Today, we’re diving into the powerful idea that reclaiming your voice can lead to reclaiming your power.

Our guest, Deb Shapiro, embodies this concept through her work in speaker development and nonprofit initiatives that amplify voices often silenced by trauma.

With over 15 years of experience, Deb has transformed countless personal stories into tools for empowerment, particularly for individuals impacted by sex trafficking and other forms of marginalization.

We’ll explore how she founded Debex and Amplify Voices, and the profound impact these platforms have had on helping individuals turn their pain into purpose.

Join us as we discuss the importance of storytelling and the healing power of sharing one’s truth.

You can connect with Deb on her website at: DebxTalks.com

And on her social platforms at:

FB: facebook.com/deborah.shapiro.121

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/deborah-shapiro-310a701/

A Warrior’s Spirit can be found on all the major platforms at lnk.bio/daryl_praxis33 as well as on ROKU via the ProsperaTV Network app. Be sure to like or subscribe so you never miss an episode!

The music in this video is copyrighted and used with permission from Raquel & The Joshua 1:8 project © 2025 All Rights Reserved. All rights to the music are owned by Raquel & The Joshua 1:8 project © 2025 All Rights Reserved. You can contact Raquel at https://YourGPSForSuccess.Net

I've walked through fire with shadows on my heels Scars turn to stories that taught me to feel lost in the silence found in the flame now we're my battle cry without shame this isn't the the end it's where I begin A soul that remembers the fire within.

Welcome back to another episode of A Warrior Spirit brought to you by Praxis33.

I'm your host, Darrell Snow.

Let's dive in.

Every once in a while I get the opportunity to speak to someone that is an absolute gem in the world of what they do.

I've been blessed over the last four years to speak to some very good people with great stories, but today I am thrilled and honored to have Deb Shapiro with me.

Deb believes that when people reclaim their voice, they reclaim their power.

And that is exactly what a Warrior Spirit is about.

And after more than 15 years in the speaking and leadership development space, Deb has witnessed firsthand how untold stories can quietly shape or silence a life.

A documentary highlighting her first seen graduates of Amplify Voices was also featured on Delta Airlines In Flight Entertainment.

And through her work, Deb has mentored hundreds of individuals to transform pain into purpose and lived experiences into meaningful impact.

Her approach blends both heart and and structure, helping people not only as speakers, but as more confident, capable and self aware humans.

And that is exactly what a warrior Spirit is.

And Deb, I am so honored to have you here today.

Thank you for joining me.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

It's wonderful to be here.

I don't often get to interview people who do what my show is intended to do, which is give a voice to the voiceless and turn their mess into a message.

So I'm really excited to, you know, get to speak to you on that.

Where did your journey begin?

How did you get started as a speaker and coach and what propelled you into the same message that I try to bring?

Giving the voice to the voiceless.

It's been, I guess you could call it a circuitous route.

It's been a very interesting meandering path that I've been taking, but it's been an exciting journey and each step step has seemed to produce the next step that we've needed to take.

And so my background, I've been In the first 15 years of my career, I was in human resources consulting and training and development for big corporations.

And then I ended up shifting pretty much into the speaking industry about 15 to 20 years ago as well.

And I've loved that I had an opportunity to do that by stepping in with my brother, who was also a speaker.

He left his corporate job to go into the world of keynote speaking.

We were really blessed.

And then that opened up a lot of doors for both he and I.

But the truth of the matter was where I loved to be was working with regular people who had discovered something on their own life's journey that was so profound for them that they wanted to learn how to package it up and give it away.

And they'd be meeting with me, asking me all these questions, how do I do that?

And so that's really where the speaking piece of it came from, from a professional standpoint.

But as you mentioned also in my bio, that kept going and it became more of something aligned with the warrior spirit, where the stories at first, when I stepped into debex were more about business.

And how can you accelerate the work that you're doing inside of.

Inside of your businesses?

How do you grow your causes?

How do you grow your communities?

But then I shifted my view and ended up working with historically marginalized communities, those who had been lost a voice over time from whatever circumstances that they were dealing with.

Lot of stories in that within it.

But that's kind of the high level where I really took the concept that we did inside of devex and shifted it over to a nonprofit model where we could give this, these tools away to other people and have them be able to share their stories because we saw there was so much healing on the other side of telling stories.

So I'm curious because I've known several people who are been in hr, in corporate, and rarely has their passion as a child been.

I'm going to Be an HR executive.

Not many of them grew up going, hey, Barbie, today I'm going to do your intake video form.

So how does someone go into business and.

