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Meet Shulie Gibson of Speech & Voice Care Center

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Shulie Gibson.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’m a sum total of my life experiences, challenges, and encounters with people, places, and cultures. My story begins on a porch at my grandmother’s house in Winnfield, LA. My siblings, cousins and I used to make our fun. We did everything from making mud pies to playing school and business. We even made up our own talk shows. My favorite part was being the boss, teacher or the talk show host. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say a business person and it later transitioned to nurse anesthetist. I still like to tap into that creative energy of play in my business pursuits.

My pursuit of a nursing degree took me Grambling State University where I realized that I was not about that nursing life. In trying to figure it out, I fell in love with the science of communication when I took a phonetics course. Phonetics is basically the study of how sounds are made and perceived. It was so fascinating and I naturally had a good ear for picking up differences in accents and voices. I call myself a speech nerd in the best possible way. I was re-routed to a path that has brought me so much fulfillment.

That path took me from Winnfield, LA, to Grambling State University on to The University of Memphis, to Houston, TX and around the world. One of my favorite icebreaker questions is what brought you to Houston… Love or Money? My response to that is money and a dream. I moved to Houston for a job 3 days after graduating from the University of Memphis. I lived with my cousin and his wife until I could afford my own place. I knew 2 things… I wanted to own a business one day and that I loved voice therapy. I worked hard. I learned as much as I could about voice, various cultures and accents.

Nothing could prepare me for the biggest curveball I had experienced until that point. My path naturally took me into self-employment by the time I was 27 years old. My dad died of prostate cancer in 2004 which left my younger half-siblings in need of a place to go. He asked me and I stepped up to the plate. When he transitioned, I took in 3 of my siblings… 2 boys and 1 girl. The need for flexibility and more money made it easy for me to venture into doing house calls for home health agencies. I was learning the ins and outs of being a business owner and getting a crash course in parenting. Insert spiritual here… “If it haaaaaaad not been forrrrrr the Lorrrrrrdddd on my siddddeeee, tell me where would I beeeeeee, where would IIIIII be.”

It was a 12-year life class that showed me so much about life, myself, and the pursuit of purpose. I’m stronger, more loving, and an all-around better human for it. Not because it was full of wins, but because it was full of lessons that showed me my humanity and prepared me for each new phase I encountered. All of this made it easier for me to obey my “GO”, sell my home, walk away from my business and travel the world for the year. I call it my Fear to Freedom journey.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Absolutely not! The road has been a twisting, winding road that often has steep a$! hills and dangerous curves. However, I have come to see obstacles and struggles as teachers or detours that have re-routed me to usually what turned out to be a better outcome.

My biggest struggle was probably self-limiting beliefs and negative self-talk like not thinking I was enough or feeling like I didn’t have enough. I felt like I hadn’t had a business before, so I invested in coaches and classes. In some cases, it was the right move and the others it was not. I walked away from a situation or two feeling hustled. I spent so much money and time trying to get to a place where I felt like I knew enough to be “successful” that often times I failed to execute. I went through that to learn that I have a pretty good business instinct and beyond that I have vision. Most if not all of my wins came from me following my instincts and executing what I saw playing out in my mind.

Like most start-ups, the capital was a challenge. I spent money in areas where I shouldn’t have and didn’t invest in those that set you up to win. For instance, I should have gotten an accountant a lot sooner than I did. I knew money was not my strong suit, but I thought I couldn’t afford it and I ended up paying more out in the end. This goes back to limiting beliefs and misplaced priorities. The blessing is I course corrected before it was too late.

My self-doubt also leads me to not only seek coaches, but I was a seeker of opinions. Even if I had an idea or a vision for something, I talked about it with friends and people who I thought were an authority in an area. This also leads to delayed execution and sometimes confusion from information overload. Some things, I didn’t even do because I allowed someone to talk me out of it.

The other struggle was the pit of networking without a purpose. I was networking with people and in places that were not aligned with my goals, vision or path.

I’m thankful for the lessons, that has now lead me to know the “the power of one”. It only takes one person, one moment or one opportunity to change the trajectory of your life. With that said, alignment is the key! It has led me to the right people and places at the right time on multiple occasions.

