In August, Andrea was interviewed on The Successful Mind Podcast with David Neagle. They talked about Andrea’s book UNFROZEN: Stop Holding Back and Release the Real You. Some of the insights discussed include:
- The unexpected path to connection and impact
- How Andrea learned to take risks
- Why gaining the approval and respect of men turned into a need for validation that held her back
- How to become “unfrozen”
- Why your first purpose may need to die so you can find a purer version of your purpose in life
“The title of the book alone Unfrozen that says so much because I think that people really are there. They really are frozen so to speak in many different areas of their life. But your whole idea about owning your desire and being willing to be vulnerable and whatever is to come of that is extremely powerful, like there’s so much courage in that.” – David
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast or on David’s website.
Transcript:
Successful people learn how to make their mind work for them. I’m David Neagle and this is the Successful Mind podcast.
Hello, everybody, this is David Neagle, I’d like to welcome you to the Successful Mind podcast. Today, I have an amazing guest, Andrea Wenberg. As a CEO and founder of the consulting firm, Voice of Influence, Andrea Wenbug draws out the best in leaders and teams, helping them develop motivating influence with customers and key stakeholders – a Maverick leader known for her fearless approach to difficult conversations and her ability to rapidly cut to the core of any problem or issue. She serves her clients and audiences with life changing strategy, keynote trainings, and executive retreats. Andrea is the author of the memoir Unfrozen: Stop Holding Back and Release the Real You, and the host of the Voice of Influence podcast.
David: Welcome Andrea!
Andrea: Hey, thanks for having me, David!
David: My pleasure. Tell me about this book. This book is absolutely amazing.
Andrea: Wow, thank you!
David: How did you…because it’s a memoir, right? It’s written very different than most of the books that I have the privilege of reading. How did you come about writing this? Tell us a story?
Andrea: Well, I was in a place in my life where I was feeling stuck. You talk about that all the time and I was in that place. When we moved into a new home and there were…I’m just going to go ahead and case it in a story because that’s what I love and that’s what I realized is really impactful.
So, anyway, we moved into this home and there were these fruit trees in the backyard. When we got here, there were all these apples just nearly dripping off the branches. I mean, it was amazing and it was fall. It was time for harvest. We took our kids to the backyard and were picking all these apples.
Well, having fruit trees in my own backyard kind of made me more aware that there were fruit trees all around town and that other people had fruit in their yards too and how great was it? I would tell my kids, “How great is it that you’re gonna have apple pie like us.” And it was so great and we’d picked all these apples. And then a couple of weeks later after our own harvest, I started seeing all these fruit trees around town just rotting. Their fruit just rotting on the tree or falling down and rotting and I was so upset.
I mean, I was literally yelling at these apple tree owners like from inside car window rolled up my children in the back seat. My daughter was like, “Uh mom, they’re just apples.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but I think there’s more to it than that for me.” And whenever I see that emotional spike inside of myself, I get a real hit to like, “OK, there’s something else going on here.” And especially when it comes to anger, I’ve noticed that at least for myself, that sadness is usually under anger and if I can dig into that, I can figure out what’s going on.
And what I realized was that I was actually sad for these trees whose fruit was getting wasted. And I wonder why am I so sad, because that’s how I feel about myself. I feel like my fruit is going to waste. I’m not able to really share what I know and the things that I’ve learned, and I just felt stuck inside my own head and without a real outlet.
So, fast forward, a couple of months after grieving that waste inside of my own self and I went to the movie Frozen, and didn’t know that I would even enjoy the movie, let alone what it would be about. And it just rocked my world because I could so relate to Elsa and how she was trying to hide and hold back all of her power.
There were number of moments, I kind of cried a lot in the movie. And there was this moment towards the end of the movie where she finally realizes that it’s love that helps her to be able to share her gift with others instead of fear that she’s going to hurt people or fear that she’s going to be judged and keeping that fear and holding it back.
And so when I saw her at the end and she sort of just offering her gift and not worrying about what other people think and it’s just going I thought, “Oh my gosh, I had like this something speaking to my heart saying, Andrea, this is the scene you have not yet played out in your life. You may have played out all these other scenes. You’ve learned all these things, but you’ve not actually gone out, put yourself on the line and really share what you have to offer in a bigger way.” And so it would just felt like a calling.