And then end up in hr?

Yeah, that was, that was not an expected route at all.

I actually wanted to be in advertising.

That was always my dream from when I was younger.

I thought it was glitzy and kind of sexy, and I wanted to be in advertising.

And so I ended up applying for an advertising agency back in New England.

I ended up getting an interview and I get in and it was for a receptionist position.

I didn't care.

Whatever way I was able to get my foot in the door, it didn't matter to me.

And ultimately just going through.

I lost my job there twice.

Because the advertising industry is pretty volatile.

You lose clients, it goes up and down.

And in this case, my job went away twice.

The first time they floated me around the organization.

Second time they did the same thing.

But then I ended up working for the director of human resources, the senior vice president of human resources.

And good news, bad news, he liked me.

I didn't even know what HR was, but he liked me and he wanted me to stick around.

So I stayed.

And I ended up learning by a crash course what human resources was.

I didn't know what it was until I stepped into it.

And I don't even know that I really understood what it was until years later.

But it was such a beautiful journey for me.

And I was always described as being a different HR person.

I don't know if that was.

I consider that to be a good thing in that I think people were referring to being rigid policy followers.

And yes, the policies are important, but understanding the why behind it and, you know, having the power of that story behind the policy is really more important.

I think when people think of hr, they do think of the same type of individuals that sit on an HOA board, like, very rigid, enforce the rules.

Right.

And having known you for a little bit and having, you know, sat with you a few times, I can see where they would think you're, you're a different type of HR person because you are warm and caring and you do go, yes, there's structure, but you also realize that there's shades of gray within that black and white.

So that I can, I can understand that.

Now, you said your brother is, is a hall of fame speaker.

Is he?

What or who really made you want to start developing, speaking?

And so this is a twofold question because A, you're very good at what you do to Help other speakers.

I've been to your debex.

This is the Devex Amplify Voices Accelerating Change.

I've been to your final graduation for your speakers.

I've seen two sessions of that now.

And so I've seen 20 plus people who've come through your program who were not ever on the stage, who didn't really do public speaking as a profession, and really just knocked their story out of the park as if they'd been polished professionals for forever.

So what prompted you to want to do this for others?

And what is in your story that amplified your voice because you can't do what you did or are doing without a story of your own that helped you know what a good story is?

Well, just by happenstance, I mean, honestly, if you look at the history of my life, it's been very serendipitous.

And one thing just leads into the another leads into the other.

I didn't necessarily think I'd be in human resources.

I certainly didn't know or think I would be in the speaking profession, but here I am.

I did not think I would be starting a nonprofit organization, but here I am.

The speaking profession itself.

It actually was a project in a classroom that I took.

That was how debex even got started.

I knew that I wanted to create something for speakers because so many people had come to me asking, how do I tell this story?

How do I package up what it is that I've learned on my journey and give that away?

And so that gave the idea.

But it ultimately was my friend was candidated to lead a program.

So I decided, hey, I'll be your coach.

And in that program, I needed to come up with a project.

And so the project ended up being debex.

And so when we started to create it, it was one of those things that in hindsight, I was able to really understand the power of it.

You had asked about what it was that motivates me.

Well, I know that in the past I've hung out with a lot of people who are very passionate people, people who want to make a difference with the homeless, people who want to make a difference with children or saving the whales, whatever their passions might be.

And I always felt a little disconnected about that because I felt like I don't have a particular passion.

All of them were so important.

How do I pick just one of them?

And I realized in hindsight, in being able to create something like debex, where people are able to learn how to speak about what they are passionate about so that they can forward their causes, their communities, what they are up to.

I realized that I get to touch all of those causes, those communities, so I can work with the leaders of people who are working with children to help elevate their skills inside of schools.

Or I could work with the leaders of people who want to make a difference with those who are homeless.

And so I get to work with helping them elevate the skill that is most necessary, I believe, for all of us, in order to move life forward, which is the ability to.

To communicate, to influence, to use our stories in a way to help others move forward on their journeys, which is extremely insightful.

And wanting to help others get that out.

But there still had to have been something in you wanting to get out.

And yes, you had all these people around you and experiences, and you wanted to help them, which is innately who I think you are wanting to help others.

But there had to have been a message within you that you wanted to get out as well.

Otherwise, like, no one takes on this extra work just to take on this extra work.

There's something within them that wants to come out as well.

So what was your piece?

I think.

And again, a lot of this is hindsight for me.

I don't see it until after I've gone through it, but I would say I grew up in the.

What I called the Cleaver household.

