Voices for Voices®

What's Stopping You? Only Yourself. | Ep 264

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 264

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What's Stopping You? Only Yourself. | Ep 264

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Our journey with Voices for VoicesⓇ has reached over 260 episodes, touching lives in 70+ countries and 700+ cities worldwide – a testament to consistency and passion rather than fancy equipment or huge budgets.

• The true measure of impact isn't download numbers but helping even one person feel less alone
• Self-doubt is universal and normal, even after hundreds of episodes
• Nervousness when creating content means you care about your message
• Building a platform requires minimal equipment but maximum belief in yourself
• The three pillars for sustainable passion projects: belief, passion, and a sense of urgency
• You are the expert on your own experiences – nobody can tell your story better than you
• Perfectionism blocks progress – authenticity connects more than polished performance
• Rest and recuperation are essential when belief in yourself wanes
• Focus on those who genuinely support your mission, not critics without "skin in the game"
• What matters most is doing what YOU want, not what others expect of you

Please give us a thumbs up, like, share, subscribe, and comment – it would be a big help to our organization as we continue this important work.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome to Voices for VoicesⓇ

8:10 The Global Reach of Our Message

16:52 Building a Platform With Limited Resources

26:52 The Power of Believing in Yourself

37:25 Embracing Imperfection and Authenticity

45:23 Three Keys: Passion, Belief, Urgency

#SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #MotivationMonday #MindsetMatters #OvercomingObstacles #BreakYourLimits #EmpowerYourself #SelfDiscoveryJourney #UnlockYourPotential #InspirationDaily #LimitlessLiving #SuccessMindset #ChangeYourThinking #FearlessLiving #PositiveVibesOnly #TikTok #Instagram #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion 

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Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Hey everyone, welcome again to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host. Founder of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes. Thank you for joining us today, as well as on any additional shows or communication that we have. We're grateful, we're humbled, to have you with us. Have you a part of the Voices for Voices movement, the organization, the Step Out from the Shadows, to help as many people as we're able to?

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Given our short, short, short, short time on Earth, and as much as sometimes we want to speed up time, there comes a point where the clock's going to really work against us as far as our time here left on Earth. So that's a big part of Voices for Voices is to be able to help as many people as we can help as many people as we can, to help those who feel that their voices have been made voiceless, that they have had their voice suppressed in one way or another. And we are that movement, we are that platform, we are that platform, we are that organization to do so and thank you so much for being with us we just really and I say this all the time, but it's because it's true, where we don't have a whole lot of downloads of our show over 260 episodes, from guests here in the United States, all the way across the world and Australia and all points in between. But although we don't have, you know, this massive analytic package that millions and millions and millions have downloaded and watched our show, one thing that we are able to see is, given that small footprint that we have, we've just surpassed over 70 countries, 700 cities across the world that have at one time or another watched or listened to our show. And I don't know about you, but that's big, that's humongous. It makes me speechless, which is hard to do. A lot of, you know it's hard to make me speechless. Yeah, hard to make me speechless. I yeah. So again, a big thank you.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Whether this is your first episode with us or whether this is whether you've been with us from the very beginning, it's a real, real privilege and honor to even have an opportunity to be where we're at from an episode standpoint that it's pretty rare to have. A podcast TV show that has over 250, over 260 now episodes, and it's just mind-blowing for me to think that, to know that, to be reminded of that. And then it's okay for me to take a step back, which is hard to do because I'm so passionate about getting the content, getting information to you, to everybody, everybody that's watched, listened, shared, subscribed to us, commented it's hard for me to take a moment to step back and just look at that number of episodes. Just look at that number of episodes Now, when we started, we did one episode, then two, then five, and then we were at 10, and then we're at 20. And then we started to see this thing explode in a good way, where again we don't have these super powerful analytics showing us that millions and millions and millions and millions of people are watching and listening. We do think our numbers are a little bit higher than what they're showing, but be that as it may, I didn't know if we would get here. I don't know if anybody on our board thought we would get here. I think it's just a testament to if you're passionate about something and at a relatively low cost.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

The only thing, the only person that is stopping you from doing what we're doing, what we have been doing, is yourself. I mean, we make investments from here and there, but when we again take that step back and look at, okay, from an equipment standpoint, we have a webcam. One has one of those little circular ring lights. We have the big one and we have the mobile one. That's the one we're on right now. It's been a couple years since I made that purchase. Can't give you an estimate, I don't think it was $100. And while I do have the AirPod that goes with my phone, that also helps as a headphone, as a microphone. I've had these AirPods for quite a while and so from a pure I've had these AirPods for quite a while and so from a pure filming perspective. Now, when we're in the studio, that's a little bit different.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

