Connect and Change Your World With Inspired Speaking
Lucy Cornell
Connect and
Connect and Change Your World With Inspired Speaking Lucy Cornell Published by Voice Coach
Table of
Contents
Published in 2012 by Voice Coach Studio 603, 75 King Street Sydney NSW 2000 Phone +612 9299 7978 Email
[email protected] Copyright © text 2012 Lucy Cornell Copyright © stock images iStockPhoto.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copies of this book are available for sale by contacting the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-646-57331-1 Printed on Knight Smooth (FSC Certified, Elemental Chlorine Free pulp) Printed in Australia. Publication design and artwork by Surveillance www.surveillance.net.au
www.voicecoach.net
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Objective—Get connected and inspire . ............................................................................................................... 2 Your preparation . .......................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Section 1—Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach . ........................................................ 6 Three models for Inspired Speaking .................................................................................................................... 7 Your voice in the world .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Model 1—The Connected Voice ....................................................................................................................... 11 Model 2—The Inspirational Voice . ................................................................................................................... 14 Model 3—Speaking Fundamentals: ABVS technique .................................................................. 15 Case study: Dr Martin Luther King, Jr I Have A Dream
............................................................. 16 Section 2—Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach .......................................... 18 Part 1—Finding your Inner Voice .......................................................................................................................... 19 Your Inner Voice explained .................................................................................................................................... 19 Practical exercises ........................................................................................................................................................ 20 Case study: The spirit of your message .................................................................................................... 22 Case study: Finding your Inner Voice .......................................................................................................... 23 Part 2—Developing your Literal Voice ............................................................................................................ 24 Your Literal Voice explained ................................................................................................................................. 24 The working dimensions of the Literal Voice ........................................................................................ 28 Practical exercises ........................................................................................................................................................ 33 Case study: Being connected and inspiring using the ABVS technique . ................... 55 Part 3—Connecting with your Mythical Voice ........................................................................................ 57 Your Mythical Voice explained ........................................................................................................................... 57 Practical exercises ........................................................................................................................................................ 60 Case study: Elevating a standard business presentation ......................................................... 63 Inspiring your audience ................................................................................................................................................. 64 From page to stage ...................................................................................................................................................... 64 Rehearsal ............................................................................................................................................................................... 66 Warming up . ........................................................................................................................................................................ 68 Stagecraft .............................................................................................................................................................................. 68 Summary—Courage to connect . .......................................................................................................................... 70 Step into the spotlight ................................................................................................................................................ 70 Next steps ............................................................................................................................................................................. 71 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................................................... 72 Speaking Fundamentals: e-Learning Module . ......................................................................................... 73 Lucy Cornell biography ...................................................................................................................................................... 74
Connect and Inspire
Acknowledgements Having trained in the use of the speaking voice for performance for over 20 years across Australia, USA and the UK, it is with deep respect that I acknowledge the teachers and artists, who have taught and inspired me. The Arts community is one of idea sharing and idea evolution and without the often unrecognised creative genius of this community and its so many wonderful teachers, my own practice would not exist. I would like to acknowledge the generations of teachers, who have inspired and taught me. I have attempted to thoroughly acknowledge their work in this book. If I have overseen this, I offer my apologies in advance. It is with great appreciation that I specifically acknowledge my teacher Kristin Linklater, Professor in Voice at Columbia University in New York and Isobel Kirk, Master Linklater teacher in Australia and the body of work of Iris Warren from which their teaching has evolved and in which I am trained. The Linklater technique is one of the most sophisticated speaking voice techniques in the world. Acknowledgement also goes to Cicely Berry, Voice Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK for her inspiration and rigorous exploration of voice and word.
thank you
The Voice Coach Approach has been developed through 10 years of training in voice techniques including the Linklater technique. I have spent a further 10 years applying and adapting these techniques and philosophies into the business environment globally. That environment presents particular challenges and needs and the techniques in this book have been crafted to meet them. The Voice Coach Approach is designed for a fundamental understanding of the spoken voice. It specifically focuses on working with the untrained, business speaker, who is required to have a public voice in their business. A deeper understanding of the individual voice is best served in face-to-face training. For more detailed and intensive training, it is essential that you work with Lucy Cornell, the Voice Coach e-Learning Module: Speaking Fundamentals or a Voice Coach recommended practitioner, who can guide you through practitioner-led techniques for vocal freedom. See www.voicecoach.net for more details. A list of recommended practitioners is also detailed at the end of the book. Without support from key individuals, Voice Coach would not be where it is today. Particularly, I would like to acknowledge Ben Katekar, Kelly Brockhoff, Nichole Stringer, Charles and Kay Cornell and Sascha and Jon Millin for their business support and advice; Ben Katekar and Ian Carroll for their editing prowess; James Armstrong from Surveillance Creative for the inspiring design and production of this book; Joshua Murray Design for brilliant branding and website design; and Edweana Wenkart and the Tsuki team for their public relations support. 1
Connect and Inspire
Connect and Inspire
Objective
It is common for most untrained speakers to disconnect from the experience of speaking in public by speaking on autopilot, not really seeing the audience or just wanting to get to the end as fast as possible. Speaking in public is not about finishing your talk or simply speaking the words. It is about connecting and inspiring.
Get connected and inspire Andrew was the Chief Financial Officer of a global bank and due to speak at their annual results presentation. His audience was a mix of journalists, shareholders and clients, who were keen to hear about the status of the business, which had, in recent years, done badly. For Andrew and the bank, the stakes at this presentation were high. We rehearsed together in the presentation space a few days before he was due to speak. Up he got on stage behind his lectern and, in the most monotone of voices, intoned: “It’s been a wonderful year for the bank.” After a moment of shock, I responded:
“Stop!” We both laughed. It was a perfect confusion of words and vocal expression in opposition. What ensued was a valuable conversation about the role of a speaker. It concluded with his resolution that:
Being a speaker in public is about connecting and inspiring. 2
Many people are often surprised, afraid and even overwhelmed to be speaking for their job. This book is for anyone who uses their voice for speaking in a professional way: from CEO’s to school teachers; presenting at a conference, chairing a meeting, arguing your opinion with stakeholders, pitching to clients, updating or inspiring your team. No matter what level of professionalism you are at, revealing your voice publicly requires courage and commitment to the task. The journey is personal. For business professionals specifically, there is limited or no training provided within a business or in an academic education for this energetically demanding task. However, the expectation at the senior levels and certainly Chief level roles (CEO, CFO, etc.) is to be the ‘voice’ for the business. You are expected to be able to communicate, to build relationships with and to inspire employees, shareholders and clients to invest in a vision: to connect and inspire. Training is an essential element for any professional, who assumes the role of expressing themselves in public. Consider actors, musicians, athletes or artists. The landscape of performance is complex. Mastering your body, breath, voice, intellect and emotions in response to an audience takes years of training, particularly for the high level of performance required, for example, for an elite athlete, Shakespearean actor, jazz musician. For the general business speaker, however, the basic skills of performance and voice are essential. This book explores the Voice Coach Approach by weaving together two models:
1 The Connected Voice model; and 2 The Inspirational Voice model. It will then approach these models practically with the ABVS technique, inviting you to apply them to an actual speaking situation. The goal is not about imposing a voice, but to reveal your natural expressivity and personality: to give you some skills to connect with authenticity, to have fun and find the ease of being you as you speak in public. When you connect your thoughts, feelings, voice and body with your audience, then you can be inspirational. Connect to your story. Connect to yourself. Connect to your audience.
Connect and inspire.
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Your
Preparation As you work through this book, it will be valuable to apply the exercises to an actual (or fictional) speaking moment. For this, you will need some basic preparation: 1 Ideally, have a speech in mind that you are going to present. 2 Find out as much as you can about your audience and the space you will be presenting in.
3 Know the general direction of your content. 4 Begin with an open mind and be wary of limiting your ideas with judgment or self-doubt. Everything is possible at this creative end of the game.
5 Be prepared to work practically through the voice and breath work. For this, you will need a clear space, where you will not be interrupted by anyone and you can feel free enough to move around and make sound.
6 Be prepared to confront some assumptions you have about your voice and your right to speak.
7 Mark Twain said that it takes three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech! Give yourself time and space to find inspiration, create, explore, write, rehearse and then finally perform. It won’t take three weeks, but it will require more than three minutes.
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Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Section 1
Theory
Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Three models
for Inspired Speaking Your voice in the world The truth is your voice can change your world. It is a rare privilege to have the right to express yourself and to claim your voice in your world. For many of you reading this book, you will have this privilege as a result of your birth, education and upbringing or perhaps through determination and sheer hard work. The question now is: “What are you doing with your right to speak?” Your voice has the power to move people into action and influence their hearts and minds. It can bring warmth to loved ones, re-inspire businesses, re-shape communities and heal nations. The power of the voice can be witnessed in the astounding sociopolitical shifts of 2011 in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and Libya, which came from the raising of a communal voice— the Arab Spring. At the extreme end, the power of the human voice can be seen in the courage of individuals, who have dared to speak up for human rights. With a strong desire and unbelievable courage they dared to raise their voice against oppression and seemingly insurmountable conflict.
>> Martin Luther King—Leader in the African American Civil Rights Movement 1960s. >> Nelson Mandela—Anti-Apartheid activist and President of South Africa 1994–1999. >> Mahatma Gandhi—Led India to Independence in 1943 with an inspiring philosophy of non-violence.
>> Takarwal Sarman—2011 Nobel Peace Prize Winner for speaking up for women’s rights in Yemen.
>> Malalai Joya—Activist and former politician in Afghanistan, who publicly denounced warlords within the newly installed Afghani Parliament in 2007.
>> Aung San Suu Kyi—Unofficially elected leader of Myanmar (Burma), suppressed under house arrest for 15 years and winner of multiple peace prizes including a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. 7
! a a a a a a a a
Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Having an expressive voice is your birthright The skills required to express yourself, connect and inspire are, in fact, natural to everyone. The problem is that most adults have lost access to their natural, vocal expressivity. Babies and toddlers are a good reminder of how expressive our voices can be; a full range connected to our emotional and intellectual needs. And, we were all babies once. At around three years, we learn to ‘pull it together’, ‘be quiet’, ‘tone it down’, ‘big boys don’t cry’, ‘little girls speak sweetly’, ‘toughen up, princess’. Here is the birth of the civilized voice; a less authentic expression of you and shaped by psychological and emotional learnings that we adopt in order to survive within our society. Over time, these learned behaviours, that limit the freedom of your voice, compound. So the voice you inhabit as an adult in business finds it hard to express you inspirationally, emotionally and authentically. This will be discussed in more detail in the section called ‘Your vocal rites of passage’. To be expected to simply step up and inspire a client or, to connect to 300 delegates at a conference, is not immediately accessible to many. The good news is that it is a deeply embedded basic human instinct inside us all.
How wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul. The intellect of man sits enthroned, visibly, on his forehead and in his eye. And the heart of man is written on his countenance, but the soul reveals itself in the voice only. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Model 1—The Connected Voice One voice can change a room. And if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city. And if it can change a city, then it can change a state. And if it can change a state, then it can change a nation. And if it can change a nation, then it can change the world. Your voice can change the world. Barack Obama
When your spirit is stimulated by a desire, you are inspired. This breath then picks up the energy of your desire to release it out on your voice. This gives you the opportunity to change your world around you: your partner, your family, perhaps your business community, your country or even the entire globe. Over recent decades, leadership styles have shifted from the directive, achievementdriven 80s to the personal, evolution revolution of the 90s and now a spiritual revolution in the new millennium. In this, we see the uprising of executive coaching and the permission to use concepts like ‘presence’, ‘gut instinct’ and ‘meditation’ in the corridors without being scoffed at.
Reclaim your authentic voice
These days, having a voice as a leader depends on connection and authenticity.
Listen for the times your authentic, expressive voice comes to life: at a sporting event, singing in the shower, rumbling with your kids or playing with your dog at the park. The natural voice is spontaneous and responds to playfulness and freedom.
As vocal styles mirror culture, an authentic, connected voice in leadership is highly valued.
In order to reclaim your authentic voice, you need to disarm from your physical, psychological and emotional protective mechanisms and tap into your internal power, voice, spirit, energy and intuition. Mostly people are numb to the behaviours that inhibit their voice and that stop them accessing their fertile, inner, energetic world. The first step is to become sensitive to these behaviours and then undo the ones that are limiting your self-expression. Having an authentic voice depends on revealing yourself and being vulnerable. This may be a daunting thought. However, take solace that vulnerability is strength. It is where you are not conflicted by your protection mechanisms and where you can hear clearly and respond truthfully. It is where you can share. It is when you connect and COMMUNE-icate.
An authentic voice is your birthright. It is a true expression of your energy and spirit: your authentic self. It is a fully expressed and resonant voice. It has no affectation and is not constrained by physical, emotional or psychological tensions. The best speakers connect their intellect, imagination and emotions to the audience’s intellect, imagination and emotions for a desired outcome. The most exhilarating moment for a trained speaker is the moment of connection: the moment when the speaker and the audience are connected to the experience. The message being expressed is shared and the audience is changed or inspired as a result. This is the foundation of The Connected Voice model.
Consider speaking as your chance to change your world. Here is your moment to step into this responsibility. Grab the opportunity. Elevate your purpose. Your voice can change the world. Begin your ripple.
Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. Oscar Wilde
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Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
The Connected Voice
Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Diagram 1 The Connected Voice model
The connection between the speaker and the audience is dependent on:
1 The freedom of your breath; and 2 The agility of your voice. Your voice and breath are the messengers for your thoughts, feelings and imagination and are what transform your audience. Humans are energetic beings. By your own experience, you will know that your energy is changed by both internal and external energetic influences such as: music, other people, emotions, imagination, ideas, stress, etc.
Body Emotions Intellect Imagination
voice and breath
In a simple definition, your voice is vibration carried out by your breath. So, how can this invisible energy of your voice, possibly inspire others?
Body Emotions Intellect Imagination Breath Voice
Connection through breath Firstly, consider the two meanings of the word inspiration:
1 To breathe into or upon; and 2 To be stimulated by an idea: ‘A flash of inspiration’. The word inspiration means that your thoughts and feelings literally breathe/inspire you. As humans, we have an innate ability to empathize on a deep cellular level. So, when you breathe, your audience mirrors you and they will also breathe. You literally inspire them.
Connection through voice The vibrations of the voice are triggered, in part, by your breath and by your desire to speak. They carry your intellectual and emotional energy from your internal private world out to the public sphere. Your audience then receives them by hearing and feeling them. In this exchange lies the potential to change our state. How? By way of analogy, you have the capacity to do what crystal glasses do when you tune one crystal glass with your finger and the other vibrates in turn. You tune or vibrate your audience on a subconscious, cellular level. They pick up your vibrational information and may be literally moved emotionally, intellectually and physically into action.
We need to nurture the uniqueness in each individual. If you are authentic, people know who you are. … If we are asking people to connect their whole selves to the team, then, as leaders, we must lead through our own behaviours. Only then will they engage with us and follow us. Niall Fitzgerald KBE, OBE, former CEO, Unilever
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Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Model 2—The Inspirational Voice
Model 3—Speaking Fundamentals: ABVS technique
Being an inspirational speaker demands that you resonate through three realms of voice simultaneously: your Inner Voice, your Literal Voice and your Mythical Voice. To claim your voice and make an impact on your world, the aim is to weave the idea of the Connected Voice model into the Inspirational Voice model.
The abbreviation ABVS is your fundamental tool for reviving your Literal Voice. Commit it to memory, as you will be using it all through your public speaking career. If you need a way to remember it, rhyme it with ‘your ABCs’, which are the fundamental tools for writing. So, your ABVS are your fundamental tools for speaking and reviving your Literal Voice.
The Inspirational Voice
It is designed for you to easily remember the four stages you must travel through in the act of speaking:
1. Your Inner Voice Your motivation and inspiration for speaking.
2. Your Literal Voice Developing your voice with the Voice Coach ABVS technique as explained in Model 3.
3. Your Mythical Voice Elevating your voice through inspired messaging.
Diagram 2 The Inspirational Voice model
Literal Voice
Mythical Voice Inner Voice
Arrive Breathe Vibrate Speak
ABVS works on two levels:
1 As preparation for the first moment of speaking; and 2 In every moment during the act of speaking: applied thought by thought. We will look at ABVS practically in the ‘Developing your Literal Voice’ section.
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Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Case Study
Theory: Understand the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Whenever I hear Dr. King giving this speech, I get tingles. This is the ‘crystal glass’ effect. It is the Connected Voice model in action. Here are the Connected Voice and Inspirational Voice models in action.
Your Inner Voice
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr I Have A Dream
As an example of the Connected and Inspirational Voice models, consider Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream speech. His inner desire for the freedom of his people is picked up through the resonance of his Literal Voice to ripple outwards in mythical proportions through concepts such as freedom and a humanitarian vision. You can hear his speech at www.voicecoach.net or you can read an excerpt from it here:
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual,
Your Inner Voice is your driver, your passion, your desire. Without an inner burning desire your message will be hollow. Any speaker, who does not move you emotionally or physically, is likely to not be connected to (or even have) an inner desire or passion. This is common among speakers who are unexcited about dry business content that they feel obliged to deliver. Martin Luther King’s Inner Voice was his heartfelt desire for equality and freedom for his people.
Your Literal Voice Your Literal Voice is the literal sound of your voice (as distinct from speech). The function of the Literal Voice is to express your Inner Voice. It is designed to pick up the electrochemical charges created by our thoughts and feelings and release them out as sound waves for another person to experience them, to be vibrated by them, to resonate with them. A common issue for many of us is a disconnection between our Inner Voice and our Literal Voice. For many, the Literal Voice is limited in its expressive range, because it has been shaped over time by cultural, familial and personal influences, ultimately reducing our birthright to vocalize freely. The job of the Literal Voice is to eloquently pick up the inner desires we wish to communicate.
Your Mythical Voice It requires courage and creativity to allow your voice to resonate on a mythical level: to ring beyond you now and beyond your immediate audience. Your Mythical Voice will ring across Time (as it does with any of the great speakers) if you elevate your message, crafting it to speak about spiritual or human values. Your Mythical Voice provides a transformative experience as it accesses a deep part of us. Martin Luther King doesn’t talk about race alone, he elevates us to consider human ideals such as ‘Freedom’ and ‘Humanity’. He couples this with the visionary concept of a Dream. For, dreams are indiscriminate. To dream is the right of anyone. In effect, he asks us to look beyond temporal concepts of race and politics and sets up the opportunity for us to expand into human values on a mythical scale. Be moved by your Inner Voice. Give it life though your Literal Voice. Elevate it to be remembered with your Mythical Voice.
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! Extract from his speech delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. on 28 August 1963. 16
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Section 2
Practical Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Part 1
Finding your Inner Voice
Connect and Inspire
A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. Maya Angelou, American writer, singer, actress, activist.
Your Inner Voice explained Your Inner Voice comes from what drives you to speak; your spirit, your beliefs, an inner burning desire. When you are met with the request to speak, the place to start is in finding your Inner Voice. Often, business speakers feel disempowered because they are told what they are required to say, what messages they need to stick to, what slides and format they must use and sometimes their content is even written for them. Sometimes these circumstances are unavoidable and necessary. Either way, your job is to find a way to connect to the content, to make it yours, to find a reason to speak it, while staying on message. This is the work of any performer; your job is to tap into the bloodline that will keep you speaking with purpose. The Latin derivation of Spirit (spiritus) means breath, soul, courage and vigour. Truly, your spirit must be the essence of your Inner Voice and your ability to connect and inspire. Many years ago, a wise performance teacher said to me: “Let the song sing you”. Your song and message has a spirit to it: already written, already wanting to be spoken. Once you tap into that, your voice will follow your intention. The song sings itself.
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Practical exercises In order to find inspiration for your upcoming speech, let’s begin by identifying what inspires you.
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
2. Identifying your Inner Voice With your upcoming speech in mind, answer the following questions. Dig underneath the data and information you have to deliver to find the lifeblood of this speech.
Q What will I stand for in speaking this message?
1. Identifying inspirational moments Q What inspiring speaking moments do you recall?
Q What lights my fire inside about it?
Q Which speaker, politician, leader has changed your emotional or intellectual landscape?
Q What surprises/agitates/invigorates me about it?
Q When did you last get goose bumps from hearing a speech?
3. Inner Voice checklist Your Inner Voice will probably feel like you are:
Q Why?
>> Raising the stakes >> Putting yourself on the line >> Risking something >> Being personal >> Being vulnerable >> Being courageous Why? When we see another human daring to stand up and risk something publicly, something in us rises with them. Then, we have inspiring leadership.
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Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Case Study
Case Study
The spirit of your message
Finding your Inner Voice
Speaking is not about you. It is about the spirit of your message.
Recently working with a group of women, who are in a male-dominated business environment, I asked them to each choose a topic that they would care to deliver to the business and their senior business manager.
Once you tap into that spirit, then the attachment you have to ‘your’ success is eased. Recently, I worked with a group of very talented, senior, practising barristers at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. They were practising advanced advocacy skills: the art of speaking persuasively in court. At the end of the week long intensive they were to practise their new skills in a ‘mock trial’. Everyone was palpably nervous. On that day, I had a brief interaction with a very skilled barrister, from South Africa, who was standing in the corridor about to step into the ‘mock’ courtroom. I asked him: “Are you nervous?” He replied; “I am not nervous for myself but I have a deep respect for what I am about to do and what I need to say and I want to do justice to that.” His wisdom struck me. Speaking publicly is about a deep respect for the spirit of the message, the people involved and the process you are in. By removing himself from the equation, he was able to focus on the task at hand and channel his energy around the event into what required attention: the message and its impact. This helped him stay true to all the preparation he had done without slipping into the irrelevant chatter or defences of his own ego or success. By connecting to a deeper purpose and something that touches your spirit, you will find firmer ground, inspired motivation and single-minded resolve when you step into the moment of speaking.
What you hear in a person’s voice is what is going on at the centre of gravity in his consciousness at that moment. Ted Hughes, in an interview with Tom Stoppard.