Are you familiar with Leave It To Me?

Absolutely.

I was just gonna say I'm definitely dating myself here.

I'll be 61 in a couple weeks.

I know that very well.

Yeah.

The wife stays at home, the husband goes to work, and then there's the two kids.

But it's just.

It's such a beautiful, loving family.

They have dinner together.

It's just, you know.

And so that's my family that I grew up in.

I always grew up in such a loving family.

And I thought that that was normal because that was the environment that I was swimming in.

And that I didn't realize until much later was not the case for SO people.

And I. I don't know, I took for granted, for sure the safety that I had in my own home to be able to be who I was, to be able to share my honest thoughts and my own feelings, to fail and to succeed and still be loved no matter what.

And I didn't realize that that was unique.

And so for me, as I've gone through this journey, it wasn't a thing that said.

This is why I want to do this, but I've realized this is the thing that's emerged for me is creating safe spaces for individuals.

Because if you have a safe space and simple tools to be able to navigate, you can get to anywhere.

It's that safe space that I believe allows people to go to those places inside themselves that they need to in order to discover what their journey was, what their success was.

In the cases of what I do, we work with women impacted by sex trafficking and sexual assault and the formerly incarcerated, people who have dealt with major circumstances in their lives, yet the pain of their life is intended to inform the power is to inform the triumph that they've created in their lives.

And that's what we want to be able to focus on.

It's easy to go in and focus on what's not working.

There's a lot in our world, often all the time, that can be not working.

And if that's what we focus on, that's what we're going to see, that's what we're going to get.

But in this particular case, we want them to focus on, what did you learn?

Having some purpose to the pain that they have gone through so that it can make a difference for others.

Well, we're going to, we're going to take a short break and when we come back, we're going to dive deeper into your non profit side because that's where the real impact that you're having lies.

So we'll be right back after this.

So when did you realize the noise in your head wasn't actually your voice?

When I noticed every thought sounded borrowed.

Fear, pressure, old scripts just running on repeat.

That's why I listened to Breakthrough Radio.

Scripture, truth conversations that actually reset the way you think.

Breakthrough Radio.

Because what you hear shapes who you become.

Listen daily.

Welcome back to the show.

And we're sitting with Deb Shapiro.

Deb is the founder of Deb X and Amplify.

And we were starting to get into your story of helping others and finding the voice to the voiceless.

And just like a warrior spirit, when I started this podcast, I had no intentions of ever being a TV show host or a radio host or a podcaster.

And God's voice got louder.

And so eventually I had to relent and, you know, buy the camera and turn on the mic.

And here we are, you know, four years later.

But that also goes to serendipity for how life has traveled.

You know, I look back at the times I was homeless and living out of my car and doing that and you know, doing stand up comedy teaches me how to be on a stage so that later I could stand as an adjunct professor and teach, you know, college level education.

Our life always seems to be serendipitous until we look back in that hindsight and see how the hand of God has played and laid those bricks for our future.

So as you were going through your human resources experience and as you were watching your brother become, you know, the speaker he is, and then you dive into it, that allows you then to be surrounded by the people that you really want to help and do Amplify, which is your nonprofit.

And, you know, you touch a base of information.

You know, the incarcerated, the sex trafficked, the voiceless who really don't have a voice, and you encourage them to get their message out.

So what in your transition from debex said, okay, I'm going to do amplify?

It was a conversation, actually, with a friend of mine.

It was during.

During the pandemic.

And as you can imagine with our events, we do them on large stages.

We have hundreds of people who show up there, and that's certainly not something that was going to happen during the pandemic.

So we were taking a pause.

And it was in this pause that I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine.

She had just retired and was trying to figure out what was the next step on her journey.

And she knew she wanted to make a difference for young girls and women because the suicide rate was out of control.

And she was like, I just don't know how to do that.

What can I do?

Now, I happen to know her story, her background.

She actually had been abducted and trafficked at the age of 13.

And when, when this came up in the conversation, I said, hey, what if I were to teach you how to write a talk?

You never have to share it on a stage, but you have it in your back pocket in the event that you meet someone that.

That you think that your talk could make a difference with.

And it was her response, actually, that had me found amplified voices.

She throws her hands up in the air, she looks at me and she said, I can't talk about that.

And for me, that was devastating, because here I am out there in the world working with all these other people, helping them to be more powerful in their speaking and own their stories.

And here's one of my dear friends who couldn't speak about something that had happened to her over 50 years prior.

And it was that conversation, though, that planted a seed for me.

We saw in Debex that it was intended to be a speaker training program.

