Julie Fogh

Welcome to 100 Stories, the narrative intelligence project. I'm your host, Paige Williams. This series explores a question at the heart of humanity. How malleable are the stories that we live by? And how easily changed are they? Across 100 conversations, I am speaking with thinkers, creators, leaders, researchers, healers, and people whose lives have been shaped by profound change. We're examining the stories we inherit, the stories that become our identity, and the human capacities that allow us to see, to question, and to transform those stories. These conversations are helping shape the field of narrative intelligence and are a part of the foundational book that I

am writing about it. This is 100 Stories. Today, I'm speaking with Julie Fog, co-founder and coach of Vital Voice Training. Julie's work helps people find access to their full voice. I invited Julie to 100 Stories because she works with people to grow out of their habits and into their full self. And I can't think of anything more fully about narrative intelligence than that. So, welcome Julie. It's nice to have you.

>> So nice to be here. Tell me about the work and experiences that have most shaped how you see yourself and the world. How much time you got? This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately and it really focuses on voice and my connection to voice. So, I am from the Pacific Northwest. I'm from the Seattle area, three generations back on both sides of my family. We are so deeply steeped into this very particular kind of communication culture that you don't call attention to yourself. You keep your own counsel. You don't sell out. There's I was reading Kathleen Hannah's memoir, Rebel Girl, and just the way she described what it's like navigating that in the Pacific

Northwest. It it is that combined with I am an introvert and deeply shy fundamentally. So that child wanted to be on stage and become an actor. The fact that I have done that is kind of a miracle because there was no plan set out for me. So, it's really been a a a way of looking at my place in the world a little bit differently. So, I'm trying to think about both experiences and and results. So, my family exists a little off center, I would say, of of mainstream and part of navigating the world safely for stuff they were dealing with, whether it was, you know, addiction in the family or debt or, you know, things that they wanted to publicly hide from. You didn't you

didn't go out into the world and be your full self. who didn't do that. I'm I'm not being particularly articulate on that. It's just But it's so fundamental that it took me years in acting classes to even be able to cry in front of people, to even be able to have a a real emotional reaction. I didn't understand that acting wasn't about finding a character outside of yourself. I thought, you know, I was this small girl from the Pacific Northwest that that needed to have bigness added to her. It turns out that's not what acting is at all and that's not what I was looking for at all because acting is about finding the character in yourself. Under

what circumstances would I do this, not, you know, how do I imitate somebody else's version of it? So, I got involved in acting classes which really helped with shyness just because I think blatant exposure helps with that sort of thing and was always fascinated by for me why it was so inconsistent when I could show up as a good actor or not. And it felt very physiological. It felt very nervous system. It honestly felt like I had two different people living inside me. The one that could connect and the one that was very much in my own head. So I'm somebody who needs to know and understand like everything. So I went to grad school so I could start to

understand that for for acting. And in grad school I discovered voice and that was the mechanics of exactly what I was looking for. That is the mechanics of how we get what's in out. And it is so interesting and intimately related to how we think, how we feel, how we take in the world. Again, where we're from, our communication microcultures, all of that kind of stuff all gets rolled into this thing that we don't think about very much. This the sounds that come out of our mouths that are capable of so much more than this narrow habitual range. And I think when we get to things like executive presence, that range gets even more narrow because there's this

way we feel like we're supposed to show up that's completely sanded of anything that makes us unique or different or much or anything like that. I'm on a roll here. So grad school, learning about voice and getting to take that into a voice certification, Fitz Morris voice work, it's very embodied, very somatic and very connected to the unexpected breath that you do all of these exercises that help disrupt your normal habitual breathing and that breaks open your story that breaks open your relationship to sound and voice and how you communicate. So that all kind of added up to I know what I was given with these tools. This even making a really

loud sound. There was an early acting class that I got to what I call break the sound barrier that my quiet voice could be so loud that it could make other people uncomfortable was kind of delightful. It was also a little bit of a nervous system um thing to have to manage because I that kind of volume I didn't know was possible. So I know how powerful those things are. I know how powerful it is to connect to your voice.

I know how powerful it is to get outside of the story you tell about yourself per per your work and find what lives in those outer edges. What it's kind of like one of those real estate dreams. I don't know if you've ever had that. I had them a lot when I was living in New York where I would feel like I was running out of space and then I have a dream that there was like this extra room and I'm like, "Oh, of course there's just this extra room." That's the resources our voice has for us.

