Episode 59: Speak Up: Overcoming Your Fear Of Communication With Andrea Adams

TMS 59 | Speaking Up

 

Are you often lost for words and just can’t find your voice? Find out how Andrea Adams, the Cofounder of KEG Book Club, and Founder of Adornami, overcame her fear of communicating through pageantry and self-development. Today, Andrea joins us to share how passion, purpose, and self-love can empower you to be the best that you can be and make a great impact in the world.

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Speak Up: Overcoming Your Fear Of Communication With Andrea Adams

Welcome to the show. In this episode, I have one of the amazing guests. I’ve been wanting to get to know her a little bit more, so I invited her to be one of our guests. It is Andrea Adams Edwards. She’s been with The Mentor Studio for a while and I see her on all the calls. I’m like, “Who is this fascinating person?”

I’m going to introduce Andrea and the Mentor Studio. The Mentor Studio is a community of like-minded people coming together to be a service, have a heart of service, make an impact in the world, and share and mentor others. Andrea has been a vital part of that since she joined. Andrea is a mom of four who loves reading, dancing, picture taking and roller coasters.

She finds complete tranquility in savory foods and beautiful sceneries, whether from the big city lights or nature views. She’s the Cofounder of KEG, Knowledge, Empowerment, Growth Book Club and KEG Kids for young children and KEG Tweens for teenagers. She is an entrepreneur by heart and the Founder of a dinner at Adornami, a line of beauty products.

She’s also the owner of Caribbean Things by Adornami, a business birthed by the idea of bringing some of her Caribbean heritage to the USA. She’s part of the International Coaching Federation which focuses on communication and relationship and recognizes that people sometimes struggle with unspeakable doubt, lack of self-confidence and sometimes low self-esteem.

Her intention is to help people access their inner self-talk, change their mindset and transform their own lives by improving their relationships with themselves and, by extension, of others. Andrea is a certified Les Brown Motivational Speaker who has reclaimed her power voice and is using her voice to help children develop public speaking, debating, and creative writing skills through her Global Kids Speak platform. Welcome, Andrea, for coming here and being a part of the show.

TMS 59 | Speaking Up
Speaking Up: Reading is one of those things that are slowly dying. People spend hours watching the television instead of doing things that would add knowledge to themselves and empower them.

 

Thank you so much for having me, Dawna. It’s indeed a privilege to be here. I am excited.

To kick off because people always want to know, we want to know the ins and outs of everything. The fastest, quickest way there is to share something with us that nobody else knows about you.

There are so many things. One of them is I’m called Annie, not a lot of people unless they’re close to me. Annie was a name that my dad wanted me to have because he loved Westerns. He looked at some movie called Annie Get Your Gun or something along that line. He was obsessed with that name. My mom named me Andrea because my dad is Andre. For some reason, the name Annie stuck. You would find that a lot of people who would have known me as a child still call me Annie.

I live in Montana, so Annie Get Your Gun is a big, popular Western out here in cowboy country. What was the fascination with that movie? Do you know why he wanted to call you Annie?

I have no clue. All of a sudden, he loved it and it was one of his favorites.

We are all human, and we are all flawed. Accept what was and know that we have the power to make ourselves better and become what we want to be by empowering ourselves. Click To Tweet

Share with us a little bit about your background and how you got involved working with kids, with teenagers and even with people coaching with all of the things that you do.

Before I became a coach, first of all, it just happened. Let me give you a little background. As a child, I was molested and that caused me not to have any form of self-confidence. One of the most impactful things that happened to me through my experience is my inability to speak up. As a teenager, I was afraid of adults. Even as I grew into an adult, I was afraid of communicating. I was often paralyzed when I had to communicate with coworkers or speak up for myself in any form.

