June 30, 2025 • 57 mins
What happens when you've spent decades building a successful career only to realize it's not the life you want? Micah Caldwell faced this question head-on when, after nearly twenty years as a high-powered telecommunications lawyer in Washington DC, she hit a breaking point. Managing multi-billion-dollar government programs during the pandemic had pushed her to her limits, and when asked to rebuild an entire program from scratch, something inside her simply said: enough.
This conversation takes us through Micah's courageous decision to walk away from everything she had built—her career, community, and the identity she had cultivated for two decades. With remarkable candor, she shares the uncomfortable truth that she had been living according to others' expectations rather than her own desires. Her journey of rediscovery led her first to Asheville, North Carolina, where she reconnected with creative pursuits that had brought her joy before adult responsibilities and parental expectations redirected her path.
The heart of Micah's story reveals how she transformed from burned-out lawyer to thriving voice actor and comedian in Atlanta's creative community. She offers practical wisdom about managing the persistent inner critic that tries to sabotage creative ambitions, sharing her three-step process: stop the negative thought, reframe it through the lens of what you'd tell a friend, and verbalize the positive alternative aloud. This practice acknowledges that our inner critics often represent internalized external feedback rather than our authentic selves.
Perhaps most inspiring is Micah's evolving relationship with possibility. After years of limiting her dreams to what seemed "practical," she's learning to envision bigger goals and actively invite opportunities through specific requests and public commitments. Her story reminds us that confidence isn't about fearlessness but about consistently doing things that scare you, whether that's performing stand-up comedy or completely reinventing your professional identity.
Ready to question whether your current path truly reflects your deepest values? This conversation offers both inspiration and practical tools for those considering their own creative transitions, demonstrating that it's never too late to reclaim your voice and build a life aligned with your authentic self.
You can follow Micah on:
Instagram: @micahonmic
Facebook: Micah Caldwell
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Niki Sterner (00:00):
Welcome to the Confidence Shortcut.
I'm your host, Niki Sterner.
Today's guest is Micah Caldwell, my really good friend.
She's an Atlanta-based femalevoice talent with experience in
commercials, political ads,narration and more.
Before her life in voiceover.
Micah was a lawyer and policyadvocate for nearly two decades.
Now she uses her voice andpassion for storytelling to help
(00:22):
clients connect with audiences.
As a creative, her commitmentto communication runs deep,
shaped by a childhood speechimpediment and a lifetime of
adapting to hearing loss.
Those early challenges ignitedher drive to connect with
audiences in a powerful way.
Now, nothing brings her morejoy than bringing a script to
life and truly engaginglisteners.
(00:42):
When she's not in herprofessional home voiceover
studio, you can find Micahlighting up the stage in
Atlanta's comedy scene,performing stand-up improv and
sketch, so I'm so happy thatyou're here today, micah.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Micah Caldwell (00:57):
I'm so excited to be here too.
That is a great bio.
Like I said, you know, send mewhat you came up with.
I'll put it on my websitebecause you make me sound great.
I love it.
Yes, excited to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Niki Sterner (01:10):
Well, you are great and I'm so happy to share
your story with our listenersbecause I think it's really
inspirational and can help a lotof people, definitely.
So I would love to go into yourstory.
If you want to take me back,you can take me back to as a
lawyer, or you could take meback even further, wherever you
want to start, micah.
Micah Caldwell (01:29):
Okay, all right.
Well, just to give you a quicksnapshot of me and what I'm
passionate about.
So currently, as Niki mentioned, I am a voice actor and I do
stand-up comedy as well, and Ialso working on producing a
podcast, separately from allthat, as well as a creative
project more than anything else.
So before this, before I becamea voice actor, which was a few
(01:53):
years ago, I was a lawyer for 20years in Washington DC.
That's where I went to lawschool and that was intentional.
I wanted to work in politics, Iwanted to be inside the Beltway
, I wanted to be in the thick.
I wanted to be inside thebeltway, I wanted to be in the
thick of things and I worked ontelecom policy.
So, part of my career, I workedfor telecom companies and then,
towards the end of my career, Iwent into the government and I
(02:14):
worked for the FederalCommunications Commission and
before I left, I was working onone of the I don't know if
flagship's the right word, butit was one of the Biden
administration's pet projects onexpanding broadband.
During COVID it was an emergencyrelief program that was set up
by Congress.
Several billion dollars givento us I think it was like $14
(02:37):
billion given to us and I was incharge of implementing that
program and it was a lot of work.
It was a lot of work so mycareer had been building up to
that point.
I kept doing more, moving up,getting promoted, doing more,
bigger and bigger things,becoming more and more visible,
(02:58):
more well-respected in thecommunity.
I spent a lot of my time withmy colleagues and I volunteered
for my bar association.
It was a tech bar association.
It was very involved.
It was on the executivecommittee.
I organized lots of volunteersto do charity work and a
scholarship program and therewere just.
That was, and had become myidentity and my existence.
(03:21):
And so during COVID, when I wassetting up this huge program,
it had to be done in record time.
The deadlines were completelyridiculous, the requests were
totally unreasonable and I wasmanaging hundreds of people,
essentially, and it got to betoo much.
At one point, I mean, I managedto pull it off.
(03:43):
Everybody was amazed, likeMicah, you did an amazing job.
You know we launched.
It was successful.
Towards the end of the program,there were more than 20 million
consumers low-income consumersthat were benefiting from it.
So amazing, right.
But somewhere along the way, asCOVID was, you know, kind of
(04:04):
waning out a little bit.
Congress decided that theywanted to renew the program
outside of COVID, but theywanted to change a bunch of the
rules Things like who couldqualify and how much of the
benefit are they going to getLike make all these little
different tweaks to a programthat I spent many months setting
up and establishing.
(04:25):
And when I learned that theywanted me to do it, it basically
required me to start all overagain, and I was like I don't
have that to give.
I can't do that again.
I poured myself into getting itset up right the first time and
having it be a success, and Iguess I I didn't.
(04:48):
That's what is it.
What did they say about how thereward for hard work is more
work?
Yeah, so that was very muchwhat it felt like.
It was like.
This is, this is your reward.
You did such a great job.
Now do it again, only betterand more and faster.
I'm like no, I can't, I can't.
So, I really hit a wall and youknow that was also a time when I
(05:11):
think a lot of us werereflecting on our lives and you
know where we wanted to live,who we wanted to be, what we
wanted to do for a living, howwe wanted to spend our time.
And hitting this wallcareer-wise, and then having
that be the context in which itwas happening, I got very
reflective too and I realizedthat, whatever it was that I was
(05:34):
doing, everything that I'd beenbuilding, everything I was
working for, the way that I wasspending my time and my energy
and my resources was actuallynot what I wanted.
This was not the life that Iwanted for myself.
It was not what I wanted to door be.
And did I know what I wanted todo or what I wanted to be or
how I wanted to live my life?
(05:55):
No, I had no clue, no idea, butI just knew that it was not
working anymore.
So, with the help of my lifecoach that I've worked with for,
I think, a dozen years now andhas seen me through major, major
life transitions, we decided orI decided, I guess, but with
his encouragement and help toleave, to start over, to figure
(06:19):
out what it was that I wantedfor myself.
And it was one of the hardestdecisions I've ever made,
because it was like gambling youjust keep putting more and more
money into it and even if youreach a point of diminishing
returns, you're like but I'llwin it back, but I'll win it
back.
Like I had invested so much inmyself and in my career and into
that identity that it wasreally, really hard to let go of
.
But I did, I did.
(06:41):
It took a little while, it tookseveral months to like ease
myself out of that.
But I decided if I'm going tomake this change, if I'm going
to make the shift, if I'm goingto figure out who I am and who I
want to be and how I want tolive in this world, I need to
get out of this completely.
Like I had to leave DC, I left,you know, my friends, my
(07:02):
colleagues, just like I'm out,see ya.
In some cases I didn't even saygoodbye, it's just like I'm
done.
I'm done and I moved to.
So I left my job and veryquickly after that I moved to
Asheville, north Carolina, andthe point in doing that was to
reset, to recalibrate, to goback to my roots, the things
(07:25):
that I knew would bring me joy,the things that brought me joy
when I was young, mostlycreative things, like I got
involved in music again.
I started playing the drumsagain.
I started singing with the helpof an instructor.
I started playing the pianoagain.
I took any opportunity I couldto go listen to live music,
which there's a ton ofopportunities to do that.
In Asheville I kayaked six orseven sections of the French
(07:50):
Broad River, went away.
It was kind of like I was invacation mode.
But it was different this timebecause you know, usually when
we're all working really hard,we go on vacation and it's like
a one-week thing or a two-weekthing usually at most, and it's
a hassle to even get out of townin the first place and then at
some point along the way you'realready thinking about all the
stuff you have to do when youget back.
(08:11):
So the whole point of vacationfor me, at least up until that
point, was to detach, todisconnect, to get away.
But this was a little bitdifferent.
Yes, it was leaving what I didbehind, but it was gone Like I
was just pushing it out beyondthe periphery, not even really
thinking about it anymore, and Iwas opening myself up to new
(08:32):
opportunities, which is notsomething a lot of people do
when they're on vacation becausethey don't have the luxury to
do that.
And I did so.
I spent a few months inAsheville having a grand old
time enjoying myself andenjoying music, and at some
point I got to thinking aboutokay, you know, what am I going
to do with my life?
(08:52):
What am I going to do next?
Because I can't live like thisforever.
School I worked in radio andtelevision for a company that
had radio and televisionstations, and I was an on-air
(09:12):
talent for radio.
But I also often got theopportunity to go into the booth
and record commercials andpromos for the station's
advertising clients and for thestation's television programming
, because it was a small marketand they didn't have the
resources to hire a professionalvoice actor, and I always had a
(09:32):
ball when I was doing that,you'd stick me in a booth with a
microphone and padding on thewalls and I was having a good
old time.
Like it was great.
It was so much fun.
It was an opportunity toperform which I think I'd kind
of lost.
Well, I definitely lost trackof.
While I lived in DC, I wasn'tdoing anything related to the
performing arts.
Lobbying government officialsis performative, but it's not.
(09:55):
It doesn't like feed your soullike your own creativity does.
Creativity does.
So I was like you know what?
That was.
So much fun, I had so much.
Like I had a ball doing that.
I wonder what that's about.
I wonder if there's anything tothat, if that's something that
I could pursue.
And so I started doing theresearch and I started talking
to people who were in theindustry and I reached out to a
(10:16):
woman who lived in Nashville fora period of time but now lives
in Atlanta, like I do, and she'dbeen teaching a class and I
asked her like I'd love to takeyour class about voiceover, are
you going to be offering itagain soon?
And she goes no, I've sincemoved to Atlanta, but I highly
recommend that you reach out tothe folks at Atlanta VoiceOver
Studio and I did, and I lookedat all their programming and
(10:37):
everything, all theopportunities and resources they
had available.
And I talked to the owners.
They're fabulous people MikeStout and Heidi Rue, they're
wonderful and it seems like thiscould actually potentially be a
career.
I had no idea people could makea career doing that and I
sometimes wonder if I hadrealized that then would my life
(10:58):
be like 100% different now,because I certainly don't think
I would have gone to law schoolif my parents hadn't wanted it.
I've been living my life up tothat point based on other
people's expectations of me andnot really what I wanted to do.
So, anyway, I started trainingin voiceover and I thought the
(11:19):
most effective way to do thatwould be to move to Atlanta to
do that stuff in person andreally immerse myself in these
opportunities for learning.
So I did.
I moved to Atlanta and that wasin fall of 2022.
And I haven't really lookedback.
I still work with the AtlantaVoice Over Studio folks.
Yeah, I see them all the timeand they foster this really
(11:41):
great community and I've beenbuilding a great community
through not only voiceover butthrough acting and comedy and
stand up, and there are so manycreatives in Atlanta and a lot
of opportunities for creativesin Atlanta move here.