Whatever we are looking for, we have it. It's just a matter of finding your way into it. And that's where it gets really kind of both delicious and and complicated because it's not the same for everyone. So, I think all of that has shaped how I see the world, how I see how people sit in the world, how I see how people really want to influence how they're perceived and also the ends of that power that that is that is not actually a a thing that we can do. So, what do we do instead? So, I don't know if that answers your question, but that was a lot of developing your own story with your mom. How has that changed you or transformed the story? Your own story

that you're living today by looking back and reflecting on the story. Okay, preface that I may cry as I talk about this cuz it is it does change you. I think writing down my mom's story has both helped crystallize how essential it is that we tell our stories. Not for any gain necessarily, but like I said, to count yourself in. My mom never counted herself in in this way that then she got Alzheimer's and disappeared even more and more and more and more and it was very very painful to watch but she didn't fight for herself. So, writing this, I'm trying to find her story and and what may have made her make those choices that I watched from the outside

in horror of, but also I'm recognizing it's my story, too. And how do I this person who I was the closest to of anyone, my my mom, I actually didn't end up seeing her the last 18 months of her life because she was in a high control marriage that just everything went really bad. So there's been a lot of examining those pieces as well. I think it's given me a lot more compassion for my mom. It's also, you know, made me angry at times, but it's definitely affected how I look at what I want to do with the second half of my life. I there are just different choices that I would I want to make and they don't involve not wanting to die alone, which was such

a motivator for for women in, you know, the '9s and the 2000s to just get out there and make choices that way. So, I think it's brought me some peace. It's it's made me much more adamant about showing up and it's it's meant I won't settle for a bad date. How do you think telling our story or telling the story that someone has written for us such as media changes the person telling the story, so the actor embodying the story as well as talk about the person listening or the audience receiving the story. I close my eyes when I think the for the person telling the story there's I don't want to get too schmoopy but there's a there's a there's a holiness

about letting that story exist about giving it the dignity of being told. There's there's something deeply important in the way again our voice connects to our words. I keep calling it like the Capri Sun voice box. It's like there's a straw that you just like pop in and suddenly it's all your your voice is accessing so much more. Our voice is reflexive on who we're speaking to and it depends on you know who, what, where, when, our context. If your everything that makes you you makes your voice your voice communication is the voice in that context. So for the storyteller there's both the connecting to the words and there's the being witnessed I think is

so deeply important. I and that that audience is part of it. They are part of the story. For the people being told stories, I think I mean I've been through my own hardship journeys. Like I I no longer drink. Like I've made a lot of changes cuz I had a lot of actionpacked life before. And I think about stories I heard from people that were willing to talk from their pain and how valuable that was to know that I wasn't alone. And not in a way that we we just like keep amping it up or like hitting our emotional gas pedal, but ultimately like our our our problems and pain are deeply important. And then this is not to say that they aren't important, but they're not that special.

We actually aren't all that different in in the things that we think are the most privately shameful about us. And I' I've been to, you know, enough AA meetings to know that this is the true. Um, so I think if we can tell those stories and be more open to that being the point, the witnessing, the embodiment, the the freedom versus like I want to own the room, it's just a different meeting of of humans together.

So yeah, I I I think that it is about stepping back and letting the connection and the story live kind of outside of ego and identity. What story do you tell about yourself about one of the most transformative moments of your life? It's it really really has changed for me and that's partially why I so intrigued by what you do with narrative intelligence and it took a long time. So for me in 2017 I was living in New York and I hit the wall and I hit the wall so hard it was like coming down the window dripping and I left New York. I kind of middle of the night like my parents came to get me at 40 years old and left New York cuz I couldn't I left my fiance. I

left my life. if I called it like TNTing my life cuz I couldn't exist in whatever that was that I had created anymore. And for years and years and years there's been or was a deep sense of shame about that that I had messed up that I had failed that it was all me you know it's because I you know wasn't enough or was drinking or like whatever thing that we can blame ourselves for and then slowly I have really come to understand that I was in fact in the wrong life and it's not because of substances it's because I am a highly sensitive person with ADHD and possibly a little of the autism that needs different things. And and I understand why I was attracted to what I

was attracted to, I understand why that couldn't work. And now being where I am and this life that I've built and this company that I've built, Vital Voice Training is my baby, along with Casey and Clark, my business partner, and I'm responsible for every moment of my day, but I know what that responsibility is precisely because I've been through such So I feel like that story change is really compassion for the past version of me. And also we I think the same way I don't like everyone should work in a restaurant once in their life.