After a lengthy discussion about taking a risk by speaking from a strong inner motivation, they settled down to identify what motivated them: their Inner Voice. When set with the challenge to look inwards and really ask themselves what excited or agitated them to speak about within the business, the results were remarkable. In particular was one woman’s brave exploration of the inner frustrations she felt at not having a voice in the business. This Inner Voice led her to an eventual analysis that outlined the dominant patriarchal culture of the business and the lack of opportunity afforded women there, who were highly capable and visionary in their work. In her final presentation, she combined an energetic and emotional undercurrent with logic and intelligence. Her senior business manager had never experienced this level of leadership and power of voice from this woman. Following her speech, changes began in the business to address opportunities for women. With an inner truth speaking her, she found the courage to take a risk and express something that needed addressing. She started a ripple.
Feel inwards and let your spirit guide your message. Speaking is not about the information. It is about connecting your inner motivations to your audience: to connect and inspire.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. Steve Jobs, Stanford University Commencement Speech, 2005
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Part 2
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Diagram 3 Your Literal Voice explained
Developing your Literal Voice
Stimulus
Your Literal Voice explained
1
Your Literal Voice is the actual experience of your voice: what it feels like, and what it sounds like.
1
The Literal Voice has the capacity to express across eight octaves. Yet, most of us live in one octave and some people only one or two notes. The function of the voice is to keep us alive. It is capable of expressing any subtlety of thought or feeling we have. Its job is to express our humanity. Yet, most of us do not let it. When the Literal Voice is not fully available across its expressive range, it means we lack capacity to express certain parts of ourselves: certain emotional textures or intellectual connections. When the voice is limited, so is the human being. Let’s explore how the voice works (see diagram opposite):
1 In response to a stimulus (thought, feeling or experience) your brain sends a message through the spinal cord to the muscles to do with breathing: your diaphragm and intercostal muscles.
Breath in
Speak 2
2 With this message, your diaphragm contracts and drops down and your intercostals contract and lift your ribs up and out. Breath is drawn into your lungs. So, in other words, your thoughts and feelings inspire you. You are breathed.
3 These muscles then release and pass your breath out through your vocal cords, which vibrate in response (also with the help of the muscles of your larynx). These vibrations then resonate through the resonating chambers of your body (chest, mouth, teeth, sinus, nose and head) and release out through your articulators (lips, teeth, tongue, soft and hard palate), which shape your sound to make it distinguishable as words.
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Your vocal rites of passage The issue is that most of us don’t use our voice in this natural way and hence limit the expressivity available to us.
Community 1—Family Prenatal
Even in the womb, you develop a relationship with your mother’s voice through the vibrations felt through the amniotic fluid. This helps you develop a primitive understanding with the world outside through the emotional and vibrational energy being received in the womb. Your fetal development adapts to this information as a sign of what’s to come and to prepare you for the world outside. 0 to 9 months
When you are born, your breath and voice respond directly to your desires, freely expressing your needs across an eight octave range, in order to help you survive, as in Diagram 3 on the previous page. 9 months to 2 years
Through mimicry, we learn vocal patterns of culture and family. The subconscious thinking behind this is: “If they have survived, then I will survive”. Here is where you develop a voice like your mother, father or siblings. By adopting familial vocal patterns, you reduce some of the vocal expressivity you were born with. 2 to 5 years
Here is the birth of the civilized voice, where you learn behaviours about the appropriate use of voice in order to ‘fit in’ within your society. These behaviours can be physical, emotional and psychological in response to demands to: “pull yourself together”, “tone it down”, “don’t use that tone of voice with me”, “big boys don’t cry”, “little girls must speak sweetly”, etc. Although these behaviours limit our expressivity, they are required if you are going to fit in within a society. Again, your vocal expressivity is diminished.
Community 2—Early school 6 to 12 years
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Carol Gilligan, Professor at New York University and Gender Studies specialist, has undertaken research with girls aged 7–12 and found that they were more likely than boys to use self-silencing techniques if the status of their relationships is challenged. Because these behaviours are driven by a deep need to maintain status and survival within the group, they sometimes remain as behaviours in adults. At this age, both boys and girls display vocal homogenization, which is a mimicking vocal styles and words to fit within peer groups.
Community 3—High school and puberty 12 to 19 years
As puberty sets in, so does a sharp consciousness of comparative identity, so the voice is impacted by vocal codes of maturity, status and differentiation. Adolescents assert or mask sexual power through vocal styles: brassy, shy, intimidating, bossy, etc. As vocal homogenization becomes more sophisticated, it extends to mimicking vocal styles and words of others within a peer group, in order to be accepted. For example: adolescent boys may often mumble and teenage girls may use a rising inflection (lifting pitch at the end of the sentence in a questioning manner). Again, many of these behaviours carry over to adulthood and, of course, limit expressivity.
Community 4—Post school 20 years onwards
There is a marked ‘rite of passage’ from adolescence to adulthood. With it comes the expectation to leave behind the vocalisations of teen years to enter the world as a young adult. Boys and girls entering adulthood are expected to make their mark or establish their identity and purpose in the world. Sometimes, when going through this stage, it is uncomfortable for boys and girls to leave behind the vocal habits they formed as adolescents. These habits can thus carry over to adulthood. Examples include sounding girly as a young woman, mumbling boyishness, and young men demonstrating the effects of a manly voice (deep, strong) without truly embodying it.
Community 5—Professional workforce 20 years onwards
This is the first community outside the family community with its own set of vocal rules.
For those who work within a business environment, there are unwritten vocal rules that establish how power is displayed and who is allowed a voice in that culture.
Girls and boys learn different behaviours about voice use. Girls develop communication styles that support ‘rapport’ forming techniques, while boys prefer a ‘reporting’ style of communication. As a result, vocal freedom and expressivity is impacted
For young professionals, vocal homogenization is a survival strategy to assist in being accepted in the business. The vocal rules within business change at every rung of the ladder. Learning where your voice is placed in this hierarchy is essential.
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Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Your adult voice
Energy in space and time
By the time you find yourself in a business, you can see how your voice is now far removed from its original power and freedom. The question is: how do we reconcile this gap for a more resonant, empowered, expressive voice?
When crafting the energy of the communication organism, it is important to know that energy is dependent on your awareness and use of space and time.
For business, it is important to understand that the impact of your Literal Voice—the actual sound of your voice—correlates with the impact of the voice you have at the table/in the room. The more resonant and accessible your Literal Voice, the more powerfully you will be able to claim your voice and place in the world.
Consider the following diagram.
Diagram 4 Energy in space and time
For many adults, the voice is much less expressive than its potential. The goal is to revive the natural, resonant capacity of your voice, so you are able to express the fullest measure of your presence and your power.
The working dimensions of the Literal Voice Before we look at developing your Literal Voice, it is worth considering the physical and energetic dimensions that your voice inhabits in the act of speaking.
The ecology of speaking During the act of speaking, you and your audience exist within a communication ecology. Within this ecology, the matter that you are exchanging is energy: sound energy (through your voice), kinetic energy (through your physical movement), psychic energy (through your ability to intuit and sense), emotional energy (through your desires and emotional urges in response to your content) and intellectual energy (through your intellectual responses to your content). All this energy exists inside a delicate, organic, ever-changing ecology, which consists of energy between you, the listener, the space you are in, and the distractions associated with all of these things. Your job is to work with the energy of this communication organism and craft the state of the ecology for all involved.
More Space
=
More Time
=
More Energy
An example—stuck in traffic Consider being stuck in traffic and running late for a meeting. You have five minutes to get there and with the traffic it is going to take at least 20 minutes. How does this impact you? Most people will tense up physically, lean into the steering wheel in an attempt to get ahead of time: thinking ahead. Physical space reduces through muscle contraction. The internal space for breath reduces. Breathing shortens and is more panicked. The internal dialogue you are having is probably more self-critical than normal. Time seems to become invariably slow, while there is racing forward in the mind. Energetically, things become more cramped and it seems unlikely that you will ever get there. However, the moment that you let go of the idea of arriving on time, the moment you detach from the outcome (getting there on time) is the moment that your body relaxes internally and externally, your breathing relaxes, your mind relaxes. You take up more space and you energetically expand. Time seems to relax with you. Paradoxically, by increasing your internal and external space, releasing your breath and increasing physical relaxation, you invariably get there faster than you would have when you were panicking about getting there. Perhaps you even get there on time. You will certainly have more energy to bring to that meeting. When you expand your internal and external space physically, you buy more time.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, it is those most responsive to change.
With more space and time available to you, you can more fluently work with the energy within the ecology, including what you say and how you say it.
Charles Darwin
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The paradox of control Paradoxically, you have more control in speaking when you let go of:
>> Muscle holding; >> Breath holding; >> Intellectual or emotional holding; >> Your attachment to the outcome; and >> Trying to recreate a prepared moment. When these elements are controlled through muscle holding, the space for performance is limited, time is contracted and the amount of energy you express with is reduced. In fact, when performing, you have true control when you let go. Modern society teaches us to work hard by muscling through, gritting your teeth, moving forward and getting to the end. This may be productive if the job is task-oriented, but in performance and the art of speaking, you are better served by letting go of working hard. The speaking organism, in which you exist, needs to breathe, to have life. If your focus is solely on you and finishing your task, you will never be in control of a communication. Persuasion comes from being inclusive and alive to the entire organism in which you speak. Controlling your performance through traditional methods of ‘muscling’ demonstrates that you are insensitive to the needs of your audience. You are less connected, less persuasive and ultimately, less inspiring. The goal is to release the need to ‘muscle’, so that you can sense and be aware of what needs to happen in every moment. Only then can you have any true influence over what happens next, where you are going and what you or your audience needs.
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A useful premise for control in speaking is to practise:
Minimum effort + Maximum energy Actors and athletes are trained to reduce extraneous effort and channel that energy into something more relevant and artistic. You cannot be creative or make sophisticated choices when your psyche is engaged in surviving. Work on reducing your effort in order to release your energy.
Let go. Life reveals itself most plainly when you don’t clutch at it, when you don’t cling to it … when you are loose and ready to lose … when your hand is open. The reason is that whatever is momentous, living and moving, is momentary. Osho, Zen: The Path of Paradox
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Disconnecting from the ecology
Practical exercises
You know that feeling of jet lag? You land in your destination, but you feel as though half of you is still in the air. Many speakers begin a presentation or a meeting in this state of speaking jet lag: split and not fully present.
1. Describing your Literal Voice
No serious athlete, actor or musician would dare to perform without bringing themselves psychologically, intellectually, emotionally and physically ‘present’ into the moment of performance. Business culture is full of distractions and energetic demands that give us the sense of speaking jet lag. These distractions keep us disconnected from our audience. These distractions cause us to create a disconnected communication ecology. Here are some distractions that you may have experienced while speaking:
>> Business distractions —— Email and phone calls —— What happens in meetings before you arrive —— Thinking about where you are going after —— Business culture formalities
These practical exercises will guide you in ways to manage the energy ecology and to develop your Literal Voice. Many people do not think about how they would describe their voice. It is useful to do so as a benchmarking tool as you work through the exercises in this book. Do this exercise now and then again at the end of the book, or after the presentation you are preparing here, to see if anything has changed. Using the words below (or make up your own words) explore the following exercises:
>> Exercise 1 Circle words that describe your voice now. >> Exercise 2 Underline words that describe your voice as you would like it to be. beautiful
>> Relational distractions —— Your relationship with who is in your audience —— The relationships between people in the room —— The relationship between your content and your audience
>> Physical distractions —— Your comfort of your body in space —— Nerves —— Your physical environment —— How you feel on the day
>> Emotional and psychological distractions —— Your sense of worth as a speaker —— Your sense of a right to be heard or the right to be the bearer of this content —— Your relationship to speaking —— Your fear of getting it wrong, sounding silly, etc. Any or all of these distractions will affect your nervous system, your presence, your body, your breath, and your voice. Ultimately, they negate your impact. Expand into your Literal Voice to energetically connect and inspire your audience.
