How to Find Your Voice: An Interview with Michelle Mendoza

Dawn Damon:  Wonderful to see all of you amazing bravehearted women again. This is your girl, Dawn Damon. We're going to talk about all things about brave today and listen, you don't want to miss this. If you have been thinking about taking a leap of faith, some bold, courageous leap, but you just haven't done it yet. This is your moment. This show is for you because my guest today is going to inspire you to move so that she may just give you a push in the tush. You're going to want to do that thing, but let me introduce her first.

My guest today is an author and the author of Find Your Voice: Your Superpower and Passion Unleashed. She has been uniquely gifted by God with a diverse background in entertainment, and communications. She has a love of talk radio hosting programs. She's a popular radio host. She appeared on CNN, CBS radio, and television news. God has opened amazing doors for her. She comes from a nonjudgmental faith-based worldview, which is so refreshing today. She's been on the big screen. She's an actress. She's a screenwriter. She's directed. She sings like I'm starting to really not like her actually. No, I love my guests. Please welcome Michelle Mendoza. Hey, Michelle!

Michelle Mendoza: Hey Dawn! It's so good to connect with you again. It really is.

Dawn Damon: Thank you. It's good to connect with you too. We met at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention.

Michelle Mendoza: Right.

Dawn Damon: And we just hit it off. You were in a booth, you were promoting your program and your one voice book, Find Your Voice: Your Superpower and Passion Unleashed and I wanna hear all about that today. But you just said, ‘Hey, come on over and sit down. Let's have a chat.’ And I don't know how long I sat there, but we just enjoyed a chat and getting to know each other and we said, ‘Oh yeah, we're kindred spirits. We got this thing going on together.’

Michelle Mendoza: Absolutely. I think your audience probably feels that every time they listen to your podcast though, you know, that connection with you because you're genuine and open. That's a brave thing in itself, isn't it? To try to say, ‘Okay, I'm just going to be the real me, like it or not, here I am.’ But that makes people really connect.

Dawn Damon: Yeah, I believe that. I hope so. I always used to say and still do, what comes from the heart touches the heart. And so if we can just be authentic and real and ‘Hey, listen, we're not trying to be some polished version just to set ourselves up to say we've got it all together.’ Not at all, right? We're walking through we're having a human journey. In fact, I was just telling you before we started in the studio today. I am dog-sitting. I have a love for pets. I don't own them anymore because I travel too much. So I'm even going to tell you straight up ladies, you might hear a little bit of a dog whisper in the background. It's okay. It's all good. You probably have pets too.

But Michelle, your grit, your charm, your beauty, your expertise, your experience. I mean, we could look at you and say, ‘Yep, you got it all together.’ What do you have to know about being brave? You're so confident, but tell us a little bit about you because you have been in an industry dominated by men. You needed courage in that you've made transitions in life just recently. So tell us a little bit about you, how you got started in the business and what was it like being a woman on the radio back in the day?

Michelle Mendoza: Okay. Barely a woman. I was maybe 18 and I was at a party and you know, at 18 where I'm sure there are people out there who knew exactly what they wanted to do, you know, just focus. I changed my major. I changed whether I wanted to go to college every other week. But at a party, I was mocking the old Lee Press On Nails commercial in fashion colors. Then someone heard me who was on the radio and he said, ‘You have a good voice for radio. Have you ever considered radio?’ At 18. I've considered everything and nothing. I was like, ‘Hey, sure. What you got?’ So he became my mentor and I went to get my first job there at a music radio station. That was my first lesson professionally and being brave. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm nervous. You can hear it in someone's voice. A little bit of wavier, you know, that, that nervousness, but that's part of the power through, you know, Everyone starts somewhere. You just do it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but here's a really powerful secret for anyone who wants to be brave. If you're genuine and honest about, ‘Wow, I'm just starting out here.’ People engage with you because of your honesty and openness and that takes that pressure off of me having to be, you know, perfect to just being real.

A few years later, I'm at a party again.

Dawn Damon: You’re a party kind of a girl.