If you'd asked me five yearsago, would you ever live in
(12:03):
Atlanta?
I'm like there's no politics inAtlanta, right, not like in DC,
not like in DC anyway.
There's plenty of politics here, but it's it's a little removed
from the big action.
And I love it here.
It's beautiful, it's a thrivingcommunity and building a life
here that I really like lifehere that I really like.
Niki Sterner (12:31):
So that is a huge transition from politics in DC
to a creative life in Atlanta.
I mean, I'm just wondering howyou've been able to transition
your mindset, because they'rejust totally.
Are they totally different?
I should ask you are theytotally different, or are there
similarities in your life fromwhat you did then and what you
do now?
Micah Caldwell (12:49):
Well, there's a little bit of crossover.
Some of the skills that Ilearned when I was a lawyer and
most of what I did towards theend of my career was not like
quote unquote practicing law.
I was doing a lot of projectmanagement, overseeing these big
projects for the government.
So the things that I did in DCversus the things that I do here
(13:09):
completely different,completely different mindset.
Being a voice actor is owningyour own business and you're the
product.
So to the extent that I hadlearned skills to manage things
and launch programs andadvertise them and brand them
and advocate, a lot of thoseskills transferred to the
(13:30):
business side, running my ownvoiceover business.
But in terms of the performanceside I think I said this before
to some extent, when you're alawyer, you're performing.
When you're advocating for anissue or a cause or a company or
the government, and it's oftento an end that's not really.
I don't know, it's for somebodyelse, it's entirely for
(13:52):
somebody else.
And me doing voice acting eventhough I'm doing advertising and
commercials for clients andit's to sell their products or
to get brand recognition fortheir products I get to bring
myself to it.
That's actually what books mejobs, is my personality, my
unique take on things, myinterpretation of what those
(14:17):
words are supposed to mean andhow I deliver that message to an
audience, and it's much morecreative and I feel like I have
much more ownership of the endproduct than I did before.
Also, running your own businessis very different from having a
nine to five salary job with aW-2, tax withholdings and
(14:43):
showing up to work every day andknowing exactly what you need
to do and usually having a lotof people around you as part of
a team that you're working with.
You don't have that as a voiceactor or a comedian.
Yes, you have the, your friendsin the community you build, but
what you do on a day-to-daybasis is up to you.
So, yeah, that was different inbeing responsible for myself
(15:06):
and taking action for me asopposed to some other entity, it
was a very different mindset.
Niki Sterner (15:14):
I've heard people say before if you promise
someone else that you would showup, it's much easier to do that
, versus you promise yourselfyou're going to show up and do
something.
Micah Caldwell (15:22):
It's like oh, we'll see if it happens or I'll
try to make it.
Niki Sterner (15:26):
I'll do my best, but yeah.
Micah Caldwell (15:29):
Yeah, that sounds like it's so true.
I think we often prioritizeother things over ourselves
sometimes, or it's easy to dothat and maybe not good for us,
but I think we all tend to dothat from time to time, if not
always.
Niki Sterner (15:45):
So, yeah, I could see that I love how you are so
good.
I can tell that you're reallygreat at project management
because I turned to Micah when Iwas struggling to start this
podcast, actually, and I waslike, um, can you help me?
Because she is so good at justorganizing things in a way that
makes sense and pulling thespecific details that matter and
(16:06):
that the listener might want orwhoever is going to see the
project.
You're just so good at thosethings and that's the 20 years
of experience, or however manyyears that you've had in
organizing projects and puttingtogether stuff that matters and
makes sense.
So I mean that's truly a giftthat you come to the creative
world with already, and so Ilove your passion and your drive
(16:29):
for taking classes anddeveloping on a consistent basis
your voiceover work and yourcomedian work and your improv
and sketch, and you've tried itall, like I, swear like you,
just keep on adding tools toyour tool belt and discovering
what you love, because sometimeswe don't know, we just, like
you said, you just moved on, notquite knowing.
(16:52):
And that was a big move.
It had to be uncomfortable, ithad to be like I don't know, it
had to be that low point, like Idon't know what I'm going to do
.
But it cannot be this anymore.
I love how you talked about itbeing like a vacation, like I
remember going on vacation lastyear and just feeling like such
a relief, such a just in flowwith everything around me and
(17:15):
not feeling tied down todeadlines and other people's
schedules, and just being in themoment, being so present, which
is such a gift.
And I'm sure you probably feltthat in Asheville just oh, I
want to try the drums and I wantto try the piano and I want to
sing again, and there's such afreedom in that.
And realizing that you can doit and taking ownership and
(17:38):
feeling your power and makingthose choices, I think is such a
big part of being confident.
It's just saying I'm going totry it and it might not be great
right away, but I'm going tosee if I like it and if I do,
I'm going to pursue it.
I'm so in awe of everythingthat you're doing and I know I
don't even know all of itbecause, like you said, you've
(17:59):
been here, for it was is inSeptember, it'll be three years.
You've been Atlanta pursuingall of these creative
opportunities.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
And so I'm just wondering,micah, maybe if you can tell us
a little bit about what you'velearned along the journey to
figuring out what you want to doand what you love doing.
What have been some of thestops along the way?
Micah Caldwell (18:21):
Sure, yeah, happy to you touched on it a
little bit that it started outas just, and still is, to some
extent, a time of exploration.
I didn't know, I had no ideawhat I was going to do, and so I
just let myself be open to thethings that I thought would
bring me joy.
I tried it all, except forclowning.
I haven't tried clowning yet.
I know you want me to, yes yes,I do.
(18:44):
So the last touchstone that Ihad for my creative self from
like the gap from thebroadcasting days to three years
ago was I played percussion,and actually professionally for
a period of time and a couple oforchestras in Oklahoma, yeah,
and then I was.
I was in band.
(19:05):
I was a band geek, so I playedall the instruments, including
lead snare.
Yes, I'm going to toot my ownhorn, yeah it was a badass.
I was a badass, it was a badassin those days.
But I eventually quit that too,because my parents made it
really too hard, in a way, likethey just were not invested in
(19:26):
that.
They never came to see meperform.
Occasionally they would come toa concert but, like when I
would play on Friday nights atthe football games, they never
came to the football games.
They never came to the footballgames.
Sometimes they never came towatch me play sports either,
like they just were not engaged.
So I got the message that thatwas not important, that was not
valued and that's not what theywanted from me.
(19:48):
So that's kind of how I.
The reason I mentioned that isbecause that's how I got started
on this other path.
Well, if that's not what I'mmeant to do, then you know,
maybe I'm meant to do somethingelse and let's do something that
they think is cool.
And that was Because you wantthe approval of your parents.
Niki Sterner (20:02):
You want them to be proud of you.
Yeah, everyone does, that'snormal.
Micah Caldwell (20:06):
Yeah.
So the other touch point fromearly in my life where
creativity was extremelyimportant to me was one of my
earliest memories.
It's when I was five years oldand I used to get out the 33s
and 45 records and put them onthe record player and play them
and sing and dance around theliving room.
(20:27):
And my favorite song wasIslands in the Stream, the duet
with Kenny Rogers and DollyParton, and I would sing that I
was seeing everything.
But that was the one that Iwent back to over and over and
over because I wanted to beDolly Parton.
But when you're in your earlyforties and you're starting over
in your life and you have hadno creative outlet for years and
(20:52):
years and years being DollyParton, the five-year-old dream
is unattainable, or it seemsunattainable.
So you have to start somewhereand I had to figure out like,
well, if that's obviously notgoing to be a path for me
anymore, but what can I do?
That I love.
But you started by asking me,like, what did I learn when I
(21:13):
was doing all this, making theseadjustments, making these
changes, trying to be open tonew opportunities and teaching
myself new things?
It goes back to what we weretalking about before, where I'd
been sent a clear signal most ofmy life that being creative as
a profession was not somethingthat I was allowed to do, and I
(21:34):
internalized it as meaning I'mnot good at it because my way of
thinking was I wasn't allowedto, I wasn't capable of it.
That was not something that wasmeant for me.
That's how I internalized it.
But I'd also come from a worldwhere if you get education and
you teach yourself or you learnthese things or you learn from
(21:55):
other people, then you can dosome stuff.
So I think that's part of thereason why I took so many
classes, because I was justtrying to soak up as much
knowledge as I could.
But one of the things I learnedalong the way is that was a
safe place for me.
I'd gone to school I've donelots of schooling in my life and
that was a very comfortableplace for me to stay.
And when it came time for me totake what I was learning and put
(22:18):
it into practice and actuallyput myself out there as a
creative, there have been lotsof moments where I've held
myself back because I didn'tfeel ready.
I've always had this notion thatyou need to be ready before you
do certain things, and I don'tthink that's true anymore, but
(22:38):
it's still very hard toimplement or to tell myself, yes
, you can do this.
So my idea of waiting tillyou're ready was just a form of
self-sabotage.
It was a form of holding myselfback because deep down, I was
believing that I couldn't do itor that I wasn't worthy, that I
(22:59):
wasn't good enough, which isvery self-defeating.
So that was one of the biglessons I learned along the way
is that a creative career is notfor everybody, and for me, I
was the biggest obstacle interms of standing in my own way,
(23:20):
and you have to stay on top ofthat every single day to not
fall back into those oldpatterns and beliefs and
limiting yourself when I'veproven, there are signs, there
is empirical evidence that I cando this, like I book jobs.
There's still that part of me,that that inner critic that's in
(23:43):
my head, that wants to be thethief of my joy, and I have to
stay on top of that all the timeto make sure that I'm doing
everything that I can to makethis work and holding myself
back in any way.
Niki Sterner (23:59):
What do you tell yourself when you hear that
inner critic?
Can you recognize it and whatdoes it sound like?
Micah Caldwell (24:03):
Yes, yes, I definitely recognize it.
I don't know how other peopleexperience their inner critics,
but for me it is my own voice.
It is I hear my voice in myhead saying all the things, all
the negative things, and for thelongest time I never really
questioned that.
(24:24):
And it wasn't until I reallystarted working on myself and
making some shifts and trying tofigure out who I am and what my
values are, that I realizedthat that voice, even though it
sounds like me, is really justan amalgamation of feedback from
other people, from externalsources, that I, especially my
(24:46):
family, like my immediate familythat, as I internalized it, I
came to believe was my ownpersonal narrative and I hear it
in my head as me.
But when I hear that voice ofnegativity and self-doubt in my
head, the first thing I do nowis tell myself to stop.
(25:06):
Number one stop.
And I have to remind myselfthose thoughts are harmful.
That you know what I'm wired tobelieve is true.
That you know what I'm wired tobelieve is true, most likely
isn't true, and it's largelyrooted in value systems that are
not my own.
(25:26):
They're somebody else's valuesystem.
So the second step I take is toreframe those thoughts.
I think or ask myself, whatwould I say to a friend in the
exact same situation?
Because we're all, hopefully,very kind to our friends and a
lot more, give a lot more graceto other people than we do
ourselves, especially our closefriends.
And so I think, what would Isay to a friend in this
(25:48):
situation?
And then the third step is toexpress it, to say it out loud,
if I can, if it makes sense,like you're not always in a
circumstance where you can talkto yourself.
Niki Sterner (26:01):
Hold on just a second.
Micah Caldwell (26:02):
Yeah, let me just talk to myself for a second
, because there was thisnegative thought going on in my
head and I need to quash it.
Niki Sterner (26:08):
I'm going to clear this out real quick, hold on.
Micah Caldwell (26:12):
But if I can, if I have the ability and if I'm
by myself or something, I willactually verbalize it, make
myself say the things, becausethat's an additional way to
receive it and to bring it hometo yourself.
So not just think it, but toactually say it out loud.
Niki Sterner (26:28):
So that's the new thought.
I love that because then you'reactive, you're doing an action,
you're speaking what youactually want.
