Coloring Outside the Lines: Own Your Sparkle with Tina B

What happens when a big-hearted farm girl turns Muppet-inspired porch performances into TED Talks and global keynotes?

Tina B. joins Lauri for a soulful, sparkly conversation on intuition, presence, and the power of letting your full self be seen. From the fifth-grade teacher who believed in her voice, to a Paris keynote gone sideways (and back again), to 30 days of Facebook Lives in her sweats—Tina shares what it really means to speak from your truth—slides or no slides, fear and all.

If you’ve ever dimmed your light, doubted your story, or wondered how to truly connect when you speak, this one’s for you.

TAKEAWAYS
1. Being seen is powerful.
2. Presence trumps perfection every time. You don’t need perfect slides to make an impact.
3. Storytelling is a muscle. No matter where you’re starting, you can train your ability to speak magnetically,
4. Intuition is a superpower. Learning to “yes, and” your own inner voice creates magic - on stage and off!
5. Let go of the need to be impressive. Focus on being interested, not interesting.
6. PowerPoint isn’t Preparation. Soulful speech prep is rooted in energy, intuition, and doing it out loud and on your feet.
7. Magnetism isn’t one size fits all. Your disco ball might be someone else’s white fluffy pillow, and both are beautiful.
8. Comparison is a story that silences. The more we embrace our uniqueness, the more magnetic we become.
9. Magnetism = Heart + Truth + Sparkle. It’s not about being loud, it's about being real.

Connect with Tina
https://www.tinabakehouse.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinabakehouse/
https://www.facebook.com/TinaBakehouse

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

• 1:57 Farm girl and front porch performer
• 4:05 Mrs. Hogave: The teacher who saw her potential
• 7:43 Facing imposter syndrome on the TEDx stage
• 9:58 The power of "Yes, and … !" Improvising when the tech fails
• 14:16 Why telling your story can feel vulnerable
• 17:01 Finding the Dale in the room: presence over performance
• 19:16 Force vs power
• 22:17 Comparison, silence, and the pressure to be perfect
• 24:36 Improv, intuition, and integrating soul into speaking
• 30:01 Preparing to speak soulfully
• 34:59 Writing the book + the fear of being heard
• 43:10 Embracing your unique sparkle
• 45:14 Pivot Pivot (lightning round questions)

Transcript

Lauri: 1:08

Hello and welcome back to the Soulful Speaking podcast. I am so excited . .She my guest today. She started her own company, tina B LLC, to provide intuitive communication, consulting and coaching to guide heart-centered leaders and organizations internationally to communicate more effectively. So she fits right in here on the Soulful Speaking podcast. She has oodles and buckets of experience and I want to save this auditory version for you to hear that in her story. Welcome, tina.

Tina: 1:45

Thank you. Thank you, Lori. It's so wonderful to be here. I'm excited for this conversation.

Lauri: 1:50

Me too. Me too, let's dive in. Tell me, where did your speaking journey begin?

Tina: 2:00

I would say when I was very, very little, I grew up on a small farm in southwest Iowa and I literally had this front porch that became my proscenium stage and I loved crafting little shows with my stuffed animals.

Tina: 2:15

I was motivated from the Muppet Show, jim Henson, all Things Performance, and when I bought a younger brother and sister I just thought you know what? Now I have people I can direct, and so when I was seven, I started doing annual anniversary stories and shows dinner theaters, if you will for my parents, and it really got inside of me this excitement that is possible for writing something that people are attentive to and listen. And as I adventured through high school and college, I did speech and theater and all the things and then just leaned into teaching the field of communication at the high school level and then got my advanced degrees at the collegiate level and I just found that there was something so gratifying in the idea of okay, I have an audience. What is something that I'm excited and passionate about in the idea of, okay, I have an audience? What is something that I'm excited and passionate about? How can I pierce their listening with what I have to say? Through story and ideas?

Lauri: 3:24

I wanna go back in time to the earlier end of the spectrum in the fifth grade. I think the teacher's name was Mrs Hogave, close Hogave.

Tina: 3:36

Yes, yes.