Michelle Mendoza: I'm a party girl. I don't know. Maybe in those days, but I'm this event and someone's talking about current events and I'm opining on it and talking suddenly there is a group surrounding me. A huge group watching me, listening, their mouths agape, just like, ‘Wow!’ And I realized they weren't listening to me. There was this famous radio talk show host standing in my corner. They're all looking at him. They didn't hear a word I said, but he listened. He came to me and said, ‘You're a little firecracker. Have you ever considered talk radio?’ I was like, ‘Well, I'm on the radio right now.’ ‘Talk radio?’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘Why don't you fill in for me?’ I'm thinking, girl, I haven't picked up a newspaper my entire life. I'm not so sure I can talk on a talk show where it's news talk. ‘Oh, what am I doing?’ But it was an open door and God gives these open doors in our lives. The hardest part is walking through and on the air, I opened the mic and said, ‘This is my first day on the talk radio station. We're talking about the new healthcare law. I really don't know a lot about it. You, as a listener, how about you call in and you fill me in, educate me a little bit, and let's talk. Here are the numbers.’ I was honest and boy, the phones lit up. Since then you read my background, I've had doors open. The more you have those doors open in your career, the farther you go down the road, the easier it is to walk through. Not just because you're used to it. But because you know, God's got me and that works great until a door opens way over here that you haven't walked through before and you have to start that process all over again. God's up there going, I thought you trusted me.

Dawn Damon: I love what you said about being authentic, and I think that is clearly demonstrated in your very first time on talk radio, which I would be just like you. I would want to go through that door. I would love that opportunity, but I hadn't read a newspaper when I was your age, and even now I kind of avoid it because it's too late.

Michelle Mendoza: Because it's depressing.

Dawn Damon: It’s depressing! but how authentic and beautiful just to say, ‘Hey, you all, I'm just learning this. Tell me what you know.’ I bet you in that moment, you endeared yourself to your listening audience. They fell in love with you and they knew, you know, we want to see this girl be successful in what she's doing. And you do, by the way, have a beautiful radio voice.

Tell me, when you're taking those steps of faith, you kind of get used to where you were now. You were in your comfort zone, but there came a time when you had to transition again, like you just mentioned, and step out in faith again. How did you overcome that fear? How did overcoming fear play a role in your being willing to go through those doors?

Michelle Mendoza: I think it's a biblical concept of going from faith to faith to faith. So when there's a new opportunity, you start to try to get used to listening to that prodding of God's spirit going, all right, I want you in this direction. If you have a regular prayer life, it makes it a little bit easier. So I encourage you if you, if you don't do it, do it. It really helps.

Okay. This isn't a biblical concept. But I think it's a biblical concept. It's not in the Bible. God's ability to make things right is greater than my ability to screw things up. I'll tell you, my ability to screw things up is colossal. It's next-level stuff, girl. God's ability to make things right when my heart is sincerely following after Him when I'm really looking at, ‘Okay, is this what God wants?’ I have to trust. Because I've trusted once, just once, you got to get it going once. The next time it happens, you can fall back on that. ‘All right, God, you saw me through then. I'm going to trust that you're going to see me through now.’ My career of 20 years on the radio came to an abrupt end, uh, near COVID. I had to step up away. You know, in the media, there's a lot of silencing going on. You're not allowed to talk about this. That's where I had to say, you know what? Podcasting is really viable radio. Even talk radio is dying out and podcasting is on the rise. You get to hear things that the mainstream blocks out. So I had to be brave. I had to start my podcast, learning all of the technology and such from scratch. And that was another brave step and just trust that God was going to provide. He was going to build my audience. That I can take the talent that I know now that I had known and apply it to podcasting.

Then the next step God prompted me to write the book, Find Your Voice: Your Superpower and Passion Unleashed. That book was saying, you know, there's a lot of people out there, Don, everybody. I'm a firm believer. Everybody has a purpose. You are a masterpiece that God is painting. God's workmanship was created for good works. The Bible says you are this masterpiece that God's making and your purpose here on this planet in this time is vital, not just to your family, but to some other people. out there. You could be like me and be on the air or be on the silver screen or on the small screen. That's only because I'm not good at everyday things. It's like God said, all right, this is where we're going to put it.