Give you some skills, give you the stage, give you the practice to be able to become an effective speaker.

But one of the things that was a real surprise for us was how profound of a shift every single one of our graduates had from debex.

After being able to share their authentic truth with the world, they were grounded in it.

They knew it, they owned it.

It was a different space.

They had confidence.

And I was like, wow, what is it that has people show up that way after owning their truth and being able to deliver their story in that way?

Whatever it was, it was creating a lot of power.

And so the idea was planted in that conversation with my friend, what if we were to take the tools that we have over here for debet and give them to women impacted by sex trafficking?

And it was an idea that I knew I needed to do.

I didn't know how I was going to do it, but as life would happen, all of the resources just started to.

Magically, I'm going to say magically, it felt very magical.

They all just started to appear.

Women started knocking on my door, wanting to be able to share their stories.

The Scottsdale center for the Performing Arts donated their theater, so our women were able to share their stories on a fitting theater.

And ever since then, it has been an incredible.

An incredible journey.

So that was why, though, we.

We ended up shifting it.

It was a conversation with one person who was willing to actually share her truth with me.

And the dots were able to be connected so that now, five and a half years later, we have a very successful nonprofit organization that is out there making a difference by helping people tell their stories.

Such a great thing to do.

I have been blessed to hear a lot of stories over the course of doing this.

And one of my greatest joys is when someone tells me after the recording's done and we've.

And we've finished.

I never shared any of that with anyone else before.

Or they say, you know, thank you for giving me a safe space to say what I haven't been able to say.

And that, to me, is so gratifying.

And I've watched many of them then, like you, who have then gone out and just started to rock it in their own world.

And they've started to connect with their passion and their purpose, and they've started to change the dynamics of the course of their life simply because they had an outlet to finally, safely tell that story.

And you know, it's a.

It's a shame that so many people go through.

You know, we'd all didn't get the Leave it to Beaver life and we didn't get the, you know, things that, that you were blessed to experience a lot of hardship out there and to.

To have.

To not only endure that hardship, but then never be able to speak about it.

And it's not that you want to speak about it from your victimhood.

Oh, woe is me.

This happened to me.

You speak about it to take your power back from it.

You know, my daughter was sexually abused by her mother and her stepfather after I was out of the picture.

And for four years, she endured that in silence.

And she never came to me and told me any part of it.

And I had moved away from the location she was living in, so I never got to see it firsthand.

I never got to see her devolve into the person that she had.

And I had asked her, why didn't you ever tell me?

I would have helped you out of that sooner than I did.

And she said, I had already lost one parent, I didn't want to lose another because I knew how you would react.

So I wasn't a safe space for my daughter to come in her moments.

My wife was abused as a young child, and for 50 plus years, she never shared her story with anybody because she never had a safe space to share that story.

But once she did, once she found that outlet, her life changed her ability in who she was, it no longer had the power over her.

So we don't tell these stories from victimhood.

And I've said this to friends and coaches that have been with me through this whole journey.

I don't want my show to be trauma porn.

That's not what my show is about.

Everyone has something that they've overcome.

My purpose of this show is to give them that place to tell that story so they can stand in their power and take it back from that story and become the victor in their story, not the victim of their story.

And I've told my daughter ever since.

You know, we found this out about nine, eight, nine years ago.

You can't be responsible for the hand that was dealt with you.

You can be responsible for how you play it.

And every hand is a winning hand if you play it correctly.

And so I truly believe that what you do goes beyond the picture of these people on stage.

You know, their hand isn't raised in victory because they just gave a great speech.

Their hands are raised in victory because they are no longer the victims of whatever was bringing them to your stage in the first place.

And we need to be more.

We need to be more.

Even in our differences, and especially in today's world, there's a ton of, you know, division, right?

But even in our differences, we still need to find the humanity in whatever is going on.

Because everybody, and as leave it to beaver of a life you've had, you still had stuff you had to overcome.

Everybody is going through something and we have to learn to connect with that and draw within that, to find the humanity within each other in spite of it.

So I will step off my soapbox for a moment because this is your interview, not mine.

But it really impassions me.

I actually jump in and share something that we've experienced based on just what it is you're saying is that commonality.

You know, I'm a believer that we have more in common than separate.

And if we can find those pieces of commonality, that's really where we can spark some kind of connection.

And, you know, as I mentioned before, Amplify Voices allows people simple tools to be able to help them tell their story sometimes often for the very first time.

And we started with working with women who had been impacted by sex trafficking and sexual assault.