I feel like everyone should have a nervous breakdown once in their life cuz it really just kind of cleans up any judgment of other people and reminds you that we're all in this sticky messy mud puddle trying to make our way as perfectly or imperfectly as possible together. So I don't feel bad about it anymore. How does listening to other stories who you identify with help your transformation journey in who you are today? How did it help you become all of yourself? There is something about people who've been broken that there's an honesty and a a way of speaking that I don't get to hear many other places that doesn't involve any sort of presentation of persona. It's just

talking from an experience. That alone has changed me. Hearing people talk about dark but with such a sense of humor and with accountability also really changed me and and helped with the self-compassion piece cuz I don't look at any of these people who are speaking and see anything other than like the brilliant sunshine they are today. I've related to people's stories that don't have my same story but but have arrived, I guess, at the same conclusions. Was there a story you once believed about your own voice, confidence or presence that you later had to revise and what made that revision possible? The story that I am small, the story that I am quiet, the

story that that I don't have anything to add, that is wrong. It is wrong. And again, it's felt I mean, Perry menopause has also taken my filter off, but going into the world without my filter just completely and and the kind of conversations I'm having and this haunting sense that I am a competent adult on some level. How do you help someone distinguish between their authentic voice and a voice that they learn to perform in order to be received or or accepted or respected or even safe? I am very careful when I am talking about that because the the armor that we have up we have for a reason and while yes I can be capable of dismantling other people's armors it's

like I can but should I those structural walls can be really really important so you know starting there we have a post breath culture right now it is not the way people speak doesn't have a lot of breathing it's it's where we get the vocal fry from it's where the sentences that start with and da da da and da da There's no period. There's just this tiny catch breath where people's people people launch what they're saying like flapping their wings and go through and then at the end okay I think that's it and then they they land. That isn't necessary. And that comes from I think when we are a part of any communication micro society we we start adopting

factors of that. In Silicon Valley people don't believe in process. They don't believe in taking time to do anything and they actually don't believe humanity is all that important. So it makes sense that okay fine we just won't even take a full breath here. But it's those kinds of things that I identify when I'm looking at someone's quote authentic voice versus you know a a performed voice. There is no singular authentic voice. I think of authenticity when it comes to voice as the raw material that we construct our voice from. Not a singular thing in of its own. So getting people to recognize great we had this conversation and I noticed this this and this and I I think

you do this because you're either protecting yourself or again I can't think of a specific example but are there other ways we could play with that? Are there other more expansive ways? It's never about telling someone don't do this. You have to replace it with some something else cuz we're all toddlers at our core and I don't know what their quote real voice is going to look or sound like and neither do they most of the times. We know it'll sound like them. Um, but there's a lot of experimentation and play that that that has to happen on that route, which is part of what I think is super fun about, you know, I've been doing this work for 20 years and I'm not bored by it. Tell

me what breath and voice means to you. On a very fundamental level, breathing is us in relationship with the world. We are taking the world in and we are exhaling it. That is our connection there. the the relationship between our, you know, muscular structures, diaphragm, pelvic floor, throat, like all of this stuff. Voice isn't even I used to say we speak on an exhale and we do, but there's actually a cylindrical pressure that we need to keep to get our our our freest easiest voice. What happens in the body and the voice when someone is sharing a story that no longer fits who they are? Such a good question. I'm a coach and I work with a lot of women in midlife. their story is

growing. They're in the hallway. They're not sure yet where they're going next and they're speaking from a place of an old story. >> There's certain muscles that that actually do tighten when we're talking about something that doesn't fit anymore. Like right under the You can see it in arms get slightly yanked up that there's not a fullness or a lushness in the breath. You don't get any of those like when somebody really hits on something that fits them, there's like almost a deep sigh that happens, like a moving into your body.