I love that so much, so youfirst you hear it, you say stop,
you correct it and you'reverbalizing your new thought.
Micah Caldwell (26:44):
Yes.
Niki Sterner (26:45):
Yeah, and.
Micah Caldwell (26:46):
I learned that through therapy because, yeah, I
didn't always have that abilityLike it.
Just that narrative controlledeverything, that voice
controlled everything and Idon't know.
I guess I just didn't have thewherewithal to even think about
changing it until several yearsago.
And there's more than I coulddo.
There's definitely more than Icould do.
(27:07):
That's like a first step andit's a process Like to be more
accepting of yourself and togive yourself grace.
You have to be constantlyvigilant, or I do, but it's
gotten easier over time and as Icontinue to grow.
I want to be, as a second step,let's up the ante here.
Let's really be doing thingsthat are going to help us.
I want to be more proactive inrewiring negative thought
(27:31):
patterns, like throughaffirmations and other tools, so
that those limiting beliefs,they're replaced by a much
kinder and hopefully moreaccurate narrative by default.
I don't have to go through theexercise of oh, there's the
thought.
You know that's not right.
Let's reframe it, let'sverbalize that the voice
(27:52):
hopefully, over time, will notbe that.
It'll be replaced by somethingthat's kinder and truer.
So that's the goal that we'reall works in progress and in the
meantime I've got some tools todeal with that inner critic in
a healthy way.
You know, though, it's reallyimportant.
This is the second thing.
(28:13):
This is about that process thatI was talking about, the three
steps.
It's really important toapproach it from a place of like
, not negativity, because,believe it or not, I would
actually criticize myself abouthow I was dealing with my inner
critic.
Niki Sterner (28:34):
Oh no.
Micah Caldwell (28:35):
Yes, like I would get down on myself for,
like what Don't listen to her.
Like when you find yourselfcriticizing the critic, oh no,
when you're trying to correct amean voice, to be more mean, to
be meaner to yourself, so anyway.
(29:01):
So try not to do that becauseit can be a vicious cycle and
it's really counterproductive.
Niki Sterner (29:06):
Like you, would approach her with love, like
thank you for trying to protectme.
Micah Caldwell (29:12):
Yes, yeah, absolutely.
You have that 100% right.
It's don't get mad at the innercritic.
Approach the inner critic withlove and not negativity, or
positivity and not negativity,and understand that it comes
from a certain place and it'sprobably a really good reason
why you feel that way.
Or you've learned to believethose things because they did
(29:34):
protect you when you wereyounger and I'm sure when I was
young, I thought I got to doeverything my parents want me to
do and by shutting all thisstuff down and telling myself
that that's not for me and beingreally mean to myself about it,
was my way of shutting thosethings down so that I could
focus on the things that theywanted.
In a way, that was survival,that was approval, that was
(29:57):
whatever.
It's just a very immature wayof thinking, but we all go
through that development wherewe get wired.
Yeah, don't they?
Niki Sterner (30:09):
say that you establish your beliefs in the
first, like seven or eight yearsof your life.
So it makes sense that they dofeel a little bit immature or
from a younger point of viewperspective and like now, if you
stop and reflect back on them,you're like that doesn't even
make sense in my life right now,like why do I do that?
But we don't know if we haven'tstopped to reflect back what
(30:31):
you've done and realized, oh,those aren't actually mine.
I just absorbed the beliefs ofthe people around me who
programmed me and raised me tobelieve that creativity was not
actually important to me, but itreally is.
And you realized it because youwere I don't know if you were
sad, depressed, overworked, justunhappy in what you were doing.
But you realized, nope, thisjust isn't it anymore.
(30:54):
It doesn't make me happy and Iam not living for them anymore.
I'm going to live my life forme in a powerful way that feels
good.
And do you feel like you aregetting to that place where what
you're doing feels good?
Micah Caldwell (31:07):
Or do you?
Niki Sterner (31:07):
feel like you're still working through some
things.
Micah Caldwell (31:10):
A few years ago, when I talked about becoming a
voice actor, I don't know if Iactually believed that I could
do it, and now obviously I'mdoing it.
So I'm a lot more comfortablewith it and, yeah, I do feel
like I'm living for me, eventhough that inner critic is
still there.
I don't know if she'll ever goaway completely, but having the
(31:32):
tools to deal with her ishelpful.
Niki Sterner (31:35):
So, Micah, the three things again.
Will you repeat them for me,for dealing with your inner
critic.
Micah Caldwell (31:40):
Okay, first is to stop, second is to reframe or
correct, and then third is toexpress it out loud or verbalize
it, if you can Not just thinkit, but verbalize it.
Niki Sterner (31:51):
Perfect.
That's what I had.
I just wanted to make surebecause I think that's a really
great process, because a lot ofus, as artists and creatives,
have those thoughts of I'm notready, I'm not good enough, my
idea doesn't matter, myperspective isn't really
important, all of those thingsthat hold us back that we tell
ourselves basically are I'm notworthy of expressing myself.
(32:12):
But you're training yourselfwith this to express yourself,
which is huge, like mind blown,like you're stopping your critic
, you are reframing with apositive affirmation or whatever
it is that you truly want andbelieve, and then you're taking
action, you're expressing itright away.
This is a beautiful habit toget in place for everyone, all
(32:34):
of us creatives, evenentrepreneurs and business
owners getting in the habit ofshutting down those negative
beliefs and thoughts andretraining them.
I love that reframe.
Micah Caldwell (32:44):
And then, over time, it becomes second nature,
which is helpful, and you willstart to believe those things
without having to do that step.
Niki Sterner (32:54):
So if you're training your mind to already
see that success like you'retalking about, like I'm already
doing VO, you've proven it toyourself.
But maybe there's another thingthat's coming up that you
haven't yet and you're like Ireally want to do that.
So maybe you start visualizingyourself doing it ahead of time
and then showing up and and,like you said, your subconscious
is like oh, I recognize this,this is cool, I can do this.
Micah Caldwell (33:22):
Well, along those lines I mean something
that I learned today and I hopeothers are not guilty of this,
but I still am because of whereI came from and how deeply
ingrained those defeating,limiting thoughts were.
I realize today that I stilldon't dream big enough and that
just breaks my heart.
Somebody sent me an email todayand they asked me to think
about who would be my dreamproduction company to work with,
(33:43):
and I was like you know what?
I've never thought about thatand that seems insane, I don't
know.
It seems insane to me that I'vebeen doing voice acting for
three years and I've neverthought who would I want to work
with the most, who would I wantto partner with?
And you know, it's been solimited.
(34:04):
In a way it's very linear.
It's like I take this step, Ido this thing, got to get ready
and building on top, but notnecessarily having the end goal
like the big dream, the big ideato to work towards.
So it's almost like I just keepdoing this, but I haven't
really thought much about this.
Up here we're going.
Niki Sterner (34:24):
Yeah, where am I going?
What's?
Micah Caldwell (34:25):
my, where am I going?
Yeah, where am.
Niki Sterner (34:26):
I going, these steps should be aligned with
that, and once you know that,then when it gets hard, you're
like oh, but I know where I'mgoing, so I can keep going.
You're why that's kind of likeyour end all be.
I do the same thing for, like,if I want to become a TV
showrunner, there's all thesedifferent steps that are along
the path, and sometimes I don'twant to do all of them, but I'm
(34:49):
like no, this actually makessense, even though it's not what
I pictured the path to be.
It's like, oh, yep, this isgoing to happen too.
Micah Caldwell (35:03):
It's not necessarily just my, why I was
looking at it very generically,very broadly.
I want to be a voice actor fulltime.
I want to pay my bills that way, but if you can think about,
within that sphere, the things,the special things that you want
to achieve, to work towards,the things that really have
meaning to you, that you canreach for, I think that helps.
(35:24):
Like you said, keep you focusedin your eye on the prize.
It's like I want to worktowards this, I want to work
towards this, and I feel likethe more specific you can be in
those things, the better and Ithink that might be why vision
boards are so helpful for somepeople is you actually take the
time to sit down and think aboutwhat are these things, these
(35:44):
specific things that I want inmy life, in the next going
forward or in the future?
And when I did one this yearfor the first time ever and oh
gosh, there's a saying aboutthis, too that I can't remember,
but it's like if you can see it, you can achieve it.
Or if you're looking for goodthings and for opportunities,
you will see them and they willcome to you.
And I think it's true becauseit's like when an example that I
(36:07):
read the other day if you tellyourself that you want to pick
out all the yellow things in aroom, all of a sudden everything
you see all this yellow stuff.
Or you see yellow cars whenyou're out driving around yellow
fingernails, the beautifulhostess here today.
And I think it's the same waywith what's coming to you in
(36:30):
real life.
If you're focused on seeingnegative things or being upset
about stuff or frustrated bythings, or this isn't working or
that isn't working, or I thinkyou'll see that and you'll
experience that.
But if you're focused onpositive things, you'll start to
see those things too, becauseyou're looking for them.
So one of the things I put on myvision board was that I wanted
(36:53):
to do a political ad for aspecific candidate and one of
the jobs that I booked earlierthis year was not for that
candidate.
But I like to do a meeting withmy new clients, like a Zoom
meeting, like 15 to 20 minutes,to get to know them and so they
can get to know me, becauseeverything we do is remote and
you don't really get to connectin person and I found that
(37:14):
that's really valuable inbuilding my business.
And I asked him.
I was like, do you guys ever doany work for such and such
campaign?
And they said yes.
And I said, oh, I would love todo ads for this candidate.
And he said like, oh well, I'mgoing to keep that in mind when
things start heating up again.
(37:34):
And he started asking me like,what do I want?
Like, what is it that I want todo?
What kind of what do I want?
Like, what is it that I want todo?
What kind of ads do I want todo?
What kind of candidates do Iwant to support?
Because political ads are hugelyimportant to me because of my
background, and it's a way thatI can continue to use my voice
to advance things that I believein, that are meaningful to me.
So, anyway, it hasn't happenedyet, but I have a feeling it's
(37:59):
going to, and now I'm thinkingabout that and I have an avenue
for that, and then you'll justhave to re-interview me after
November and see if it actuallycame true.
But if I hadn't been thinkingabout that, if I hadn't been
willing to ask for it or askabout it, I was being
appropriate Like, I wasn't like,can I do this, can I?
(38:21):
No, that's a little too much,but to just to put that into the
universe and to discuss it withthis person.
That makes it all the morelikely that it could happen, and
if you don't ask, it's nevergoing to happen.
So there you go.
Niki Sterner (38:34):
I love that so much, micah, that you actually
were open to the possibilitiesand that you had the courage to
actually bring up theconversation and ask for what
you want in a way that madesense.
But you, you're educating thoseclients on what you want to do
and then they have an awarenessof what Micah does and you're
(38:57):
just calling it into your lifeand I'm so excited to have
another conversation in Decemberand find out what you've been
doing.
Micah Caldwell (39:05):
Yeah, see how it went.
Yeah, I need more of thoseopportunities, though, because
I'm still not working as much,or I guess I'm not getting as
many opportunities as I'd liketo yet.
Still, I want more agentrepresentation.
I want to establish morerelationships with producers and
consultants so that more andmore opportunities are coming in
(39:26):
and I can have moreconversations like that, and
that's just up to me.
I got to be better at marketingmyself.
Niki Sterner (39:33):
So I know you, Micah, you're going to create a
spreadsheet that's going to haveall of your people that you
want oh, you already have oneAll the people that you want to
get in touch with and then, likewhen you reach out and then
follow up, and then all thedifferent, you know information.
I know that you're going tohave that all organized and
that's your next project.
Yeah, just reach out andcreating these opportunities for
yourself.
(39:53):
I bet that's how your VObusiness is going to blow up
yourself.
Micah Caldwell (39:59):
I bet that's how your VO business is going to
blow up.