As we continued to grow, we actually ended up getting tapped on the shoulder by the Diocese of San Diego and the University of San Diego to work with the formerly incarcerated.

And after having some conversations, we decided we were going to move forward with this.

And so in our programs, we have volunteers.

And so we have all our volunteers and all of our speakers.

We're in California, the event is going on.

They're at their graduation, delivering their talks.

They nail it.

They do such an incredible job.

All of these individuals formally incarcerated anywhere from 10 to 27 years.

They just absolutely shined on this beautiful stage.

And then afterwards, we're all out celebrating.

We're sitting at this giant table, and I looked down the table and it dawned on me that who was sitting at that table?

Goodness gracious, I'm getting a little emotional here.

Who was sitting at that table were our volunteers who were the victims of crimes?

And also sitting at that table were our speakers who were the perpetrators of crimes.

They were both sitting at the same table, loving on one another, doing selfies, giggling, high fiving, enjoying and supporting one another to see each other succeed.

The two most unlikeliest groups of people that you can ever imagine, victims and perpetrators, sitting at the same table, seeing each other's humanity in a different way.

That is what these Voices bring.

It brings a bridge between our worlds that feel so separate but really aren't.

That's why these stories are so important.

That's why what you are doing is so important, because it bridges the gap.

These stories are necessary to be told in order to create this kind of shift that we, I believe we all want to have in the world.

Well, I think if people would just remember that we've all gone through or are going through something, we can then take pause to see that humanity in.

You know, it's so frustrating when something in this country happens, whether it be a flood, a disaster, a tornado, 9, 11, whatever.

Neighbors and non neighbors come together and unify to help each other out and rebuild.

And then they go back to the fighting over the small petty differences that they think everybody has, when in fact we're all in this human experience.

And if we just take time to listen to their story, we have a capacity to understand and empathize with it, to find the humanity between the perpetrator and the perpetual or the victim.

So story is powerful and meaningful.

Story is powerful and standing in your power is powerful.

Taking your life back from whatever happened to you.

Right.

So when you're dealing with these folks and you've expanded beyond the sex trafficking and into a wide variety of things, how does that get the attention of Delta and get on their Entertainment in Flight catalog?

We're not exactly sure what the path was to get us there.

We do know that we ended up having a conversation because of the person who I had that phone call with, who start, who planted the seed.

She was retiring from Delta Airlines as a matter of fact.

So she wanted to be able to bring some, some services to Delta Airline when it came to education with sex trafficking.

And so she wanted to let the people at Delta know what it was that we were up to.

So we ended up meeting with them.

But it went away about two years.

We didn't hear anything back.

We would love to be able to consider yours.

And it was accepted.

And there we were.

So again, one of those.

We're not really sure how it came about, but you plant enough seeds with people, you get your voice out there, you tell enough people the stories that you need to tell and well, sometimes those things just happen.

That's amazingly awesome.

And those doors that open that, that you didn't expect.

You know, it's interesting because I talk about one door opening, one door closing often in my coaching profession.

But what people don't talk about, and I've started to talk about a lot more, is the hallway in between.

There's that period of quietness, stillness.

You don't know what's happening.

And sometimes it's a moment, sometimes it's two years while you're in that hallway between those doorways.

And that's where the real faith in power come.

Are you confident enough to sit in the silence, to wait patiently for the right door to open, or are you just walking down the hallway trying to open every single door that's available to you?

It's really in that dark hallway that you find your faith and have to be discerning about the next move as you're working with these individuals.

And you started off in the sex trafficking.

Is there a commonality for.

And I know that it happens for men and women, both men and women are trafficked.

It's not generic to one, but it is adversely.

Women like the scale.

Yeah, it's predominantly women, so I'm not discounting any men that it happened to.

But do you find a commonality to their circumstance, what happened, how they got there, how they got out of there?

Do you find any thread that diesel together?

I How they got there is.

They're varied, very varied stories.

But there is a similar thread.

It was something I had not been aware of when I first took this on and had the idea, let's take these debex tools and give them to women impacted by sex trafficking.

I actually didn't even know what sex trafficking was.

I had this perception that it's happening in third world countries somewhere and it's a kid in a basement.

You know, the things that we envision and it's not that at all.

It's actually in our own backyard that it's, it's.

It happens through families, fam people, drugs.

They are trying to raise money.

They don't have enough money for their drugs, so they utilize their children for that.

Or there's grooming, which is a big piece of it.

Grooming is a really.

Is the big thing that I learned about, which is over a several month period of time.