When I see people who are telling stories that don't fit, I see a performance. I see like a step, step, step. I hit my mark. I hear something rehearsed. And I also can hear that they've checked out while they're telling it. What stories about confidence, charisma, introversion, and leadership do you think that our culture or workplaces get wrong? Can we all just talk about how silence is not a problem?

This this the amount of freaking people that come to see us because they've been told to speak up more in meetings. What the hell does that even mean? These meetings aren't set up for anyone to speak up. They're they're you going backto back. They're run by people that don't know what's going on in the room. There's there's there's so much emphasis in corporate America on this this particular kind of performance and no one's willing to admit it is a performance. They keep calling it authenticity or you know something that makes my brain go what are you even talking about the performance of competency without the real goods behind it. the assumption and I see this you

that the quiet person isn't as on top of it as every if I want to know something I'm going to the quiet person because they have been sitting and observing that's that's what I know I'm not talking to the person who can't shut up I and that's not a flaw and I'm just I get so sad by these incredibly you know smart interesting amazing clients a lot of the women but not all of them that come to see me that they aren't just being applauded in their workplaces that the things that I'm seeing about them that are magnificent are considered a liability in in the workplace. And I really do think this comes down to I'm not going to go full special interest on

you, but I think we have an overfocus on cult of personality and an overfocus on a kind of leadership that isn't actually freaking leadership. It's celebrity worship in corporate America or at least in the Silicon Valley style that I see the majority of or even in, you know, the finance world. Who are we emulating? who are we? And it turns out the people we're emulating tend to be billionaires who don't have much charisma. And that does something weird when you're imitating someone who doesn't actually do the thing they're telling you you're supposed to be doing. Like name a billionaire with executive presence. I can't think of one. So that's what I

that's what I think we get wrong. I think we we don't respect that there are differences and that's important. I think that there's a little bit too much emphasis on ego and accomplishment. And I I disagree that we need more masculinity. I think that we need to just get the patriarchy right up the out of here so that we can find our strengths cuz there is when when people are in their element, when they're talking about the things that they're experts at, when they are letting themselves be seen, interested, they become absolutely compelling. That that is the moment that I want to drop and and stop and listen. But I don't feel like workplaces set up for very many

people to be able to even show that on a daily basis, just even purely down to the attention we're able to grab on small day-to-day basises. How do we use our stories to help create change within our workplaces? >> Great. Yes. So, I think that the way we start to create change is by issuing the attention economy. I've been thinking more and more about if we're talking about rage being a cheap energy source, wonder is not a cheap energy source. Wonder is deeply pleasant and transformative. That's what got me to Jenny Odell's book. She talks about that a lot. I don't I don't think it's going to be through corporate workshops. I don't think it's going to be through

single day trainings. I don't even think it's going to be by sending CEOs to therapy. I think it's going to be, you know, a day-to-day granular demanding. And whether that's starting with your own small meeting of gosh, just because we've been doing it this way, does that mean we need to continue to do it this way? So we can step back and go, but what are we actually trying to do here?

Whether you're if you're in a a management position starting to not accept those perception based feedback stories about people to challenge those because there's the data that shows that women get perception based feedback like people think you're like three times as much as as men do. I think stories go a long way to combating that. But I think it happens in a gorilla way. I think it happens with people having conversations. I don't think this I think this is a forgiveness, not permission situation. And I frankly think that we should just be throwing spaghetti at the wall because that's if we're trying to invent a world, we don't just sit here by closing our eyes trying

to dream it up. It happens in the mud pits. >> But I do think it's possible. I just don't think it's possible in any sort of like easy to write a PowerPoint about way. What does deep listening allow us to hear that words alone do not? And how can listening change the story we hold about another person? So when I watch TV, I keep my subtitles on because I am getting two different channels. I'm getting the words they're speaking and I'm getting what their voices are doing and those are different things. So I think formulating my thought here when I'm often told that I am I don't I don't want to like overpromise anything but psychic or or have some sort of magical

powers of of perception and that's not true. I just listen. I I'm reporting my observations. I'm not going off and creating them. that I hear so much about who a person is through the sounds of their voice, through the tones of their voice, that that we communicate emotion via the liyic system in this really interesting way that is, like I said, happening on a different frequency than just the words are. That's something that we're missing. Um, and that we're missing it because a lot of the listening we do is to podcasts or other things or YouTube videos where people are putting on a mask and controlling all of that interesting nuance in their

voices. So you going back to how we could advocate, that's one thing I advocate for. People will tell you everything about who they are without really having to say much if you just pay attention. That's micro expressions. That's nuances and tones of voice. That's all of those things. So I think if we can stop thinking of listening as something to perform so other people will think better of us, which is something I hear a lot. Can you can you tell me how to look like I'm listening?