Lauri: 3:38

Tell me what kind of role did Mrs Hogave play in your story?

Tina: 3:43

Yeah, mrs Hogave, she, oh my goodness she's. I still keep in touch with her. She's nearing 100. And we I write her letters, call and I've even had teas with her for her birthday and so I'm super grateful. She sees the light in other youngsters in terms of what their possibility is.

Tina: 4:07

And when I was in fifth grade I'd had a rough fourth grade year. A really rough teacher and who was discouraging, really shushed me a lot from reading aloud and she saw potential in me and I remember she came up to me and handed me a script and she said I picked this particular play with you in mind as the main role and I just was like what you see something in me? And she says, yes, and I know you'll do what you see something in me. And she says, yes, and I know you'll do. Her word was marvelous, you'll do marvelous.

Tina: 4:45

And so I took so much seriousness, like the rigor that an actor would for, like their debut on stage as a Broadway star or that very first movie, an Oscar winning performance, and I remember just rigorously reading and practicing and memorizing and just beautifully had this experience of people listening and clapping and her arm around me and the big hug and said see, I knew you had it in you and you're going to do beautiful, big things with your voice. So keep performing, keep acting. And it was her that really instilled in me that. Oh, she saw even more. So the thing that I love to do I'm meant to do.

Lauri: 5:22

What was it like to have someone with that belief come into your world right after the shushing person in your world?

Tina: 5:34

Yeah, that it was exactly what I needed. I mean, she loved her students, loved them, and I remember even having a conversation with her where she had a student that was just rough around the edges and she got through to that student because he knew he could count on her to care for him. When someone cares for you and when they notice you and see you, everyone wants to be seen and recognized for their gifts, and I just hadn't had that at all. In fact, I have big enthusiasm, big love, big heart, and it was squished down by so many teachers. I mean, I even had one that said you know, Tina, I love your creativity on this assignment, but remember to color inside the lines, and I'm an outside of the lines person.

Tina: 6:24

And Mrs Hovabine embraced that. She just really encouraged it and said okay, there are no rules to this other than completed on time. That's the only thing. This is the deadline. And so to have her believe in me, I think, heightened my passion, my openness to learning and my abilities of wow someone sees in me, my possibility, and it just encouraged me to want and do more.

Lauri: 6:55

Love it, love it and then you've done Muppets. You have such an extensive, beautiful journey and I also I know when we first connect you mentioned a little bit that even through all of that, you have had moments of imposter syndrome. Even though I'm telling you people like I did not read her bio aloud because there is too much amazing stuff in it. It is extensive and amazing and you're probably, if you're listening, already getting a sense of her and yet even you have had some moments of the crippling nervousness and the imposter syndrome. Can you talk a little bit more about that in your journey?

Tina: 7:46

Yeah, I've done two TED Talks and I remember that very first one where I was like, oh my gosh, I'm getting up on a stage on that red dot. That is the quintessential credibility, and this is the very thing that I teach. And I started to play terrible tapes in my head of what if I forget what I'm supposed to say, what if I come off too robotic and memorize what if, what if, what if. And the what ifs became very daunting and heavy and scary. And I fortunately have this amazing mentor, another teacher, a professor that is actually visiting me later this month, which I'm so grateful for.

Tina: 8:26

She's a theater prof. We've known each other for over 30 years and she invited me and said we're going to get you out of your head, hon. And it took her. She not only gave me her purple blazer for good luck, so like wearing that token of love, wrapped me with a big hug and in words of encouragement. But it's true, our minds are pretty powerful, like we can get into this, like Brene Brown talks about, the stories we tell ourselves can be so crippling and the fear was very real, where I almost didn't want to do it, where I almost said I don't have to do this, but then my intuition said absolutely, this is exactly what you need to do. Yeah.

Lauri: 9:11

Yeah, what a gift in that theater, professor reminding you the magic is not in your head, it's in your body, it's in the present moment, it is in your presence, your heart and your heart. Yeah, it's not in the information I mean.