So, at that point I just decided I really wanted to share something and I thought, “Well, maybe I could just share everything that I learned from Frozen and do it for kids so I could create this little kid book that would sort of be like something parents could use with their kids. This is what it means when Elsa puts on gloves and you can make all those connections for them and how do you cover up and numb yourself and that sort of thing.
And my writing coach, you know, she helped me find my writing voice and eventually after throwing out three drafts, three whole drafts, I really found my voice and ended up with a memoir instead of a little children’s book to study, yeah.
David: So what is that journey that this book takes us on?
Andrea: Well, when I was younger I always felt like I had this something inside, like I really wanted to do something big. I really felt like I really wanted to help other people. But there were things that, you know, seeking other people’s validation in particular men and it was really painful and vulnerable to share that I was really realizing that I was thinking that I needed men’s validation. Like whoever was the most respected person in the room, I wanted their respect. I didn’t need them to think that I was pretty, I wanted them to respect me for my intellect and what I had to offer and my voice.
And because of that, I was seeking validation from men all the time, even though it may not have looked like that, but you know, looking back I realized that’s what it was. I was waiting for somebody to come pick me. So, eventually I realized that I wasn’t going to get picked and that I had to own what I really wanted and own my desire essentially and, so coming to kind of full circle, when you really want something then that makes you vulnerable because you might not get it.
And I wanted to be strong and competent and appear that way to everybody because I thought that was how my voice would matter. But what it turned out was that when I really put that aside that really wasn’t what drew people in it. It was when I really was honest and vulnerable and willing to share those things.
David: What was it like getting to the place where you could do that, where you could step into your vulnerability and how did you do that?
Andrea: Bit by bit by bit. Yeah, just realizing that I need taking a little step, every little step felt like a huge giant leap.
David: Well that is right. I mean, all of those little steps are huge for us internally when we’re making them.
Andrea: Yeah. So, it did. I felt like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to die.” I actually, talked about it in the book, but I came across a student of mine who was in a group with me. She was a college student. She had painted this huge painting of a woman literally jumping off of a cliff not to kill herself, but in that sense of like, “I’m gonna take this risk.” And I think, you know, finding that every time I took that leap made me more and more confident that I would be okay. That it wasn’t as much of a risk as I thought it was.
And even if I did lose somebody’s respect, even if somebody wasn’t upset with me, it didn’t mean that I didn’t cry about it because I’m a crier. It didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt me, but it meant that I wasn’t destroyed and that my purpose was greater than the fear of this I guess internal sort of death, like “Oh my gosh, I’m gonna die if somebody doesn’t love something that I’m doing.
David: Yeah. Did you have the opposite experience growing up, like were you rejected, you know, when you were like, you know, how we were kids and we haven’t guarded ourselves yet for the pain of rejection or being not being accepted for certain things. Did that start then for you?
Andrea: I don’t recall a time as a young child where I was rejected in that kind of a way. I think I was always very sensitive and aware of my environment and other people. And so a lot went on in my own head that didn’t actually take place in real life.
David: Gotcha.
Andrea: Yeah. So, I would see a little boys laughing at giggling girls and I’d think to myself, “Oh, well then they’re not going to respect girls because they’re giggly.” So, I made all these assumptions in my head about what that meant for me and “Well, therefore I will not be the giggly girl.” And so I would do that over and over with all kinds of different things.
David: So, you were just creating your own narrative around what was happening?
Andrea: I really was. I mean, there were certainly other things that were happening in terms of like, you know, I come from a church background where women were not in great leadership positions. I shouldn’t say ‘great leadership positions,’ but they weren’t in higher up leader leadership positions within church, which was a huge part of my life.
And so seeing that I thought, you know, I just made all these assumptions that it’s the men that have the power. It’s the men that have the authority to say whether or not my voice should matter. And I really felt like I should contribute to some of these conversations because I certainly thought I had insights in my head that would be helpful. But even as a young child or, you know, a teenager, college student, I just didn’t see how I was going to be able to have that kind of voice with people unless somebody, like I said, came around and said, “We need to hear from you, Andrea.” I didn’t want to just offer it.
David: Yeah, you want it to be more invited into it.