But you can build out your show. You can build out the themes and the topics and the guests. Again, the only person that's stopping you is you. You might say oh well, you know we, how do we find guests? You know to guests to join us, and all that's just the learning curve. I can't give one particular answer other than you have to figure it out. And it's not that hard. If I was able to figure it out, you can figure it out. You can figure it out. This isn't a topic that's going to take you months and months, and months to figure out. It'll take some trial and error and we still make errors. Man, we're human beings, we still make errors. I mean, we're human beings, we all. We always make errors, whether we want to or not, we always do so. Hopefully I can be an inspiration, we can be an inspiration to you, whether you start your own company organization, or whether you use your name, your first name, your last name, a combination, a nickname Again, those are all things that you've got to work through.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Once you work through that, you kind of get your design and your color scheme of what you want it to look like. Then it becomes repetition, then it becomes kind of like a factory where you book a guest, you film the guest and then you do the file conversion and all those things. And then you do the file conversion and all those things and then you submit it and then you do the same thing again and that'd be episode two, and once you do it again, then that's episode three, and so it's very I want to say it's easy, because that's in the eye of the beholder, it is. If you are passionate enough and you have information, experiences and we all do so there's really no reason for none of us to have the opportunity to do this, to have our own show. I mean, there's some health challenges and things that may hinder that, and so I'm not downplaying that at all.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

What I am doing is sharing how, when you're passionate about a topic, a thing, an experience, an emotion, a feeling, then you're going to do your hardest, darnest shot at how do we get this thing out there, how do we film it, how do we convert the files? And the list goes on Like anything. Repetition film it, how do we convert the files, how do we? And that list goes on Like anything. Repetition makes things a little bit easier, makes things a little bit, little bit more efficient, meaning it takes less time from the time you film for the time, less time from the time you film to the time the show is out, till it drops A particular episode. And so when I say thank you, it's not just fluff, because I know how valuable everybody's time is, that when I say thank you, I mean it it's. It's something that we've been blessed to be able to have a lot of.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Again, a lot of different countries and territories and provinces and cities tune in at one time or another, and I don't care what the analytics are. The analytics could show that one person over all of these episodes, that one person downloaded or viewed it or listened or watched it. If that one person is a person whose life was saved, who was able to get the and feel like they're not alone, then that that makes it all worth it for me and us, because we could have a million downloads, 10 million downloads, whatever. But if we're not impacting, if we're not a source of information, of experience, then we need to work on how can we do better? How do we do better? So to me, analytics it's all about how many people are we helping. It's about who we're helping, how many. Even if it saves one person from having to do further research, that's helping. It doesn't have to be these grandiose ways of helping. Those get the most press, those get the most press. But helping comes in so many shapes, sizes and flavors.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And the hard part is believing in myself. The hard part is believing in myself, believing that I have information, that I have experiences, that guests that we have on are going to make a difference in a positive way or have the ability to make that positive difference in that type of a way. And I have a really hard time believing in myself. I do Because I strive to do as much as I can to go out of my way to be transparent about my mental health, my mental illnesses, my story, everything about me and ways that I can help. And even when outwardly it looks like, oh, he has, he has it down or I don't know. I don't know what you're thinking, but what I'm thinking is, at this very moment, do I believe in Justin? And it's easy to think, well, yeah, why wouldn't you believe in yourself?

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And then you start looking at things like a metric, a number here, a number there, and go on. Well, we're not at where we want to be in this area or that area. And then so we start questioning are we helping people? Are we helping people? And I have to remind myself that there's a lot of people and I'm probably one of them where I consume information. I might not give immediate feedback about that, and so even if I look at analytics, out the wazoo that there there are others who you know for privacy, and what have you but their number, their analytics, their numbers, their for privacy, and what have you but their analytics, their numbers, their downloads, etc. They don't show up. So I'm not able to see that there's the opportunity of helping those people too.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And so I I need to believe in myself, not the cliche like, oh dear self, it's not a cliche. If I don't believe in myself, how am, how am I going to be expecting others to believe in me, in our mission, our vision, stories, experiences, guests, their stories experiences. Guests, their stories, experiences. And that's where the passion comes into play, where, man, we're really knocking out a lot of episodes. We're doing really great. These last couple weeks we've really been putting things into overdrive Because I've been doubting myself, and from time to time I think we do doubt ourselves. Are we making a difference? Is it worth it? But when I believe in myself and I have the infrastructure like in this case, this camera, my earphone it's also the microphone, the background they're seeing when I have that infrastructure in place, all I really need to do is show up Because I don't have a script.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

