Yes, I acknowledge it. This is the opposite of what I usually tell you.
Most of the time, I’m all about getting women (especially) to understand that you are better than you think you are, so you can stop hiding out and feeling like a fraud. So you can own your value and the value of everything you have to offer, and we can hear that in your voice.
But there’s a time when you’re NOT as good as you think you are.
It’s when you’ve finally gotten yourself to get out there and speak. You’ve got some experience. You feel like you’ve got your story down. You’ve given your talk or presentation many times, and you’re getting some good feedback.
You think you sound pretty good, and you think you don’t need a speaking coach anymore.
Or, WHEW, you’re glad you never spent the money on that speaker coach you talked to. I knew I could do it myself, you say.
Ooops.
You’ve forgotten a crucial thing about your brain. Or, maybe, you never knew this – your brain is messing with you.
You don’t hear yourself accurately. Or more correctly, you don’t LISTEN to yourself accurately.
Hearing is the act of collecting sound. Listening is what the brain does with what it hears. They ARE NOT the same.
Because your brain knows what you want to say, and how you want to say it, it makes you think you’re saying what you want to say in exactly the way you want to say it.
Your brain is having you on. Your brain (which is killer at catching all the subtle nuances in OTHER people’s voices) is listening to your own voice through filters that skew the results it tells you you’re getting.
It’s filtering through your voice stories – unconscious decisions you’ve made about how you should speak.
Your brain knows exactly how passionate you are about something, and how you want it to come across. Your brain will overlay your unconscious voice stories on top of all that passion, and make your voice come out in a way that fits the voice stories, while making YOU think you’re being awesomely passionate and effective.
Here’s an example of a voice story. Connie came to work with me because people were always talking over her. She was between jobs and having a hard time finding a new one. She had a very small voice – and she was NOT a small woman. She was highly intelligent, highly qualified, and extremely under-employed and under-appreciated. She wanted to be truly seen and heard.
I gave her exercises to increase the volume and expressiveness of her voice. When she tried them, she felt like she was yelling.
I showed her on my decible meter that compared to my yelling voice, hers was not even close. Her “yelling” voice was only just slightly more audible than her usual soft voice.
She didn’t hear herself accurately. Her brain told her she was yelling when she wasn’t even close.
It turned out that she had been told all the time as a child that “girls should be seen and not heard.” That was her core voice story. She had completely internalized that message, and created a tiny voice that didn’t match who she was at all.
When she released that story, she claimed her “power voice.” She got a new job. She started taking the lead at work in ways she never had done before.
She started calmly and firmly setting boundaries with her family.
She had a creative explosion – drawing and writing poetry.
In short, her whole life changed.
Because she learned to listen to herself accurately. Because she shifted her voice stories, opened up her voice, and gave herself permission to express ALL of who she was.
Most professional singers and actors use a coach throughout their careers. They know they don’t listen to themselves accurately. No matter how accomplished they are, they understand that their brains are prone to messing with them.
Then you can have the big impact and influence you desire.
I’d be happy to be your voice coach. Let’s talk. https://www.timetrade.com/book/6B9J1
