the absolute worst name and then I kind of go it's mine, it's a funny name and it's, in particular, how I feel it was. You know the name I gave it is because there's an over amount of work, there's a hardening of passion and I know that some people are naturally high energy, high sensation seeking extroverts and they have a very passionate outgoing style, organically, and sometimes in the corporate world, when other people are attempting to mentor them and help them, they do what you heard, like do it, like I do it. Yeah Well, you're not a high sensation seeking extrovert who spends a lot of time jumping up and down on tables in your normal life.

Dana: 27:07

No.

Lauri: 27:08

So it's not going to feel authentic to you to get on a stage and do it that way. And the difference for me just in case somebody out there listening is like wait, is it bad to be someone jumping up and down on tables? Is that, if it's your innate style, first of all, we all have a range so I can be very quiet and still, and I can also like lay on the ground and jump up on a table. It feels fluid, it feels easy, it feels like you're riding a wave that's moving through you where, like, you cannot help but jump on the table in that moment, if that's your style, and when it's not your style, it feels hard, it feels like you have to like harden up and like try to leap on the table, either literally or energetically.

Lauri: 28:08

And, by the same token, if you're someone who is that high sensation-seeking extrovert and someone tells you to be more still, don't talk with your hands, don't move around the stage so much. That is going to feel hard and tight to the person who naturally, naturally, organically, wants to move more. Somebody out there needed to hear that.

Dana: 28:39

I appreciate you describing it because I was curious, knowing you're more extroverted, I'm more introverted how we both came up with the same thing. But I think I understand now, because the people that were mentoring me when I first started speaking were that more extroverted energy.

Lauri: 28:58

Yeah, yeah, and I am actually an introvert, believe it or not. I'm a verbally processing introvert oh, interesting, okay which can be incredibly confusing for people. I love being in crowds, so I think I probably am a little further over than you when there's a point to it. So put me on a stage when I'm doing soulful speaking work in the world and during I feel energized by it and I can be very expressive. Put me on a stage when I'm doing a play that I believe is reflecting something about humanity and.

Lauri: 29:47

I love the energy of the live crowd and I ride the waves of that energy. But you put me in a bar on a friday night where it's loud and there are people there that are like they want to sit at the bar, they want to hear. You know, the music going and the people talking, and then the sports, ball games on the televisions all blaring at once and I just want to curl up in the fetal position and go home, because it's not that, there's not a point to that, because there are people who absolutely love that environment. It is nourishing to them. I wasn't born for it to be nourishing to me. Yeah, yeah. So what is life and your speaking journey like these days?

Dana: 30:43

I would say it is about trusting myself to show up and see what happens.

Dana: 30:51

One of the things that has come to me of late that feels like something important is I feel like I have spent so much of my life trying to figure life out, trying to have certainty and control and all the things that that means you do in order to do that, all the ways you cut yourself off from being present as you're in your head, trying to make things happen a certain way and figure it out too.

Dana: 31:23

And again, it's usually out of fear, it's usually I'll be safe. If I do it this way, things will, yeah, so what has come to me lately is this idea of noticing that when I'm living life out which means I'm being present to what is present and I am meeting the situation and not figuring it out but through my mind and through my body and through my intuition, I am getting information about what would best serve me, what would best serve the other people, what would best serve the circumstances I'm in right now, and then let that flow. And it might be hard to describe the difference between that and the figuring it out, but boy, it feels really, really different hmm, can you give us a little bit more about how it feels different for you?

Dana: 32:24

um, yeah, I mean, this seems like these are just such simple things like.

Dana: 32:30

Um, I was at a little leadership retreat um and we were, um, every time we were put in small groups and they would just say, go find you know three or four people. And before I would get really anxious about that, like, oh my goodness, I want to make sure you know I find people and I'm not standing in the corner and everybody's got people and I don't for you know, whatever reason, just in this very simple example. Or even when we went to lunch, like what table am I going to sit at? So I spent a lot of time like trying to figure out, like pre-plan, like well, who am I I want to partner with? Where am I? Why do I want to sit at lunch?

Dana: 33:14

Those kinds of things, taking my energy, not being present in my head, trying to figure this out, yeah, and instead it would be like what needs to happen will happen, happen. And when I'm in the moment, it was just amazing how other people that wanted to connect and be in the group with me we would just like like electricity, like we find each other, yeah, and we got together and it was like we were meant to be together, we, we.