Tina: 9:49

Yeah, it's not in the information. I mean, yes, you had valuable information to share, and ourselves. First, to get in that grounding, which we did prior to this, which I so appreciate, it is to be fully in the moment that what happened before, what's going to happen next, is not there. It's this, it's this moment. And when you do that, when you walk out onto a stage, kind of like I did internationally for a Paris keynote, when the technology wasn't working, I had a choice I could panic and flip out, or I decided to take that mic and, in the moment, create a musical, improv, improvised rap that I got all the women on their feet and shifted that energy.

Tina: 10:28

Not only did it shift their energy and get them excited, it did that for me. It was very important for me, so that I was like you know what? I don't even need those slides, I'll email them to you. Let's just have this conversation.

Lauri: 10:41

Yeah, and just tracking, like if you had listened to the teacher who said Tina, don't color out of the lines when coloring out of the lines, when coloring out of the lines is one of your magic powers. When you're standing there and the slides aren't going, how you responded is all well, she went outside of the lines, the lines where you're supposed to have perfect technology. You're supposed to have the slides. So thank goodness you have had teachers and you chose to commit to coloring outside of the lines and owning that, like when the slides go down, you are the perfect person to be standing at the front of the room helping everybody else in the room have the experience that they were meant to have on that day.

Tina: 11:35

Well, a lot of them actually said they were so grateful because it let them let go of perfectionism and not be so committed to their slides and say, oh, if this happens I can just have a conversation. I have this information and this stuff inside of me that I don't need these things behind me to be the focal point that really people come to hear my voice and feel my energy, and slides simply cannot do that.

Lauri: 12:05

Yeah, no. And our inner critics? I call them the soul suckers.

Tina: 12:11

Our inner critics. I call them the soul suckers.

Lauri: 12:13

They're so trying to help us that they can often make us hide behind the slides. And when people's inner critics are trying to control the experience, sometimes they make the slides the whole show. It's death by PowerPoint. Theater sports, to some extent, the audience seeing a movie. Those are experiences that the people in the audience and the people in the building really have together, and I remember during the pandemic, when the whole world shut down and all the live theaters shut down, someone bringing up the fact that studies have shown that when actors and audience are in the same space together, their hearts do actually start to beat in unison.

Tina: 13:06

And that can happen from a speaker and an audience also, in fact I've done some research where our brains change when we hear stories, and there's Paul Zak who's a researcher that our hormones, our oxytocin, that helping hormone, actually increases. You know, because, similar to what you were saying about the hearts, we go on that journey, that it's like we see, feel and experience the story as it's unveiling and unrolling, because maybe we didn't experience exactly the same way as that person of the teller. However, we've experienced parts and pieces of it, of what it means to be human.

Lauri: 15:02

Yeah, yeah, and I'm curious what your journey with storytelling is about. You has been I don't know about you and your clients A lot of my clients they know they should, if they're running their own business, share stories so people can know, like and trust. They've heard all those things and they still have a voice in their head that's saying why, why on earth would I do that? My story isn't interesting. What has your experience been like being seen telling your own stories?

Tina: 15:43

it's been hard, honestly. I found I actually had a client say that, tina, you love to hide behind your clients and this was a few years ago actually, actually and I thought, wow, that's very profound. What do you mean by that? Well, you're really great at the guidance and teaching and you really tell a great story, but I don't see enough of you and I recognize I'm like, oh, it is some efforting to look the part. Do the videos posts that I had this visibility issue, that I worked through a business coaching experience about four or five years ago, that I did a 30 day Facebook live challenge, no matter what popped on, did a video and it took me 26 days to get through it to feel, oh, oh, it's me, they want, they don't mind if I'm in my sweatsuit and I'm just having a conversation. I was minding more than they were minding Like.

Tina: 16:38

I also went to an experience on a horse farm because I noticed, when I was going to networking events as things were opening up, that I was like trying to be super interesting, like, oh, self business, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, instead of being interested and it it was like off-putting.