It was getting a little bit ridiculous, but it took me doing pageantry as a young lady and many self-development things to help to mold me. It’s not like a one-time thing that happened that I discovered myself, but it was over a period of time. I believe the most impactful when that happened was around the time the pandemic hit. When a lot of people were going in and relaxing, that’s when I came out. My friend and I always wanted to do a book club because we recognized that a lot of people were not reading. Reading is one of those things that was slowly dying.

They spent so many hours looking at the television instead of doing things that would add knowledge to themselves and have to empower them. We formed a book club, and from there, she invited me to what I would consider one of my first real self-development courses. It was Seven Days of Healthy Thoughts. It was done by Dr. Sonia Noel and that transformed my life. I went there as an accountability partner for her.

I was like, “I’m always thinking positive thoughts. I never have these curse words in my head.” It was like I was doing it, but I didn’t think that I needed it. Doing that made me realize that so many garbage thoughts are in our heads. From there, it was like what you would call a snowball effect of personal development things. Before you know it, here I am, a certified coach and doing all the things that I’m passionate about.

Speaking Up: You have to invest in yourself continuously because we are fluid, ever-growing, and becoming. Keep going and keep developing yourself.

 

I think that skillset is incredibly valuable and to feed ourselves information, knowledge, and wisdom, which is a large part of what we do here at the Mentor Studio. We have networking, which is about relationship building and masterminds and sharing that information, knowledge and wisdom with others along the way so that they can also grow. What would be your top three tips that somebody could implement right away for them to grow for them?

My top three would be self-development. You have to invest in yourself and continuously, not just one time, because we are fluid and we’re ever-growing and we’re becoming. You got to keep growing. You got to keep developing yourself. The second thing would be self-acceptance. You have to accept yourself. We are all human and we are all flawed. We have to accept what was and know that we have the power to make ourselves better to become what we want to be.

In fact, we are what we want to be. We just have to catch up with time. We do so by empowering ourselves. The third thing, which is one of my standard pillars and why I have the name Adornami. Adornami means to adore me. It’s an Italian word. The third thing is self-love. You have to love yourself. If you do not love yourself, I know you cannot love somebody else. If you don’t know what love is, how could you love? If you can’t accept and love yourself, how can you tell me that you are loving somebody else? Those are three things I would tell people to work on.

When you have clients come to you or people who reach out wanting to seek this information, how do you share it? How do you teach those principles to that?

First of all, I have people look at themselves introvertedly. Once you can see where you are and accept what was, you can start making goals. That’s the other thing. You have to place goals. Passion is one of the things I press on. Once you understand and learn what your passion is, you identify what your purpose is, then everything else goes with it. First of all, you have to go back to accepting and loving yourself, then identifying what you want. What is it that drives you? What is it that moves you? That’s the tool that I use. Understanding yourself first and then understanding what your passion and purpose are as a tool to set goals and to achieve what it is that you want to achieve.

If you do not love yourself, you cannot love somebody else. Click To Tweet

Having a passion, a purpose, implementing that and putting it into place. You talked about your book club. Something that you are very passionate about and that you have a purpose with. You started it with children, teenagers and various people. I have to admit, I love reading and I read often. I joined my very first book club. I’m going to tell you. I’m already one intro and two chapters behind because I haven’t started it and they’re going to be doing week three, but I’ll catch up. I’ll read ahead. It was a timing factor for me. Knowing that with books and book clubs, what is one of your favorite books and why?

We’ve read quite a few. We read eleven books per year. We meet once a month, but I would say of all of them, there are so many, but can I give two? One of them is called Eat That Frog!. It’s based on how you can overcome procrastination, which is something that I believe a lot of people suffer with and even with deliberate intent. You sometimes still do fall back on it. The other one I would have enjoyed was Trevor Noah, Born a Crime, only because I am so silly at heart. I love a good laugh. I found that when I read that book, I laugh and I cry. When we met and discussed it, we were laughing our hearts off. Those are two of my favorites.

When I get asked that question every so often, I always go back to a picture book. It’s a children’s book, but I read it as an adult. It is my absolute favorite book to this day and it’s called Old Turtle and the Broken Truth, which is written by Douglas Wood. It’s about how we can live in our authentic truth as love because everybody is a form of love and how we lost our way and the journey back to the path. I loved that book.