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authentic hesitant
loud
warm
mature brilliant
focused
has presence disconnected
flowing
brassy
connected
weak
soft clear
nasal
fake
unfocused authoritative
womanly
vibrant
has gravitas breathy
harmonic
crisp
flat
like a warm merlot
mellifluous
tense
inspiring light
resonant
monotonous colourful
like chocolate
ungenerous
girly
gruff
manly
overbearing
natural
mousey
easy
bold
generous
textured
bright
full bodied
childlike
deep
hard edged
confident
powerful sharp
intoxicating reticent
Revisit this when you have completed the exercises in this book and see what has changed in your voice.
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Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
2. The ABVS of speaking One of our three fundamental models for developing your voice is the ABVS technique as outlined in Section 1: The Voice Coach Approach. ABVS is designed for you to easily remember the four stages you must travel through in the act of speaking:
‘Arrive’
You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose. Indira Gandhi
To arrive is to bring your heart, mind, body, breath and voice all into this one moment.
Arrive Breathe Vibrate Speak We will now work through the four stages of ABVS individually. Once you understand what each of them are you can then begin to integrate them as you speak. While speaking, ABVS works on two levels:
1 As preparation for the first moment of speaking; and 2 In every moment during the act of speaking: applied thought by thought. Be deliberate to begin with. It may feel a little clunky to start, like learning to ride a bike. Remember, you are retraining your mind/body connection for a more sensitive, present way of speaking. As you get more practised at your ABVS, you will find that the process becomes faster and innate.
Preparation Find a place that you will feel comfortable to move freely, make sound, and use your voice. It will be best for you to be wearing loose, comfortable clothing without shoes. If you are at the office then, at least, remove your shoes and loosen any restrictive clothing: ties, belts, etc.
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Too often, speakers begin speaking without arriving completely in the moment. Don’t even attempt to speak if you have speaking jet lag.
Being present In any art form there will be a phrase that describes the concept of ‘being present’.
>> In sport, it is ‘being in the zone’; >> In music, it is ‘being in the groove’; >> In performance, it is ‘being in the moment’. You may also know this as being ‘in flow’. For a speaker to be ‘in flow’, requires an alignment of body, breath, thought, feeling and voice. When one of these facets dominates or is weak, your presence is compromised. As Kristin Linklater, Master voice teacher, describes: Perfect communication for the actor (speaker) implies a balanced quartet of intellect and emotion, body and voice—a quartet in which no one instrument compensates with its strength for the weakness of another.
So, the more present you are to the balance of these elements, the more presence you have. Even though you are there in the room, you may not be emotionally, physically or mentally present and ready for the moment of communicating. If you do not arrive, then you lose your connection with your audience. Why? Because your audience expects you to connect with them, to inform them, to entertain them. That is the unwritten contract between you.
Turn off your phone.
Your contract with your audience
This is your time to explore your voice. Indulge in time for your self. These exercises can be used time and time again and are best served with a sense of curiosity and exploration. Each time you will discover something new, perhaps more specific. Be fascinated by this as a way of understanding how your body, psyche, emotional being exists in space. With your discoveries, always ask: “What impact does this have on my communication and voice?”
Having elected to stand up in front of your fellow humans, you are asking them to consider something new or even to change. As a speaker, you have a social responsibility. Acknowledge this role. Know that you are standing up for an idea that your audience might or might not agree with or understand. There is an unwritten contract between you and your audience. You have asked them to listen to you. What an extraordinary privilege you have been given. They expect to have their time respected, to be moved and to have their intelligence honoured.
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Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
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Your job is not to hurry through and get to the end or to simply download information.
Manage your nerves
These days, information download is the norm and our hearts are not engaged. Audiences have learned to ‘turn off’ in the forum of business speaking. They have lost their reason to listen with curiosity, authenticity and surprise.
This brings us to the question of nerves. How do you control them so that you can be completely present for your audience?
Your job is to call your audience to account right from the start and throughout the speech. Make them responsible for being in the exchange.
Let’s look at the world of nerves briefly.
The presentation is your ability to have your audience with you in every moment, not to get to the end of it. Speaking is connecting every moment, not getting to the end.
Speaking in public is a potentially dangerous act. You are putting yourself and your opinion into the public sphere to be assessed and considered. The animal instinct within you considers that the outcome of this dangerous act may potentially be fatal to your survival: you may be separated from the community. As an animal, your autonomic nervous system will be stimulated during this act of speaking. Its primitive response is to keep you safe from danger. There are two main ways your nervous system responds:
It’s as if you are continually saying to them:
Fight/Flight
As speaking is about moving your audience intellectually, ethically and emotionally, consider speaking as a conversation rather than a presentation.
Join with me.
In the realm of fight/flight, your body will do things despite you to keep you safe, out of the dangers of ridicule and away from being held accountable. Some of these responses are autonomic; that is the involuntary part of the nervous system; heart pounds, blood vessels dilate, saliva glands contract, etc. You may voluntarily add to these responses by holding your breath, engaging muscles and disengaging. Rest/Digest
The mirror principle Humans have an extraordinary sense of empathy. It is this sense that is strongly at play in spoken communications. It is a kind of telepathy between you and your audience.
The ultimate aim is to train your body and mind to embody a state of rest and digest.
Neurologically, there is reason for this. Recently, ‘mirror neurons’ have been discovered in the human brain by Vilayanur Ramachandram, a neuroscientist at University of California. He endearingly calls them Gandhi Neurons.
Following are some exercises that will help you ‘Arrive’ and bring yourself into a state of Rest/Digest.
Simply, here is how they work:
Practical exercises for ‘Arrive’
Can you remember a moment when you saw someone speaking in public and they forgot what they are going to say next? They hold their breath, look like a rabbit in headlights and time seems to stand still.
1. Lounge room technique—managing nerves
As an audience member and part of the communication ecology, you are subconsciously affected. Your mirror neurons fire in response to this experience and send messages to the same parts of your body as the person on stage. In response, you hold your breath, you experience panic and time quickens.
Some people think of their audience in their underpants. Frankly, that is just too disturbing.
This means you may empathize with the speaker, and in this case feel on edge. As a speaker, you have a powerful, subconscious, neurological impact on your audience. This is why it is imperative that you arrive fully so that your audience has an opportunity to arrive with you. Then they can be prepared to fully experience what you are about ask them to engage in.
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You can have control over your fight/flight response. By changing your psychological state you can manage your nerve responses. You and your audience can be relaxed and then they can comfortably digest your message.
Nerves are a function of ego. They are a response to your investment in the outcome. For this reason, nerves can be managed psychologically. Think about the workshop/conference space you are going to inhabit in your next performance. Consider it as if it were your lounge room. Even though it might be your client’s boardroom or a conference space that you have never been in, your job is to take control of it as though it is yours. As a host of this event in ‘your lounge room’, like at any dinner party you might host at your home, you are in control of how your guests feel, where they sit and the experience they have. You may choose to create a relaxed vibe or a more formal experience— whatever is congruent with your content and the response you want them to have. Once you set the tone, they will follow, just as they would as invited guests in your lounge room. You give them permission to be there and act the way you would like. 37
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2. Claiming your space—your body in space and time
Hips
This five minute exercise can be done as a warm up before you speak or as an exploration of how you currently feel in space and time.
Close your eyes and tighten your hip sockets. You might notice that around your pelvic region tightens, your sphincter muscles tighten or your pelvic floor tightens. Now, let them all soften. No one is looking, so you can do this all secretly.
Your starting position
Stand in the way that you would stand when you are about to present something on stage or in front of a group of people. Notice if your balance is to one side, that you might be holding tension in certain places, your head is in alignment to your neck, or not. Now just exaggerate that a little bit and see what happens to your centre of gravity, or balance on your feet, the relationship between your head, neck, spine and hips. If you exaggerate it even more, you might start to notice some spots of holding and tension in your body. Notice if you are holding your breath. Let all that go. What you just embodied was your habitual, physical presence when you are speaking in public. Now let’s bring you back to your more natural alignment. Bring your feet hip width apart and parallel. Let your arms drop by your sides. This might feel a little bit awkward or vulnerable. This may cause you to question the difference between what is comfortable/habitual for you and what is natural. Having your feet hip width apart and your arms by your side is actually more natural. Consider indulging in the idea that your body might be able to exist unprotected and vulnerable; feet hip width apart, arms by your side. Feet
Notice your feet in contact with the floor and close your eyes. Now tighten the souls of your feet and then soften them and notice what else in your body softens along with it: maybe your knees, maybe your hips. Do it one more time, tighten your feet, and then soften your feet like big camel feet softening into the sand. Maybe your buttocks soften, maybe your belly, maybe your jaw. One more time; tighten and then soften. Notice where your centre of energy goes, where your centre of gravity is, or what your breathing does. Knees
Now close your eyes and lock your knees tight. Let your knees soften a bit, not collapse and notice what else in your body softens. It might be your hips, your buttocks or your stomach. Do it again and see what you notice. Tighten your knees and soften. You might notice that your shoulders soften, maybe your jaw releases or perhaps the back of your tongue softens. Most importantly, what does your breathing do? Do it one more time, tighten and soften and take note of what parts of your body respond to your knees softening.
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Notice what else relaxes and if that release has an impact on your breathing and your centre of gravity. One more time; tighten and release. So this base of your torso is a very important place for creative energy. If it is held tight, firstly, your breathing will not be fluid enough and agile enough to respond into the deeper parts of your body. Secondly, you will not have enough space and time in which to manage your energy. Shoulders
With your feet, knees, pelvic floor, hip sockets, buttocks and pelvic muscles soft, now think up to your shoulders. Lift your shoulders up and then let them drop. After the drop there is a settle. Let your shoulders settle. Notice what else relaxes or settles in your body. One more time: lift, drop and settle. See if that has an impact on your breathing or your centre of gravity. Jaw
With your eyes still closed, let your head float up on top of your neck spine like a helium balloon. Find a sense of aspiration upwards with a release downwards through your body. See what would happen if you let your jaw bone go. Your bottom jaw will release and your lips will part so that breath can move through your mouth. It might feel a little awkward letting your jaw go, particularly if you are used to clamping it shut, but just explore and know that you are not looking dumb with your jaw hanging open. If you are used to tightening your jaw, it will feel quite extreme with your jaw soft. Allow it to be an easy release open, which will look very natural. Allow your breath to move through your mouth, into your body and out again. Observe
Notice where your centre of gravity is. Open your eyes. You may have a different sense of space and time and perhaps the shape you cut in space. Notice where your mind is and its speed in comparison to the beginning. What is your breathing doing? You might feel a little too relaxed here, so we’re slowly going to build your energy as we explore ‘Breathe’ and ‘Vibrate’ in the next sections. But for now, we are looking at minimum effort and the expansion of your presence. Relaxation while Sitting
You might wonder how this is relevant for business meetings where you are sitting down. Let’s explore that. Find your way easily over to a chair and sit down. Make sure that you are being supported by the chair. Make sure that your hips are resting into the chair and your feet are resting into the ground like camel feet. Let the chair support you.