Dawn Damon: God give her something.

Michelle Mendoza:: Yeah. But whatever you're doing, it can be a small group of people. It could be at your PTA meeting. It could be in your neighborhood. There are some people out there that will hear your voice. They can't really relate to me or even maybe as closely to Dawn as they can to you. There is your life experience, your mistakes, the pains that you've gone through, and your personality. All of those things work together like a piece of art and different paints and mediums that paint you and someone's going to walk through life's gallery. And with all of these portraits and pieces of art, they're going to zone in on you. You're going to have a message that's going to change their life. If everybody spoke their voice, if everyone was brave enough to speak their voice, this world would look vastly different.

Dawn Damon: It sure would and I love every time you say the word brave. I know I've chosen the right word for my spirit because everything in me rises up and says, ‘Yes, that's it.’ Taking that step, you know, not only was it a spiritual thing. I am a believer in the body, soul, and spirit. That it all works together here as we are going through this world, there are spiritual giants that we have to slay and overcome fears. Then there's even the biological part you know our brain wants to keep us safe, doesn't it? I mean like that's the number one thing, our brain wants to detect threats. I discovered that even walking through a new place, everything in my brain wants to say, ‘Stop this! Go back,’ to the rationalization starts and all the conversations and the scary narrative. ‘This is what's going to happen. You're going to embarrass yourself. You're not going to make it. You're going to be a failure.’ Did you experience some of those things as the narrative in your head telling you to quit and turn around?

Michelle Mendoza: Absolutely. In fact, in my book, Find Your Voice: Your Superpower and Passion Unleashed. I have a chart that's called the cycle of doubt and defeat. There is a rationale there's a reason for that doubt. There's a reason for those fears. They keep you from doing something really stupid. The secret is to not get into the cycle of believing that that's the only way is to just avoid it altogether. If you think about it as a chef, a little girl. I have my granddaughter who's staying with me right now. We're learning a lot of things like how to cook, but where I'm also saying you don't want to touch that hot stove we have a rule. If it's sharp or it's hot. Mima says, ‘Not!’ That means, you know, think it through. ‘Don't just pick it up and don't touch a hot stove.’ However, if that creates a fear that I better stay away from the stove altogether, what if that little girl was meant to be a master chef someday? She would never be able to become who she's supposed to be because of that. fear. Fear should be there to give you caution or to give you a road map of speed bumps that I'm going to have to go over the hurdles that I'm going to have to face. That's what that fear should be. You write down those fears, you look at them and they become not this monster, this imaginative monster, but they become things that you can look at like a checkmark and say, ‘Okay, I may face this. What will I do? I may face this. Here's, I think I can overcome it.’ And suddenly those great big mountains become just those, what I said, little speed bumps. That's what we call the voice of doubt and defeat that cycle. There are ways that you really can break that cycle that I lay out in the book. And we also talk about the four things that every message needs.

Dawn Damon: I was going to ask you about that because, get ready, you all, you want to take notes on this because she's about to give you four bullets of information that will radically improve if you're a podcaster, or if you're a speaker, or if like you just have, like, she was saying your voice in any circle or environment of influence, God gives you to listen to this.

Michelle Mendoza: In my passion for helping people find their voice, express their voice, get their message out however that may be. I wanted to share what I knew from training at the School of Hard Knocks about your message. Now, it doesn't matter if your message is just talking 1:1 or if you're talking on stage in front of 10,000 people, you need four things.

There are four things every message, every podcast, every TED Talk, and every speech must have in order to succeed. If you miss one of these, they'll fall flat. Before I tell you what they are, I will tell you how important it is. The Bible has the four Gospels written in these four communication styles. These four things are in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Those four things are you must be inspirational, informational, entertaining, and engaging. All of those things need to be hit in your message. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Bible were written in each different one of those communication styles where you have one gospel that's written to the Jews, and it's very informational, very fact-based. Mark is inspirational. Matthew is the informational one. It's written to the Romans. It's all about action. In fact, the word power is used there more than in any other Bible book. When you have Luke, which is more entertaining, was written to the Greeks and they are, were big into poetry and the arts. Then you have John, which was the engager. He wrote his gospel in the love gospel, the beloved apostle. It's all about God so loved the world. So that's really engaging.