Andrea: I did, because if somebody says to me, in fact that happened a number of times in my life I can tell you that someone would invite me to do something that I really wanted to do. But I would say no and then I would wait for them to ask me again, so that I was like “OK, fine. I’ll do what you’re asking me to do.” “Yes!” You know, so that I wouldn’t have to own my own desire so that somebody else, “Oh, well they wanted me to do it so I don’t have to look like I wanted something so bad.”
David: Because you wouldn’t be strong to watch something?
Andrea: It would be certainly vulnerable.
David: Be vulnerable.
Andrea: Well, if I messed up then it wasn’t my fault.
David: Gotcha.
Andrea: If I messed it up, it was well, or if somebody didn’t like what I said, “Well, they asked me to do it.”
David: Yeah.
Andrea: That sort of thing.
David: Yeah, yeah. And how do you find that this book is helping people?
Andrea: Well, that’s a good question. I hear that people say that they realize that they’re holding back or they’re starting to see that there are also a lot of women who are sort of putting men in that position in their own minds that they need validation from them in order to be OK. Some people have written. I know somebody that has written a book.
At least one person has written a book because I wrote the book, deciding to make choices to offer themselves to the world instead of holding back kind of out of that selfish need for validation and need to protect themselves, instead they’re putting themselves out there. I’d like to believe that there are a lot of people doing that, but who knows, you know?
David: Yeah. I think there probably are and I think there probably will be a lot more. I mean, the title of the book alone Unfrozen that says so much because I think that people really are there. They really are frozen so to speak in many different areas of their life. But your whole idea about owning your desire and being willing to be vulnerable and whatever is to come of that is extremely powerful, like there’s so much courage in that.
Tell me about a time when you did this. So, you’re going on this journey. You’re recognizing your desire and you’re owning it. You want to put it forward. You want to be vulnerable and you started doing this for awhile, but then tell me about a time when you were rejected it after you started doing this. How did you handle that? Or how do you handle it now? What does it feel like now?
I think what I’d like the listeners to get an idea of is like when you step into this and you start to go down this journey and you start to really get a sense of self and you start to develop your courage, that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be rejected again. You’re going to have people that don’t like you or try and manipulate you or whatever, but how do you deal with it now? What is the difference and how you feel about it?
Andrea: I think that the thing that has bothered me the most and the thing that I knew was going to be hardest would be the rejection of or just the people ignoring me, ignoring the fact that I’m doing what I’m doing and not just people, but people that I love and respect. That sometimes relationships turn into a one way interest, like “Why I’m interested in what you’re doing, but you’re not interested in what I’m doing” kind of thing. And for me, that’s the stuff that cuts the deepest.
You know, if somebody goes on the Amazon and puts a bad, you know, negative review or calls out something that they don’t like about my book, that doesn’t bother me. But the people that I love that’s the most painful and how do I deal with that? Honestly, I think I’ve learned that I have to grieve first. I can’t deny the fact that I feel this way. So there has to be like a period of time where I can at least, even if it’s for a few moments, and like I said at the beginning, I’m a crier. So there are times I have to release it.
And so the tears have to come out when they do come out though I can’t dwell on that. I still have to bring my eyes back up and say, “But this is my purpose. I’m here to help other people find their voice and to find agency and that is going to be how they make a difference in the world. It’s gonna be when leaders give other people a voice, that’s when they’re going to actually have their voice of influence.”
So, you know, for the leader themselves, I believe in this stuff. And so when I remember that I believe this, I have to move on. I have to say, “OK that is what it is. I will continue to be here in this relationship as it is and not expect it to be more than what it apparently can be.”
David: OK, you just said a tremendous amount, like you could do it a one day talk on just that part there. You said something that’s important that I want to hone in on. You have to grieve first.
Andrea: Yes.
David: Well, a lot of people just suppress it or try to find a way to numb out from their paint or that discomfort. What are ways that you recommend that people grieve and why is that so important to get that out of you?
Andrea: How do I recommend that people grieve? It is a yucky feeling inside. Most people do not want to feel yucky. If they can see that it’s not going to be the end of the world, that they’re not going to be destroyed by it, it’s OK. So again, starting with something small and admitting…Well, this is what I really do when people are really angry about something, I say, “OK, what are you angry about? OK, what sad about that to you?”
David: That’s great.