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You may wish to experiment with conveying an attitude: cross your legs. But make sure that everything stays grounded. Your centre of gravity is still down in your belly and your pelvis. Your jaw is soft; your mind isn’t starting to chatter. If anything is starting to tighten up, let it go and from that place, notice what time feels like and how much space you have. Imagine yourself in a business meeting that you might need to enter into in the next couple of days. Imagine yourself in this space, time and energy having this much presence.
Q Having done the ‘Claiming your space’ exercise (refer above), what changes did you experience? What reminders will you give your body to be present when speaking?
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
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‘Arrive’ tips >> Imagine you have invited your audience into your lounge room. >> Beware of letting your audience dictate how to act in ‘your lounge room’. >> Set the tone and back yourself. Your audience will respect it. >> Make your audience responsible for being in the room and in the conversation with you. >> Remember your feet. They keep you present. >> Be fully present before speaking. >> Remain present throughout the presentation: that’s the fitness. >> Don’t make this a presentation. Make it a conversation. >> Practise minimum effort, maximum energy.
3. ‘Arriving’ in the presentation space Your job is to make the presentation space yours. Always arrive before the audience gets there. Go there the day (or hour) before to see what the space is like and to envisage yourself in it. Physically get into the space. Stand where you will be speaking. Work out how much space you can take up. How much energy will you need to connect with everyone in the room? Where can you move? What spaces can you inhabit? Be creative: aisles, up to the screen, away from the lectern... Make room for yourself within the confines of technical limitations: lighting, screens, microphones, seating. Ask for the stage and audience to be set up the way you need it. Get rid of extraneous furniture, props and distractions. Don’t feel bound to what the audio-visual guy has set up just because no one else has given him any direction. This is your performance. Create your space to make it your performance home for the next hour or so. Stand where you will start your performance. Speak your first line aloud picturing your audience responding.
‘Breathe’
Breath for speaking Breath is life. It is life for your body, but it is also the life of your communication. If you are not breathing then your message will have no life. Your breath is the fuel for your voice. So, in speaking breath is:
>> The bridge between your private and public worlds; >> The spirit of the message; and >> Carrying you from inside to out. Without breath you will use compensatory muscles to get your voice out. This is just not a satisfactory representation of you nor is it satisfying for your listener. Breathing for speaking is very different from breathing for yoga or Pilates or singing, for instance. Speaking expresses thoughts and feelings and is designed to respond to the immediacy of these. As thoughts and feelings are unpredictable and mercurial, any form of held or controlled breath is counter productive to the spoken expression of what we think and how we feel. The key is to not hold your breath.
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Pausing
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>> Make a note about when and how you hold your breath when speaking:
Pausing should never be done mechanically. Any planned and prescriptive pausing should be avoided at all costs. Pausing is a natural space in conversation where time is required for thought or feelings to evolve and mature. The point is: take your time to choose your words. During this time, breathe. It is when you hold your breath while you are thinking that people cut in. If you are relaxed and breathing while searching for a thought, then your audience will do the same. It is as though you are saying to them: “Wait for it. I am going to find the wisest expression of this idea that I can offer you.” What an honour for an audience to receive the wisest part of you in that moment. Trust yourself. Dig deep and breathe. As a result comes a pause.
Practical exercises for ‘Breathe’ 1. Observing your breath in speaking Many people do not think of what their breath is doing as they speak. It is worth starting to notice what you do. For example: Some people hold their breath before they speak, some after, sometimes when they know that their turn is coming up to speak. Speak some of your presentation content aloud and standing up. Consider where in your body you are holding your breath: throat, chest, belly, etc.
2. Centering your breath When you are really feeling nervous before a presentation, deep breathing helps to calm and centre you. This exercise will bring your heart, mind and body into one place.
>> Sit or stand calmly. Close your eyes. >> Breathe all your air out on a silent “fff”, slowly and mindfully. >> Once you feel you are empty of breath in your belly, let breath come in through your nose, slowly and mindfully.
>> Repeat this 5 times aiming to lengthen the breath each time. >> Notice how your energy, mind and heart are after this. Note: The handy part of this is that you can do it the night before to calm you, in the wings on the day or even in your seat in the audience before you go up to speak. It’s silent and powerful. Enjoy.
>> How deep into your body is your breath going?
>> Are there any places it gets caught, restricted, squeezed, etc.?
With greater awareness of your holding patterns, comes choice. When you know where and how you hold, then you are able to make a wiser choice about it.
Breathing: you invisible poem! Complete interchange of our own
essence with world-space. You counterweight
in which I rhythmically happen. Single wave-motion whose gradual sea I am:
you, most inclusive of all our possible seas— space has grown warm. How many regions in space have already been inside me. There are winds that seem like my wandering son. Do you recognise me, air, full of places I once absorbed?
You who were the smooth bark,
roundness, and leaf of my words. The Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
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3. Breath to voice
>> Sit comfortably in a chair, spine aligned and neck free. >> Release all your breath out on an “fff”. >> Breathe in through your nose to your belly and release out on an “fff” for 10 counts × 2. >> Repeat and release out on a “v v v” for 10 counts × 2. >> Repeat and release out on an “mmm” for 10 counts × 2. >> Repeat and release out on an “mmm” for 5 counts and then open to “mah” for 5 counts × 2.
>> Repeat this step to 15 counts. >> Stand up and have a big yawn and stretch. >> Speak some content and note where you feel vibrations in your body.
‘Breathe’ tips >> Let your breath be light and deep. >> Invest in your breath. What comes in is what comes out. >> Never ‘take a breath’. Always be inspired. >> Notice when you hold your breath, and let go. >> When there are higher stakes, rely on a deeper breath.
‘Vibrate’
The power of voice Simply, voice is vibration and breath. The primary function of the vibrations of your voice is to carry your thoughts and feelings to your listener. Remember the crystal glasses analogy? The power of voice is that you can literally vibrate your audience on a cellular level and move them into action. Vibrations multiply when we focus more energy there. So, the more generous you can be with your voice, the more your listener is likely to hear you and literally resonate with you. This generosity comes from your intention. When you have an intention to be heard, your voice will follow. The underlying premise is that tension reduces vibration, hence it is imperative that you free up your body and breath in the ‘Arrive’ and ‘Breathe’ sections before you visit vibrations.
Range, resonance and projection Some voice researchers consider that your voice has an eight octave range. However, most of us in business and adult life find ourselves living in a one octave range, especially if the culture you find yourself in only allows for a restricted range of expressivity. Consider having your whole range speaking through you. Be playful with your voice. If you don’t already, find ways during the week to extend into both ends of your pitch and volume: sing boisterously in the shower or car, cheer at the football, run down hills in pealing laughter, take the dog for an energetic vocal run in the park, rumble with your kids on sound. Start to revive your right to express and expand your boundaries of self-expression. Your range will follow.
Breath lies at the very heart of an individual’s sense of self … Breath is also the life force of a performance … The way in which one breathes—be it centred or shallow—directly affects one’s presence and relationship with the world. Joanna Weir Ouston
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Resonance is the resounding of the vibrations of your vocal cords through the hollow, bony surfaces of your body: chest, mouth, teeth, the dome of your head, the narrow passages of your nose and sinuses. Bone is an excellent conductor of sound, so it is valuable to start placing your trust in the feeling of your voice in your body as opposed to solely what your voice sounds like. Let’s make a distinction at this point between projection and resonance. Unfortunately, projection often is interpreted as simply pushing your voice out. Be wary of the advice to “Speak louder.” This will invariably cause you to push the voice with muscle tensions in order to reach a certain point or person. It sounds hard and does not carry much body or subtlety of feeling behind it. It lacks resonance.
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True projection comes from combining resonance with intention.
Solution
It is much more powerful and expressive to direct a fully resonant voice without the tensions associated with trying to be heard. Have an intention for your ideas to meet a point or person in the room with resonance. Let your voice be supported by breath rather than pushing the voice with muscle tensions.
Yawning aloud limbers up the muscles of the back of the throat and soft palate (the soft bit at the back of your mouth, from which your uvula hangs and where you form the sound “k”). Don’t be polite with your yawns. Make them animal and vocal.
Let’s explore what resonance is in your body. Consider how your resonance corresponds to an orchestra. The deepest notes of the orchestra such as in a tuba are formed from large spaces and low breath energy. In your body, these deep notes of your voice ring in the large, bony space of your chest supported by a low energy sigh. The middle notes, much like the trumpet and horns, are relatively higher in pitch due to narrower spaces. They require more energized breath to find them. These middle notes of your voice ring in relatively smaller spaces of your mouth and teeth. These require a more energized breath to support them. The higher notes of the orchestra come from narrower instruments such as the flute, piccolo, clarinet. These finer spaces require increased breath energy. The narrow chambers and cavities of your sinus and nose ring your upper notes and require a highly energized breath to support them. The goal is to have your whole harmonic orchestra of notes playing through your voice and to be on call to respond to the versatility of your thoughts and feelings.
Vocal qualities Most adults (unless trained otherwise) do not have a versatile voice and are restricted to only living in perhaps one octave of notes. Without a full vocal range, you limit your ability to express the full experience of your humanity. Capping your voice at one octave means you do not have the option to fully express, for instance, surprise or fear with high-pitched notes or strength and warmth with your lower notes. Consider where you spend most of your time in your voice. Do you dominate with one particular part of your range? Do you avoid any colours? Developing your resonance will expand your expressive range and enhance your subtlety of communication. It is worth spending some time discussing some common vocal qualities that come from limited resonance and range. 1. Monotony
Monotony is speaking through limited notes of your voice. It can be a result of dull thinking, speaking on autopilot, extremely limited vocal range or a disconnection of the voice from the emotional life of your ideas. Sometimes, monotony comes from muscle tension in the back of the throat and soft palate.
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Connect to what you are saying. Engage your imagination. The message is not only the words but also the feeling behind them. Connect to that and your voice will pick up the emotional life of your message. Practise vocal extremes on your content. This will feel way out of your comfort zone, but don’t judge yourself at this stage, just play and let your voice remember itself. There are no ugly or beautiful sounds. There is simply your voice. 2. Nasality
Nasality is a result of isolating your voice purely in the nasal cavity. It can result from a lazy soft palate (when the soft muscle at the back of the mouth where you for the sound “k” becomes heavy and loses its agility) and no breath support. It gives the impression of laziness but has the added advantage of reaching far distances. Think of a New Yorker or outback Australian accent. It can be useful ordering a drink at a noisy bar. However, it is limited in its expressivity and can become grating. Solution Restoring breath support is key, so that the muscles holding around the throat and mouth can free up. As they do, the passageway from your lips to your belly opens and creates opportunity for the other resonating chambers to ring the vibrations of your voice. If you are sounding nasal and want to have an experience of other qualities of your voice, hold your nose and sigh out on a vocal “haaaa”. If the sound is nasal, you will probably be feeling strong vibrations in your fingers. Sigh again from your belly and aim to have your voice coming through your mouth only. Once you have found this, take your fingers off your nose and speak some content to feel what is new in your voice. 3. High Pitched
Often high-pitched voices live in only in the upper notes of the voice and deny the deeper pitches. Women’s voices are generally genetically higher in pitch than men because of the length of the vocal cords. However, that does not mean that women do not have access to deeper notes. For numerous cultural reasons, sometimes women feel that it is not permissible to speak with depth. This is a myth. It is disempowering for women. This disempowering myth is too prevalent in business. It means that many women are not accessing their natural gravitas and authority.