So each one of these communication styles, I call them is important to every message. If you have a little bit of entertainment where you can tell stories and titillate someone's imagination if you can have information to back it up, if you can have an emotional, emotive engagement, and if you can have an inspiration that says, ‘Here's what we're going to do with this information I gave you,’ you will have a recipe for a winning story of speech, podcast, talk, or whatever it is that you do. It was so important God decided to tell his gospel message in these four communication styles.

My book, Find Your Voice: Your Superpower and Passion Unleashed, is another brave step I had to take. We have a devotional that takes it to kind of more of a God level, a deeper God level to solidify what God's doing as far as your message is concerned. How do you infuse these into a message? How do you develop each one of us who has one of those communication styles? I call them a superpower. Each one of us has one. How do you develop yours? How do you avoid the kryptonite that can keep you from going forth and doing what you're supposed to do? I mean, these are important things that we have to learn and engage in so that we can fulfill that awesome purpose. And if you're empowered with these, if you suddenly have this power, it's easier to be brave. I mean, imagine for a moment that you walk through, you've accidentally fallen into a nuclear vat of goo, right? Because you know, sometimes that happens.

Dawn Damon: Because, yes it’s danger.

Michelle Mendoza: Suddenly you come out with superpowers. It's a lot easier to be brave when you've been in a dude with those superpowers.

Dawn Damon: Yes, absolutely. I want to recap that just for a minute. So Matthew is informational, Mark is inspirational, Luke is entertaining, and John is engaging.

When I think about those, you know, and my background of being a pastor and a preacher, and I'm used to preaching out of those books, I can completely see that. And that is really insightful and really incredible. Next time you read through those gospels, ladies, see if you can identify where those voices are and how that shift takes place. I know for when I'm speaking, I have felt myself shift into one of those voices. You know, if the anointing of God comes upon you and all of a sudden you're shifting and I can tell I'm giving information, but right now this is inspirational, but right now this is engaging. I love that. I don't do it well all the time and even since meeting you and reading that I have been making sure to make it. That ingredient was included in my cookie dough, which I don't bake, but that was a good analogy. So you do more than just write about it though. Do you not offer some coaching and classes that help others with this?

Michelle Mendoza: Yeah, we created a masterclass that works you through how to develop your superpower and how to find what yours is. In fact, we have a free quiz, of course, that's on our website that can help you. What's your superpower? Well, you can find out what your superpower is gifted in once you have that, how do you develop that? What's your kryptonite and how do you bring in those other superpowers? What are some things you can do to make that happen? Then we take people through what you want to do with your voice. What are you called to do? Finding that calling. Do you want to broadcast podcasts, or speak in front of people? Do you want to write and how do you do that? How does that happen? I try to give people some inside views into the industries. You know, I'm an insider in the publishing world. We help people find out if they want to write a book, and we help people find a publisher. Some books we publish. If you want to be a podcast or even just do a TED talk, how do you do that? What does it look like?

One of the things that keeps us back, Dawn, from being brave, there are some women who are listening today that have this message. I'm like, I really want to get this out. One thing that stops us is that we're intimidated by those successful people, you know, ‘Oh, Michelle Mendoza. She's done this. She's done that. She knows this stuff. It's easy for her.’ No, I'm just a girl. And I've made mistakes or I've learned along the way or God's opened doors. But if I had someone to come alongside me and say, ‘This is what this looks like now,’ you know more than a lot of people who are broadcasting. That's what our masterclass and my commitment is to keep those real and affordable. It's not about, ‘Okay, let's make a mint off of masterclass.’ This is about making it accessible to people, making it available so that you can find your voice and you can do what God has called you to do. It's the essence of falling in a vat of nuclear goo and less messy. You're going to be empowered with your superpower and you can come out on this other side with the tools you need to be a little bit braver.