Tina: 16:56

And so this horse farm experience was like focused on letting go of controlled perfectionism and I call it finding the Dale in the room. That's what I do now when I go to networking events. Is Dale the horse really taught me to be fully calm, present and not throw myself at it. We just stood with each other for a good 15 minutes before I even touched him because I waited for his readiness and I grounded myself in my readiness, and then we gazed eyes first like it was this nice slow dance, and then pretty soon he nuzzled me and that was the okay to brush, and then we just got into this beautiful, lovely dance, if you will, and then, one by one, the other four horses joined and it was this magical moment of that's what it is. I need to just be in my being and you know transition time take a beat and a breath and walk in with just tuning in and finding that Dale in the room, of having one or two heart-centered conversations, not 20.

Lauri: 18:01

Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. We've had a couple of people or I've recorded with a couple of people and I've had a horse experience myself.

Tina: 18:10

It's magical?

Lauri: 18:11

Yeah, it really. There is no like forcing yourself on people. There is no performing with a horse, as you said. The horse nuzzled and gave you the invitation that you responded to, rather than you just going up and I feel like brushing you know, yeah, and it really was.

Tina: 18:33

I mean marrying that energy. And then the other four horses were like wait a minute, I want to have some of this and be part of this, which was beautiful to experience, and I just I feel like it was eye opening in terms of foundational shift in me when I how do I be, how do I show up in terms of future virtual or in-person events? Because you know, I was no longer representing a university or a for-profit or nonprofit organization, but me and my business, and I think I took it so personally and put that unnecessary pressure. And there is this really big difference between force and power. Force, as you said, brings on an edginess, ickiness, feeling. Power is beautiful. It comes from more inside and it can be so calm and quiet. It doesn't have to be big and loud, it doesn't have to be big and loud.

Lauri: 19:33

Yeah, and there's. It has always felt to me like force. There's a lot of muscular effort and there's an energy coming out the front of the body and power has this feeling of effortless and ease or a balance in the body.

Tina: 19:59

And the energy is radiating out 360 degrees and I think that that's where you know when you run your own business. Going back to your original thought about storytelling is, I think that we put that absolute push pressure to make money and we feel like, well, if I don't get this story right, or right enough, or good enough, I mean, I've had clients that they think they have no story and some that too many, they don't know how to slice and dice it, all of those problems, everything in between. And when you put money as the pressure, as the focal point, instead of the connection to self and other, then that's going to make a big difference in terms of the content of your message.

Lauri: 20:35

Yeah, the alignment between the two of us. Yummy, very yummy. Same thing when the I got to make money is at the top of the pyramid. It generally doesn't feel right for a lot of the people like yourself, like me, where we want to serve, like if someone has ever said to you you're hiding behind your clients, it's because you love them and you want to serve them, so you hide behind clients instead of PowerPoint. Been there, done that. And when we're speaking and there might be an invitation at the end, it's much more aligned for us to make the service the top of the pyramid. Yes, to tell the story in service of their journey and their transformation. And then, yes, if we love them and we love their transformation and we want to continue to serve them on it or at least invite them into that possibility. It has a very different feeling than like I got to tell my story. It's got to be perfect, it's got to check all the boxes so that you buy from me at the end Right, and you get clunky about it.

Tina: 21:52

Because I've been found myself like and still I have to be very centered on the given context and audience and experience of the call to action at the end and I believe if we show up with that heart-centered way of being, we soften our inner judgment of it has to sound and be a certain way and comparison is such an evil threat or a danger, if you will, because if we look at an uncle who's super funny and awesome with jokes and storytelling and I'm not that or we see someone in our field who's just killing it, we step out. It tends to silence us because we want to be at least that good, if not better, and then we end up being quiet because it's just easier to not do anything than to maybe mess up or do it not to the level that we feel like we should do.

Lauri: 22:47

Yeah. Or we see them and we get jealous and start to think, well, jealous and start to think, well, does what I have even matter? If it's similar and that person's getting a lot more response right now, who am I to blah, blah, blah. Or if it were valuable, I had this one. Until I discovered coaching, I was being silent in a lot of rooms because I thought if what I was seeing and sensing and feeling was valuable, someone else would have already said it.