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Solution
Practical exercises for ‘Vibrate’
Relaxation and a deep, easy breath is the secret to releasing into the deeper notes of your voice. Try a relaxation on the floor where you don’t have to fight against gravity and your own busy mind. There are some exercises following that will assist with finding deeper resonance in your voice.
Vibration exercises must be preceded by the physical relaxation and breath work in the ‘Arrive’ and ‘Breathe’ sections.
4. Rising Inflection
Typically belonging to the 15 year old Australian female, the rising inflection is the rising of the voice in pitch at the end of a sentence as though you are asking a question when you are not. Giving the impression that you are not certain of what you are saying, it is a convenient way of submitting your power or commitment to an idea, in the hope that someone else will support you or take responsibility for it. Solution Stop it. The first step is awareness. Start to note down how many times you are doing it. As practice, have a book in your hand and bring it down on the desk every time you reach the end of your sentence as you speak the last word of the sentence. Have your voice follow the energy of the book: direct and down. Notice the difference in your voice and the message when you do this as opposed to when you rise in inflection at the end. 5. Quiet
Please don’t do these mechanically. Give yourself 30 minutes of ‘you time’, somewhere supportive, so you can enjoy freeing yourself up.
1. Indulgent voice warm-up for home (based on the Linklater technique) A Stand easily, feet hip width apart, knees soft.
B Let your head release onto your chest and roll down your spine to hang from your tailbone.
C Ease into a squat with your elbows between your knees. Fill in a deep sigh of relief. Release on breath.
D Repeat and release on generous vibration “Haaa”. Let it be a release without pushing.
Your voice will follow your intention. Sometimes you may not consciously intend to be quiet but something deeply woven into your survival psychology requires that of you. Speaking quietly can sometimes sound like you are speaking ‘off your voice’. It sounds like you have removed the core energy and strength of your voice and it is perhaps a little breathy.
E Release onto the floor onto your back
Solution
G Feed in a deep sigh of preferably
Lean your back against the wall, with your feet a few feet away from the wall, so that your back (buttocks to the top of your torso) is flat on the wall. Ensuring you are breathing deeply into your body. Press your weight into the wall you are leaning on and speak some content to the opposite wall or out the window to people far away. Have an intention to be heard. Watch that you don’t tense up in your neck, jaw or throat. Use your breath as your fuel. You want to be careful that you are not just yelling. You have so many more subtle colours available to you than just two modes. Use your breath to support your voice so that you are not just pushing with tension. Have an intention to be heard.
F Deep relaxation through your body letting go to gravity—from your feet to your skull. pleasurable relief into your belly, release on breath.
H Float one knee up over your belly. Hold onto the knee so that the belly muscles can let go.
I Use your hands to shake your knee up and down, releasing into your hip socket.
J As you judder, sigh out on vibrations from your hip socket “Haaa”.
K Continue to judder from your hip, and with a new breath into your belly, sigh out on a “Hummm” gathering the vibrations on your lips.
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L With a new breath, sigh out on a “HUH HUMAH-MAH-MAH” as you judder your knee to gather, release and multiply your vibrations.
M Continue to judder and sigh on vibrations “HUH HUMAH-MAH-MAH”. Go up and down 2 or 3 notes. Don’t worry about getting the notes right. It’s not singing, but sighing on changing pitches to expand your voice.
N Swap over knees/hips and repeat. O Let your legs extend long and release onto the floor.
P Roll over lazily to a foetal position. Touch sound here; “Huh huh”. Where do you feel vibrations?
Q Roll over to a folded leaf position (buttocks back on feet, head on floor and arms by feet).
R Sigh through on vibrations “HaaA” feeling for them through your torso.
S Let your tailbone find its way towards the ceiling and slowly come back up your spine to standing.
T Float your head up. U Sigh out vibrations from hips through torso: “Haaa”.
V Speak straight onto some text. W Where do you feel vibrations?
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Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
2. Last-minute voice warm-up for the car, lift or bathroom This warm up is for the times when you want to warm up just before a presentation or important meeting and you only have 10 minutes. Adapt it according to where you can do it but please don’t do it mechanically. The aim is to free you and focus your mind, heart, voice and body.
A Stand easily (or sit if you are in the car), feet hip width apart, knees soft.
B Tighten the soles of your feet and release. Notice what else releases. (× 3)
C Lock knees and then soften. Notice what else releases. (× 3)
D Lift shoulders, drop, settle. (× 3) E Draw a line across the roof of your mouth with your fingernail.
F Yawn and sigh out vibrations across that line on the roof of your mouth.
G Stretch your lips with your pinkies. Let your lips go and flutter through your lips “BRRR”. Repeat on voice.
H Shimmy shoulders (arms spaghetti loose) on a sigh of breath, and then voice “Haaa”. Let the sigh come from your belly not from your shoulders.
I Bounce shoulders up and down sighing out on breath, then voice “Haaa”.
J Bounce in your knees sighing out on breath, then voice “Haaa”.
K Shake your voice all through your body.
L Sit on a chair and bounce up and down on it as you sigh on vibrations “Haaa”.
M Listen for the deep darker vibrations in your voice. Sink into them and repeat (× 2).
N Release all your breath out on an “fff”. O Breath comes in through your nose to belly and release out on an “fff” for 10 counts.
P Repeat and release out on a “v v v” for 10 counts.
Q Repeat and release out on an “mmm” for 10 counts.
R Repeat and release out on an “MMM” for 5 counts and then open to “MAH” for 5 counts.
S Repeat this step once more to 15 counts T Stand up and have a big yawn and stretch.
U Shake out vibration through your whole body.
V Throw away hands and feet on a “hey” with each limb to someone passing by.
Where do you feel your voice now? Speak straight onto your content. Enjoy!
‘Vibrate’ tips >> Your voice follows your intention
>> Have your whole range speaking
>> Be generous and playful with your voice
>> Let your bones ring with your sound
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‘Speak’
Words and language Consider words as your voice chopped up in the last microsecond to articulate your thoughts. Albert Mehrabian, an American linguist, undertook some fascinating research on the value humans place on the vocal expression of an idea as opposed the verbal expression of it.
He found that if what you say is at odds with how you say it, we are more likely to trust the vocal expression (how you say it) of the utterance. For instance: if I was to say: “How lovely to meet you” with a tone of sarcasm, these two conflicting ideas would lead you to wonder if I really am. 21st century humans are consumed by a ‘bits and bytes’ culture of emails and texts, particularly in business where outcomes reign supreme. This means that we not only have little practise in indulging in the moment of connection to our words but that we are less inclined to share a moment with someone in communication. Instead, we want to race to the end of it, so we can get on and do the next task. Communicating is about sharing in the moment-to-moment dance: experiencing and responding. The irony is that in the race to move up the ladder, you spend years perfecting speed and short cuts so you can achieve more. However, when you do get to the top levels, you are required to slow down, to connect, to respond, to listen, to be in the moment and to be authentic in what you say and how you say it. So slow down and connect to what you are saying. Use words powerfully and deliberately. You will sound smarter and hold more authority. More importantly, you will have time to think and choose words with wisdom. When you slow down, you begin to notice the intrinsic emotional and intellectual value of sounds and words.
Diminishing words All words have a purpose. So be clear that you mean the words you speak. Sometimes you may mean to qualify your ideas and the power relationship with diminishing words. But be wary of subconsciously using qualifying language. It may inadvertently subvert your power.
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Consider some of the following and the impact they have:
>> “Just”
>> “Sort of”
>> “I was hoping to …”
>> “Little”
>> “Like”
>> “I was wondering if I
>> “Kind of”
could just …”
Meaningless words Many of us have subconscious filler words. Tune into yours and be wary of their purpose:
>> “Basically”
>> “Certainly”
>> “Well …”
Connect and Inspire
[continued from previous]
>> “I think …”
>> “Actually”
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
>> “In fact …”
Q What are yours?
I want gravel
to show in the word,
the ferrugineous salt,
the gap-toothed power
of the soil.
There must be a blood-letting for talker and non-talker alike. I want to see thirst in the syllables, touch fire
in the sound; feel through the dark of the scream.
Let my words be acrid as virginal stone. Verbo by Pablo Neruda
Practical exercises for ‘Speak’ 1. Indulge in sounds Read the poem, Verbo by Pablo Neruda, aloud and indulge in the sounds. Discover the sounds that give meaning to the words. Without honouring the intrinsic value of these sounds in these words, you lose an opportunity to conjure images in the minds of your audience. Stimulating the audience’s imagination with images is the magic of communication. It empowers the listener to engage in the experience of your message and to enrol into it more willingly. I’m going to crumple this word, to twist it,
yes, it’s too slick like a big dog or a river had been lapping it down with its tongue, or water had worn it away with the years.
Working with rich language texts aloud is a smart way to resurrect your connection to language. Even though your business content may not prove as textured, you are still using words. It is your job to bring life to these words. Take time to live in the words and you will let the words do the work for you. All you have to do is honour the sounds you are given. Words are designed to move the listener. Explore aloud and resurrect your sensitivity to language and sounds.
2. Be on every word Cicely Berry, Voice Director from the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK, works with a technique she calls: “Being on the word”. When you really consider the meaning and value of every word then you become closer to the text and finer in your ability to connect to your audience. Take your time reading through your content aloud and connect to every word. Find meaning and value in each word. Even the smallest words such as ‘if’, ‘but’, ‘and’ can have a significant impact on the direction of your thoughts and feelings. You will soon find out which words you can jettison and how valuable words really are to your ability to connect and inspire.
[continued opposite]
Feel the “K ” sound in the word ‘crumple’. Play with it and experiment with how far you can stretch it before it loses its meaning. Explore the word ‘twist’, playing with the light, crispness of the “T ”s. What does the “W ” do to the image between these “T ”s? Keep exploring and find words that fascinate you, or disgust you and give them what they require. Don’t let anything be anaemic and do not turn on the autopilot button. 52
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3. Let your thoughts land The joy of speaking can sometimes be in relishing the impact of your thoughts on your audience. Watch your thoughts land on your audience and see how they respond. Let their response inform your next moment. Remember, it’s not a presentation. It’s a conversation. The audience needs to feel as though they also have a voice in this conversation, even if they are not speaking. An audience loves being acknowledged. If you do get a physical or vocal response, use it. Respond to it. Be careful not to single anyone out and make them feel isolated for their response (unless you feel it is totally warranted). An audience has an uncanny ability to support its fellow members particularly if they feel that one of their kind is being unfairly picked on. But at the same time, they are also appreciative of a speaker if they feel that one of their kind is being acknowledged for a response. Respond to your audience and include them in your conversation.
