Sandra Joseph ______

Sandra Joseph _________________ The Voice of the Heart When eight-year-old Sandra Joseph saw told myself that going forward, no matter how the limp Christmas stocking dangling by the afraid I felt, I was going to show up and figure out fireplace, she thought Santa Claus hadn’t come. a way to do this thing that I love.” But when she reached her hand inside and drew From that moment on, Sandra moved out a ticket to the musical Annie, her heart filled differently through moments of fear, focusing with the kind of happiness that takes a lifetime to instead on the love that propelled her. And in that fully grasp. The show was in February, and she commitment, she found a courage that carried her eagerly crossed off the passing days on her farther than she ever thought she’d go—from the calendar in magic marker. And on the night of the bottom half of a small duplex in Detroit to New performance, as she listened to the voice of the York City, and from performing only for the orphan ring pure and brave through the theater, stuffed animals on her bed to being the longest- Sandra heard another voice—the running leading lady in the voice of her heart. “I knew longest-running Broadway show immediately that that’s what I of all time, The Phantom of the wanted to do,” she remembers Opera. Now a keynote speaker today. “I wanted to be up there inspiring audience after audience acting and singing just like that to listen to the voice of the heart little girl.” when making the age-old choice But Sandra was a shy, between love and fear, she knows insecure child who feared the she would not be here today had spotlight. She felt the inner she not made that promise to conflict of her introverted nature herself at ten years old. “There wrestling with her dream, and are still so many times where I’m believed she’d never be able to go given opportunities that feel too on stage. She felt a glimmer of big for me,” she acknowledges. hope, however, when her fifth grade music teacher “Even though I’m afraid, I say yes every time. If I held private tryouts for a solo during the school’s show up and give it my all, it’s a success no matter Christmas concert. “Mrs. Maters was a sweet what happens out there.” teacher who had a way of making everyone feel But the key to true success, as she defined safe,” Sandra recounts. “I sang in front of her, and it, was figuring out how to bring along her own she gave me the solo.” authentic presence in those moments of courage But on the night of the concert, peaking and showing up. The Tibetan phrase for authentic inside the gym doors and seeing the big crowd, presence is ‘wangthang,’ which literally translates Sandra panicked. She told Mrs. Maters she to ‘field of power.’ “You can access your field of couldn’t do it, begging her to give the part to power through listening to the voice of your someone else. The teacher complied, but as Sandra heart,” she says. “But it took a long time—and a lot stood in the risers watching a classmate sing the of encouragement from my dad—for me to let solo she had practiced over and over in her myself really listen to what mine was saying.” bedroom, a profound sense of regret washed over Sandra was born and raised in Detroit, her. “It was a defining moment for me,” she says. where her father managed a car dealership and her “At the age of ten, I understood that when you mother took care of the home. He loved being quit before you try, you have to live with that around Sandra and her older sister, Monica, and regret and feeling of failure—all the things I was would do whatever he could to make them laugh. afraid I might feel if I got out there and blew it. I He performed magic tricks to entertain the Sandra Joseph neighborhood kids, and on evenings after the rest because she could hit the high note with such of the family had gone to bed, he and Sandra gusto. More importantly, he loved when her cast would stay up late having heart-to-hearts. “We’d mates, director, or crew would come up to tell him be watching a movie, and he’d turn off the TV and what a lovely person she was to work with. “He ask me what was going on in my life,” she was so incredibly supportive and encouraging, remembers. “He wouldn’t settle for ‘nothing wanting me to do whatever it was that made me much.’ He was genuinely interested, and that’s all happy,” Sandra reflects. “But he always made it a kid wants, right? It was so incredible to have clear to me that what mattered most was the kind parents that saw the best in me and loved me no of human being I was. From an early age, he matter what, even if I failed. He was my hero.” instilled in me that making your contribution to Growing up in the bottom half of a small the world is not only about what you do, but about two-bedroom duplex, Sandra and Monica shared a how you do it—what kind of person you are.” double bed when they were little. “We fought like In thinking what kind of person she all siblings do when we were kids, but my sister is wanted to be, it was important to Sandra to be able my soulmate,” Sandra says. “She is all heart – just to support herself in life, and she was eager to get an immensely loving person. Of my peers, she had her feet wet in the working world. She got a job as the biggest influence on me growing up, by far.” a receptionist at a hair salon when she was fifteen, Their father came from an incredibly large balancing her work obligations with school and Lebanese family, and over a hundred of their theater rehearsals. “I’m forever grateful to my relatives lived in the Detroit area, so Sandra grew mom, who taught my sister and me the up feeling surrounded by a loving tribe. importance of balance. There’s so much emphasis Sandra’s father loved theater and was an in our culture on working hard that we sometimes actor himself before the girls were born, forget the importance of laughing, having a good performing in local plays around Detroit until time, and just enjoying life. My mom is one of the fatherhood claimed his free time. At home, he most quick-witted, naturally funny people you’ll would point out movie scenes to his young ever meet. She brings the fun wherever she goes,” daughters, making sure they recognized especially Sandra reflects. “ poignant expressions in the eyes of Paul Newman Going to college out of state was not an or Marlon Brando. He would play Frank Sinatra option financially, so Sandra decided to attend and Nat King Cole albums in the basement, Michigan State University for the plethora of teaching them an appreciation for the crooners. options it afforded. At seventeen, she was too But he never pushed his daughters to perform— afraid to dare allow herself to consider performing rather, it was an innate love that drove each to the as a career, but she had no idea what else to stage. pursue. She considered hotel and restaurant The Josephs moved to a home in the management but opted to major in suburbs when Sandra was in fifth grade. She lost communications, all the while taking voice lessons three of her four grandparents through her middle with a talented professor, Meredith Zara, who had school years, marking a particularly trying time for spent two decades traveling Europe as an opera the family. In high school, Monica started singing star. “As I started learning what my instrument and doing shows, and when she landed her first could do, my confidence grew,” she says. “I lead in a musical, she told Sandra they’d let her started realizing maybe I had something I could into the chorus without auditioning if she just use. But I certainly wasn’t thinking I’d move to showed up after school. It was Sandra’s very first New York and become a Broadway star. That was musical. nowhere in my reality. I took it one day and one When Sandra was sixteen, her school challenge at a time, seeing how far it could take announced that the musical that year would be me.” Annie, so she started voice lessons with a mother in After college, Sandra moved to the mecca the neighborhood who had a background in opera. of musical theatre, New York City. She knew the Sandra landed her first leading role, a full-circle odds of making it as a singer were despairingly moment that would have made her eight-year-old miniscule, but her father encouraged her to go to self glow. Her success made her father glow as the Big Apple with a time limit. “He told me to well, but not only because her acting was stellar or give it five years and see what happened,” she Profiles in Success: Inspiration from Executive Leaders in the Washington D.C. Area says. “If it didn’t work out, I could always come dismiss eighteen of us based solely on how we home, but at least I would have given it my best looked,” she remembers.

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