My journey so far....

February 25, 2019 by Sarah Tucker from Affinity Mortgages & The Voice

One of the first things people ask me now is “when did you first realise you could sing?”. The truth is, I didn’t. I knew I loved to sing, but my ego always got in the way of whether I thought I could. I relied solely on other people’s opinion for that. So my answer always is “I first realised I could sing when I sang at a school talent show at age 17, having been encouraged to do so by my music teacher at the time”. Prior to that show my Mum and Dad, who I was and still am extremely close to, had never heard me. My Dad remembers hearing me once when I was younger singing The Little Mermaid’s “ahhhhh” chant into an echo microphone. He was in another room and I remember him shouting out asking if I was watching TV or whether that was me, and it was me. I loved to emulate singers when I was young – usually Mariah Carey or Disney Princesses. But even then at a very young age I didn’t want anyone to hear me practising. The only person I sang with was my cousin and we used to sing as loud as we could with the music insanely loud to drown us out. We’d usually get told off for doing it! When my family first saw me on a stage we all banked it as a lifelong memory. It was emotional and something we still talk about now. They were in shock! I got such a boost of confidence from their reactions but it quickly evaporated when I then entered a local competition and got rejected at the first audition. I used to go to the TV talent shows every year and I came very close once at age 23, but eventually my friends and family lost faith in the industry and I stopped trying.

Like many other people I have always cared way too much about what people think of me. However, within me there has always been a secret knowledge that I came back to again and again. I went to see a clairvoyant when I was 16 and she said to me “you will sing on a big stage and be a star but you are going to have so many knockbacks. So many. But you will get there”. It stayed with me for life. As I have said to many students in schools recently, I would love to be that voice to the youth of today!

To me “so many knockbacks” meant 5 rejections maybe? A few years? Never would I have believed it would take me 17 years of them to get to where I am today. Was it worth it? Yes. Would I do it again? Absolutely. I have lived a life before this moment happened to me. I have 2 beautiful children, a wonderful husband, I have gone through postnatal depression, a missed miscarriage and I know how to sing from a place of emotion. Having a Disney childhood was the best gift in the world but it couldn’t gift me what I needed to be able to sing from a place of meaning and ultimately touch people with my voice. Now I know my singing journey is bigger than me. My children, Sienna and Joshua, are watching me and learning so much from this experience. Ultimately I get so excited when I think of them watching their Mummy live their dream. Because what does it mean for them if they know that dreams are achievable, and life is limitless? They can do whatever they want and chase their own paths no matter what age they are and what obstacles are in their way. They can work out what it is that lights them up and make sure their life is centred around that thing. Sienna knows I believe in the law of attraction, angels, crystals (but more on that later!). She watched me call in The Voice 2019 experience into my life. She saw my mood board on the fridge, she saw me watching old auditions, she heard me singing “in my blood” thousands of times, she joined me uploading random singing videos in my kitchen to social media. She saw me imagine it and she joined me in pretending I had got 4 turns at home. And then she saw me walk on that stage in front of all those cameras and she watched me sing the song she’d heard thousands of times once more when it counted the most. She watched our role plays happen in REAL LIFE as we call it. And she saw her Mummy double over in shock, elation and happiness. How does that shape you as a person? If you know at your very core DREAMS CAN COME TRUE. THAT is why I wouldn’t change a thing. I cannot wait to see the ripple effect, not just in my children but in people all around me. This is bigger than me and this is just the beginning!

To get in touch with the team or Sarah at Affinity Mortgages please call 01702 337003 or info@affinity-mortgages.co.uk