‘Speak’ tips >> Indulge the sonic booms of consonants and breathe life into your vowels. >> Script in word ‘gems’, so your audience can admire them. >> Breathe life into the sensual experience of language. >> Care about your words. >> Don’t be a robot—be a human.
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Case Study
Being connected and inspiring using the ABVS technique Danielle is a senior sales executive and is often pitching ideas in meetings to clients. Her issue is that while her content is strong, she is losing connection with her audience too quickly. I began our training sessions by asking her to deliver a business pitch to me as she would to a client. I could see the issue. So I asked her to bring some content to her next session that truly inspired her. She arrived with the poem If by Rudyard Kipling:
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same: If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!” [continued over]
Mahatma Gandhi
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[continued from previous page]
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much: If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! If by Rudyard Kipling
As she spoke through it, I could see that there were undercurrents of meaning for her, but in rushing through she was missing the personal connections it had for her. We spent some time on working through ‘Arrive’ ‘Breathe’ ‘Vibrate’ ‘Speak’, so that she could become more present with the moment of speaking.
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Part 3
Connecting with your Mythical Voice
Connect and Inspire
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the immensity of the sea. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Your Mythical Voice explained
I also asked her to imagine she was speaking to herself as a little girl. And she had to change the last line to “you’ll be a woman, my dear.”
Your Mythical Voice gives you an opportunity to be remembered. It is the crafting of your Inner Voice, spoken on your Literal Voice and resonating out into the world on a mythical scale.
What occurred was an emotionally delicate and authentic delivery of a very personal experience, which she willingly and thoughtfully shared on her voice. We were at once both connected to the message and the experience and were emotionally moved.
The hero’s journey
Her job now was to bring that experience of speaking into her business communications: to be completely connected to what she was saying and the sentiment behind it, while being sensitive to the impact it was having on her clients. She succeeded and reported back that her clients were more willing to listen to her and they interrupted her less. More importantly, she had the feeling she was being heard and valued more by the business. Isn’t it fascinating that the slower and more authentic you are in speaking, the more your audience connects to you and values your voice in the world?
Myths found the moral code of human cultures. They are the deep tap-root to our subconscious and humanity. They bond us across community, culture, politics and gender. What a valuable way to connect to your audience. The goal for the Mythical Voice is to lift your message to a mythical level to work actively into the heart of your audience and ‘provide a paradigm for significant human acts’. Anthropologist, Bronislav Malinowsk, explains: Myth fulfils, in primitive culture, an indispensable function: it expresses, enhances and codifies belief; it safeguards and enforces morality; it vouches for the efficiency of ritual and contains practical rules for the guidance of man. Myth is thus a vital ingredient of human civilization; it is not an idle tale, but a hardworked active force; it is not an intellectual explanation or an artistic imagery, but a pragmatic charter of primitive faith and moral wisdom.
Consider the value of your message when it is lifted to a level that ‘safeguards and enforces morality’, when it is an ‘active force’. Just that thought may help you reframe your perspective and elevate your role as the conduit for the spirit of your message.
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Now that you have identified the spirit of your message (your Inner Voice) as the subject of what you want to deliver, consider shaping your Inner Voice to ensure you work into the heart of your audience actively, and mythically. Work at the level of human values and breathe life into your Inner Voice with language that elevates your audience beyond the daily grind. Help them aspire and believe on a mythical level.
The Mythical Voice structure One of the greatest myths of Western Culture is the Oedipus Myth. At the centre of which is Odysseus, the hero; everyman. The myth follows the hero’s journey through a series of scenarios, resulting in a moral catharsis or learning. With this myth in mind, we can frame a structure that will take your audience on a journey actively.
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Resolve—the conclusion to the journey This is the result of your presentation or journey. Many people use: “So, to recap …” That is the sentiment, but avoid those words. They are so overused.
Catharsis—the emotional, intellectual or moral learning This is the ‘so what’ of your talk. It is the catharsis of your message: “If you follow my ideas, the impact on you/the world will be …” This is your opportunity to take your message to a mythical level. It is especially powerful if you can link it back to your hook.
The Mythical Voice structure example Have a look at the way Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, has crafted his message in his Farewell to The Old Guard in 1814, when he said goodbye to his faithful officers, after his failed invasion of Russia and defeat by the Allies. His speech follows the Mythical Voice structure.
Hook—a shared experience This is the hook for the audience. It is the device that the audience uses to remember your message. Sometimes, it is powerful to think laterally and find a seemingly nonrelated hook and then weave the connection for the audience.
Soldiers of my Old Guard. I bid you farewell.
HOOK THESIS
Consider: an analogy for your message, a story, a metaphor, a prop, a statistic, an image. For example, I have seen these hooks used successfully in corporate presentations:
>> Jan aimed to motivate her team about staying tight and focused as they got to the most difficult and final stage of a product launch. She gave each of the team a miniature torch and asked to hold them up at the start of the talk. When asked what the torch represented she said: “Have a look around the room. It is the light at the end of the tunnel. We are almost there.”
>> Cameron, as head of a large investment organisation, delivered to the entire business on the potential of one of their new business ventures. He walked onto stage backed by a full screen photo of a child sitting on a bike with trainer wheels about to head down a hill. His first line was: “Remember when you had this much faith in risk?”
Thesis—the subject
For twenty years, I have constantly accompanied you on the road to honor and glory. In these latter times, as in the days of our prosperity, you have invariably been models of courage and fidelity.
JOURNEY (1)
With men such as you our cause could not be lost; but the war would have been interminable; it would have been civil war, and that would have entailed deeper misfortunes on France.
JOURNEY (2)
I have sacrificed all of my interests to those of the country.
JOURNEY (3)
I go, but you, my friends, will continue to serve France. Her happiness was my only thought. It will still be the object of my wishes.
RESOLVE
This is the subject of your talk. It is why we are here together sharing this message. Keep it simple and make it relevant to the audience. The majority of speeches start with their subject by: “Today, I am going to talk to you about …” Avoid it. It sets the bar too low.
Do not regret my fate; if I have consented to survive, it is to serve your glory. I intend to write the history of the great achievements we have performed together.
Journey—a series of challenges or experiences
Adieu, my friends. Would I could press you all to my heart.
Catharsis
This is the meat of your talk. Ensure you group this information into packets that are engaging for the audience. Three areas are enough for an audience to digest. Perhaps a logical sequence of: past-present-future, or problem-solution-benefit. The goal is to make the content digestible for the audience.
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Practical exercises
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Q What motivates your audience? Involve that.
Before you start to craft your message with the Mythical Voice structure, you must first consider your audience and your objective.
1. Your audience For your audience to listen authentically means they need to be open and willing to hear. You really need to do your research on your audience to consider what might get in the way of an authentic reception of your message.
Q What are the white elephants in the room? Deal with them.
2. Your objective Actors work diligently to find their objective. An objective is active and inclusive. What is your objective at this speaking event? Keep it simple. What do you want your audience to walk away doing and feeling? Some objectives:
>> Change their minds >> Get them to come Q What are your audience’s points of pain or need? Manage them.
with you
>> Stop them going in that direction
>> Get them to fall in love with you or your idea
>> Get them saying “yes” >> Inspire them
>> Wow them >> Get under their skin >> Make them uncomfortable
>> Relieve them
Q What is your active, inclusive objective?
Q Who are the decision makers? Include them.
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3. Crafting your message Now you have taken into account what your audience needs and you have a strong objective, you are ready to craft your Inner Voice/message into the following structure, so that it will be active and cathartic for your audience.
>> Hook—A shared experience
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Case Study
Elevating a standard business presentation
>> Thesis—The subject
Let’s look at an example of how you might craft your message so it becomes more than just another business presentation. Remember our example of Cameron’s hook on page 58. Let’s work out the bare bones of his talk using the Mythical Voice structure.
>> Journey—A series of challenges or experiences (× 3)
Cameron, as head of a large investment organisation, delivered to the entire business on the potential of one of their new business ventures. He walked onto stage backed by a full screen photo of a child sitting on a bike with trainer wheels about to head down a hill. His first line was: Remember when you had this much faith in risk? Our new acquisition, ABC Group, promises to be an exhilarating ride.
HOOK
THESIS
Who is ABC Group? [Details]
JOURNEY (1)
Why we have invested in it. [Details]
JOURNEY (2)
What we stand to gain from it. [Details]
>> Resolve—The conclusion to the journey
JOURNEY (3)
ABC Group is a solid investment for our business. RESOLVE
[Referring back to the photo of the child on the bike]
>> Catharsis—The emotional, intellectual or moral learning
We are about to take a ride. We have measured all the risks. We have done our due diligence (referring to the trainer wheels). We are in a strong position to reap the rewards and experience the thrill and potential of this new venture. Like the good parent, will be there every step of the way with you. Join us for the ride of your lives.
Catharsis
Be creative and call on human values to lift your message beyond the norm. Connect and Inspire. 62
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Inspiring
Your audience From page to stage Having developed your message, the question now remains; “What do you do with notes?” Ideally, the best presentations come from an honest, direct connection to your audience, unimpeded by notes. However, sometimes notes are essential and required. Some people prefer to use notes. The potential problem here is that you lose connection with your audience. Others find notes too binding. The danger here is that you lose the logic of your argument and throw away all the work you have put into your preparation. If you are willing, here are four stages to take your words from page to stage.
Stage 1—Fully worded notes This stage binds you to the grammatical rules and linear form of the words on the page. It may be a fundamental start to your preparation, however, if you stay in this stage it may be difficult for you to feel free enough to move creatively away from the page and connect with your audience.
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Stage 3—Follow your navigation Experiment with speaking your talk aloud by only following the chunks you designed in Stage 2. Be brave to spend most of your time looking away from your notes and see if you can still cover your ideas without having to follow word for word. You may find that you do not exactly honour the words you have created, but that you create around the concepts more expressively or personally. You might even find some new ways of expressing an idea. Take note of these as you may wish to use them for Stage 4.
Stage 4—Final draft Rewrite your notes headed with your chunked words from Stage 2. Briefly, fill in any detail that you think needs to be covered that the ‘chunk’ does not remind you of. If you want, you can have your complete notes on a separate page to the chunked notes as a back up. But be careful not to be tempted to rely on them. It is a trap that leads to disconnection from your audience.
A Note on PowerPoint PowerPoint slides are not your notes. Don’t have your notes written on the PowerPoint slide for all to see. PowerPoint presentation software can be used much more creatively and intelligently. The audience does not need to or want to read the inner workings of your preparation. They want to be entertained. If you are going to use words on a screen, use one bold word or an image that inspires the idea you are discussing.
Stage 2—Chunking To wean yourself off your notes, chunk your paragraphs to one word or phrase. Find a word or phrase that you can use as a summary of a paragraph or idea. Write it in the column of your notes.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that one never ought to speak at all unless you have the sincerity which justifies appearing in front of an audience. Lord Shinwell, ex-British Labour Politician
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Rehearsal No performer, athlete, artist, musician or professional speaker would dare to get up in front of an audience without a rehearsal. The purpose of rehearsal is to practise techniques, stretch muscles, exercise the mind, make lots of mistakes, go too far to see what works and what doesn’t. Rehearsal is not about getting it right. It is about moving theory into reality. Rehearsal is about finding out what else you can do once you get in the ring, on the stage, on the blocks, with the team. Here is where the creative life of your voice and communications begins, so you can make the transition from page to stage.