These individuals who may come from more fractured families don't have that connection, don't have that love or just somehow get connected with these individuals.

They all of a sudden feel important, they feel seen, they feel loved and slowly but surely are asked favors that put them into compromising positions.

And then before they know it, they're locked.

And then they're.

Then it becomes threats and things like that.

So the way of coming in, they're varied, but oftentimes it is through family, it is through grooming.

And, you know, each person.

If I think of the stories of the women that I've had an opportunity to work with, there's similar threads, but they're very, very, very different.

And getting out, it is.

Those stories are equally as.

As different.

We don't have all of the stories about how they've moved out.

But talk about courage, that is the one thing I would say it just.

There is a point in time where they just gain the courage to do what they need to do that they know that they need to do for themselves.

But, yeah, I don't know.

That's a really good question.

I haven't really sat and thought through it.

One thing I will say that is common through all of the.

The women that I've worked with is that they walk around with a guilt and shame.

That is something they.

They didn't even do anything wrong yet that's the impact that they have of this experience.

And so that's what the storytelling helps them to do, is to come out of the shadows because they feel like it's easier to hide.

But when you come out of the shadows and say, this is me, this is what happened to me, not add anything to it, but just say, this is me.

And what did I learn that might actually help someone else who is on a similar journey?

That's really what helps them move forward.

But the shame and the guilt is across the board with all of them that they are carrying with them.

And that's something that they're fighting, that I've noticed, at least.

I am not credit here.

I am not a sex trafficking expert.

I am a speaking coach and expert in that domain.

But at least from what I've seen from the women that I've had the real blessing of being able to work with, those are some of what I would see are some of those commonalities.

So set the sex trafficking element aside, because neither of us are professionals in that you are a professional speaker and a professional in helping others speak.

And we both know that story is one of the most powerful communication tools to have the greatest impact.

So if somebody's looking to have impact from their story, and you know this from doing what you do, and I know it from doing what I do, people would rather jump off a roof than get on a stage like they will Stand and take selfies all day long and do TikTok videos of them walking through the grocery store.

Grocery store.

But actually getting on the stage and doing a speech, suddenly they don't know what a camera is or a microphone.

So how would you say someone who has a story in them but still has that fear, how would you say they go about maybe not getting on a stage to tell their story, but at least finding their voice?

How do they go about that?

That's a great question.

And by the way, I do not advocate that everybody share their story from a stage that is not necessarily what calls to everyone.

One of our values is go only as far as you're called to go.

The people who are choosing to do that is.

That's what they're choosing to do.

But start small.

First of all, just knowing that you have something that you want to share is usually a good motivator.

So looking at what is the message that I have discovered over the course of my journey, of my life, look at.

You can look at some of the tough things.

You don't have to go deep into it, but just go, where are the biggest challenges in my life and what were the biggest lessons that I've learned from that?

And actually sit with some of those lessons.

That's where you can just start by seeing what you can contribute to others.

Now, just because you see what you have to contribute, that definitely helps with your confidence, right?

You need to know you have something to offer to others in order to be able to stand on that stage confidently.

But there's also things within our own nervous system that we need to tend to as well, because it's not always a conscious process.

It's in our subconscious.

And so doing any of those kinds of activities that can help you ground your body, we do inside of debex and in Amplify we do visualizations.

If you can visualize the end result of it and you can visualize it in a way that is going successfully and you can do that over and over and over again, eventually your body just sees that as what's.

So it's what all professional athletes do.

They visualize the ball as they are shooting it and visualizing their stroke.

It may not be exactly the same.

I know that I've been looking at studies for that.

But it's not going to change you necessarily your physical body, but it absolutely will increase your ability by putting in those reps, even just visualizing.

We had a woman who came into on that stage actually in the picture that you had up There she was actually an attorney.

She was a partner in a law firm, and absolutely, believe it or not, terrified to do public speaking if she spoke in front of more than two people.

She needed to take.

She needed to take a pill for that in order to ground her.

And so she wanted to be able to come in, to be able to speak more effectively and more powerfully and tell her story.

And we went through the whole process, and one, she was able to own her story after she was able to tell it and therefore gain that kind of confidence she needed.

We went through, and she was very good about doing the visualizations and that those activities she needed to do.

And the day that we get to the stage, it is.

I hear her name announced.

She's standing there looking at me.

And she said.

I looked at her, I said, are you ready?

And she's like, yes, I am.

And I didn't even need to take a pill.

And she walks out onto that stage, she nails it.

There's hundreds of people there.

And wouldn't you know, she was so lit up that when she got on the plane on the way home, she was actually invited to speak at another event.