Yeah, that's the hope, that'sthe strategy, just need to be
more proactive about that?
Niki Sterner (40:04):
You will.
I wanted to touch briefly onyour social media presence
because I feel like you do areally great job of sharing with
people what you're doing online, and can you just tell me a
little bit about that?
Micah Caldwell (40:14):
Yes, yeah, so I was.
I'm a reluctant social mediauser and I don't post as
prolifically as I could, but oneof the things that I have found
is really helpful to me is touse my social media as a tool in
my business, or basically anaccountability tool.
So there's this thing that ifyou talk about it, it's a dream,
(40:36):
if you envision it it's apossibility, but if you schedule
it, it's real.
So I use that in my day to day,so I schedule things and I put
them on my calendar, and thatholds me accountable.
In that respect, accountable isto use social media for that,
(40:57):
and I've done that with mycomedy, because comedy as you've
done it too is a grind.
It's open mics, it's showing up,it's spending way too much time
waiting to do your thing andit's so easy to be like, okay,
I'm going to stay home tonight,I don't have time for this, I
don't have energy for this,because it is extremely time
consuming and very resourceintensive.
So I will force myself to poston my social media the four or
(41:24):
five or however manyperformances that I'm going to
be doing in a month, and thereit is.
It's public.
If you post it, it's real inthis in the sense that, yes, we
all know a lot of people postthings on social media that are
not necessarily real, but whatI'm talking about is like, in
terms of accountability, I'veposted that I'm going to perform
on these dates in these venuesand I have to show up.
(41:48):
Like it forces me to show up.
So that has been very valuablefor comedy, and I want to apply
that to voiceover as well.
In terms of how can I use mysocial media content to give me
those concrete goals to worktowards and put it out there so
(42:09):
that I know other people couldbe aware, even if they're not
reading my posts.
I feel like it's enough to justput it out there and I'm like
I've said this, so now I've gotto do it.
So that's been a very helpfultool for me and hopefully will
continue to be in all aspects ofmy creative endeavors.
Niki Sterner (42:27):
Will you share the quote with me one more time?
Micah Caldwell (42:30):
It was if you talk about it, it's a dream.
If you envision it, it's apossibility.
If you schedule it, it's apossibility If you schedule it
it's real.
So yes, in my case adding tothat, and if you post it, it's
real in the sense that you knowyou need to follow through, or?
Niki Sterner (42:52):
it helps me follow through.
Yeah, yes, for sure.
Oh, you do a great job of that,and so, in fact, a lot of times
I'll see it and I'll be like,oh, I should post, Micah posted,
it's time.
Micah Caldwell (43:03):
Now, today is the opposite.
You've already posted about ourperformance tonight, yeah, and
I don't know where this is goingto air, but we have a
performance the night of thisinterview and like I haven't
posted yet, can I, can I get outof it?
No, no, nikki won't let me.
She will not let me that'sright.
Niki Sterner (43:21):
That's right, I guess that's another tool.
Micah Caldwell (43:23):
Have an accountability buddy or a friend
that's going to hold your feetto the fire Like we're doing
this.
We're in this together and Iactually do think that's helped
a lot in some of the open micsthat we've done, that we've even
though it's so hard to scheduleto do the same ones, and I feel
like, okay, I'm going to dothis one, I'm going to do this
one, can you join me?
Can you join me?
Knowing that the other personis going to be there and showing
(43:46):
up for each other is great too.
Niki Sterner (43:50):
Yeah, having that connection with a community of
artists that you can meet upwith and support each other has
made a huge difference, I think,in both of our lives, because
there's just this camaraderie.
It's like a team effort becausea comedian, you get up on stage
by yourself and it can feellonely at times.
I think we've both enjoyedtaking classes because of that
community building aspect of itand makes it so much more fun.
(44:13):
Then when you're watching yourfriends on stage, it's like
watching your family on stage.
You want the best for them, youlaugh harder for them because
it's just, it's really fun andit's really funny at the same
time, yeah, you get invested intheir success too, and that's
really cool.
Micah Caldwell (44:28):
That's a really cool feeling.
Niki Sterner (44:30):
I think that's the coolest part about it, honestly
, is having our community, likewe have a group of people that
are going to be performingtonight and it's going to be
probably one of the best nightsof our comedy so far.
I'm so excited about it.
Micah Caldwell (44:41):
Me too.
Me too.
Okay, yes, you talked me intoit.
Sure, I just need to go do somepreparation after this
interview so that I feel ready.
Same, same.
Niki Sterner (44:51):
Okay, thank you, micah, I want to do.
Our third part of theconversation is the confidence
quickfire round.
Okay, and so I asked the samefive questions to every guest on
the podcast, and so I want toask you the first one is can you
please define what confidenceis for you?
Micah Caldwell (45:09):
Okay To me, confidence is an innate belief
in yourself.
It's knowing who you are andwhat you're about and embracing
that unapologetically as youmove through the world.
Niki Sterner (45:23):
I love that.
Okay.
The second question is what'sone bold move you made before
you felt ready?
Micah Caldwell (45:29):
One of the boldest moves I've ever made was
leaving behind a career that Ihad spent two decades building,
having absolutely no idea what Iwas going to do next.
So, fortunately, I was in aposition to do that, like I had
enough money saved, I was singleand didn't have a family, that
didn't really have any ties thatwere holding me back, and as a
(45:53):
planner, as you've mentioned, asan organizer who always knows
their next move and has a backupplan for that, it's probably
the biggest leap of faith I'veever taken, and it was in myself
.
Niki Sterner (46:05):
Finally, right, yeah, yeah, oh, I love that,
Okay.
The third question is how doyou quiet your inner critic?
And you've talked about this aswell, but please take us
through it one more time.
Micah Caldwell (46:16):
Okay, sure, yes.
So, as I mentioned before, Ihear my inner critic as my own
voice, even though what itreally is is like this
amalgamation of externalfeedback, voices from other
people that I've heardthroughout my life, mainly
through my, from my immediatefamily and my formative years,
that I've internalized and it'sbecome my own narrative.
(46:38):
And when I start hearing thatvoice, knowing it's just my
inner critic first I stop thatvoice, say nope, those thoughts
are harmful, they're not helpful, they're counterproductive.
And I remember those are notnecessarily my values.
And what I'm hearing in my headthat I believe is true is not
necessarily true.
And if those thoughts arerooted in somebody else's value
(47:01):
system and not my own.
And then step two is to reframethat thought, usually relying on
asking myself what would I tella friend in this situation?
Because we're so nice to ourfriends, we're not always as
nice to ourselves.
And so I reframe that thoughtin my head.
And then the third step is, ifI can, I will also verbalize it
and say the reframed thought outloud to really get it to hit
(47:26):
home and bring it full circle.
And that's how I deal with myinner critic, and she's ever
present, but I can handle her.
Yeah, you're retraining her.
Niki Sterner (47:35):
You're retraining her.
I love that.
Okay, the fourth questionwhat's one habit that's helped
you build real confidence?
Micah Caldwell (47:42):
Oh goodness, it has been forcing myself to do
things I'm afraid to dorepeatedly, for instance,
stand-up comedy.
You know that's really scary.
It's one of the scariest thingsI've ever done and I think it's
scary for a lot of people.
But getting up on stage andperforming stand-up has given me
a lot more confidence inperforming in general.
(48:05):
That translates to my booth.
When I'm here in my recordingbooth it's like a mindset You're
doing the thing.
It's hard, you can do the hardthing, you're capable of it,
you're confident about it andthen it just.
It transfers to other parts ofyour life as well.
Niki Sterner (48:22):
Okay.
The fifth and final question iswhat is your favorite book or
resource?
That's changed how you think.
Micah Caldwell (48:30):
Okay, I love this question and I think my
answer might be an unusual one.
So this might not seem like anobvious choice, but the book
that has changed me the most isthe Body Keeps the Score by.
Niki Sterner (48:48):
Bessel van der Kolk, it's so good.
Micah Caldwell (48:50):
Yes, it is.
It's hard to read because it'sso technical, but I had to read
it like two or three times and Iget something new out of it
every single time because it'sso dense and it's complex, but
it is, oh my gosh, it is so goodand I'll explain why it was so
good for me.
So, all these shifts that I'vemade over the past few years, it
was about more than justchanging my career path.
(49:12):
It was about discovering who Iam and how I want to be in the
world, so that I can pursue acareer and hobbies and
friendships and relationshipsthat are consistent with my
values, what I want for myselfand how I want to live.
And, of course, I've had thehelp with a therapist and a life
coach.
But when I picked up that bookand I read the Body Keeps the
(49:34):
Score, it helped me fullyunderstand that I had actually
experienced very significanttrauma in my life.
And I would read the casestudies and I think, oh my gosh,
this is me, this is how I felt,this is what happened, and it
made me realize that thoseexperiences were actually very,
(49:58):
very bad and had shaped me inways that I had never really
acknowledged and it had such adeep impact on me and I know
that sounds like why would youput yourself through that but it
gave me a vocabulary, finallyin my 40s, that I can use to
process those experiences andthe emotions related to them and
(50:21):
the feelings and that I didn'thave before, like I'd never
really even acknowledged thatpain or that it even was pain,
and so, yeah, I mean, if I'mhonest, it dredged up some
things that were very difficultto deal with, but in my case,
that was a crucial part ofunderstanding myself and living
(50:43):
in a world in a way that servesme better and my old coping
mechanisms just aren't workinganymore and allowing me to live
more authentically too.
I love that book.
Niki Sterner (50:54):
I love that you brought that book up because I
had an audio version of it thatI played in my car like a CD of
it, that I played in my car likea CD or something that I played
in my minivan for a long time,not when the kids were in the
car, but like when I was bymyself.
I would listen to those storiesand do like you're saying, like
just had so many aha moments,wow Cause I don't know if you're
the same as me but as a peoplepleaser, I just sugarcoated
(51:15):
everything.
Everything is good.
I didn't have any problems andthat's okay to a certain point.
But I think just recognizing itand having a vocabulary, like
you said, to know what itactually was and to recognize
that and learn from it and growthrough it, was super valuable
for me and I could recognize andrelate to other people and be a
(51:37):
little bit more empathetictowards others because I thought
, oh, maybe they have somethinglike this going on too, because
a lot of people do haveuncovered trauma that is down
there that we just don't orbring up until we're ready for
it to heal.
Right, right, yeah.
So that was a beautiful share.
I love that so much.
Micah Caldwell (51:59):
I'm glad it's so amazing to me that when you
share these stories aboutyourself or I share stories
about myself and we have allthese similarities this is just
a personal note that I alwaysreally appreciate because it
feels it.
I think I went through a lot ofmy life feeling that I didn't
necessarily belong, and I thinkthat happens when you're
(52:20):
pretending to be somebody you'renot, and that's what I was
doing.
And now that I'm embracing whoI really am and people are
coming into my life that aregetting to know me as who I
truly am, I finally feel like Ihave things in common with
people.
I have a community, I'mbuilding a tribe and it's nice
to not only feel less alone butto feel very connected too.
Niki Sterner (52:45):
That is the most beautiful thing that I've heard
all day.
I want to thank you for that.
That is the perfect way toclose out this conversation.
That was such a vulnerableshare and it's so true.
I feel the same way.
I feel like we have connectedon a lot of different things,
and I do feel like we're both ona similar path of experiencing
(53:06):
vulnerability that we haven'thad before, because we've been
trying to please others and besomeone who we're not, and it
just I love how you said that,and I just want to close out the
conversation with that, becauseit was just so heartfelt.
Micah, thank you so much forthat.
Micah Caldwell (53:20):
Thank you for having me and giving me an
opportunity to share myperspective.
Niki Sterner (53:24):
I appreciate it, it's beautiful, and you gave us
tools and all the stuff, sothank you, okay.
Oh, before we close out, though, I do want you to share with
people how they can follow youor connect with you on social
media, or however they can.