Dawn Damon: Excellent. I want to make sure that it is in the note. So for those who are really resonating with what you're saying right now, they're going to be able to find you and take advantage of this. This is why I'm bringing this to you bravehearted women because I am committed to your growth and your development. And I know these things are essential. You talked about the intimidation of others. Would that be considered one of those kryptonite things? What are some of those things that might be, and by kryptonite, you're saying those things that weaken us, those things that kind of make us feel powerless or shrink us down? Intimidation would certainly be one, right?

Michelle Mendoza: Intimidation, definitely. Feeling as though I'm unworthy, thinking, and we're set up for that in our society in many ways. ‘Oh, I'm not beautiful enough.’ Yeah. Well, you know, if you had all the filters that everyone else has yet. ‘Girl, you're beautiful enough.’ I mean, in this age where you can have men dressing up as women and they, you're like, wow, you look great. You know that it's smoke and mirrors. So, you know, beauty is really an illusion, but it's something that can intimidate us. Likewise with intellect, with experience, intimidation is just another word for fear. And those are the things that, that hold us back. But there's something crazy cool about kryptonite for Superman weakened him, it kept him from being able to use his superpowers. It's like a fear. But the other thing is that he's from Krypton and because of Krypton or Kryptonite, because of that planet he's from, he has superpowers. So it's like two sides of a coin. On one side, there's that intimidation, the fear of I can't do this, I don't know enough. I can't, I don't, I won't, I shouldn't. On the other side, you are more than able to do exceedingly like God does exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or think. Well, we can do exceedingly and abundantly above all we could imagine because we've been empowered for that. We've been called to that. We have a purpose. We forget that we think we're just here. We just, you know, evolved from, you know, some amoeba somewhere. And we just happened to be here like a cancer on the face of the planet. But in reality, the truth is you are here for a vital purpose. If you do not fulfill your purpose, the world starts looking the way it is right now. Dawn and I have to avoid reading the newspaper because it's depressing, but when all of us start playing our part and we start realizing that we have a purpose, it gives us that empowerment to overcome the fear, the intimidation, the I'm not good enough, the can't, won't and shouldn't.

Dawn Damon: I hope that you who are listening are feeling inspired because I want to ask you, have you fulfilled your purpose? Have you tapped your potential? I don't think that I've tapped my potential yet because I'm still breathing. And I've decided that as long as I'm on this planet, I've got something else to do. There are seeds inside of me that still have to come forth, that still have to grow and bloom. And the same is true for you all. If you're on this planet, and if you're listening to me, you're not done yet. God's not done with you yet. There's more. And I encourage you to think about, what Is my next purpose?

Bravehearted women, we don't give up. My guest today is Michelle Mendoza here to inspire you. Make sure you take advantage of the program, the coaching, and the book, where can we get ahold of you? I know I'll put that in the show notes to Michelle, but just a quick address for you.

Michelle Mendoza: You can find this at findyourvoice.fun.

Dawn Damon: Awesome. Findyourvoice.fun.

Any closing words for those that are listening today?

Michelle Mendoza: You have been endowed by your creator with more than you know. The potential inside of you is so great, and God is so good. This is a time if you've been listening, and you've been wanting to find your voice. Yeah, you can get the book, you can go to findyourvoice.fun but where you're really gonna find that voice is on your knees. Before your God and say, why am I here? What purpose do you have? Let it unfold. And then you just wait and watch God do his work. Like planting those seeds. They seem to be dead in the ground, but sooner or later they will bloom and they will grow and they will become something great. And so will you.

Dawn Damon: That right there was prophetic. I can tell you so much about it, I'm currently writing a message called A Super Bloom is Coming Up and you just spoke exactly what I've been writing. So ladies, grab onto that word. That's for you.

Hey, this is Dawn Damon. I just invite you, that if you loved this program, and I'm sure that you have. It's helped you make sure you share it with someone, spread the word, let people know, and let YouTube, Apple, and iTunes know, that you appreciate Christian faith-building messages. I'd love it if you'd share, review, and all those kinds of things. But in the meantime, I'm going to leave you like I always do bravehearted woman, this is your moment to find your brave and live your vision!