When we started, this thing started, this organization started our shows and for quite a while we especially in our in-studio episodes we're a little bit more limited and have to have a little bit more structure. Especially in our in-studio episodes we're a little bit more limited and have to have a little bit more structure than our remote out-of-studio episodes. And so, since I was so brand new at that time, there was certain information I wanted to make sure that I shared. And for me I was thinking well, if I don't have it on a teleprompter, then there's a chance I might not share that information, because I get nervous once the cameras and the lights are on.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Even right now I'm nervous talking and sharing, and when you add a clock to it, that a certain amount of time and if you're a talker, like I am, there's going to be a chance where we don't get to that the main point, the main idea, or reminding our viewers and our listeners hey, make sure you give us a thumbs up, you subscribe, you like, you share, you comment, and still to this day there's. Sometimes I forget that, and it's okay, I like this approach. Our feedback is great to this approach because I like this approach. Our feedback is great to this approach because it humanizes us, because, as we know, nobody's perfect, and I say like and I say um, we all do, and that's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I can say the word like and like and like, it's okay. And so for me, because of the infrastructure that we've put in place.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

All I really need to do is show up, because I'm sharing, from my own mind, my own heart, current events, and so do I get nervous? Heck, yeah, I get nervous. Heck, yeah, I get nervous. I learned this myself, but I've also heard it from many of our guests who have spent some or a lot of time in front of a camera over the years, and I've asked them you know, do you get nervous? You know, when the camera's on, you know, say three, two, one, and then point and start, and almost every one of them says, yeah, I get nervous. And if you don't get nervous, you're in the wrong business. And so it's okay to feel nervous, it's okay to feel anxious, and that's where I've been able to harness my generalized anxiety and instead of doing more detrimental things like binge drinking and relationships and treating people poorly, but I'm able to harness that energy. And so, yeah, I get super nervous.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

I'm nervous right now, no matter what our final episode number will be I'm hoping it's not for you know, a few thousand of episodes that we're able to do. But, yeah, I get nervous and that's okay. And so there's times where we have these, you know, these blocks in our head where it's like I can't. I can't communicate what I want to, what's what's in my head. Right now I can't communicate in all of my words. It's okay. Maybe I'm able to recover and share that a little bit later in one of those shows, or maybe not, but it's okay.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

It's okay to feel like we missed out, we missed a topic, we missed something we wanted to say, and so we just practice it and think about it for the next time. And that's really what it comes down to. I mean, it really is. So, whatever type of camera it is, whether it's a radio and there's no camera, or whether now there is a camera and being in the studio and multiple cameras what it all comes down to is it comes down into passion. It comes down to that belief in ourselves, passion, and that belief that who's the best person to talk about my experiences? It's me. Who's the best person to talk about your experiences? It's you.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

So if you have that passion and you have that belief in yourself, then there's still going to be anxiety there, but maybe you're able to take a little bit of a pause and kind of go into your memory bank, like I do from time to time, and try to remember a certain term, a certain word, a certain experience, and that's okay. It's okay to do that Because there's only one you, there's only one me and once we get over the fact that we're not perfect and nobody's perfect here on Earth, then we just have to be comfortable talking about whatever the topic or experience is. Some topics are much easier than other topics, other topics are much harder than some other topics, and that just comes down to you, your preferences, how much you like to share you want to share. There's topics you want to veer away from, and that's okay, because, guess what? On your own show, you get to pick and choose exactly what you want, and if you want to be a guest on our show, you can share topics, areas that you're comfortable talking about, and some maybe not so much. At the end of the day, however, you're talking about you.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

You're the expert on yourself, so have that belief, have that passion, whatever that may be. Maybe it isn't a podcast, maybe it isn't a show, whatever it may be. There's so many almost an infinite amount of things, events there really is, and so you don't have to be like me, you don't have to like what I say, but when you are doing things on your terms for you. Yeah, you want wanna have belief in what you're doing. You wanna have passion behind it, because there's days and there's times where, as I mentioned, where there's times where I don't believe in myself. There's times where I don't believe in myself and I need to do my best to work through it. Sometimes they're easier than others, but we all go through. We all go through periods of self-doubt. We all go through periods of self-doubt. No matter how much it may look glorious, glamorous, whatever on the outside, there's a whole lot of butterflies flying around on the inside and for that time You're doing that thing and you're passionate and you like it and you're trying it and you're learning and you're taking mental notes and maybe physically you're taking notes, and then you do a little bit of practicing and the passion and the belief starts to mesh. And that's where the beauty is. When you bring the belief and the passion together, it doesn't matter what it is, what it is you're working on. What matters is that it's what you want, not what I want. What you want, that's what it comes down to, not what your roommate or even a significant other may want. It's got to be what you want, because otherwise it's going to come down to.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