Micah Caldwell (53:39):
Oh sure, yes, so follow me on Instagram.
My handle is at Micah on Mike.
That's my first name M-I-C-A-Hon O-N and M-I-C for Mike.
Yeah, so Micah on.
Mike, I think it's the samehandle for all my social media.
Like, I have a Facebook accountbecause I have to Right, but I
(54:04):
mainly use my Instagram, andthen I also have a LinkedIn
profile and that's my handlethere too.
So, however you want to follow,I love.
I want to engage with morecreatives and people in Atlanta
in particular, so that I cancontinue to build my community.
Niki Sterner (54:20):
Yes, it's so important.
It's so important.
So, yes, definitely followMicah on Instagram, at Micah on
Mike, and Facebook and LinkedIn,and she's a fabulous friend and
person, human being.
I love her and I'm so happythat we got to share this
conversation with all of youtoday.
So, thank you so much, micah.
Welcome to the Confidence Shortcut.
I'm your host, Niki Sterner.
Today's guest is Micah Caldwell, my really good friend.
She's an Atlanta-based femalevoice talent with experience in
commercials, political ads,narration and more.
Before her life in voiceover.
Micah was a lawyer and policyadvocate for nearly two decades.
Now she uses her voice andpassion for storytelling to help
(00:22):
clients connect with audiences.
As a creative, her commitmentto communication runs deep,
shaped by a childhood speechimpediment and a lifetime of
adapting to hearing loss.
Those early challenges ignitedher drive to connect with
audiences in a powerful way.
Now, nothing brings her morejoy than bringing a script to
life and truly engaginglisteners.
(00:42):
When she's not in herprofessional home voiceover
studio, you can find Micahlighting up the stage in
Atlanta's comedy scene,performing stand-up improv and
sketch, so I'm so happy thatyou're here today, micah.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Micah Caldwell (00:57):
I'm so excited to be here too.
That is a great bio.
Like I said, you know, send mewhat you came up with.
I'll put it on my websitebecause you make me sound great.
I love it.
Yes, excited to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Niki Sterner (01:10):
Well, you are great and I'm so happy to share
your story with our listenersbecause I think it's really
inspirational and can help a lotof people, definitely.
So I would love to go into yourstory.
If you want to take me back,you can take me back to as a
lawyer, or you could take meback even further, wherever you
want to start, micah.
Micah Caldwell (01:29):
Okay, all right.
Well, just to give you a quicksnapshot of me and what I'm
passionate about.
So currently, as Niki mentioned, I am a voice actor and I do
stand-up comedy as well, and Ialso working on producing a
podcast, separately from allthat, as well as a creative
project more than anything else.
So before this, before I becamea voice actor, which was a few
(01:53):
years ago, I was a lawyer for 20years in Washington DC.
That's where I went to lawschool and that was intentional.
I wanted to work in politics, Iwanted to be inside the Beltway
, I wanted to be in the thick.
I wanted to be inside thebeltway, I wanted to be in the
thick of things and I worked ontelecom policy.
So, part of my career, I workedfor telecom companies and then,
towards the end of my career, Iwent into the government and I
(02:14):
worked for the FederalCommunications Commission and
before I left, I was working onone of the I don't know if
flagship's the right word, butit was one of the Biden
administration's pet projects onexpanding broadband.
During COVID it was an emergencyrelief program that was set up
by Congress.
Several billion dollars givento us I think it was like $14
(02:37):
billion given to us and I was incharge of implementing that
program and it was a lot of work.
It was a lot of work so mycareer had been building up to
that point.
I kept doing more, moving up,getting promoted, doing more,
bigger and bigger things,becoming more and more visible,
(02:58):
more well-respected in thecommunity.
I spent a lot of my time withmy colleagues and I volunteered
for my bar association.
It was a tech bar association.
It was very involved.
It was on the executivecommittee.
I organized lots of volunteersto do charity work and a
scholarship program and therewere just.
That was, and had become myidentity and my existence.
(03:21):
And so during COVID, when I wassetting up this huge program,
it had to be done in record time.
The deadlines were completelyridiculous, the requests were
totally unreasonable and I wasmanaging hundreds of people,
essentially, and it got to betoo much.
At one point, I mean, I managedto pull it off.
(03:43):
Everybody was amazed, likeMicah, you did an amazing job.
You know we launched.
It was successful.
Towards the end of the program,there were more than 20 million
consumers low-income consumersthat were benefiting from it.
So amazing, right.
But somewhere along the way, asCOVID was, you know, kind of
(04:04):
waning out a little bit.
Congress decided that theywanted to renew the program
outside of COVID, but theywanted to change a bunch of the
rules Things like who couldqualify and how much of the
benefit are they going to getLike make all these little
different tweaks to a programthat I spent many months setting
up and establishing.
(04:25):
And when I learned that theywanted me to do it, it basically
required me to start all overagain, and I was like I don't
have that to give.
I can't do that again.
I poured myself into getting itset up right the first time and
having it be a success, and Iguess I I didn't.
(04:48):
That's what is it.
What did they say about how thereward for hard work is more
work?
Yeah, so that was very muchwhat it felt like.
It was like.
This is, this is your reward.
You did such a great job.
Now do it again, only betterand more and faster.
I'm like no, I can't, I can't.
So, I really hit a wall and youknow that was also a time when I
(05:11):
think a lot of us werereflecting on our lives and you
know where we wanted to live,who we wanted to be, what we
wanted to do for a living, howwe wanted to spend our time.
And hitting this wallcareer-wise, and then having
that be the context in which itwas happening, I got very
reflective too and I realizedthat, whatever it was that I was
(05:34):
doing, everything that I'd beenbuilding, everything I was
working for, the way that I wasspending my time and my energy
and my resources was actuallynot what I wanted.
This was not the life that Iwanted for myself.
It was not what I wanted to door be.
And did I know what I wanted todo or what I wanted to be or
how I wanted to live my life?
(05:55):
No, I had no clue, no idea, butI just knew that it was not
working anymore.
So, with the help of my lifecoach that I've worked with for,
I think, a dozen years now andhas seen me through major, major
life transitions, we decided orI decided, I guess, but with
his encouragement and help toleave, to start over, to figure
(06:19):
out what it was that I wantedfor myself.
And it was one of the hardestdecisions I've ever made,
because it was like gambling youjust keep putting more and more
money into it and even if youreach a point of diminishing
returns, you're like but I'llwin it back, but I'll win it
back.
Like I had invested so much inmyself and in my career and into
that identity that it wasreally, really hard to let go of
.
But I did, I did.
(06:41):
It took a little while, it tookseveral months to like ease
myself out of that.
But I decided if I'm going tomake this change, if I'm going
to make the shift, if I'm goingto figure out who I am and who I
want to be and how I want tolive in this world, I need to
get out of this completely.
Like I had to leave DC, I left,you know, my friends, my
(07:02):
colleagues, just like I'm out,see ya.
In some cases I didn't even saygoodbye, it's just like I'm
done.
I'm done and I moved to.
So I left my job and veryquickly after that I moved to
Asheville, north Carolina, andthe point in doing that was to
reset, to recalibrate, to goback to my roots, the things
(07:25):
that I knew would bring me joy,the things that brought me joy
when I was young, mostlycreative things, like I got
involved in music again.
I started playing the drumsagain.
I started singing with the helpof an instructor.
I started playing the pianoagain.
I took any opportunity I couldto go listen to live music,
which there's a ton ofopportunities to do that.
In Asheville I kayaked six orseven sections of the French
(07:50):
Broad River, went away.
It was kind of like I was invacation mode.
But it was different this timebecause you know, usually when
we're all working really hard,we go on vacation and it's like
a one-week thing or a two-weekthing usually at most, and it's
a hassle to even get out of townin the first place and then at
some point along the way you'realready thinking about all the
stuff you have to do when youget back.
(08:11):
So the whole point of vacationfor me, at least up until that
point, was to detach, todisconnect, to get away.
But this was a little bitdifferent.
Yes, it was leaving what I didbehind, but it was gone Like I
was just pushing it out beyondthe periphery, not even really
thinking about it anymore, and Iwas opening myself up to new
(08:32):
opportunities, which is notsomething a lot of people do
when they're on vacation becausethey don't have the luxury to
do that.
And I did so.
I spent a few months inAsheville having a grand old
time enjoying myself andenjoying music, and at some
point I got to thinking aboutokay, you know, what am I going
to do with my life?
(08:52):
What am I going to do next?
Because I can't live like thisforever.
School I worked in radio andtelevision for a company that
had radio and televisionstations, and I was an on-air
(09:12):
talent for radio.
But I also often got theopportunity to go into the booth
and record commercials andpromos for the station's
advertising clients and for thestation's television programming
, because it was a small marketand they didn't have the
resources to hire a professionalvoice actor, and I always had a
(09:32):
ball when I was doing that,you'd stick me in a booth with a
microphone and padding on thewalls and I was having a good
old time.
Like it was great.
It was so much fun.
It was an opportunity toperform which I think I'd kind
of lost.
Well, I definitely lost trackof.
While I lived in DC, I wasn'tdoing anything related to the
performing arts.
Lobbying government officialsis performative, but it's not.
(09:55):
It doesn't like feed your soullike your own creativity does.
Creativity does.
So I was like you know what?
That was.
So much fun, I had so much.
Like I had a ball doing that.
I wonder what that's about.
I wonder if there's anything tothat, if that's something that
I could pursue.
And so I started doing theresearch and I started talking
to people who were in theindustry and I reached out to a
(10:16):
woman who lived in Nashville fora period of time but now lives
in Atlanta, like I do, and she'dbeen teaching a class and I
asked her like I'd love to takeyour class about voiceover, are
you going to be offering itagain soon?
And she goes no, I've sincemoved to Atlanta, but I highly
recommend that you reach out tothe folks at Atlanta VoiceOver
Studio and I did, and I lookedat all their programming and
(10:37):
everything, all theopportunities and resources they
had available.
And I talked to the owners.
They're fabulous people MikeStout and Heidi Rue, they're
wonderful and it seems like thiscould actually potentially be a
career.
I had no idea people could makea career doing that and I
sometimes wonder if I hadrealized that then would my life
(10:58):
be like 100% different now,because I certainly don't think
I would have gone to law schoolif my parents hadn't wanted it.
I've been living my life up tothat point based on other
people's expectations of me andnot really what I wanted to do.
So, anyway, I started trainingin voiceover and I thought the
(11:19):
most effective way to do thatwould be to move to Atlanta to
do that stuff in person andreally immerse myself in these
opportunities for learning.
So I did.
I moved to Atlanta and that wasin fall of 2022.
And I haven't really lookedback.
I still work with the AtlantaVoice Over Studio folks.
Yeah, I see them all the timeand they foster this really
(11:41):
great community and I've beenbuilding a great community
through not only voiceover butthrough acting and comedy and
stand up, and there are so manycreatives in Atlanta and a lot
of opportunities for creativesin Atlanta move here.
If you'd asked me five yearsago, would you ever live in
(12:03):
Atlanta?
I'm like there's no politics inAtlanta, right, not like in DC,
not like in DC anyway.
There's plenty of politics here, but it's it's a little removed
from the big action.
And I love it here.
It's beautiful, it's a thrivingcommunity and building a life
here that I really like lifehere that I really like.
Niki Sterner (12:31):
So that is a huge transition from politics in DC
to a creative life in Atlanta.
I mean, I'm just wondering howyou've been able to transition
your mindset, because they'rejust totally.
Are they totally different?
I should ask you are theytotally different, or are there
similarities in your life fromwhat you did then and what you
do now?
Micah Caldwell (12:49):
Well, there's a little bit of crossover.
Some of the skills that Ilearned when I was a lawyer and
most of what I did towards theend of my career was not like
quote unquote practicing law.