I can't, sir. I can't. I like the answer is you just listen. But they don't know what they're listening for. They don't have a framework for other people. It's it's this you we get kind of caught in our own worlds and here's what I think and here's what I want to do and other people's voices become an impediment to an agenda. If we can throw that out the window and recognize that they're part of it, then I I do think that we could solve a lot more of our problems. Okay.

you hit on something in there that I feel like is some diamond mining gold you just said that was really important especially for narrative intelligence. So I'm doing these hundred stories so that I learn what narrative intelligence is and can report out and build the field so that we understand it as much as we understand emotional intelligence because I believe that we're all living within a story and perceiving the world through story. So you just said you can know everything you need to know about a person through their voice and the lymphatic system. Did you say that?

>> Lympic system. >> Yes. >> And what is going on with them? I assume the next part of that is as they are speaking. >> What might the field of narrative intelligence learn from you about the quality and tone of voice and presence a person has? So people think you're psychic because you understand this. So tell us what it is that you understand about people that teaches you about who they are, which is their narrative that they are living through. I love debunking communication myths. And one of the big ones that I've gone down the rabbit hole of debunking lately is this idea that only 7% of our communication is our spoken word and 93% is body

language. I don't actually believe that is true. I that was based on a single study of like 10 people in the context of therapy. That was never meant to be extrapolated to the rest of the world. Are there things that I'm seeing that are fall into the realm of body language? Yes. But they're not like imitatable gestures that you can I can just teach you to do to change how people are perceiving you. And actually the more people try and control how they're perceived, that's the breath holding, that's the tension, that's the when when you can't hear someone in their own voice, there's usually a lot of tension there. There's I think we need to speak in more things that don't

have an agenda to them to remember what it is to take our time as we speak words that are important to us. what I am looking and listening for again tension patterns little nuances in the voice little side notes little like there were there was a little parenthetical there oh there I heard a catch breath I heard a feeling we talk so much about vary the tone of your voice the way we do that is via the lyic system or our emotions that's what that's what varies the tone of our voice that's what right sizes it we don't talk to a puppy the same way we talk to our boss that happens in our emotions and yet so many of us think of those emotions as the inconvenience

ience is the obstacle. So I either can hear through or I can tell that you don't want me to hear anything. And both of that gives me information. But I think that has to do with putting our our counting ourselves in as well cuz a lot of times people hide their what they're really thinking and feeling because they don't think anyone cares or that matters or that it's just safer to keep it to themselves at the end of the day. Like let's just survive. But survival and success aren't the same thing. What does voice have to do with success or going back to nervous system being predictive? Success is about getting out of the familiar. Success is about being uncomfortable. Success

freaks the out of our nervous system because it can't predict it. It can only look backwards. So, anytime you're doing something that is, you know, scary and you pull back, that's the survival response. your nervous system is going to go into full keep status quo mode. You have to push past that and go into flying blind discomfort mode to aim for success. And I think that's that's where we get success is scary. It's scary for us to contemplate.

It is change. It comes with consequences. It's safer to stay in just survival mode, but it's not good enough. It's not it's not enough. So that's that's what I think about. What does voice have to do with self-worth, empowerment, and healing? How has using your voice healed you? There's using our voice to break rules. There's using our voice to tell the really true story, which takes you back to the rooms.