Andrea: And slow down. Let’s just slow way down. “OK, so somehow this is sad. How is this sad to you? What about this is sad?” And it was me and the trees. What is sad to me about the trees? It’s sad to me that the apples are not getting to the people who need their nourishment. There are people all around the world that are hungry or even around town, they’re hungry and yet these apples are just rotting on trees. That’s sad to me but it cuts even more personally when I think about the fact that that tree was created to make these apples and nobody’s eating them. That was the personal part. It was even more sad to me.
So, if people can identify “This is what I get angry about, kind of irrationally angry. This is what I get angry about. This is what’s sad to me about that. How does that connect to something in me?” And if people can start to go there and realize that there are people who have gone before you, like me who can say “This is the path. This is the unexpected path to connection and impact.” It’s not what you think it is and if you know that that’s the truth then you’re going to pull up your courage and you’re going to go ahead and enter into that grief.
David: I think one of the most brilliant things that you said so far here is that that apple tree and those rotting apples on the ground that your personal experience of that moment was that you were sad, was reflecting the sadness that was already in you.
Andrea: Yes.
David: And a lot of people see it and they think that it’s the thing and they go after trying to rectify the thing instead of asking what is it about this that is pulling up sadness inside of myself and what is that and what do I do with that? It’s a much more intelligent question for a person to ask of themselves instead of just going around trying to fix everything that’s wrong on the outside, you begin to do the work on the insight first.
Andrea: Hmm absolutely. And then it can open up the possibilities to what your true calling is because you might think that, “OK, my calling is to be a harvester of apples.” “But no, my calling is not that, my calling is to help connect the people’s expertise and gifts with the need in the world.” This is more general, but at the same time that allows me space to backup and say, “OK, so how could I do that in the world? Any way that I choose is fine. It’s all gonna fit and match up with that calling.” And so in that sense then it also frees you to be able to, I guess, find and choose both a calling or a purpose.
David: I think what’s so powerful about that is that in that moment that you do that you’re really have to take into consideration that in order to find the calling or step into it, you have to be vulnerable.
Andrea: Uh-hmm.
David: Because you can’t do it without being vulnerable. Not only, well, it’s our purpose and it’s going to reveal our destiny, but it’s a growth phase that we’re going through where we’re being stretched and the weakest parts of us are coming to the surface and we’re having to learn to deal with them and make sense of them and then find productive ways of handling them. And you said that you have to grieve at first, but then you had to get on with your purpose. You’ve got something to do so you have to be able to then move this pain over here, deal with it, get it out of you and then refocus on where it is that you’re going. Am I right?
Andrea: Yeah. Let it be fuel. Emotion is fuel. Passion is fuel, but it’s not strategy. It’s not actually taking the step to do anything. And so if you don’t actually do something with it then I don’t know. I have a hard time thinking that. I don’t like feeling like the things that I’ve learned are going to waste. So, obviously I want to do something with it and I believe that everybody could and probably should.
David: Right. So, it makes a lot of sense; however, I think that also comes out of your own awareness that you have a purpose. There’s a lot of people that don’t think that they do. They don’t believe it yet, right? I mean, you know, life can be rough for a lot of people. There’s a lot of people that are suffering and _____, you know, you have a purpose but they have an experience along those guidelines, so to speak of there’s a real reason why you’re here not just to be a lump of flesh taking up space. But there’s a real reason. You had the courage to look deeper inside of yourself to pull that out.
Andrea: I would be remiss if I didn’t say that at one point in time and for a period of time I felt like my purpose had been squashed, like I’d lost it. I thought I had a purpose. I thought I’d identified a purpose and then everything that I thought it was just sort of got trampled and it wasn’t all, you know, external but I mean a lot of it was internal but it got crushed. And then I felt like I didn’t have a purpose again and I wanted one.
And so it took me awhile. I mean, I was in depression for definitely a couple of years and maybe struggled with it some before that too. So there were a lot of ups and downs, but definitely a certain kind of death that happened to me in order to be able to find a more…because that first purpose was still seeking validation. It had to die so that I could find the purpose that could outlast any other, you know, now I can’t be destroyed.
David: I’m going to read something that you wrote in your book that I think is really, really powerful. You say, I know now God, my heart is secure evenindestructible. I don’t need to feel pressure and shame if I am not relying on aperson to love me. If you love me, I am free to love others no matter how they feelabout me. Let’s do this. You remember writing that?
Andrea: Yeah.