This is a J-O-B job and I'm just putting my time in to make that paycheck, to get those benefits. I'm burnt out, I'm worn out. I'm burnt out, I'm worn out. I'm not emotionally tied to this particular work, and it's hard. It is so hard to do that because? To do that? Because, as the world has changed over the years, how norms have changed, taking a step out and doing what I'm doing, voices for Voices didn't happen overnight and it isn't happening overnight. And if I didn't have the passion, this thing would have been gone. Like a year and a half ago. We didn't want to have a show, the organization would be finished, but somehow, someway from above and from encouragement, encouragement, I continue to have the passion of wanting to help others, and predominantly in the area of the mental health and mental illness, as the biggest pillar of Voices for Voices.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

God, I believe, ben, this is what I'm called to do. All of our time is short here on Earth, talked about it time and time again. But this is what I'm called to do Is to talk, to share, to have blunders when I talk and share, to say like and um when I talk and when I share and to know that I'm going to have times where the belief in myself, on a scale of 1 to 10, might be a 0 or a 2 or a 1. And at other times it might be an 8 or a 9 or a one, and at other times it might be an eight or a nine or a ten, but more times than not, that passion and that belief are much closer to ten than they are to zero. What do I do? When they're low Usually means I've been spending too much time putting content together, that I need to rest, I need to recuperate my mind, and then at some point I get right back up and I turn on the computer or I turn on my phone.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And I turn on my phone and God speaks through me, gives me the strength to be able to share and talk about. Talk about the hard topics, the hard experiences, areas that are taboo or whatever they are. It's because they're hard to talk about. If they were easy for everybody to talk about, then we wouldn't be as unique as we are. And it takes a while to talk about your innermost thoughts, your innermost worries, your innermost triumph, but don't always end up in money and trophies and accolades, they can be wow. And money and trophies and accolades they can be wow. I've been a part of something that's had 260 plus episodes, and that's sometimes the validation of wow, you're doing it.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Nothing's a given in this life. Nothing is crystal clear, nothing is so for sure. I may be alive for one more minute or a half a minute, or a day, or 10 days or 10 months or 10 hours, and so that also drives me because I know I'm not going to be here forever. None of us are going to be here forever, no matter how much we want to, and so that's a point of urgency that I add to the passion and the belief of if I'm thinking about something, it can probably help somebody. I don't know how, I don't know where, I don't know when, but I'm not just going to keep it inside. That's the easy thing to do. It's for me to keep it inside, and the easy thing to do is not to go to therapy To just blow it off. But I don't and you shouldn't.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

So when you put passion and a little bit of urgency into it, and then we believe. Believe in ourselves doesn't mean we have to believe in ourselves 100%, we just have to believe in ourselves just a little bit. Just a little bit. To believe in ourselves a little bit. We're passionate and we have a sense of urgency, then that means the time that we have to work on whatever that is for you. You're going to be ultra-focused. You might have a take or two or ten different takes, but you're going to get it. You're going to get it.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

If I can do this, you can do this. And if you need note cards and you need notes, then do it. That's what I tell my guests all the time. I do not care if you have notes, a note card, if you're reading from it, I don't care. I want to make sure that you get the topics and areas and experiences. I want to make sure, in that time we have together, that you're able to get that out. And so bring those notes. Don't worry about what a teacher may say well, you know it works better. Well, no, it works how you work and we're not getting graded here. This is just life, and the reason why I don't use notes as much as I used to is just because I've done this over 260 times. I'm a little bit better than when I started.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

I realize that sense of urgency. I don't want to take five minutes at the beginning of every show. I want to have that time, not for me reading about this, that and the other. I believe in myself that I'll cover what I need to cover, what I want to cover, and, if not, guess what. I have 260 other shows that's going to cover that and have covered that. And so it's about the communication. It's about the sharing, the passionate, the belief, the sense of urgency.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And so I want to get right to the point. I want to get right to our conversation. If you read from a telegramter, it's what works for you, it's not what works for me. What works for me is what I'll do, and what works for you is what you'll do, and what the next person does is what they'll do. And as time goes on, we'll get a little bit more comfortable. A little bit more comfortable.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Still have that anxiousness that, oh my gosh, who's going to watch this, who's going to listen to it? If I don't share my story or this topic in a particular way? What does that mean? It means that I'm going to have another episode and then I'm going to have that time if I want to cover that again in a better way, a more concise, clear way. That's all that means. So let's just recap whatever you do, do you?