It’s interesting when you’re at a business conference or up on stage sharing and talking to someone asking you for your favorite book. You’re like, “I read children’s books.” That’s who I am. You read for a lot of different reasons and a lot of different purposes. You read for content, for information. You might read for humor, to learn something. As a favorite style or genre of books, do you have one for you?

Yes, I do. Our favorite, which we had found for the book club in general, it’s personal development. We do a lot of books that help us to think. We did like a John Maxwell 101. Most of the ones that we found that were deep and impactful were those that did help us with self-development, especially with the thoughts. We did quite a few with mastering your thoughts, understanding toxic thoughts, and changing your mindset. Those are the books that are my personal type genre in terms of books.

 

TMS 59 | Speaking Up
Speaking Up: Work smart, play hard. You can save so much time by working strategically and equally.

 

I know with the Mentor Studio, we have a legacy of serving others and bringing information to them. Books are one way to do that. Speaking is another way and what we do in the professional development world as well. What is a legacy or something that you would like to leave?

I always say that for me, I want to impact as many people as possible. My impact is to help people and help each individual know they are special. There’s nothing that you can’t do. I want people that come across, even if it’s not directly through me but somebody that I impact them, to understand that you are valuable.

There’s nothing about you that is less. You are more. You’re great. You’re awesome. You are loved. That’s my impact and that’s my legacy. My kids must know that. To love themselves and, by extension, love others. Everyone else that I come into contact with or getting packed one way or the other must understand or must feel that they know the importance of love and self-love.

It’s been phenomenal here because I know I’ve been doing back-to-back show recordings. It always amazes me that the theme always emerges. The theme of this round has been about loving yourself, self-care and self-love. My personal quote that I share often is to live the life you love and love the life that you live. If you’re not here to experience life and to love and to fall in love with all aspects of your life, that tells me something needs to shift or change because we’re meant to love. I love where I live. I love to travel. I love to come back home. Do you have a favorite quote or something you would like to share with our audience?

My favorite quote is work smart, play hard. I believe that we all need to work because if you fit without work, you have to work to make things happen. Also, you can save so much time by working strategically and equally. I believe in balance. I love balance. When you play, you enjoy that equally. You do it with all your might. At home, I tell my kids, I’m like, “During the week, Monday to Thursday, I want you to push all that you have to push,” but come Friday, the weekend, we tend to be very laid back. It’s implementing that same principle that when you’re working, you focus on your work. When it’s time to play it, equally play it.

Once you can see where you are and accept what was, you can start making goals. Click To Tweet

At the Mentor Studio, we can get in touch with you through our community, but if somebody is reading this and it’s the only show that they’ve read to for a while, how can somebody get in touch with you to see when they’re ready to take those next steps? If they want to start turning their lives around, implement that self-love, have that confidence and impact or maybe get in touch with you for your book clubs, how can someone simply reach you?

Thank you, Dawna. I have one link, it’s Linktr.ee/Adornami. Everything is there.

Yes, I love it and that name and that it’s an Italian name. I need to know, where in the Caribbean are you from?

I was born in Guyana, South America. It’s not technically the Caribbean, but they have been adopted to be part of the Caribbean because of parts of its borders are on the Caribbean Sea. Although, it’s in South America, it’s considered part of the Caribbean.

It’s so beautiful in that whole area as well for it. They call it the Western Caribbean.

I lived in Barbados for seventeen years, so I’m a Caribbean girl.

Thank you so much for being here with us at the show. It’s been a pleasure and a joy to have you and to learn even more about you.

Thank you for having me.

If you want to get in touch with us or if you want to get in touch with Andrea, all you have to do is reach out. You can go to TheMentorsStudio.net, so you can reach out, see everybody and look and see what it’s like to be a part of our community. Thank you.

 

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