I was doing a lot of projectmanagement, overseeing these big
projects for the government.
So the things that I did in DCversus the things that I do here
(13:09):
completely different,completely different mindset.
Being a voice actor is owningyour own business and you're the
product.
So to the extent that I hadlearned skills to manage things
and launch programs andadvertise them and brand them
and advocate, a lot of thoseskills transferred to the
(13:30):
business side, running my ownvoiceover business.
But in terms of the performanceside I think I said this before
to some extent, when you're alawyer, you're performing.
When you're advocating for anissue or a cause or a company or
the government, and it's oftento an end that's not really.
I don't know, it's for somebodyelse, it's entirely for
(13:52):
somebody else.
And me doing voice acting eventhough I'm doing advertising and
commercials for clients andit's to sell their products or
to get brand recognition fortheir products I get to bring
myself to it.
That's actually what books mejobs, is my personality, my
unique take on things, myinterpretation of what those
(14:17):
words are supposed to mean andhow I deliver that message to an
audience, and it's much morecreative and I feel like I have
much more ownership of the endproduct than I did before.
Also, running your own businessis very different from having a
nine to five salary job with aW-2, tax withholdings and
(14:43):
showing up to work every day andknowing exactly what you need
to do and usually having a lotof people around you as part of
a team that you're working with.
You don't have that as a voiceactor or a comedian.
Yes, you have the, your friendsin the community you build, but
what you do on a day-to-daybasis is up to you.
So, yeah, that was different inbeing responsible for myself
(15:06):
and taking action for me asopposed to some other entity, it
was a very different mindset.
Niki Sterner (15:14):
I've heard people say before if you promise
someone else that you would showup, it's much easier to do that
, versus you promise yourselfyou're going to show up and do
something.
Micah Caldwell (15:22):
It's like oh, we'll see if it happens or I'll
try to make it.
Niki Sterner (15:26):
I'll do my best, but yeah.
Micah Caldwell (15:29):
Yeah, that sounds like it's so true.
I think we often prioritizeother things over ourselves
sometimes, or it's easy to dothat and maybe not good for us,
but I think we all tend to dothat from time to time, if not
always.
Niki Sterner (15:45):
So, yeah, I could see that I love how you are so
good.
I can tell that you're reallygreat at project management
because I turned to Micah when Iwas struggling to start this
podcast, actually, and I waslike, um, can you help me?
Because she is so good at justorganizing things in a way that
makes sense and pulling thespecific details that matter and
(16:06):
that the listener might want orwhoever is going to see the
project.
You're just so good at thosethings and that's the 20 years
of experience, or however manyyears that you've had in
organizing projects and puttingtogether stuff that matters and
makes sense.
So I mean that's truly a giftthat you come to the creative
world with already, and so Ilove your passion and your drive
(16:29):
for taking classes anddeveloping on a consistent basis
your voiceover work and yourcomedian work and your improv
and sketch, and you've tried itall, like I, swear like you,
just keep on adding tools toyour tool belt and discovering
what you love, because sometimeswe don't know, we just, like
you said, you just moved on, notquite knowing.
(16:52):
And that was a big move.
It had to be uncomfortable, ithad to be like I don't know, it
had to be that low point, like Idon't know what I'm going to do
.
But it cannot be this anymore.
I love how you talked about itbeing like a vacation, like I
remember going on vacation lastyear and just feeling like such
a relief, such a just in flowwith everything around me and
(17:15):
not feeling tied down todeadlines and other people's
schedules, and just being in themoment, being so present, which
is such a gift.
And I'm sure you probably feltthat in Asheville just oh, I
want to try the drums and I wantto try the piano and I want to
sing again, and there's such afreedom in that.
And realizing that you can doit and taking ownership and
(17:38):
feeling your power and makingthose choices, I think is such a
big part of being confident.
It's just saying I'm going totry it and it might not be great
right away, but I'm going tosee if I like it and if I do,
I'm going to pursue it.
I'm so in awe of everythingthat you're doing and I know I
don't even know all of itbecause, like you said, you've
(17:59):
been here, for it was is inSeptember, it'll be three years.
You've been Atlanta pursuingall of these creative
opportunities.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
And so I'm just wondering,micah, maybe if you can tell us
a little bit about what you'velearned along the journey to
figuring out what you want to doand what you love doing.
What have been some of thestops along the way?
Micah Caldwell (18:21):
Sure, yeah, happy to you touched on it a
little bit that it started outas just, and still is, to some
extent, a time of exploration.
I didn't know, I had no ideawhat I was going to do, and so I
just let myself be open to thethings that I thought would
bring me joy.
I tried it all, except forclowning.
I haven't tried clowning yet.
I know you want me to, yes yes,I do.
(18:44):
So the last touchstone that Ihad for my creative self from
like the gap from thebroadcasting days to three years
ago was I played percussion,and actually professionally for
a period of time and a couple oforchestras in Oklahoma, yeah,
and then I was.
I was in band.
(19:05):
I was a band geek, so I playedall the instruments, including
lead snare.
Yes, I'm going to toot my ownhorn, yeah it was a badass.
I was a badass, it was a badassin those days.
But I eventually quit that too,because my parents made it
really too hard, in a way, likethey just were not invested in
(19:26):
that.
They never came to see meperform.
Occasionally they would come toa concert but, like when I
would play on Friday nights atthe football games, they never
came to the football games.
They never came to the footballgames.
Sometimes they never came towatch me play sports either,
like they just were not engaged.
So I got the message that thatwas not important, that was not
valued and that's not what theywanted from me.
(19:48):
So that's kind of how I.
The reason I mentioned that isbecause that's how I got started
on this other path.
Well, if that's not what I'mmeant to do, then you know,
maybe I'm meant to do somethingelse and let's do something that
they think is cool.
And that was Because you wantthe approval of your parents.
Niki Sterner (20:02):
You want them to be proud of you.
Yeah, everyone does, that'snormal.
Micah Caldwell (20:06):
Yeah.
So the other touch point fromearly in my life where
creativity was extremelyimportant to me was one of my
earliest memories.
It's when I was five years oldand I used to get out the 33s
and 45 records and put them onthe record player and play them
and sing and dance around theliving room.
(20:27):
And my favorite song wasIslands in the Stream, the duet
with Kenny Rogers and DollyParton, and I would sing that I
was seeing everything.
But that was the one that Iwent back to over and over and
over because I wanted to beDolly Parton.
But when you're in your earlyforties and you're starting over
in your life and you have hadno creative outlet for years and
(20:52):
years and years being DollyParton, the five-year-old dream
is unattainable, or it seemsunattainable.
So you have to start somewhereand I had to figure out like,
well, if that's obviously notgoing to be a path for me
anymore, but what can I do?
That I love.
But you started by asking me,like, what did I learn when I
(21:13):
was doing all this, making theseadjustments, making these
changes, trying to be open tonew opportunities and teaching
myself new things?
It goes back to what we weretalking about before, where I'd
been sent a clear signal most ofmy life that being creative as
a profession was not somethingthat I was allowed to do, and I
(21:34):
internalized it as meaning I'mnot good at it because my way of
thinking was I wasn't allowedto, I wasn't capable of it.
That was not something that wasmeant for me.
That's how I internalized it.
But I'd also come from a worldwhere if you get education and
you teach yourself or you learnthese things or you learn from
(21:55):
other people, then you can dosome stuff.
So I think that's part of thereason why I took so many
classes, because I was justtrying to soak up as much
knowledge as I could.
But one of the things I learnedalong the way is that was a
safe place for me.
I'd gone to school I've donelots of schooling in my life and
that was a very comfortableplace for me to stay.
And when it came time for me totake what I was learning and put
(22:18):
it into practice and actuallyput myself out there as a
creative, there have been lotsof moments where I've held
myself back because I didn'tfeel ready.
I've always had this notion thatyou need to be ready before you
do certain things, and I don'tthink that's true anymore, but
(22:38):
it's still very hard toimplement or to tell myself, yes
, you can do this.
So my idea of waiting tillyou're ready was just a form of
self-sabotage.
It was a form of holding myselfback because deep down, I was
believing that I couldn't do itor that I wasn't worthy, that I
(22:59):
wasn't good enough, which isvery self-defeating.
So that was one of the biglessons I learned along the way
is that a creative career is notfor everybody, and for me, I
was the biggest obstacle interms of standing in my own way,
(23:20):
and you have to stay on top ofthat every single day to not
fall back into those oldpatterns and beliefs and
limiting yourself when I'veproven, there are signs, there
is empirical evidence that I cando this, like I book jobs.
There's still that part of me,that that inner critic that's in
(23:43):
my head, that wants to be thethief of my joy, and I have to
stay on top of that all the timeto make sure that I'm doing
everything that I can to makethis work and holding myself
back in any way.
Niki Sterner (23:59):
What do you tell yourself when you hear that
inner critic?
Can you recognize it and whatdoes it sound like?
Micah Caldwell (24:03):
Yes, yes, I definitely recognize it.
I don't know how other peopleexperience their inner critics,
but for me it is my own voice.
It is I hear my voice in myhead saying all the things, all
the negative things, and for thelongest time I never really
questioned that.
(24:24):
And it wasn't until I reallystarted working on myself and
making some shifts and trying tofigure out who I am and what my
values are, that I realizedthat that voice, even though it
sounds like me, is really justan amalgamation of feedback from
other people, from externalsources, that I, especially my
(24:46):
family, like my immediate familythat, as I internalized it, I
came to believe was my ownpersonal narrative and I hear it
in my head as me.
But when I hear that voice ofnegativity and self-doubt in my
head, the first thing I do nowis tell myself to stop.
(25:06):
Number one stop.
And I have to remind myselfthose thoughts are harmful.
That you know what I'm wired tobelieve is true.
That you know what I'm wired tobelieve is true, most likely
isn't true, and it's largelyrooted in value systems that are
not my own.
(25:26):
They're somebody else's valuesystem.
So the second step I take is toreframe those thoughts.
I think or ask myself, whatwould I say to a friend in the
exact same situation?
Because we're all, hopefully,very kind to our friends and a
lot more, give a lot more graceto other people than we do
ourselves, especially our closefriends.
And so I think, what would Isay to a friend in this
(25:48):
situation?
And then the third step is toexpress it, to say it out loud,
if I can, if it makes sense,like you're not always in a
circumstance where you can talkto yourself.
Niki Sterner (26:01):
Hold on just a second.
Micah Caldwell (26:02):
Yeah, let me just talk to myself for a second
, because there was thisnegative thought going on in my
head and I need to quash it.
Niki Sterner (26:08):
I'm going to clear this out real quick, hold on.
Micah Caldwell (26:12):
But if I can, if I have the ability and if I'm
by myself or something, I willactually verbalize it, make
myself say the things, becausethat's an additional way to
receive it and to bring it hometo yourself.
So not just think it, but toactually say it out loud.
Niki Sterner (26:28):
So that's the new thought.
I love that because then you'reactive, you're doing an action,
you're speaking what youactually want.
I love that so much, so youfirst you hear it, you say stop,
you correct it and you'reverbalizing your new thought.
Micah Caldwell (26:44):
Yes.
Niki Sterner (26:45):
Yeah, and.
Micah Caldwell (26:46):
I learned that through therapy because, yeah, I
didn't always have that abilityLike it.
Just that narrative controlledeverything, that voice
controlled everything and Idon't know.
I guess I just didn't have thewherewithal to even think about
changing it until several yearsago.
And there's more than I coulddo.
There's definitely more than Icould do.
(27:07):
That's like a first step andit's a process Like to be more
accepting of yourself and togive yourself grace.
You have to be constantlyvigilant, or I do, but it's
gotten easier over time and as Icontinue to grow.
I want to be, as a second step,let's up the ante here.
Let's really be doing thingsthat are going to help us.