David: I mean, there is so much personal responsibility in that and ownership. I think that’s absolutely incredible. Is there a moment in time that you came to that realization or was that just over the series of events that were making you more aware of how you were, you know, kind of owning your own agency and stepping into the desire of your heart?
Andrea: Yeah. There was a moment. I was doing what’s called the school spiritual direction with Dr. Larry Crabb, who I consider to be a mentor of mine. He said something and he wrote this diagram and everything just kind of clicked in my head all at the same time where he said, I was feeling like I was distant from God, and he said something along the lines of “In order to experience God, maybe it’s about expressing God, you don’t have to actually feel close to God in order to express the character of God.”
David: I love it.
Andrea: And if I can do that, that I can find purpose in. And it was that moment in time in this class, I’m like, I’m jotting down notes and my leg is just like going like crazy underneath the table. And as soon as he’s done, I like get up, and I still have goosebumps just as I’m telling you, and I just sort of run up to the front of the room and I’m like, “Larry, this I can live for.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is it.” And I just gave him this great big hug and he’s like, “This is kingdom relating. This is what he was describing just previously.” And I was like, “Wow, this is it. I can live for that.”
David: And I can see how in that moment the idea of accepting or having your, having the purpose and your desire matchup be kind of verified. It gives it a reason, because I think that a lot of people go through life where they have these desires, but they either feel they’re selfish or they’re self centered or they’re foolish, or “Would anybody really be interested in this?” But when he comes from that perspective of you’re actually expressing God and God is speaking to you through this desire to then put this out into the world or be this person or whatever it is that you’re supposed to be doing.
Andrea: Love like that, yeah.
David: It’s a love like that. Yeah, it makes a huge difference.
Andrea: Yeah, yeah.
David: I think it makes sense to a lot of things.
Andrea: Yeah, it certainly did for me. And that was prior to writing the book, definitely.
David: So where do you go from here?
Andrea: Well, I’ve experimented with some different things and now really settling into building a team of people who are helping me as we build Voice of influence, a consulting firm. And I’ve worked with Angelique Rewers who you know so intimately and know well and have worked with. So, I’ve benefited indirectly from you through her and we were really starting to find our legs in customer service.
So, we’re starting with service and my ultimate goal is that I’d love to speak more and two more executives and that sort of thing. But to be honest, we’re at a place right now where we’re going to start at customer service and build our way up. I know that that’s where we’re headed. But we’re going to do whatever the next step is that’s going to get us there. So, I’m excited to start with customer service where we are talking about service and how to offer and not worry about what other people think of you and all those things.
David: Absolutely. Well, you could be in better hands with Angelique
Andrea: Yeah.
David: That’s for sure. And for everybody that’s listening and though you couldn’t listen to the podcast; I’ll have Brandon put it down in the notes. Angelique was a client of mine for about three years and a really good friend. Now, we joined together on certain projects from time to time. She’s absolutely an amazing coach and mentor. So let’s wrap it up with this. If you could leave everybody with one successful mind tip, what would that be?
Andrea: When you put yourself on the line for others, this is when you really find out what you’re made of and this is where you really find your voice of influence.
David: I love that. It doesn’t get any better right there.
Andrea: Hmm. Thank you so much.
David: You’re welcome. Thanks for coming on the show.
Andrea: Appreciate you.
David: We have to do this again some time.
Andrea: Sounds great.
David: Okay. All right, everybody that’s it. Make sure that you get the book UNFROZEN. Where can they learn more about you? Tell us where we can learn more about you, Andrea.
Andrea: Voiceofinfluence.net is our website. You can find me on LinkedIn or on Facebook, Andrea Joy Wenburg. AndreaWenburg on Twitter. And you can find UNFROZEN: Stop Holding Back and Release The Real You on Amazon.
David: Awesome! And it says on here there’s a free video discussion guide
Andrea: Yes on the website.
David: On the website?
Andrea: Yep. So if you’re wanting to have a conversation with anybody about some of these topics then there are some videos on my website, Unfrozen book discussion guide and that should help. But anybody who wants to reach out, you’re welcome to reach out. I’d love to hear and share what I can.
David: Andrea Joy Wenburg ladies and gentlemen. OK, have a great day. It was so fantastic having you on the show. We’ll talk again soon.
Andrea: Thanks, you too.
David: All right.
Thanks for listening to the Successful Mind podcast. And if you like what you heard and want to know more, go to davidneagle.com/free stuff.