The Stories We Accept About Ourselves

On music, middle age, and learning that being chosen isn't the same thing as being capable.

Lately, I've been realizing something that would have surprised my seventeen-year-old self.

I actually know how to perform.

That sentence still feels strange to write.

Not because I suddenly woke up one morning with a Broadway-worthy voice or decades of formal training behind me. But because somewhere along the way, I stopped measuring performance by whether someone handed me a lead role.

I've spent the last twenty years speaking in boardrooms. Presenting ideas to governments. Leading organizations. Building a business that asks me to step in front of a camera every single week and tell stories people connect with.

Those videos? They're performance.

The way I write a blog post? Performance.

Standing in an audition room and choosing vulnerability over safety? Performance.

The funny part is, I was doing it all along.

I just didn't believe it counted.

I've been trying to figure out where that belief came from.

The truth is, it wasn't one moment.

It was dozens.

The auditions that never seemed to go my way.

Watching someone else's name on the cast list.

Never being asked to sing the solo in choir.

Each disappointment was small enough to brush off on its own. Together, though, they started telling me a story.

Maybe I wasn't the person people saw on a stage.

By the time I reached OAC, I had already started believing it.

Then my drama teacher offered to write me what she described as a glowing reference letter for a prestigious stage management program. She believed I'd be excellent behind the scenes.

Then she gently told me that if I wanted to pursue performance instead, she didn't think she could really help me.

I don't share that story because I'm angry with her.

I genuinely don't think she meant to discourage me.

She simply offered her perspective.

The problem was that I'd already collected enough evidence to mistake her perspective for the truth.

For years, I confused being chosen with being capable.

Looking back, I realize I slowly accepted someone else's imagination as the limit of my own.

So I built a different life.

A beautiful one, as it turns out.

I spent more than twenty years in communications, public relations, government relations, marketing and brand strategy. I helped organizations find their voice. I wrote speeches, campaigns, websites and stories designed to move people.

It's funny.

I built an entire career around storytelling while believing performance belonged to someone else.

Then, somewhere in my forties, music quietly invited me back.

I started taking lessons.

I auditioned for community theatre.

I found myself stretching in ways that would've terrified my younger self.

Not because I suddenly believed I was destined for the stage.

But because I finally stopped waiting for someone else to tell me whether I belonged there.

The confidence that comes with being a cranky middle-aged woman doesn't hurt a thing either.

The more I learn, the more I realize that music hasn't changed me.

It's revealed me.

The skills I use in a voice lesson aren't all that different from the ones I use when I film a video for my business.

Listening.

Timing.

Presence.

Knowing when to hold a pause.

Finding the emotional heart of a story.

Connecting with the person on the other side.

They're all forms of performance.

They're all forms of storytelling.

And they've been woven through my life far longer than I ever gave myself credit for.

I'm still learning.

I'm still taking lessons.

I'm still auditioning.

I'm still working toward the day I'll have the courage to post a video of myself singing online.

But something fundamental has changed.

I no longer question whether I have what it takes.

I know I do.

Whether that journey leads to more stages, more auditions, or simply a deeper appreciation for music almost doesn't matter.

Because this was never really about theatre.

It was about believing that I belonged in the story I had been telling myself for years.

Maybe that's what your forties are for.

Not becoming someone new.

But finally giving yourself permission to become the person you might have been all along.