The Speak Up: Be Your Own Tree 👩🏻‍🦰

In this newsletter:

• Why I believe that we all can be our own Tree (Paine)
• The post-show altering of Alicia Keys’ Super Bowl voice crack makes me sad
• A fun podcast to listen to this week

Friends,

A couple of months ago I was on a Zoom call with a potential Crafting Your Narrative: Solo Retreat client and they asked me whether or not I considered the work that I do to be PR.

I quickly said No. And then explained that I thought that the 1-on-1 narrative consulting and training that I do with clients supports the work of publicists, especially when the PR team is less interested in supporting the client with a true and trustworthy narrative and more concerned with maintaining or growing their relevancy or creating viral moments.

In several conversations that followed that one, I was asked if I worked with a PR firm in an official capacity or if crafting a new narrative was only essential for crisis management.

I found myself saying “No… but…” a lot. While I plan to introduce myself to and collaborate with boutique PR firms and talent management companies that represent the clients I know I can help from a storytelling standpoint, I also firmly believe that every one of us no matter how visible we are in the public eye can be our own Tree Paine.

Who is Tree Paine?

Tree Paine is Taylor Swift’s Publicist.

“Hired in 2014 just before Swift released 1989 and when rumors about her boyfriends were at an all-time high, Paine’s PR strategy helped Swift take her narrative back in the press and redirected the public’s attention to her art.”

If you need a good primer, check out this article from The Daily Beast. It dives into her backstory as much as it can without an official comment from Tree herself and cites many other think pieces on the subject of Tree and Taylor. I’ve pulled a few quotes like the one above to help support my DIY-Tree philosophy.

What I admire in Taylor and Tree Paine’s storytelling partnership

While this is all speculation and my imagining of what happens at TS + TP HQ, it seems that Tree has Taylor’s back always. She will stand up for what’s right (like squashing an out-of-control rumor on the celebrity site DeuxMoi) and make sure that Taylor is the one who ultimately gets to give voice to her story or make the choice to stay quiet.

Sure there are rumors and a million and one articles about Swift and her Swiftdom, but everyone looks to Taylor to speak her truth - both in her lyrics and her actions and words whilst in the public eye.

“Fans believe that nothing Swift does is accidental, that the Easter eggs she plants in her music and her videos and her posts and her interviews are meticulously planned out years in advance. Paine has a similar reputation for being calculated and having complete control over Swift’s public narrative.”

I don’t believe that Tree is orchestrating everything. While everything seems super controlled, I think there is a difference between intentionally steering the storytelling ship as a duo, and Tree having power and manipulative force over Taylor and how she presents herself. I believe Tree serves as a filter, a guard, and a relationship manager so that Taylor can maintain a public and private narrative that while possibly different, stays true to who she is at her core.

Why I believe that we all can be our own Tree

Tree is her own Tree! You can be her too. Stay with me here…

First, this quote from the Daily Beast piece:

“And while being both an open book and giving nothing at all away has become central to Swift’s public image, Paine herself has her own conflicting public narrative—she is both known to fans in a way most celebrity publicists never are, while also being a complete enigma.”

You have control over your own narrative. You can take it back if someone else has tried to tell your story for you. You can choose what is public and private. All while staying aligned with who you are in the present moment. It might not feel like control is there once you expand your visibility, make yourself known, and generate a public discourse, but if you do the narrative work with care and in advance, you will understand that you have the power.

Newspapers have hired reporters just to cover the Taylor Swift beat. People are dissecting her every move and moment. But do you ever take the buzz and commentary as the source?

No.

Because Taylor (and Tree) own the story they choose to tell others. And when they do speak up, their words become gospel.

No matter the amount of noise and chatter there is about you, trust that you can choose what story you want to tell and you can craft it, trust it, feel passionate about sharing it, and then choose who gets to hear it.

You can take a stand, even if it feels scary and polarizing. Sure it helps to have a support team guide you through a crisis or equip you with media-safe messaging. But when you have a story to share, and you work intentionally and skillfully to weave all of the pieces together, and you have a voice that deserves to be heard, you really can crisis manage and deliver important messages on your terms.

You can create story-sharing opportunities. Whether you create a podcast of your own, book speaking engagements to share your signature talk, or use platforms like Substack and YouTube to share who you are in bits and pieces, you can let your guard down and trust that your audience is there to receive you.

You can continue to get to know yourself. Getting to the core of who you are via the experiences you’ve had and the stories you want to share, will help you strengthen the trust trifecta - trust in yourself, trust in your story (and that it matters), and trust in your audience. Having a core story that grounds you in who you are now and helps you to communicate that to other people will bring balance between personal narrative and public perception.

Whether you have a PR team that you love, secretly hope to have the budget for the PR team you desire, or don’t think you’ll ever be in a position where you would hire a publicist to help you put yourself out there, you can still take the above in bold action steps to ensure that you are sharing who you are with integrity, strength, and total confidence that the story that you are giving voice to is the story that you want to be heard.

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I’ve been using a lot of “you” language today. Many of you know that I always encourage people to use “I” when sharing who they are and what they do. But “you” can be powerful when there is a message that you want to broadcast. I’m not trying to order you to be a certain way or convince you to only listen to me and do what I say, instead, I am using “you” to convey the passion and conviction I have for what it is that I want to share with you all today. I hope that comes across.

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Let your voice crack. Please.

During my four years studying Musical Theater at NYU, I developed a debilitating stage fright that often resulted in my voice cracking in the middle of a song in front of all of my peers and teachers. I was made fun of. I was yelled at. I became so scared to open my mouth and sing in front of people that I would go into the practice rooms and stay there until I could prove to myself that I could get through a song, hitting every note smoothly and perfectly. I am still uncomfortable singing in front of people and continue to deal with the aftermath of those four traumatic years in music school. But one thing I do know and trust now is that voice cracking in singing (and speaking) is totally normal. Everyone goes through it.

Even Alicia Keys.

When I found out that the NFL uploaded a doctored video on YouTube of her Superbowl performance of “If I Ain’t Got You”, I was so sad. Maybe Alicia wanted them to digitally smooth out the cracked note so that it didn’t live on forever on the internet.

But what if she was okay with it?

It happens to professional singers all the time.

My voice teacher, the brilliant Sherz Aletaha, always says that voice cracking is the body’s way of protecting you from injury.

When the public scrutinizes a cracked note and then the NFL removes it from the conversation by making it a smooth and perfect pitch to live forever on YouTube, the true story and the humanness of the experience are erased.

I’m sad because I want to move through my fear of cracking a note but the public obsession with Alicia’s “mistake” is making me hesitate to use my voice. Think of all of the other people that are hesitating now.

I’m sad because this also translates to someone choosing to be quiet instead of sharing their story because they are worried about too many filler words or stumbling over a sentence.

I’m sad because singing is vulnerable and when someone is being vulnerable and then shot down or they are being vulnerable and someone doctors the vulnerability, that prevents everyone else from stepping up, taking up space, and using their voice.

Let the filler words come out. Let the note crack. Let yourself be human.

Speak soon,

Hillary

Ps. Tomorrow, Thursday, February 22nd please head over to your podcast player of choice and listen to Episode 86 of Good Enough-ish. I had the honor of being the guest co-host this week with Brooke Forry while her usual partner in crime Amanda Jefferson was traveling. It was a blast contributing to a show that I listen to religiously.

The Speak Up is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.