Speech & Voice Care Center – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I—Shulie am a lover of life, a seeker, a world traveler, a speaker, a trainer, a teacher. I am on a mission to let the world know that “It is Sexy to Speak Correctly”. By purpose and trade, I am a Speech Pathologist with 16 years of experience working with adults and professionals who have communication challenges. I am the owner of The Speech & Voice Care Center and founder of a non-profit organization, Speak Success. In short, I equip and empower communicators with the attitude, skills, and knowledge to speak with power and confidence. We do that through individual sessions, group training, and online training.

(Speak Success) Our non-profit arm allows us to curate conversations about communication and purpose through our public events, panels, and social media campaigns. These events are how we gain support to provide public speaking and communication skills training to marginalized youth and young adults via workshops and classes provided through schools and organizations.

(Speech & Voice Care Center) Most people think of children when you say speech therapy. However, adults need and seek speech services too. I specialize in voice therapy, accent reduction, and aphasia therapy, as well as public speaking mechanics which I call vocal image. In the medical world, I am known for voice therapy and treatment of medically related speech disorders. In the social media world and abroad, I am known as the “Conversate is NOT a word” or “It’s Sexy to Speak Correctly” girl. In 2015, I launched a t-shirt campaign that quickly turned into a movement… The Conversation Starter Movement. The catalyst was finding a solution to educate people about a word that I disdain… conversate.

(s3ish.com) I’m excited to launch s3ish.com which is a fun and trendy extension of the mission. The demand for the Conversation Starter tshirts has continued since 2015. We started out with 3 shirts: “It’s Sexy to Speak Correctly”, “Conversate is NOT a word,” and “Irregardless is NOT a word.” We now have more colors and “NOT words” like “Mines” and “Pacific” to add to the collection. The best part is a portion of the sell of each tshirt goes to our non-profit efforts.

I am most proud of the direct impact I have made on the lives of over 5000 people through my services. Fear is the one thing most of my clients have in common. Despite their reason for coming to me for services, we have to address fear. I’ve worked with actors, teachers, speakers, doctors, coaches, athletes, entrepreneurs, students and a lot of grandmothers and grandfathers from all over the world and various economic backgrounds. When they experience a communication break down or don’t have the ability to share their stories, they experience fear, shame, embarrassment, and frustration. My job is to help them claim their voice and give them access to the freedom of expression. There is no better feeling for me than to hear someone move from what I call Fear to Freedom by being able to transcend the speech or voice obstacle whether it’s a lisp, loss of voice, stuttering, accent, stage fright, stroke or Parkinson’s.

My ASK method is the eclectic approach I take to equipping and empowering my clients. The A is attitude; S is skill, and K is knowledge. My methods are out of the norm and certainly not cookie cutter and traditional approaches. So much so at one point, I struggled with whether or not I should even call myself a speech pathologist anymore. My work is holistic, person-centered and even lightly treads into a life coach realm. I even had a client say to me after a session one time, “you are like my life coach.” A speech or voice challenge is usually the symptom that brings the client to my door, but when we start working the client walks away feeling confident to fulfill their purpose. My services are more like an answer to a purpose or life problem.

When I present a statement like “If my speech or voice were not a problem, I would be able to _____”, I get more insight into what the communicator really wants. I then work backward to determine if we need to improve their communication attitudes/beliefs, communication skill or knowledge.

My mission to help the world speak better has allowed me to meet and serve people from Texas, New Mexico, NYC to Croatia, Portugal, Vietnam, Malaysia, Argentian, Peru and Colombia. I am certainly on target to accomplish the vision!

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
On a deeper level, success is living a life that makes you feel happy and fulfilled. On a tangible level, it’s accomplishing those things you set your mind to do. Of course, we know that means different things for different people. The biggest mistake a person can make is measuring one’s own success by another’s.

In my evolution, I chased a lot of “golden carrots” if you will. By walking away from it all, I learned that “the grind” is a “hustle” in itself. It keeps us seeking outside of ourselves for what we think we need versus obeying what’s inside of us. I used to think my success was tied to lots of money which would give me access to the things that would then make me happy. I quickly learned that was not the case. I traveled the world and experienced cultures in an organic way on less money that I had made since I started my career journey. Now, I’m looking out for what makes me feel love, joy, at peace, and fulfilled as in turn I extend that to others. It’s the “my cup runneth over” effect. I returned from my personal fear to freedom journey around the world feeling grounded and open to what’s next. It’s a good feeling. These days, if it’s aligned with those things I mentioned, I go for it!

Pricing:

  • Apparel & merchandise ranges from $20 & up-Reader discount code: JOINTHEMOVEMENT

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Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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