So she was just being this beaming light of wanting to share herself where before that, if it was any more than two people, she was shut down.

Needed to medicate herself in order to make that happen.

And so there are things that we can do, own our story, be able to get comfortable with that and owning it.

And then also, the last piece is find a safe person, just one someone that you can talk to.

It could be a therapist, somebody not even in your family or circle, or it could be somebody in your family or circle, but create a safe space for you to begin to talk about those messages in a way where you can gain a little bit of confidence, a little bit of muscle, and you can get out there and be powerful in your speaking.

And as you said, the goal for most people isn't to get on a stage, but, you know, it's like sitting around a campfire.

You have to be able to share a story, you know, with those that are around you.

And if you want to have any kind of impact, you have to be able to tell it effectively.

And that takes confidence in what you're saying.

A lot of my clients come to me and they're like, well, there's so many other people doing this, or there's so many other people saying that or whatever.

And I tell them, go to a bread aisle in any grocery store, there's 30 different types of bread.

They're all sliced and in plastic bags, but somebody's buying each one of those.

You know, your voice can only be heard by certain people.

My wife and I'll have a conversation and I will impart my wisdom in a husbandly way.

And then she'll go to her therapist and she'll come home and say, Dr. D said this, this, and this.

And I'm like, I think I pretty much said that same thing.

Can I have the hundred dollars now?

Because like, but we hear it from a different voice and it resonates differently to us.

So your story, your message, your impact can only come from you.

You and I can say the exact same words, and five different people that we say it to will hear it five different ways.

So your, your, your message is there for a purpose, to, to help somebody get through their own mess because you got through yours.

Yeah, we.

It's so funny when we go through a debex, people oftentimes are like, oh, I have to change my message because that message is too much like my message and have it.

I can't have it.

And I'm like, don't change course because I promise you, while your messages may have a similar thread, how you tell it, your story, your experience of it is uniquely different.

And that's what we're trying to get out there because not everybody resonates with everybody's story, right?

That's why we have these different stories.

It's like a kaleidoscope.

Each person fits a different piece of that beautiful picture.

And so it's finding those stories that resonate with us as well.

And in the 17 years that you've been helping people find their message and do their story and share their passion and purpose, what has been your greatest success story for you?

How has it impacted you the most?

I'm taking a second here because it's just been, please do whirlwind and such a beautiful journey of so many things that have been happening.

The, the, The successes for me are the, the small, more day to day type things where people can go back and say, hey, I was able to use this in my relationship with my, with my uncle because we haven't talked in a while or I wanted to influence somebody at work or whatever that is.

There's, I mean, my gosh, we've had so many wonderful accolades, but it's the people who have continued to ripple.

I'll say this, this is probably up there for me.

I told the story before of sitting at that table and seeing two disparate groups Coming together.

For me, that was definitely a pinnacle moment of my career, to see humanity in that way.

But what is really exciting for me now is we have partnered with a large insurance company who donated their training and development company to us at Amplify, so that we could take the work that I do, the training materials that I've created, and put it into what we call a train, the trainer, so that we could keep the ripple effect going.

And just two weeks ago, we have 10 women who are graduates of our programs who are being trained to be facilitators of the work that we do.

And as of just two weeks ago, I got to watch those 10 women for the first time, see other people delivering the content that I've been delivering all these years.

And to actually see it being birthed in a new way, to know that God forbid something should happen to me and I am pulled in another direction, that this can continue on, that it's no longer dependent upon me, but that there's something that's been birthed here that wants to continue on.

Because I think that God knows that this is what's needed in the world, these kinds of voices.

And so we've been given all of these beautiful gifts along the way.

But to actually see it be birthed in this way is pretty cool.

That's very.

Congratulations, for sure.

I was fortunate enough to meet you and your husband.

How long have you been married?

We've been together for eight years.

He's my fiance.

Say so.

So.

But who knows?

You know, we're just past Valentine's Day when this airs.

You never know.

You might.

Might have something there.

But.

So my question is, who were you?

Because that means he's seen a vast majority of your journey in this.

He didn't really know you as an HR person.

So who were you?

Who is Deb today than she was 12 years ago?

As an HR person.

I'm going to say I am much more grounded.

My nickname was Tigger when I was younger.

I had a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm, which is great.

I didn't have any issue with that.

But today I'm different.

I'm much more grounded.

I don't know if this comes with age, but I care a little bit less about what other people think, which maybe, Darrell, you can relate.

It's such a blessing in life to not have those.