There's making art and putting your voice out that way. I think you really hit on something with not feeling enough. I'm tired of waiting for myself to be perfect on some standard that I have no idea who created it before I speak up. It's just what am I gaining? And I think that action is healing. That that demanding to be seen and heard is healing for folks that have gone through invisibly. It's but it's also boundary setting and it's pleasure. I mean, that's the thing that that gets overlooked sometimes, too, is the empowerment for me in this therapy singing that I've been doing in my apartment is the real pleasure. I get to feel in my voice. I get to enjoy my own

body. I get to enjoy my instrument. That's enough. That's that's what I need to do. I don't need to be perfect. I don't need to, you know, have something profound to say. And in fact, I think the more we wait to say something profound. The the more we actually let go the truly profound things. I have yet to hear something profound from somebody who thought they were saying profound, it's usually people who like speak out the side of their neck that I'm just like, "Hold up. What was that? That was amazing." So, taking more risks to be audible feels very, very revolutionary to me at this moment. and supporting other people's audibleness. Whether

that's like going to shows of friends or whether that's, you know, putting together salon events where people can talk more. How can we give people more opportunities to use their voice in ways that are meaningful to them, not to put them up for more like corporate keynotes? Yes, they pay and that's great and I'm, you know, nothing nothing wrong with them, but speaking can be more interesting and pleasurable than that.

How do we claim that? >> That's what I speaking in third spaces. >> Yeah, exactly. And that's what I'm thinking about right now is I like TED cannot be the only step on a ladder that gets people into their speaking careers. It just it it can't. And I, you know, as an actor, you make your own work. So I've been thinking now, how do we make our own work when it comes to speaking?

And I I think that that's just really important to do without feeling like it needs to be perfect. And I'm saying this to you because I'm saying it to me because I'm sort of caught right now in trying to like get something out that I'm having some. So this is my pet talk to myself as well. This is how we rebel. This is how we claim the future. And I I'm not trying to be hyperbolic.

>> Can you identify what may be holding you back from getting it out? >> I mean that deep fear. This is why I started with being from the Pacific Northwest. That deep deep fear of like the tallest poppy gets moaned down. The the if you are visible, you invite trouble kind of thing is very real. When you get your story out, your mom's story out. I'd love to come back and revisit how it changed.

>> No, I don't. >> That scary part is there's accountability. This story that I'm writing is my take on what happened. I don't have to give other people airtime in it. And that's also been really kind of liberating. So, but the yeah, the consequences of saying really personal things up on stage that that my nervous system thinks are consequences. Going back to >> may or may not be. I am somebody who can avoid something without realizing I've avoided it until three weeks have gone by and I just haven't done it. Like, what was I doing? Every single day it was on my to-do list. I was trying to do it for 3 weeks, but it hasn't happened.

And I don't know that there's any other answer for that than we keep doing scary things. >> Practice. It's how we grow. >> Yeah. >> My last 5 years have been about feeling enough to use my voice to be in front of the camera instead of behind it. >> Yeah. in directing because >> that's safer than being an MFA actor. >> Yeah. Well, the director's controlling everyone behind the scenes, but there's a voice still in directing. Yeah. If you took your life experience and got to define the words narrative intelligence.

What definition would you give narrative intelligence? >> The ability to take the events and find different connective tissue through them. That stories are how we make sense of the space between events. So, it's narrative intelligence is being aware of the water you swim in. Um, and it's also understanding the flexibility in that connective tissue that we can change our stories just by changing the meaning between two points. Julie, thank you so much for being a part of 100 stories.

This was incredible and fun and it was actually healing for me because I feel like voice has been such an integral part of my becoming. So, thank you for sharing your story with us. >> Well, thank you so much for having me. Before we close, here's what I'm taking from this conversation about narrative intelligence. Julie helped me see that a story does not live only in the words we use. It can live in the breath, the body, the tension, the silence, and the voice that we learn to use to stay safe.

She also reminded me that authenticity is not one fixed voice. It is access to more range, more choice, and more of ourselves. Unlike my other interviews, Julie is still inside one of her most important stories. She is writing a piece about her mother, and she does not yet know how telling it will change her. Her nervous system is still trying to predict the consequences of saying something that personal out loud. That unfinishedness matters. Narrative change is not always something we can explain after the fact.

Sometimes we are watching it happen while the person is still finding the voice to tell it. Julie, thank you for your conversation. And if you would like to be a part of narrative intelligence, I invite you to visit storykeys.co where you can find out your narrative quotient and take the NQ test. It takes 40 minutes. It's free for the first 100 participants and it'll teach you more about your story archetype and the story you're living inside. comment and reach out and let us know what you got. Join the conversation and thank you for joining 100 Stories, the narrative intelligence project.