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And what are the three things? We have urgency, a sense of urgency. We have belief. We have belief. We gotta believe what we're doing. We gotta believe in ourselves. We have belief. We got to believe what we're doing. We got to believe in ourselves. We have to have urgency. And as I'm thinking right now, here we are.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

It's like the third one. I'm like, oh my God, I talked about this whole show and here I am trying to summarize, and it's okay Passion. We want to have passion. We want to have belief and a sense of urgency, not to the point that we put ourselves in dangerous moments and dangerous position, not like that. Just a sense of urgency that if I'm going to sit down or I'm going to do a particular thing that I'm just going to focus in at that time, that's all that means.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Again, it does not mean anybody. We don't want anybody to put themselves in any dangerous situations and overextend themselves. That's not what we want, because we want you to do what you're doing again and again, and again and again. So it might take a minute or two, a time or two, to take a step back, take some deep breaths, go for a walk, listen to some music, meditate. Whatever you do, do you, because that's all I want. I want you to do yourself, I want you to be comfortable, I want you to have passion and believe in a sense of urgency. We can't do everything in one day, but we sure as heck can do something in one day.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And when you get something and then something, and then something and something, then you get something and then something, and then something and something, then you get where we're at with 260 plus episodes or, like others, that 500 or thousands of episodes, and a lot of people are going to want to give you advice. A lot are, and that's okay. I'm not saying don't, don't listen to the advice. Listen, let people share and at the end of the day, you make that decision what you want to do, not what they want to do. What you want to do and not what they want to do, what you want to do.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And when people don't have skin in the game, that's just a term, saying that somebody doesn't have, you know they're not helping monetarily, money-wise, or sharing with their network and getting you the opportunities that you wouldn't have had the ability to get on your own. Those are individuals where you're going to probably listen a little bit more and they wouldn't have felt comfortable enough to tell you what they could help out with if they weren't as connected with you. And so it's the same thing with me. I hear a lot of suggestions, a lot of information, a lot of, a lot of a lot of let's put it that way but when it comes down to it, as I just said, I'm not just telling you I'm doing it. Telling you I'm doing it.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

If somebody doesn't have skin in the game for me, for voices, for voices we don't have shared interests and they don't want to stand up to the plate and actually help, then I'll listen and say, okay, I thank you for sharing your opinion Help. Then I'll listen and say, okay, I thank you for sharing your opinion. I'll keep that in consideration. But at the end of the day, I'm making the final call If I want to do it or not, if I want to film this episode right now or if I don't. It's my call, it's our organization's call. It's not somebody who comes out of the woodwork and has all these suggestions.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

We don't have time for that Our time on earth is so short. We have to have that sense of urgency that we listen and move on, listen and move on, listen and move on. We incorporate people on our team that we feel that we want to have, that we do have shared interests and we value their opinion. They value ours, they're not just in it for themselves and we can do that. But we gotta have that sense of urgency. I'd love to keep listening to you, but I got work to do.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Are they gonna get upset? Maybe, but again, if they're not in it like you're in it and I'm in it, then we can't do anything about that. We can't please every single person. There are going to be people that are interfering. They see what you're doing or I'm doing and they want to be a cog in the wheel and they want to trip us up or whatever. I don't got time for that. You don't have time for that. Life's already short enough as it is.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

So haters are going to hate. That's just the way it is. That is so haters are going to hate. That's just the way it is. That is just the way it is. Is it unfortunate? It sure is unfortunate, but haters are going to hate and we're going to do what we're passionate about, what we have belief about. We're passionate about what we have belief about and what we have a sense of urgency about those three things. So until next time, please be a voice for you or somebody in need. And again, from the bottom of my heart, our organization, everybody that's a part small, big. Thank you so much for joining us, thank you for watching, thank you for listening. If you could give us a big thumbs up like share, subscribe, that would be a big help to us. So thank you again, and God bless the United States of America and God bless the world.

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