Speak: Find Your Voice, Trust Your Gut, and Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

by Tunde Oyeneyin

Life can be complicated, and to protect ourselves, we assume we know what’s to come and look for a path that’s wide and clear, well-blazed with trail markers so we get it right. But in our quest to make things easier, we often unintentionally impose limits. We fail to notice the side roads, the alternate routes, the opportunities to scramble up a rock face over which we might see a big, open sky.

Embracing uncertainty empowers you to take risks. The beauty of uncertainty, I’ve found, is infinite possibility.

In order to speak, you have to be willing to surrender. You have to know your power. You have to lead with empathy. You have to be authentic, and you have to have the knowledge to back it.

Your mind is your strongest muscle. It holds the key to your belief about the way you feel and the way you see yourself.

Don’t shrink yourself to fit into small spaces. If the space doesn’t fit, find a new one.

When I look back at the biggest shifts in my life, doubt was always there. Think about the times when there was a big shift in your life. I’m going to guess you felt the same. Uncertainty, I’ve come to learn, has to exist to give you room to shift. To make room for opportunity to walk in the door.

The psychiatrist David Viscott said, “The purpose of life is to discover your gift; the work of life is to develop it; and the meaning of life is to give your gift away.” A key part of our existence on this earth is to share our many gifts.

I believe we should live our lives in purpose, on purpose, and with great purpose. A life well lived is spent in service. Empathy is the root of service. Imagine what this universe would be like if we all tapped into that?

“Life has a way of repeating a situation with a different twist, and being aware of when it comes around again is what helps us to grow and evolve.”

In the moment, you don’t realize that your character is being developed. You’re often just trying to survive. But later, looking back, they become clearer.

You can let your past dictate your story or you can pull from it to create something new. Resilience is the process of adapting in the face of adversity, trauma, or tragedy, having the ability to step up and say “yes” even when you’re under stress. My life has required me to be resilient, and I carry what I learned in my most traumatic moments with me in everything I do. We don’t choose what happens to us, we choose how we react to it. Today’s a new day; choose to be new in it.

I was “so consumed with ‘do this so you can be the best at it’ ” instead of asking myself if I even liked doing it at all.

I was so tied up in the fantasy of my dream job that I forgot to ask myself “Do you even like what you’re doing?”

You know that odd feeling of clarity, that feeling that a thing you are doing is exactly what you are meant to do? If you haven’t, don’t worry. I don’t know how often in life we can expect to feel so in tune with ourselves. But it’s worth looking out for that feeling, so that you’re ready to pay attention to it if it comes along.

When your gut tells you one thing and your insecurities tell you another, you have to choose which voice to amplify. The logical, but often limiting, voice doesn’t disappear entirely—and that isn’t the goal. Acknowledge logic, but turn up the volume on the voice that believes in you. Trusting your gut is choosing to lean toward the voice that propels you forward.

When doubt arises, we worry. We fear it. I was stuck, but doubt couldn’t be the sticking point. Doubt is an internal alert system saying that it’s time to shift. Without doubting where we are, we can’t realize where we need to be. Rather than push it away, we should lean into it.

Openness is how we make the world easier for each other.

When we feel insecure, why do we allow ourselves to forget our expertise? You know what you know, and you can carry those skills no matter where you go, into uncomfortable new terrain. Limits are removed, results are open, and failure ceases to exist.

I’m not anti-cop, not even close. I’ve been in situations where I looked to law enforcement for help and received it. When you put on a uniform, it makes you the “good guy.” Some people rise to that responsibility and some abuse it. History continues to show that those who abuse it aren’t held accountable, and when that happens, they deserve to be held up for all to see until there is justice.

When you show yourself as who you are, your people find you. Authenticity is the intersection of trust and truth. I trusted that my truth was right. Anyone open-hearted would know that what I was saying was carried on the back of love. Far too often, we focus on what we might lose by being ourselves instead of seeing all that there is to be gained.

I believe in living a life on purpose, of purpose, and with purpose. As humans we’re all here to support each other. To be of service to each other. Our purpose comes naturally to us. It’s the thing we feel we’re meant to do.

People need to be uncomfortable to change.

The pain of others. That’s what I wanted them to care about. That’s what I wanted them to understand. That, I had decided in my intense three-day preparation, was what would inspire them to change and to fight for larger change. Empathy.

“All lives matter. This is all lives. If Black lives don’t matter, then all lives can’t matter. We just want to be a part of the all. All lives matter. If Black lives don’t matter, there is no all.

As other people told me after the ride, the pain of saying nothing was worse than the pain of saying the wrong thing. That is how we get to real change, by facing the stuff that hurts to admit. I wanted people to be able to speak their truth safely and listen safely.

Here’s something you should know about Black hair: It’s not just hair. It’s political, it’s practical, it’s personal. It’s intentional. Yes, braids are cute and stylish, but they also protect your hair from breaking. And yet, they (and a lot of other styles) prompt strong reactions. A lot of Black women have been told they can’t come to work with braids because it’s not professional-looking. This is a workplace battle that Black women have fought and will continue to fight. Being told you can’t wear your hair in braids is not like being told you can’t wear jeans to the office. It’s singling someone out. It’s rejecting identity. Imagine someone telling you that you can’t wear the hairstyle that your ancestors have been wearing since the dawn of time to protect their hair—and that you need to style it to look more like theirs. It’s an everyday indignation, so whenever we have the chance to express ourselves through our hair, it’s important to us to seize it.