Tina: 23:22

Yes, that's very spot on. Or I even silenced myself because I'm like, well, why would I do this? Because there's thousands of other communication coaches out there. How would I set myself apart or be, you know, any good at this thing we call, you know, intuitive communication coaching, which recently it's been within the last six months. I've added the word intuitive, you know, because I held back from that word for a while, because I get into corporations and it's like I think we're more open to that word now.

Lauri: 23:52

Yeah, yeah, we definitely are. You know, I didn't even use words like holistic. Yes, I said integrated in 2008. And now I will use the word holistic. I will use integrated and I'm much more interested in meeting people where they are and stretching them. Yes, so if holistic is a little bit of a stretch that may come out of my mouth instead of integrated, because it's like I'm inviting the executives in the corporation to be a little bit in their sweatpants, just like people on the free stretch lines, yes, Well, it's kind of like the work that I've done with leaders with yes and leadership with improv.

Tina: 24:32

Right, improvisation was kind of quirky and scary. It's a theater thing play what? And we're recognizing that when we do more of this thing we call play and improvise with the yes and it's an attitude, with making bold decisions, with listening. Really well, you know all those things matter to be effective in business, to be effective as a communicator. I love that your journey sounds very similar and that you know what this is, who I am.

Tina: 25:01

I am a spiritual person and that's what is unique to me, where I do meditate on my clients ahead of time, draw a card and sit with them and see them and be with them, and then they feel that and they get these gorgeous downloads when we work together, when they're crafting on a keynote or a ted talk or just getting better at their meetings to be more engaging with their teams yeah, yeah, and what I hear from the childhood experience of don't color outside of the lines, to Paris, to yes and to using intuitive.

Lauri: 25:36

It's like a journey in this moment of you, yes, anding your own intuition.

Tina: 25:42

Yes, oh yes, that's so true. I mean, I've always had that ability and it had been crushed and scrunched at times, because it's kind of weird, you know, magical. But everybody has the sixth sense of this thing we call intuition, and it's whether you decide to open it up and be with it. I've been known to do keynotes or presentations at workshops where, oh, I usually do this story. But you know what?

Tina: 26:10

My random creative says let's do this and it's getting okay with that shift, with going with what my heart is saying, and then boom, the yummy comes out.

Lauri: 26:22

Yeah, and the yummy comes out when we're really as present with the room as you were with the horses. I feel like it's eerie the number of times where I usually say this here but my mouth is heading toward this other way of saying it, and it doesn't happen every time. Yet I have had moments where someone in the audience came up to me and said that moment when you were speaking about, and you talked about your father and my father just passed away three weeks ago, and I'm like woo.

Tina: 26:57

And what a beautiful way to have that land. When you trusted yourself, you, yes, anded yourself and then it connected you at a deeper level with that audience member. And I think when we ignore intuition, we ignore the possibility of really getting a richer conversation. That lands and you know, I've worked with any corporation from Union Pacific Railroad, first, national Bank, all these bigger groups, but then also nonprofits, and you have to be aware of that.

Tina: 27:28

your context impacts and affects your content as well as your beingness and who you be matters and how you show up is also, like I like to say. I love to be the, you know, the kind of the thermometer and I take the temp and I impact and move that forward with, like ease them in you had mentioned earlier, meet them where they are, you know, I know as a former disney cast member, I'm a 10 with energy and big, vivacious enthusiasm.

Tina: 29:11

When I was a chief creative officer at a bank, walking in with that would be very off-putting. So I softened with love to more of a 7.5 because I want them to feel comfortable. It's not like being inauthentic, it's being me with an awareness a loving awareness of what the context and the audience are wanting in that moment.

Lauri: 29:37

Yeah, that's so beautiful, you with a loving awareness, and it's not like you walk in trying to lower your energy down to one or you put on a mask of being like a very silent, internally processing introvert. You were a 7.5 you.

Tina: 29:58

That's right.