Those handcuffs of constraints in our own mind about how we're supposed to be or what we're supposed to do.

So a Lot of those shoulds.

As one of my speakers says, I don't should on myself as much as I used to do.

So I have a lot more, a lot more freedom in that regard.

But I am the same starry eyed person who wanted to be able to make a difference back there in hr.

I loved that I could help people make their day a little bit better, make it run a little bit smoother.

And today I'm the same way.

I like the fact that I have an opportunity to make somebody's life run a little bit better, a little bit smoother with what it is that I do.

So outside of Amplify and Devex, which are definitely going to be a voice that carry beyond Deb, what do you want the rest of your legacy to be?

I would say the legacy that I would like to leave outside of that, that's a pretty big.

I was always thinking that's the legacy right there.

But outside of that.

Is that Deb Shapiro was someone who loved deeply, who lived heartily, like sucked the marrow out of life, so to speak speak, and did everything she could.

All those things, check them off the list while here to live a good life for herself and help those around her live a good life as well.

I'm smiling because anyone who watches this will will see it.

But those who had to just listen to it on Spotify or their podcast audio, they won't get to see the absolute joy and smile that was on your face as you were thinking of that answer because you were reflecting upon your life and the wild ride that you're going to give your future that's going to create your legacy.

And it was just, it was really fun to watch that come across your face as you were doing it.

So those who listen to this on audio, go back and watch it because it was really a cool moment.

And you know, I just wanted to acknowledge that because the joy came right over in your eyes and in your face as you were thinking of that answer.

So as we kind of run to an end, you're now birthing Amplify into a way to have more impact.

As a individual we have impact, but as a collective we have more impact.

And you're, you're amplifying your Amplify voice to be able to do that.

Where do you see it in the next three to five years?

Well, the definitely in three years that is going to be a place where Amplify is going to be self sufficient.

We'll be able to be running our speaker circles and supporting different individuals, men and Women and helping them be able to share their stories.

I will be able to.

I don't know where I'm going to go because as my life has always taken me, I'd never see the next step until I take that step that's right in front of me to take.

But as soon as I take that step, then it becomes really clear.

So when people ask me the question, you know, where do you see yourself in three to five years?

Well, I know we're going to keep going in this direction because everything is indicating to me that this is where we want to go.

But ultimately, I don't know.

I guess I'm going to leave it up to the great unknown for me to discover what that is.

I go through different phases.

I'm in a place right now where I'm figuring out what is next for Deb beyond Amplify.

And I know that I'll be able to really ask that question after this year.

And I suspect I'll have some exciting answers to share with you.

So maybe I'll come back and share what those are afterward.

This door will always be open.

I want to ask you two last questions in your speaker platform.

Debex.

I'm just curious, do you find that it's easier for men or women to get on that stage and share their voice?

I don't know that I've actually noticed a difference.

We tend to get about 70% women coming into our program.

As far as Debex is concerned, 30% men.

I don't know what that is about.

Actually.

More women are speakers than there are men, statistically.

So it's interesting to have that be well, I guess that would.

Would reflect that as well.

But as far as difficulty in sharing themselves, I'm going to say this.

Once you are in the soup of a safe space, I don't know if it matters if you're male or you're female.

Everybody's got something that is a challenge for them, whatever it is for them.

And once you're in that soup of the safe space, it's easier to be able to step in and share whether you're male or female or whatever.

Yeah, I've never noticed that.

It's an interesting question, though.

Yeah.

I was just curious how often which get in the soup, like, which is easier to jump in, men or the women?

I'm going to ask you one final question.

I ask it to all my guests.

What does a warrior spirit mean to Deb Shapiro?

A warrior spirit is that life just does what life does and that you are powerful no matter what, in the face of any of those circumstances, as you move through it, trust that it will all work out and absolutely just go for it.

Well, I appreciate your warrior spirit and your heart and I appreciate all that you do for all those around you who are trying to find their safe space and their voice.

So thank you for joining me today and I really appreciate you.

Deb thank you, Darrell.

Thanks for having me.

I appreciate it.

And if you'd like to get a hold of Deb, you can do so on our website@devxtalks.com and on our social platforms, Facebook and LinkedIn.

And as always, thank you for joining us on this edition of A Warrior Spirit.

Be sure to like or subscribe so you catch all the episodes.

You can tune in on all the major platforms as well as on Roku via the Prospera TV app.

And remember, the journey is sacred.

The warrior is you.

So be inspired, be empowered and embrace the spirit of the warrior within.

It's how we rise from it.

Sam.