For a long time, I didn’t think of myself as someone who should be visible.
Early in my business, I was working alongside my business partner and husband. He was the technical one—the programmer, the web designer in the traditional sense.
I, on the other hand, didn’t have that kind of technical knowledge. I didn’t know HTML. I didn’t know how servers worked. I didn’t build websites line by line.
And because of that, I felt like an imposter.
I worried that if I stepped forward, if I spoke to clients, if I represented the business publicly, someone would eventually realise that I “didn’t really know enough.” That I was playing a role I hadn’t earned. That I didn’t have the right to be there.
In fact, very few women were in tech and web businesses in the mid-2000s.
So I stayed in the background. I pushed my partner to the front. It felt safer that way.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that I wasn’t lacking value — I was just measuring my worth against the wrong yardstick!
When I Decided To Show Up
At some point, a growing realisation set in: every business needs someone who can speak and be the ‘face’ of the business. Someone who can dispel the fears of business owners who were searching for ways to market using websites. Someone who can decipher complex jargon and explain things in plain, layman’s language.
And that someone could be me.
I realised I was good at talking to clients mainly because I was deeply curious about their business challenges. I could listen, articulate solutions that weren’t full of jargon and web terminology and translate complexity into something people understood. If there were gaps in my knowledge, I began learning. Back then, I trawled forums, signed up for newsletters, read books and blogs. I asked my husband when I was perplexed. I didn’t need to know everything—I just needed to know what mattered.
More importantly, I didn’t need to focus on what I wasn’t familiar with. I could focus on education and strategy – how websites could work as business and marketing tools—areas I could speak about with conviction.
That’s when I started showing up.
When Anomaly Became Asset
I began speaking at events for free. When someone spots you at an event and you’re a speaker, nine times out of ten you will get invited to be a speaker at some other event. That’s how I became a sought-after speaker. Not many women spoke at tech and web events but I did because I didn’t just speak tech, I spoke about marketing. I transformed an anomaly into an asset.
I offered a different angle which my audience found refreshing – I wasn’t talking about servers, code or better plugins, I talked about leveraging websites as marketing tools in an open, honest, educational way. I didn’t pitch and I certainly wasn’t posturing. I shared what I knew and experienced.
And something unexpected happened.
People started to trust me.
Over time, I became known as a straight-talking, authentic business owner. Someone who shared her knowledge easily and honestly. Someone who didn’t pretend to know what she didn’t—but also didn’t shrink what she did know. Speaking became the way I showed up.
Visibility Does Attract Opportunities
This visibility led to more opportunities—more invitations to speak, to moderate and to facilitate, more business and more collaborations.
Friends and clients started recommending me to their friends and again, more unusual opportunities opened up. These opportunities included being selected to fly to Hawaii for a women’s leadership program (which helped me kickstart my podcast) and being part of a select group of leaders who travelled to Washington DC, Atlanta and Seattle to learn more about trade, investment and entrepreneurship.
Another was nominated to join an ASEAN leadership program and in the process, I met many interesting leaders in the region. Or being invited to be on the board of a state agency to offer input and expertise for women’s programs related to economic empowerment.
One of my most favourite moments was the opportunity to moderate not one but two separate panel discussions where the panellists included the daughters of two Malaysian prime ministers! Last year, after speaking at a panel discussion in Phuket organized by the US State Department, more opportunities came my way. I found myself teaming up with regional platforms and networks in this region and in the US.
Why Am I Sharing This Story With You?
I am sharing my experience because I understand what you’re going through.
In fact, I started noticing this pattern among the women around me for many years now.
Many capable, knowledgeable women were holding back just like I was in the early years of my business.
Not because they lacked expertise but because they were afraid they weren’t “enough.” Afraid they didn’t have the right words. Afraid they didn’t have enough experience. Afraid of being exposed as an imposter or fraud. Afraid of saying yes because the fears were too real and heavy.
Meanwhile, the women who were visible—often not the most qualified, but the most willing to show up—were the ones getting opportunities.
I saw brilliant women passed over simply because they stayed quiet. Because they didn’t show up often enough or consistently enough. Because they’d never been encouraged or affirmed that they were allowed to show up as they were—without faking it, without pretending, without waiting to be perfect.
That’s the gap From Vision To Voice was created to fill.
The 4-week visibility program with hands-on coaching from Rowena and me is not a marketing course. It’s not another rah-rah “be confident” workshop. What it is is simply something Rowena and I built predominantly for ourselves – the program we wished we had when we started many years ago.
It’s a program to help women get clear on who they are, what they stand for, why their message matters and how to take action. You can’t get results if you don’t take action.
Because when a woman isn’t clear on who she is, she won’t feel confident showing up or taking action. She’ll second-guess her message and herself and hesitate. She’ll stay invisible—not because she lacks talent or skills but because she lacks clarity.
You Are Enough But You Need A Plan of Action
Trust me when I say this: You don’t need to have everything figured out before you’re allowed to show up.
What you actually need is to take what you already know, what you already possess and shape it into one compelling message for a clear audience. You need to understand your purpose—who you’re here to help and why your voice matters to them.
When you do that, showing up stops being about self-promotion and starts being about service.
This second cohort of From Vision To Voice happens in April for the woman who knows there is a space for her kind of visibility. One that feels comfortable, grounded and still powerful.
As coaches, Rowena and I have refined our teaching based on what truly holds women back. Clarity, coherence and then confidence. When everything clicks into place, visibility no longer feels forced and challenging.
Will you wait another year? Will you wait for our next cohort to open up? What happens in the interim? You’ll watch from the sidelines as other women step up to embrace opportunities. And you’ll again feel like you’ve lost precious moments and momentum because you didn’t take that first step.
What I want you to know that you are enough and you can show up your way just as I have showed up my way and so has Rowena.
You don’t need to become someone else. You can be yourself and still show up but you need to connect the pieces together in a way you can fully embrace.
If that’s where you are right now, From Vision To Voice opens for our second cohort this April and limited to 10 women. I’d love for you to join us. Find out more: FromVisionToVoice.com