Tina: 29:59

So that you could meet them and you all could go somewhere together it is an energy train right that we, we say like, come on, and you're the conductor as the speaker and allowing passengers to come on, they aren't going to trust you and trust getting on that train car. If you are or you're finding that healthy, happy space of energy that says it's an invitation that you're inviting them in, and then your hearts can connect in a beautiful way and listening listening with your eyes, listening and noticing more and using everything in the space to really craft the message to come. Because if you don't trust yourself and your intuition and if you haven't done the work ahead of time with the preparation, then of course you're going to be even more nervous than what is normal because you haven't done the work. You have to do that preparation. When you do the preparation, that's when you can have a lot of fun with your audience, because you have trusted, you've got the stuff in your heart and in your body to where it will come out in the most effective way.

Lauri: 31:06

I'm curious because I feel like at some point I realized that speakers just don't know how to prepare. They think that sitting in the desk chair rewriting the powerpoint over and, over and over again is the only preparation.

Tina: 31:26

So bring to life how you prepare well, first of all, the energy that you put into the preparation is input, output. What goes in comes out. I really find myself, uh. First of all, it's setting the time of day that is yummiest for me, and that is I'm a morning person, so it's knowing that I create in the mornings. That's when my brain and heart and body are really ready. Then I also time and space. It's grounding myself with some yoga, some stretch, some movement.

Tina: 31:58

I do the audience analysis but it's sort of like you're Nancy Drew, you're the sleuth. You find out as much as you can about the morale of the audience. What do they want, what do they desire, what do they need to know, want to know, don't know. All that to impact my stories, my research, my insights. And then it's asking yourself what is your general and specific purpose after you've done the audience analysis, getting yourself into that creative energy and space to craft the actual message.

Tina: 32:30

And for me I always like I think three is a beautiful complete, you know it's. It's like three billy goats, gruff, three little pigs. You know the three bears, we like three. And so having three main points because you want it to resonate and you get more than that, it's too much and then I actually practice. And I have a dear former mother-in-law that she's a retired English teacher and I would present it to her and get feedback, because she's a great listener, she's smart, I trust her opinions and she's given me great layperson insights to tweak things. So I feel like saying that out loud to yourself, but also to someone else you trust to get that feedback and make the tweaks. Then you're ready to go.

Lauri: 33:11

Yeah, very similar to theater. I also hear the mix of, like the craft, of any art form there's the craft and then the passion or the inspiration, and I hear intuition and science coming together and your body woven through everything from the beginning phases to when you get up to go do it on a stage, which I'm like yes, people of that, yeah, and it's so important to dance with all those things, right.

Tina: 33:49

I think we need to be in our bodies, we need to be inspired, we need to be heart centered and all of that matters. It's sort of it's the equation, for what makes it the difference between a good presentation, great.

Lauri: 34:02

Yeah, yeah, and the practicing with someone saying it aloud is like doing your monologue in your house before you go to do the auditions, which, for those of you that are not actors, it's not our favorite part. It is infinitely better to say it aloud.

Tina: 34:21

Yes Than just looking at your notes.

Lauri: 34:23

Yeah, because you won't remember when you just it's disaster.

Tina: 34:28

Well, you don't even feel the rhythmic pattern, right, I feel like a lot of the times I've caught myself like oh, that sentence looked great on the page to be in a book not. Or in an academic article or something like that. Or newspaper article not meant to be spoken aloud. So oratory and written communication are different.

Lauri: 34:47

Speaking of which, yes, your story eventually led you to writing a book. Tell us a bit about your journey getting to the book and also the book, so the people who are in love with you right now can go get a copy for themselves yeah, well, I, I was that kid in mrs brown's creative writing class as a senior that I remember asking her how do you publish a book?

Tina: 35:16

and she's I opened to a book and I was like, I want to get published. How, how do you do that? She goes oh, tina, tina, tina. It's a long process and that's where it ended.

Tina: 35:24

And I was like that wasn't very helpful and I get it because we had other things to do, like you know, get on with the assignment. But my inquiry led me to like just fortunately, going. I got invited to a woman's book signing event and she says I and talk about intuition, right, I knew I needed to go. I didn't know her very well, but I knew I needed to go to this event. So I said yes and she's like I feel like I need to tell you that you need to contact this Georgetown University. They have a book publishing, book creators class and then you can get chosen to be published. And I was like oh, so I looked into it and within the week I contacted them, got accepted into the class and then my manuscript got accepted into the next phase of being published through manuscript publishing. And that was a journey in and of itself and what I learned is wow, it was hard. The journey was hard because I, all of a sudden, was working 80 hours a week trying to manage a business, a family and this book and getting like deadlines and this and that.

