Mingo Palacios:

What’s up PD podcasters? This episode is from a gathering we held a few weeks back called Digital Makers. It was aimed at conversations with practitioners and their best practice in each of the digital spaces, be it blogging, vlogging, photography, storytelling. Every conversation is full of great insight and I hope you enjoy it.

Vittoria Allen:

Is anyone in Oprah fan? Anyone? No one in this room? Okay, thanks Rocky and my husband for doing that. I was listening. Oh, and I only have two pages of notes guys. So we’re going to just breeze right through this. Hopefully put a pretty little bow on this presentation and I’m going to give you guys six ways to put your inspiration into action. So I was listening to a podcast this week. It was an interview that Oprah did with Maya Angelou, and it was super inspiring and she was telling the story about how when Maya Angela was seven years old, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend and soon after Maya Angelou shared this with her family, they discovered that that man had been murdered. And as a seven year old, Maya Angelou was convinced that her words had the power to kill people, and so she didn’t speak another word for several years. Years. She didn’t speak because she was convinced that her words had the power to kill.

Vittoria Allen:

Obviously years later she would go on to write some of the most influential and incredible books that the world has seen. In, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou says, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” So where do we begin? Where do we begin telling the story that’s inside of us now that we have been inspired to inspire other people? What now? If you’re anything like me, I constantly find myself stuck. I knew I always wanted to be a writer. I’ve been fortunate enough to go to school to write and I’ve had a few jobs where I was copyrighting and doing some social media management. But I just always felt stuck. I never knew where to begin with my own personal blog or my own personal creative endeavors. And I always had an excuse. I was always comparing myself to other people and I felt like I have nothing to say they were doing it better.

Vittoria Allen:

I don’t know what I’m doing, so I’m just not going to do it. And finally I just felt like God was saying, “You need to just do it.” So, I think there’s so much as writers, I think we feel like we’re going to go crazy if we don’t write what we’re going through, but we might go crazy if we write it. So we’re just stuck and there’s so much vulnerability when we put words onto paper of the experiences that we’re going through, they become real when we see them out there. But the benefit of that is that you also see the words outside of you and they take on a whole new meaning, a new perspective. Finally I just decided to do it. No more excuses and that is step number one, “Just do it.” This is ground breaking stuff guys. But really I think that as creatives, that’s sometimes the hardest hurdle to get over. We just need to do it. So I did it. I bought a name on, what is it? Godaddy.com and I was like, “Well now I paid the money so I better start a blog.” So I did. That’s my cute little baby. It was seriously nothing fancy. I am not a graphic designer. I do not know web design, but thank you Squarespace for making it easy for the Internet dummy. So from there, number two, “Establish your goals.” What are you trying to do here? So for me, my blog started as a place for healing. It was a place where I could process what was going on in my own life and I really have a passion for using what’s going on in my own life to encourage other people. I feel like God uses our pain and our pain sometimes or always is to encourage other people that are going through it too.

Vittoria Allen:

And to let them know that they aren’t alone. So I wanted my blog to be a place that was real and authentic and it wasn’t like a pretty mommy blog with like, “Oh my gosh, look at how cute my kid is all the time.” I mean, she is pretty cute all the time, but she throws up on my favorite comforter all the time and wrecks the kitchen and that’s just real life. And so that was my goal. I wanted to tell real stories that I was going through and real things that I felt like God was teaching me, which leads me to number three, which is, “Be authentic.” I really believe that one of the greatest ways to inspire people is through authenticity. We can build one another up and encourage one another. Maya Angelou’s work was birthed out of some of the greatest pain that she had experienced in her life.

Vittoria Allen:

Her work is internationally acclaimed, not just for the quality of her writing, but for the authenticity. Her work had told so many people, “I see you, I hear you.” And that’s why it was so powerful. And that resonated with me because that was exactly why my blog was born too. It was somewhere for me to just tell my story and hope that I encourage people along the way. Being authentic also allows you to freely admit when you don’t know all the answers, which leads me to number four, “Be a learner.” As a writer, the best way to get better at writing is to just write and read. That’s how we take in words and we learn more about words and then we learn what our voice looks like as a writer. I always felt like I didn’t have time to read or write, which is funny because I am a writer, but I had to make the time because I knew it was not only giving me life, but it was refining my skills.

Vittoria Allen:

So I just listed a couple other things. You know, Tricia and I will send each other stuff all the time that we’ve written like, “Hey, will you take a look at this? Does this sound weird? Do you have any suggestions? There are so many cool Ted Talks, podcasts, and has anyone heard of masterclass.com? It’s so awesome. I feel like I’m way late to the game. If you haven’t heard of it, look it up. You get basically like private classes with the pros like Judy Blume teaches a writing class. What? Annie Liebowitz will teach you photography. What? Steve Martin will teach you comedy. Amazing. Anyway. Yeah, the digital world is always changing. So be a learner and be able to admit that you are learning and you’re in the process. So keep on refining your skills and you’ll get better. So number five, “Embrace the process.” Nobody starts with a global following.

Vittoria Allen:

Nobody. You have to start somewhere and being able to embrace the process will just give you so much peace throughout it. I mean, I have been writing since college high school. I’ve been a writer and it has taken me this long to A, start my blog and B, to even start getting paid for writing. I mean, it is just a process and we have to be able to embrace that and trust that we are going to get somewhere. I want to be true to the calling on my life. I know that God has given me a gift to write and to story tell. So it’s my job to just be true to that calling and to steward that gift well, whatever he would have me do with it. Writing is life giving to me and it’s life giving to others. So everyone’s on a learning curve and we just have to start somewhere.

Vittoria Allen:

And the last point that I want to leave with you guys is “Your voice matters.” Another Maya Angelou quote that I just love was, “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.” I just thought that was so powerful because I think there’s so many people in this industry, there’s so many writers, so many bloggers, so many photographers. And I think that’s what stopped me. I felt like, what do I have to say that nobody else has already saying? What could I do that no one else is already doing? But I had to realize that I had a different experience. I had a different voice, and that’s what I want to share with you guys. Everyone in this room has a different experience. Everyone has a different voice. Everyone has a different story to tell. Humanity was created for storytelling. God used words to speak the entire world into existence. His words give us life and meaning. So storytelling is what connects all of us. Whether we are telling that story through words, photography, branding, marketing, whatever it would be, we all have a new perspective and it matters and it contributes to the bigger story that’s been written. So now is the time to share your story and tell the stories of those around you.

Mingo Palacios:

We’d like to thank Purpose Driven Church for making this podcast possible. If you’ve been feeling burnt out or plateaued in your ministry, we invite you to join us for Purpose Driven Church conference happening this June right here in Southern California. You can learn more and register by visiting PD.church. We hope today’s insights left you feeling inspired and propelled towards your greatest potential. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of the PD Podcast. Until next time.