I want to be more proactive inrewiring negative thought
(27:31):
patterns, like throughaffirmations and other tools, so
that those limiting beliefs,they're replaced by a much
kinder and hopefully moreaccurate narrative by default.
I don't have to go through theexercise of oh, there's the
thought.
You know that's not right.
Let's reframe it, let'sverbalize that the voice
(27:52):
hopefully, over time, will notbe that.
It'll be replaced by somethingthat's kinder and truer.
So that's the goal that we'reall works in progress and in the
meantime I've got some tools todeal with that inner critic in
a healthy way.
You know, though, it's reallyimportant.
This is the second thing.
(28:13):
This is about that process thatI was talking about, the three
steps.
It's really important toapproach it from a place of like
, not negativity, because,believe it or not, I would
actually criticize myself abouthow I was dealing with my inner
critic.
Niki Sterner (28:34):
Oh no.
Micah Caldwell (28:35):
Yes, like I would get down on myself for,
like what Don't listen to her.
Like when you find yourselfcriticizing the critic, oh no,
when you're trying to correct amean voice, to be more mean, to
be meaner to yourself, so anyway.
(29:01):
So try not to do that becauseit can be a vicious cycle and
it's really counterproductive.
Niki Sterner (29:06):
Like you, would approach her with love, like
thank you for trying to protectme.
Micah Caldwell (29:12):
Yes, yeah, absolutely.
You have that 100% right.
It's don't get mad at the innercritic.
Approach the inner critic withlove and not negativity, or
positivity and not negativity,and understand that it comes
from a certain place and it'sprobably a really good reason
why you feel that way.
Or you've learned to believethose things because they did
(29:34):
protect you when you wereyounger and I'm sure when I was
young, I thought I got to doeverything my parents want me to
do and by shutting all thisstuff down and telling myself
that that's not for me and beingreally mean to myself about it,
was my way of shutting thosethings down so that I could
focus on the things that theywanted.
In a way, that was survival,that was approval, that was
(29:57):
whatever.
It's just a very immature wayof thinking, but we all go
through that development wherewe get wired.
Yeah, don't they?
Niki Sterner (30:09):
say that you establish your beliefs in the
first, like seven or eight yearsof your life.
So it makes sense that they dofeel a little bit immature or
from a younger point of viewperspective and like now, if you
stop and reflect back on them,you're like that doesn't even
make sense in my life right now,like why do I do that?
But we don't know if we haven'tstopped to reflect back what
(30:31):
you've done and realized, oh,those aren't actually mine.
I just absorbed the beliefs ofthe people around me who
programmed me and raised me tobelieve that creativity was not
actually important to me, but itreally is.
And you realized it because youwere I don't know if you were
sad, depressed, overworked, justunhappy in what you were doing.
But you realized, nope, thisjust isn't it anymore.
(30:54):
It doesn't make me happy and Iam not living for them anymore.
I'm going to live my life forme in a powerful way that feels
good.
And do you feel like you aregetting to that place where what
you're doing feels good?
Micah Caldwell (31:07):
Or do you?
Niki Sterner (31:07):
feel like you're still working through some
things.
Micah Caldwell (31:10):
A few years ago, when I talked about becoming a
voice actor, I don't know if Iactually believed that I could
do it, and now obviously I'mdoing it.
So I'm a lot more comfortablewith it and, yeah, I do feel
like I'm living for me, eventhough that inner critic is
still there.
I don't know if she'll ever goaway completely, but having the
(31:32):
tools to deal with her ishelpful.
Niki Sterner (31:35):
So, Micah, the three things again.
Will you repeat them for me,for dealing with your inner
critic.
Micah Caldwell (31:40):
Okay, first is to stop, second is to reframe or
correct, and then third is toexpress it out loud or verbalize
it, if you can Not just thinkit, but verbalize it.
Niki Sterner (31:51):
Perfect.
That's what I had.
I just wanted to make surebecause I think that's a really
great process, because a lot ofus, as artists and creatives,
have those thoughts of I'm notready, I'm not good enough, my
idea doesn't matter, myperspective isn't really
important, all of those thingsthat hold us back that we tell
ourselves basically are I'm notworthy of expressing myself.
(32:12):
But you're training yourselfwith this to express yourself,
which is huge, like mind blown,like you're stopping your critic
, you are reframing with apositive affirmation or whatever
it is that you truly want andbelieve, and then you're taking
action, you're expressing itright away.
This is a beautiful habit toget in place for everyone, all
(32:34):
of us creatives, evenentrepreneurs and business
owners getting in the habit ofshutting down those negative
beliefs and thoughts andretraining them.
I love that reframe.
Micah Caldwell (32:44):
And then, over time, it becomes second nature,
which is helpful, and you willstart to believe those things
without having to do that step.
Niki Sterner (32:54):
So if you're training your mind to already
see that success like you'retalking about, like I'm already
doing VO, you've proven it toyourself.
But maybe there's another thingthat's coming up that you
haven't yet and you're like Ireally want to do that.
So maybe you start visualizingyourself doing it ahead of time
and then showing up and and,like you said, your subconscious
is like oh, I recognize this,this is cool, I can do this.
Micah Caldwell (33:22):
Well, along those lines I mean something
that I learned today and I hopeothers are not guilty of this,
but I still am because of whereI came from and how deeply
ingrained those defeating,limiting thoughts were.
I realize today that I stilldon't dream big enough and that
just breaks my heart.
Somebody sent me an email todayand they asked me to think
about who would be my dreamproduction company to work with,
(33:43):
and I was like you know what?
I've never thought about thatand that seems insane, I don't
know.
It seems insane to me that I'vebeen doing voice acting for
three years and I've neverthought who would I want to work
with the most, who would I wantto partner with?
And you know, it's been solimited.
(34:04):
In a way it's very linear.
It's like I take this step, Ido this thing, got to get ready
and building on top, but notnecessarily having the end goal
like the big dream, the big ideato to work towards.
So it's almost like I just keepdoing this, but I haven't
really thought much about this.
Up here we're going.
Niki Sterner (34:24):
Yeah, where am I going?
What's?
Micah Caldwell (34:25):
my, where am I going?
Yeah, where am.
Niki Sterner (34:26):
I going, these steps should be aligned with
that, and once you know that,then when it gets hard, you're
like oh, but I know where I'mgoing, so I can keep going.
You're why that's kind of likeyour end all be.
I do the same thing for, like,if I want to become a TV
showrunner, there's all thesedifferent steps that are along
the path, and sometimes I don'twant to do all of them, but I'm
(34:49):
like no, this actually makessense, even though it's not what
I pictured the path to be.
It's like, oh, yep, this isgoing to happen too.
Micah Caldwell (35:03):
It's not necessarily just my, why I was
looking at it very generically,very broadly.
I want to be a voice actor fulltime.
I want to pay my bills that way, but if you can think about,
within that sphere, the things,the special things that you want
to achieve, to work towards,the things that really have
meaning to you, that you canreach for, I think that helps.
(35:24):
Like you said, keep you focusedin your eye on the prize.
It's like I want to worktowards this, I want to work
towards this, and I feel likethe more specific you can be in
those things, the better and Ithink that might be why vision
boards are so helpful for somepeople is you actually take the
time to sit down and think aboutwhat are these things, these
(35:44):
specific things that I want inmy life, in the next going
forward or in the future?
And when I did one this yearfor the first time ever and oh
gosh, there's a saying aboutthis, too that I can't remember,
but it's like if you can see it, you can achieve it.
Or if you're looking for goodthings and for opportunities,
you will see them and they willcome to you.
And I think it's true becauseit's like when an example that I
(36:07):
read the other day if you tellyourself that you want to pick
out all the yellow things in aroom, all of a sudden everything
you see all this yellow stuff.
Or you see yellow cars whenyou're out driving around yellow
fingernails, the beautifulhostess here today.
And I think it's the same waywith what's coming to you in
(36:30):
real life.
If you're focused on seeingnegative things or being upset
about stuff or frustrated bythings, or this isn't working or
that isn't working, or I thinkyou'll see that and you'll
experience that.
But if you're focused onpositive things, you'll start to
see those things too, becauseyou're looking for them.
So one of the things I put on myvision board was that I wanted
(36:53):
to do a political ad for aspecific candidate and one of
the jobs that I booked earlierthis year was not for that
candidate.
But I like to do a meeting withmy new clients, like a Zoom
meeting, like 15 to 20 minutes,to get to know them and so they
can get to know me, becauseeverything we do is remote and
you don't really get to connectin person and I found that
(37:14):
that's really valuable inbuilding my business.
And I asked him.
I was like, do you guys ever doany work for such and such
campaign?
And they said yes.
And I said, oh, I would love todo ads for this candidate.
And he said like, oh well, I'mgoing to keep that in mind when
things start heating up again.
(37:34):
And he started asking me like,what do I want?
Like, what is it that I want todo?
What kind of what do I want?
Like, what is it that I want todo?
What kind of ads do I want todo?
What kind of candidates do Iwant to support?
Because political ads are hugelyimportant to me because of my
background, and it's a way thatI can continue to use my voice
to advance things that I believein, that are meaningful to me.
So, anyway, it hasn't happenedyet, but I have a feeling it's
(37:59):
going to, and now I'm thinkingabout that and I have an avenue
for that, and then you'll justhave to re-interview me after
November and see if it actuallycame true.
But if I hadn't been thinkingabout that, if I hadn't been
willing to ask for it or askabout it, I was being
appropriate Like, I wasn't like,can I do this, can I?
(38:21):
No, that's a little too much,but to just to put that into the
universe and to discuss it withthis person.
That makes it all the morelikely that it could happen, and
if you don't ask, it's nevergoing to happen.
So there you go.
Niki Sterner (38:34):
I love that so much, micah, that you actually
were open to the possibilitiesand that you had the courage to
actually bring up theconversation and ask for what
you want in a way that madesense.
But you, you're educating thoseclients on what you want to do
and then they have an awarenessof what Micah does and you're
(38:57):
just calling it into your lifeand I'm so excited to have
another conversation in Decemberand find out what you've been
doing.
Micah Caldwell (39:05):
Yeah, see how it went.
Yeah, I need more of thoseopportunities, though, because
I'm still not working as much,or I guess I'm not getting as
many opportunities as I'd liketo yet.
Still, I want more agentrepresentation.
I want to establish morerelationships with producers and
consultants so that more andmore opportunities are coming in
(39:26):
and I can have moreconversations like that, and
that's just up to me.
I got to be better at marketingmyself.
Niki Sterner (39:33):
So I know you, Micah, you're going to create a
spreadsheet that's going to haveall of your people that you
want oh, you already have oneAll the people that you want to
get in touch with and then, likewhen you reach out and then
follow up, and then all thedifferent, you know information.
I know that you're going tohave that all organized and
that's your next project.
Yeah, just reach out andcreating these opportunities for
yourself.
(39:53):
I bet that's how your VObusiness is going to blow up
yourself.
Micah Caldwell (39:59):
I bet that's how your VO business is going to
blow up.
Yeah, that's the hope, that'sthe strategy, just need to be
more proactive about that?
Niki Sterner (40:04):
You will.
I wanted to touch briefly onyour social media presence
because I feel like you do areally great job of sharing with
people what you're doing online, and can you just tell me a
little bit about that?
Micah Caldwell (40:14):
Yes, yeah, so I was.
I'm a reluctant social mediauser and I don't post as
prolifically as I could, but oneof the things that I have found
is really helpful to me is touse my social media as a tool in
my business, or basically anaccountability tool.
So there's this thing that ifyou talk about it, it's a dream,
(40:36):
if you envision it it's apossibility, but if you schedule
it, it's real.
So I use that in my day to day,so I schedule things and I put
them on my calendar, and thatholds me accountable.
In that respect, accountable isto use social media for that,
(40:57):
and I've done that with mycomedy, because comedy as you've
done it too is a grind.