Rehearsal schedule 1 Write your presentation using the Mythical Voice structure. 2 Chunk your notes as above. 3 Get up on your feet and speak it aloud. Don’t do it sitting and reading it in your head. Speaking and movement have a different time and weight to them. This will help you find moments that work and areas you need to rewrite.
4 Redraft integrating new discoveries from speaking aloud. 5 Get it on its feet again and speak aloud. This time consider your blocking. Blocking is a performance term that refers to the physical movement of the piece. There may be some areas of the text that would be best served by creating distinct spaces in the room to highlight the ideas you are putting forth. Follow your impulses here and don’t limit the possibilities of how you can use space to mark out the story.
6 Be wary of rehearsing too many times before a performance. If you are nervous and anxious about the event, check that you are not overdoing your rehearsals. Make sure you run through the presentation at least three times aloud and on its feet before the day.
7 Dress rehearsal. Get into the space if you can and run through whole performance. If this is not possible, then aim to get on stage and speak at least the first and last line, fully and on voice. Run through your speech once more on the day before you do it. Be wary of running it over and over in your head before you go on. You run the danger of getting yourself in a panic and not being present for your audience. Find stillness in the wings. Refer to the breathing exercises in the ‘Breathe’ section to bring you back to your centre.
8 Know your first and last line off by heart, so you have a bold and connected start and a strong finish.
9 ‘Arrive’. ‘Breathe’. ‘Vibrate’. ‘Speak’. … And have fun.
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page to stage rehearsal warming up stagecraft
Connect and Inspire
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Warming up A warm up will bring your body, voice, heart and mind into one place. It will get you focused on the job at hand. Warm ups might be:
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Connect and Inspire
Props and audio-visual Q Do you have all your props (pointers, charts, furniture, etc.)? Q Do you need to get rid of any unwanted props/furniture in your space? Q Where and what size is the screen? How can you use this?
>> Simply speaking your opening sentence or closing argument.
Q Do you know what the lighting in the room is doing?
>> Taking five minutes to stretch physically and breathe to ground your nerves.
Q Do you know what areas of lighting to avoid and which to step into?
>> Meditating to clear out chaotic thoughts.
Q Do you need a microphone and do you know how to manage it?
>> Running through a voice warm up as outlined in the ‘Vibrate’ section.
Stagecraft
Cues Q Have you practised music or video cues with your audio-visual person? Q Where do you come on from?
Consider the following questions.
Q If you are on stage while being introduced, what are you doing?
Space
Q How do you hand over?
Q What shape is your performance space?
Q How do you leave?
Q How big is it? Q How can you include all the audience? Q Are you able to see everywhere/everyone? Q What is in the way (furniture, tables, lecterns, columns, etc.)? Q Is the energy of the room dense or sparse (it will affect the audience’s focus)? Q Are there any distractions that you need to manage or eliminate (moving pictures, windows where people can look in, telephones, food beverage service, etc.)?
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is. Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut
You in space Q How much space do you have to move in? Q Have you marked out (‘blocked’) your physical movement through your content for this performance space?
Q How physical/vocal do you need to be in this space? Q During audience engagement, can you stay in control from the stage? Q Can you use any other areas of the room as your performance space (aisles, back of room, etc.)?
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Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Practical: Working with the Voice Coach Approach
Summary
Connect and Inspire
Next steps Speaking improves with practise. Practise comes in many forms. It can be a formal presentation or even when you are speaking with people socially. Remember to practise often and experiment with any of the tools you have found insightful in this book.
Courage to connect
For an advanced and deeper experience of your presence, breath and voice you may wish to work with the Voice Coach e-Learning Module: Speaking Fundamentals available at:
www.voicecoach.net
Insights
Step into the spotlight
As a final commitment to your voice in the world, make a shortlist of your insights from reading this book and decide on your plans for practise.
Deciding to claim your voice in the world takes courage and commitment. It is also rewarding and invigorating. To connect and inspire:
1 Find the motivation of your Inner Voice —Raise the stakes and let your spirit speak.
2 Speak boldly with your resonant, alive Literal Voice —‘Arrive’. ‘Breathe’. ‘Vibrate’. ‘Speak’.
3 Elevate your message with your Mythical Voice —Hook. Thesis. Journey. Resolve. Catharsis.
4 Inspire your Audience
Implementation
—Rehearse and warm up to keep your audience engaged.
Agreed action
5 Be brave. When you connect to your story, yourself and your audience, then you will be inspirational.
When
1
Your voice has the power to make the changes you want to see in the world.
Connect and inspire.
Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting. Karl Wallenda
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2
3
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Connect and Inspire
Bibliography
Connect and Inspire
Speaking Fundamentals: e-learning module
Publications Alexander, F Matthias. (1932). The Use of the Self, Methuen and Co. Ltd., UK. Berry, Cicely. (1973). Voice and the Actor, Harrap Ltd., Great Britain. Berry, Cicely. (2000). The Actor and the Text, Virgin Publishers, Great Britain. Berry, Cicely. (1994). Your Voice and How to Use It, Virgin Publishers, Great Britain. Boston, Jane and Cook, Rena. (2009). Breath in Action: The Art of Breath in Vocal and Holistic Practice, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, UK. Damasio, Antonio. (1999). The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Harcourt. Doidge, Norman. (2007). The Brain that Changes Itself, Scribe. Eliade, Mircea. (1963). Myth and Reality, Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row. Feldenkrais, Moshe. (1972). Awareness Through Movement, Arkana Penguin Gp, UK. Gilligan, Carol. (1996). In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, Harvard University Press. Gilligan, Carol and Mickel, Lyn. (1992). Meeting at the Crossroads, Random House. Herrigel, Eugen. (1985). Zen in the Art of Archery, Arkana, USA.
Speaking Fundamentals takes you up close and personal with Lucy Cornell, Director of Voice Coach.
Lessac, Arthur. (1960). The Use and Training of the Human Voice: A Bio-Dynamic Approach to Vocal Life, Mayfield Publishing Company, California.
In this concentrated one-hour e-learning module with Lucy, you get:
Linklater, Kristin. (2006). Freeing the Natural Voice, Nick Hern Books, London. Linklater, Kristin. (1992). Freeing Shakespeare’s Voice, Theatre Comms Grp, NY.
>> A personal diagnostic tool with
>> Abundant advice on performance and
Lucy’s feedback;
speaking techniques;
Malinowski, B. (1926) Myth in Primitive Psychology, reprinted in Magic, Science and Religion, New York, 1955.
>> The four indispensable steps you need
Osho. (2001). Zen: The Path of Paradox, St Martin’s Press, New York, USA.
>> Guidance through practical exercises
Rodenburg, Patsy. (1992). The Right to Speak, Methuen Drama, Great Britain. Rodenburg, Patsy. (1993). The Need for Words, Methuen Drama, Great Britain. Scott, Susan. (2002). Fierce Conversations, Viking Penguin, USA. Shlain, Leonard. (1998). The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, Penguin Compass. Tannen, Deborah. (1992). You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, Virago. Todd, Mabel Elsworth. (1937). The Thinking Body, Princeton Book Co, USA.
for speaking confidence; with Lucy;
>> Warm ups for speaking preparation; >> Access through any internet enabled device; and
>> Multiple uses.
The benefits >> Empower your voice
>> Be persuasive
>> Increase your presence
>> Manage your nerves
>> Develop gravitas
>> Build your speaking confidence
Recommended Linklater voice teachers http://www.thelinklatercenter.com/designated-linklater-teachers/alphabetical 72
Available at www.voicecoach.net or
[email protected] or +612 9299 7978. 73
Connect and Inspire
Lucy Cornell Chief Inspiration Officer and Director of Voice Coach Designated Linklater Voice Teacher, M.App.Sc., B.A.B.ed., L.T.C.L.
Voice Coach works with leaders and speakers in business and corporations globally. Lucy Cornell, Director of Voice Coach, brings the world’s most sophisticated techniques in voice and speaking to the business world to develop vocal presence and power for stronger, more inspired leadership. Lucy is regularly sought as a specialist speaker at international conferences, including regularly for the Young President’s Organization and for selected business clients globally from Pakistan, UK, USA, The Middle East to South Africa. Lucy also works regularly with international legal advocacy training programs across the Commonwealth. In the media, Lucy has spoken about voice on ABC and 2UE Radio and has been featured in business publications such as BRW ( Business Review Weekly) and The Australian’s The Deal. Lucy’s training in voice has been with the world’s Masters of Voice. She has been accredited by Master voice teacher Kristin Linklater in the USA. Lucy is one of 150 Linklater voice teachers in the world. Training with Kristin Linklater is rigorous and competitive. There is no other voice teacher training in the world that compares with the quality of voice teachers designated by Kristin. She has trained extensively in Australia, London and the USA and applies this knowledge to the entertainment and business industries. Lucy also holds a Masters of Applied Science in Voice Research (USyd), Bachelor of Arts and Education (UNSW) and a Licentiate Diploma from the Trinity College of London. In Australia, Lucy has trained with Isobel Kirk, Master Linklater teacher. In the UK, she has trained with and observed voice tutors from the Royal Shakespeare Company (Cicely Berry QBE). In the USA, Lucy trained as an actor and teacher at Shakespeare & Company, USA.
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Connect and Inspire Connect and Inspire delivers some of the world’s most sophisticated techniques in voice use and makes them accessible for the business speaker using the Voice Coach Approach.
As a leader, you have the privileged opportunity to make a change in your world with inspired speaking. With that comes the responsibility to voice your vision with integrity and power to bring about this change. This book will help you develop your:
>> voice; >> presence; >> gravitas; >> persuasive power; and >> confidence for influential, empowered speaking in business. It will help you speak from your heart to be a powerful, authentic, visionary leader. Connect to your story. Connect to your voice. Connect to your audience.
Connect and inspire.
Lucy Cornell has been an inspiration to barristers in England and Australia. She helps them make their voices heard, and their presence felt, in court. Her brilliant technique of Arrive Breathe Vibrate Speak has been a revelation and is highly recommended to all those who aspire to practise the art of advocacy. The Hon. Sir Charles Haddon-Cave, Chairman of the Advocacy Training Council of the Bar of England and Wales (2007–2010)
Connect and Inspire is an essential guide to finding your authentic, inner voice in order to reveal your outer strength. Yalda Hakim, Australian Journalist and Presenter
Persuasive speaking in business relies on a strong voice, sensitivity to performance and inspirational content. This book helps you attain them all. Arun Abey, Chairman, ipac Securities, Australia and author of How Much is Enough?
Lucy’s techniques build confidence in the boardroom. I no longer have senior management telling me they can’t hear me or that I need to be more authoritative. Karina Kwan, Financial Controller, Citi Australia
The charismatic sympathy with which Lucy connects and inspires is making a huge contribution to the training of young advocates from a number of countries. Edwin Glasgow CBE QC, UK Chairman of International Advocacy Training Council
