Where does an authentic voice come from ?

Let’s talk about this whole “find your voice” thing for a moment?

Honestly, it’s everywhere. Find your voice. Use your voice. Discover your authentic voice. Leadership voice. Brand voice. After a while, I found myself asking a simple question: What are we actually talking about? If you’re anything like me, perhaps you’ve wondered the same thing.

As an African Australian woman, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this question. Not only because of my own journey, but because of the hundreds of people I’ve coached – through workshops as well as 1:1,  and, more recently, through my PhD research into voice. The more I explored it, the more I realised that I saw voice very differently from how it’s often described.

One of the biggest realisations for me was this: speaking is not the same as having a voice.

For the first ten years of my life in Australia, I was speaking. I got married, had children, studied at university, worked, and had conversations every day. Looking back now, I realise that although I was speaking, I had no voice.

And that’s okay.

There was nothing for me to say yet.

Life was still shaping me. Every disappointment, every rejection, every attempt to belong, every expectation I carried was quietly preparing something inside me. At the time, I thought life was simply happening to me. Looking back now, I believe life was shaping the very thing I would later call my voice.

Years later, the experience transformed me. I shaved my head, went bald, became fully me, and that’s when the magic began.

I would simply be sitting in a café or walking into a room, and strangers would start conversations with me. They would tell me that seeing me had stirred something within them. Some would say I had inspired them to think differently about themselves. Others would tell me I had given them the courage to embrace something they had been hiding.

I had neither given a speech nor shared my story, yet something had been communicated.

That was the moment I realised that an authentic voice is much deeper than words.

People can often sense an authentic voice before we ever open our mouths. They recognise it in our presence, our conviction, and the way we carry ourselves. That experience led me to another question: if voice is deeper than words, then where does it actually come from?

After years of reflecting on my own journey, coaching people, and now researching voice through my PhD, I believe authentic voice follows a journey. It doesn’t appear overnight. It is shaped over time.

The Journey of an Authentic Voice

Friction

I’ve come to believe that every authentic voice begins with friction. Life has this funny way of bringing us back to the same lesson over and over again until we’re finally ready to learn it. The people change, the places change, even the circumstances change, but somehow the same theme keeps showing up.

For one person it might be rejection. For another it could be abandonment, belonging, failure, grief, shame, self-worth, or simply feeling invisible. At the time it feels unfair. We keep asking ourselves, “Why does this keep happening to me?” Looking back now, I don’t think life was punishing us. I think it was preparing us. It was shaping something within us that we simply couldn’t see yet.

Awareness

Then one day something shifts.

I call this awakening because it feels exactly like waking up after living on autopilot for years. Suddenly you see something you hadn’t noticed before.

Imagine you’ve just come out of another relationship. James treated you badly. Before James there was Tony. Before Tony there was Michael. Different names. Same story. One day you’re sitting on your couch, replaying everything in your mind, when you suddenly blurt out, “Holy crap… they’ve all treated me exactly the same.”

That moment changes everything.

For the first time, you stop asking, “Why do I keep attracting men like this?” and begin asking a much more powerful question: “What has life been trying to teach me all along?”

That is awareness. It’s the moment you stop seeing random events and start seeing a pattern. You realise life hasn’t been repeating itself to make you suffer. It’s been patiently trying to get your attention to an important message only you can teach.

Voice

Once you see the pattern, life gives you a choice. You can keep repeating it, or you can learn from it.

Let’s stay with the same example. Perhaps after years of heartbreak you finally realise the issue was never really the men. The lesson wasn’t that every man is terrible. The lesson was that somewhere along the way, you stopped believing you were worthy.

That one realisation changes everything.

You stop settling for less than you deserve. You begin setting boundaries. You stop apologising for taking up space. You invest in yourself. You walk away from relationships that no longer honour who you are. From the outside, people see new behaviours. But underneath those behaviours sits something much deeper.

You’ve learned a new truth.

Maybe that truth is simply this:

I am worthy.

That one lesson becomes your voice.

This is why I believe your voice is not your story. Your voice is the lesson your story taught you. Your story may contain hundreds of experiences, but your voice is the one truth that emerged from all of them.

Because that truth was earned over years of living it, it carries depth. Nobody taught it to you. You didn’t memorise it from a book or hear it in a podcast. Your own life proved it. That’s why people with authentic voices can speak so naturally. They aren’t searching for clever things to say. They are simply expressing what they know to be true.

And perhaps that’s why authentic voices move us so deeply. They’re not performing. They’re living.

Purpose

Once you’ve discovered your voice, another question naturally follows.

Why was I given this lesson?

Everything in life has a purpose. We understand why we buy a house, why we own a car, or why we use a knife. Every object serves a purpose. I believe voice is no different.

The lesson life taught you was never meant to stop with you. It was given to you because someone else needs it.

The person who discovered their worth helps others discover theirs. The person who found belonging creates spaces where others feel seen. The person who overcame fear gives courage to those still living in it. Without even trying, we begin serving the very people we once were.

Looking back, I can now see this so clearly in my own life. The lessons I learned about identity, belonging and embracing who I truly am didn’t stop with me. They became my films, my books, my coaching, my speaking, and now my PhD research. I never sat down and chose a purpose. My purpose simply grew out of my voice.

Influence

This brings me to influence.

So many people chase it. They study leadership, personal branding, public speaking and social media, hoping that one day people will listen to them. But I’ve come to believe that influence doesn’t begins with living your truth.

People are naturally drawn to authenticity because authenticity is rare. You can feel it.

When people come to me for coaching, very few come because they’ve seen an advertisement. Most have quietly followed my journey for months, sometimes even years. By the time they reach out, they aren’t usually asking how to become a speaker or build a business.

They’re asking something much deeper.

They want to live with greater confidence, clarity, and direction. They want to express their soul and spirit. They want to know who they are and why they’ve been brought here. 

The more I reflected on this, the more I realised they weren’t simply responding to what I had said.

They were responding to what my life was communicating.

Perhaps what they’re really saying is:

“There’s something about the way you live that speaks to me, and I want to understand what it is.”

I don’t think they’re drawn to me because I have all the answers. They’re drawn to a life that appears grounded in truth; a life that boldly communicates authenticity, conviction, and congruence. There is something about that way of living that resonates with people.

Authentic voice is expressed long before we open our mouths, you see. It’s reflected in the choices we make, what we stand for, what we’re no longer willing to tolerate, and the way we carry ourselves through the world. Our words simply give language to what our lives are already communicating.

Influence comes from becoming the lesson life has taught them, and when that happens, people don’t just hear your message.

They experience it.

Final Thoughts 

I hope this article has given you a different way of thinking about what it means to find your voice.

Perhaps the answer isn’t to go looking for it after all. Perhaps it’s to pay closer attention to what life has been trying to teach you.

And when you discover what that lesson is, be sure to use it for the benefit of others, and in doing so, leave the world a little better than you found it.