Tina: 36:31

And when you write a book, first of all talk about like I would never say I'm writing a book for the longest time my revisions editor I mean, this was a few months before it was coming out she goes Tina, you need to say you're an author, You're writing a book, not just it's a writing project. I felt so vulnerable and naked and weird and also judging myself. Am I worthy to be doing this thing we call authorship or authoring a book? And so it really revealed a lot of vulnerability. Like even my revisions editor says, you're a smart woman. Why are you doing all this data? Everybody else's story and none of your own? And that was revealing too. Right? People ranging from improvisers, storytellers, comedians and psychologists and communication studies professors and researchers. And what does it mean to be magnetic with our minds, message and mechanics? And along the way, I learned a lot about myself.

Lauri: 37:33

What did you learn about yourself?

Tina: 37:39

I learned that it's not as hard as I thought to be magnetic. People always ask are you born this way? Well, there are certain predispositions of wanting to speak Like the desire is innate. The ability to be good at it is trainable. So I learned that the hiding needed to stop, and that was a big one, and I still do it occasionally because it's a conditioned pattern, right of behavior, and I also got super, super burnout.

Tina: 38:11

And what was wild is during the audio portion of it, I was starting to lose my voice because of anxiety. I was like, what if my voice sounds weird, Like in my head, because this is the thing I teach? What if people are like I don't want to hear? Her voice, but because of that and the burnout was real I really learned more about me. What?

Tina: 38:34

does it truly mean to be Tina B. And what does that look like, sound like, feel like? And it's okay that I'm this big hearted, big loving, enthusiastically kind, passionate, powerful, creative, intuitive leader, and that I am a unicorn in Southwest Iowa and now in Omaha, Nebraska, and that's okay.

Lauri: 38:54

That's okay, yeah, and to tie it back to you know, coloring outside of the lines. Unicorn, you is magnetic, yes, and owning that.

Tina: 39:09

Yeah, I think that that's what I struggled with is I wanted everybody like I was always going along to get along, and the core question was like how can I make them comfortable?

Tina: 39:18

And that meant dimming my light, dimming my sparkle. You know, I think I told you I was in the process of consciously uncoupling with my spouse, who's a dear, dear friend, and I came out in, you know, six plus months ago. All these things happened in a rural community that was just shaken to a core, on top of him healing from a recent diagnosis of stage four follicular lymphoma, lots and lots of things all within six months, very packed. And he said to me, out of love, I don't want to dim your sparkle anymore, tina b, you need to be you and I will stand for you and all the magic that you are. That's love.

Tina: 40:06

And honestly, it gives me beautiful chills now because I've never had a specialness like that and that's why I'm so lucky that I found him when I did it, because he saw me, for me and he was the first person that held me and appreciated me enough to let me go. So magnetism, true beautiful magnetism, is being at the core who you are and not allowing what other people say, think, behave or be around you to impact your love bubble, your energy and your sparkle. And we all have a sparkle. Mine just happens to be very big, purple, bright, disco ball.

Lauri: 40:49

Yeah, yeah, and I hope if you're listening to this you're getting the message that, like yours is big, purple, bright disco ball and somebody else might have like white, fluffy pillow yes, and they're both beautiful and they're both magnetic.

Tina: 41:11

Yeah, it's like compare barack obama and his style of speaking with the big boldness of oprahfrey right. Very different, yeah, both magnetic. Yes, maya Angelou, or you know, we have Brene Brown. I mean Tina Fey love her, they know themselves foundationally. Or Chevy Chase, back in the 70s, when he was big into SNL and even watch SNL. We love them very differently. Yeah, when he was big into SNL and even watch SNL. We love them very differently because of what they brought to the words, to the physicality with their body language. And I've realized through my training in improv that I was slowing down my body, like I'm very Carol Burnett, very mugging and big, and I'm just offending that because of the feedback I was getting from discomfort from family and some people, because it's not the way of the culture.