It's open mics, it's showing up,it's spending way too much time
waiting to do your thing andit's so easy to be like, okay,
I'm going to stay home tonight,I don't have time for this, I
don't have energy for this,because it is extremely time
consuming and very resourceintensive.
So I will force myself to poston my social media the four or
(41:24):
five or however manyperformances that I'm going to
be doing in a month, and thereit is.
It's public.
If you post it, it's real inthis in the sense that, yes, we
all know a lot of people postthings on social media that are
not necessarily real, but whatI'm talking about is like, in
terms of accountability, I'veposted that I'm going to perform
on these dates in these venuesand I have to show up.
(41:48):
Like it forces me to show up.
So that has been very valuablefor comedy, and I want to apply
that to voiceover as well.
In terms of how can I use mysocial media content to give me
those concrete goals to worktowards and put it out there so
(42:09):
that I know other people couldbe aware, even if they're not
reading my posts.
I feel like it's enough to justput it out there and I'm like
I've said this, so now I've gotto do it.
So that's been a very helpfultool for me and hopefully will
continue to be in all aspects ofmy creative endeavors.
Niki Sterner (42:27):
Will you share the quote with me one more time?
Micah Caldwell (42:30):
It was if you talk about it, it's a dream.
If you envision it, it's apossibility.
If you schedule it, it's apossibility If you schedule it
it's real.
So yes, in my case adding tothat, and if you post it, it's
real in the sense that you knowyou need to follow through, or?
Niki Sterner (42:52):
it helps me follow through.
Yeah, yes, for sure.
Oh, you do a great job of that,and so, in fact, a lot of times
I'll see it and I'll be like,oh, I should post, Micah posted,
it's time.
Micah Caldwell (43:03):
Now, today is the opposite.
You've already posted about ourperformance tonight, yeah, and
I don't know where this is goingto air, but we have a
performance the night of thisinterview and like I haven't
posted yet, can I, can I get outof it?
No, no, nikki won't let me.
She will not let me that'sright.
Niki Sterner (43:21):
That's right, I guess that's another tool.
Micah Caldwell (43:23):
Have an accountability buddy or a friend
that's going to hold your feetto the fire Like we're doing
this.
We're in this together and Iactually do think that's helped
a lot in some of the open micsthat we've done, that we've even
though it's so hard to scheduleto do the same ones, and I feel
like, okay, I'm going to dothis one, I'm going to do this
one, can you join me?
Can you join me?
Knowing that the other personis going to be there and showing
(43:46):
up for each other is great too.
Niki Sterner (43:50):
Yeah, having that connection with a community of
artists that you can meet upwith and support each other has
made a huge difference, I think,in both of our lives, because
there's just this camaraderie.
It's like a team effort becausea comedian, you get up on stage
by yourself and it can feellonely at times.
I think we've both enjoyedtaking classes because of that
community building aspect of itand makes it so much more fun.
(44:13):
Then when you're watching yourfriends on stage, it's like
watching your family on stage.
You want the best for them, youlaugh harder for them because
it's just, it's really fun andit's really funny at the same
time, yeah, you get invested intheir success too, and that's
really cool.
Micah Caldwell (44:28):
That's a really cool feeling.
Niki Sterner (44:30):
I think that's the coolest part about it, honestly
, is having our community, likewe have a group of people that
are going to be performingtonight and it's going to be
probably one of the best nightsof our comedy so far.
I'm so excited about it.
Micah Caldwell (44:41):
Me too.
Me too.
Okay, yes, you talked me intoit.
Sure, I just need to go do somepreparation after this
interview so that I feel ready.
Same, same.
Niki Sterner (44:51):
Okay, thank you, micah, I want to do.
Our third part of theconversation is the confidence
quickfire round.
Okay, and so I asked the samefive questions to every guest on
the podcast, and so I want toask you the first one is can you
please define what confidenceis for you?
Micah Caldwell (45:09):
Okay To me, confidence is an innate belief
in yourself.
It's knowing who you are andwhat you're about and embracing
that unapologetically as youmove through the world.
Niki Sterner (45:23):
I love that.
Okay.
The second question is what'sone bold move you made before
you felt ready?
Micah Caldwell (45:29):
One of the boldest moves I've ever made was
leaving behind a career that Ihad spent two decades building,
having absolutely no idea what Iwas going to do next.
So, fortunately, I was in aposition to do that, like I had
enough money saved, I was singleand didn't have a family, that
didn't really have any ties thatwere holding me back, and as a
(45:53):
planner, as you've mentioned, asan organizer who always knows
their next move and has a backupplan for that, it's probably
the biggest leap of faith I'veever taken, and it was in myself
.
Niki Sterner (46:05):
Finally, right, yeah, yeah, oh, I love that,
Okay.
The third question is how doyou quiet your inner critic?
And you've talked about this aswell, but please take us
through it one more time.
Micah Caldwell (46:16):
Okay, sure, yes.
So, as I mentioned before, Ihear my inner critic as my own
voice, even though what itreally is is like this
amalgamation of externalfeedback, voices from other
people that I've heardthroughout my life, mainly
through my, from my immediatefamily and my formative years,
that I've internalized and it'sbecome my own narrative.
(46:38):
And when I start hearing thatvoice, knowing it's just my
inner critic first I stop thatvoice, say nope, those thoughts
are harmful, they're not helpful, they're counterproductive.
And I remember those are notnecessarily my values.
And what I'm hearing in my headthat I believe is true is not
necessarily true.
And if those thoughts arerooted in somebody else's value
(47:01):
system and not my own.
And then step two is to reframethat thought, usually relying on
asking myself what would I tella friend in this situation?
Because we're so nice to ourfriends, we're not always as
nice to ourselves.
And so I reframe that thoughtin my head.
And then the third step is, ifI can, I will also verbalize it
and say the reframed thought outloud to really get it to hit
(47:26):
home and bring it full circle.
And that's how I deal with myinner critic, and she's ever
present, but I can handle her.
Yeah, you're retraining her.
Niki Sterner (47:35):
You're retraining her.
I love that.
Okay, the fourth questionwhat's one habit that's helped
you build real confidence?
Micah Caldwell (47:42):
Oh goodness, it has been forcing myself to do
things I'm afraid to dorepeatedly, for instance,
stand-up comedy.
You know that's really scary.
It's one of the scariest thingsI've ever done and I think it's
scary for a lot of people.
But getting up on stage andperforming stand-up has given me
a lot more confidence inperforming in general.
(48:05):
That translates to my booth.
When I'm here in my recordingbooth it's like a mindset You're
doing the thing.
It's hard, you can do the hardthing, you're capable of it,
you're confident about it andthen it just.
It transfers to other parts ofyour life as well.
Niki Sterner (48:22):
Okay.
The fifth and final question iswhat is your favorite book or
resource?
That's changed how you think.
Micah Caldwell (48:30):
Okay, I love this question and I think my
answer might be an unusual one.
So this might not seem like anobvious choice, but the book
that has changed me the most isthe Body Keeps the Score by.
Niki Sterner (48:48):
Bessel van der Kolk, it's so good.
Micah Caldwell (48:50):
Yes, it is.
It's hard to read because it'sso technical, but I had to read
it like two or three times and Iget something new out of it
every single time because it'sso dense and it's complex, but
it is, oh my gosh, it is so goodand I'll explain why it was so
good for me.
So, all these shifts that I'vemade over the past few years, it
was about more than justchanging my career path.
(49:12):
It was about discovering who Iam and how I want to be in the
world, so that I can pursue acareer and hobbies and
friendships and relationshipsthat are consistent with my
values, what I want for myselfand how I want to live.
And, of course, I've had thehelp with a therapist and a life
coach.
But when I picked up that bookand I read the Body Keeps the
(49:34):
Score, it helped me fullyunderstand that I had actually
experienced very significanttrauma in my life.
And I would read the casestudies and I think, oh my gosh,
this is me, this is how I felt,this is what happened, and it
made me realize that thoseexperiences were actually very,
(49:58):
very bad and had shaped me inways that I had never really
acknowledged and it had such adeep impact on me and I know
that sounds like why would youput yourself through that but it
gave me a vocabulary, finallyin my 40s, that I can use to
process those experiences andthe emotions related to them and
(50:21):
the feelings and that I didn'thave before, like I'd never
really even acknowledged thatpain or that it even was pain,
and so, yeah, I mean, if I'mhonest, it dredged up some
things that were very difficultto deal with, but in my case,
that was a crucial part ofunderstanding myself and living
(50:43):
in a world in a way that servesme better and my old coping
mechanisms just aren't workinganymore and allowing me to live
more authentically too.
I love that book.
Niki Sterner (50:54):
I love that you brought that book up because I
had an audio version of it thatI played in my car like a CD of
it, that I played in my car likea CD or something that I played
in my minivan for a long time,not when the kids were in the
car, but like when I was bymyself.
I would listen to those storiesand do like you're saying, like
just had so many aha moments,wow Cause I don't know if you're
the same as me but as a peoplepleaser, I just sugarcoated
(51:15):
everything.
Everything is good.
I didn't have any problems andthat's okay to a certain point.
But I think just recognizing itand having a vocabulary, like
you said, to know what itactually was and to recognize
that and learn from it and growthrough it, was super valuable
for me and I could recognize andrelate to other people and be a
(51:37):
little bit more empathetictowards others because I thought
, oh, maybe they have somethinglike this going on too, because
a lot of people do haveuncovered trauma that is down
there that we just don't orbring up until we're ready for
it to heal.
Right, right, yeah.
So that was a beautiful share.
I love that so much.
Micah Caldwell (51:59):
I'm glad it's so amazing to me that when you
share these stories aboutyourself or I share stories
about myself and we have allthese similarities this is just
a personal note that I alwaysreally appreciate because it
feels it.
I think I went through a lot ofmy life feeling that I didn't
necessarily belong, and I thinkthat happens when you're
(52:20):
pretending to be somebody you'renot, and that's what I was
doing.
And now that I'm embracing whoI really am and people are
coming into my life that aregetting to know me as who I
truly am, I finally feel like Ihave things in common with
people.
I have a community, I'mbuilding a tribe and it's nice
to not only feel less alone butto feel very connected too.
Niki Sterner (52:45):
That is the most beautiful thing that I've heard
all day.
I want to thank you for that.
That is the perfect way toclose out this conversation.
That was such a vulnerableshare and it's so true.
I feel the same way.
I feel like we have connectedon a lot of different things,
and I do feel like we're both ona similar path of experiencing
(53:06):
vulnerability that we haven'thad before, because we've been
trying to please others and besomeone who we're not, and it
just I love how you said that,and I just want to close out the
conversation with that, becauseit was just so heartfelt.
Micah, thank you so much forthat.
Micah Caldwell (53:20):
Thank you for having me and giving me an
opportunity to share myperspective.
Niki Sterner (53:24):
I appreciate it, it's beautiful, and you gave us
tools and all the stuff, sothank you, okay.
Oh, before we close out, though, I do want you to share with
people how they can follow youor connect with you on social
media, or however they can.
Micah Caldwell (53:39):
Oh sure, yes, so follow me on Instagram.
My handle is at Micah on Mike.
That's my first name M-I-C-A-Hon O-N and M-I-C for Mike.
Yeah, so Micah on.
Mike, I think it's the samehandle for all my social media.
Like, I have a Facebook accountbecause I have to Right, but I
(54:04):
mainly use my Instagram, andthen I also have a LinkedIn
profile and that's my handlethere too.
So, however you want to follow,I love.
I want to engage with morecreatives and people in Atlanta
in particular, so that I cancontinue to build my community.
Niki Sterner (54:20):
Yes, it's so important.
It's so important.
So, yes, definitely followMicah on Instagram, at Micah on
Mike, and Facebook and LinkedIn,and she's a fabulous friend and
person, human being.
I love her and I'm so happythat we got to share this
conversation with all of youtoday.
So, thank you so much, micah.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.