Lauri: 33:45

there was something that we shared that was like, oh, my life I've met somehow more from what you're describing, where even before I was working on that very kind of stuff myself, I just happened to have a moment where I was more in my body and looked over, you know, across a room in graduate school on the very first day, and one person is calling to me energetically and afterwards walk outside, feeling my feet on the ground, feeling the air, look over, there she is on a bike and I still remember to this day, on the bike, her sort of like, walking herself on the bike slowly over to me and saying, hey, do you want to go get dinner or something? And we did. And then I was in her wedding many years later and same kind of thing with my now husband, Met him in one of those loud bars actually, and it was like the whole room quieted down and I felt an energy and in my head went what the fuck was that? After I felt it, yeah, and you know, now I'm actually married to him.

Dana: 35:25

That's beautiful examples. I love that.

Lauri: 35:30

You mentioned practices. I have a feeling some of the people listening might be curious about what are some of the practices that you use to help support you in coming back to presence. Coming back to presence, coming back to presence yeah.

Dana: 35:47

Movement. It's sort of that listening to my I mean for me, because I can be in my head and be very content there for hours upon hours. I'll just give you an example I was just sharing with a friend. I had been working a long day yesterday, been sitting in my Zoom meetings for hours upon hours and I listened to my body. That was the good news. I listened to my body. It's like it's telling me it's time to move. So get up, get in the car, go to the park.

Dana: 36:22

Well, what I wanted to do was there was this juicy podcast I wanted, had been wanting to listen to. I'm like, oh, here's a time I can listen to the podcast. Something in me was saying, no, no, just be, just walk. You know, be, notice the birds, notice there's a Creek that runs through this park, notice you know what's going on around you and don't don what's going on around you and don't, don't turn on the podcast. And so, yeah, that's part of the practices get out and move. But part of it is also like just listening to what you need in that moment. Um, in a in a more holistic way. Yeah, that's this.

Lauri: 37:02

Yeah, so a combination of movement, your body and your intuition, yeah, yeah, yeah. So a combination of movement, your body and your intuition, yeah, yeah.

Dana: 37:09

Yeah, so that's. Nature really helps me and that's why I am. So that's part of what I just described too is being in nature. There's something we had for many years before we moved. We had a cabin in the Superior National Forest, which is on the Canadian border of Minnesota and Canada, and it was just idyllic in terms of being in nature and I, just when I went up there I couldn't figure out like why I instantly felt present and just different. And civilization was pretty far away. I mean, you had to go at least an hour to get to a store. So it was out there. And what I just started thinking one day when I was out walking in the trees is, like the trees never are saying you're not enough, you know, or you should be this way, and so just that nonjudgmental being there, present to us in a nonjudgmental way. So that nature teaches me that reminds me Beautiful, beautiful.

Lauri: 38:18

What advice? What do you want our listeners to know?

Dana: 38:37

I guess that it's that if you're feeling like something like, wow, my, I have the Parker Palmer quotes coming to my mind. I'll just paraphrase. I'm not saying exactly, but it's something like to all appearances my life looked quite, but the soul doesn't put much stock in appearances. It's something about that that, like we again, we think we're doing all the things we need to do for fulfilling life, but some part of us is trying to tell us that we're missing something important and I think when we just take our cues from society, we're definitely going to miss that something important. So it is sort of open up, listen to yourself and what wants to come through and in your own way, in whatever way works for you, can you start to walk the path and embrace or see what's there and experiment with that, play with that.

Lauri: 39:33

Beautiful and if our listeners, if there's somebody out there feeling called to connect more with you and possibly work with you, how can they find you?

Dana: 39:49

Probably my email address would be the best way. It's Dana D-A-N-A at D-L-B-A-U-G-Hcom.

Lauri: 40:02

Wonderful, thank you. And now we're gonna go ahead and shift into our PIVO pivot. I'm going to ask a series of questions. Answer each one word or a short phrase. What is your favorite word?

Dana: 40:18

Curiosity.

Lauri: 40:21

What is your least favorite word? Hate? What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Love. What turns you off? Ignorance. What's your favorite cuss word? Fuck. What sound or noise do you love?

Dana: 40:54

I was going to do like my sound I make to myself, like ah, and what sound or noise do you hate?

Lauri: 41:07

Hmm?

Dana: 41:10

People, and what sound or noise do you hate?

Lauri: 41:19

People screaming in ways that are very not present. What profession other than yours would be fun to try? Anthropologist. What profession would you not like to do? Lawyer and Dana, what do you hope people say about you on?

Dana: 41:44

your 100th birthday.

Lauri: 41:47

She saw me, she listened, she made me or helped me see myself more fully thank you for letting me see you fully and our listeners see you and hear you fully it's been great to be with you.

Dana: 42:09

I really appreciate this.