Lauri: 42:05

Yeah, and guess what?

Tina: 42:07

It's okay to be not the way of the culture, you know.

Lauri: 42:09

Yeah, and on Saturday Night Live. All of those different styles are what make it work, and that's actually what I believe is going on with humanity. Yes work, and that's actually what I believe is going on with humanity. Imagine saturday night live if it was 14 different chevy chases, and that's it it would right, it'd be very redundant and in humanity there's so much like color inside the lines.

Lauri: 42:37

You need to be quieter, you need to talk faster. You need to do this when, in reality, humanity will work better when we've got all eight billion people being themselves, letting themselves be seen and letting their magnetism shine through.

Tina: 42:59

Well, and it's especially challenging as a woman. I mean, if you're and that's what I found is it being in rural Iowa as a woman business owner? I broke all the already. You know that to leave the farm, move to the city doing my own business, coming out as a lesbian, you know all these things. It's like check, check, check, check for lots of big difference. And the more I own my being and energy and essence, the more that I find as as Martha Beck, who's a sociologist, talks about is. You'll find your Eden, your community, and you know it's okay to go against the culture, in fact, and you know it's okay to go against the culture In fact, I'm a disruptor, I'm a loving, visionary rebel. You know a heart center. You know love warrior, if you will, Similar to I think it was Glennon Doyle. She has a beautiful book about being a love warrior and it's true. You show up with heart and love and that intention and the right people will follow you and you're not meant to be like making everybody comfortable. There's no way to do that.

Lauri: 44:05

Yeah, there is no way to do that. Yeah, yeah, if people are wanting to be part of your community, wanting to get to know you better, where can people find you and get to know you better?

Tina: 44:19

Well, the best way is on my website where you could sign up for yummy, great communication storytelling tips. It's tinabakehousecom. That's Tina T-I-N-A, Bakehouse B, as in boy, A-K-E-H-O-U-S-E, so Bake is baking cookies. Housesandcasacom, tinabakehousecom. And then I'm on LinkedIn as well as Facebook. You can check those social handles as well as Magnetic Speaking with Tina B. On YouTube, you can get some yummy rooftop chats as well as other insights. So tinabakehousecom is the best hub.

Lauri: 44:53

Thank you, and I could talk to you for what feels like decades, and I knew that was going to happen.

Tina: 44:59

I know.

Lauri: 44:59

I could talk to you. Lori forever and it's time to slide into our Pivo Pivot. Okay, I'm ready.

Tina: 45:14

Tina, what is your favorite word? B? B-e what is your least favorite word. Hate what turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally A lot of things.

Lauri: 45:41

I would say dancing and nature. Hmm, what turns you off?

Tina: 45:49

Insecurity.

Lauri: 45:52

What's your favorite curse word Shooty poops, shooty poops I created that in my freshman year of college. I love that one. What sound or noise do you love?

Tina: 46:13

Boomshakalaka, like when I'm thinking to do something. I'm like boomshakalaka.

Lauri: 46:19

What sound or noise do you hate? I'm like boom shakalaka. What sound or noise do you hate?

Tina: 46:32

What profession other than your own?

Lauri: 46:34

would be fun to try Roller skating derby what profession would you not like to do?

Tina: 46:42

Sitting at a computer all day and hearing data that's mind numbing? I would rather collect garbage than that.

Lauri: 46:53

And Tina, what do you hope people say about you on your 100th birthday?

Tina: 47:00

She loved and she lived with heart and all things sparkle.

Lauri: 47:06

Well, you certainly brought all things sparkle and love today. Thank you so much for taking the time and having the conversation and being you in the process.

Tina: 47:19

I love it. That's why I really go by Tina B. Thank you and everyone else in the process. I love it.

Lauri: 47:22

That's why I really go by Tina B. Thank you and everyone else. If you loved this episode, please share it with a friend, a family member, somebody else who's had somebody shush them in their lives so that they can step into their own innate charisma and their own magic.