Latest / She Speaks to Scale / 18. Reclaiming Your Voice and Having the Audacity to Back Yourself, with Savanna Madden
Transcript
- Sarah Collins: Hello and welcome to She Speaks to Scale with me, Sarah Collins. The podcast that empowers women in business to own their voice, be heard and create impact, one communication insight at a time. I'm a media trainer and communication coach and a former senior television producer. It's my mission to bring the communication skills we need to thrive in today's world of business to the generation of women who simply weren't taught them. Whether it's scaling your voice to step into thought leadership in a media interview, speaking with confidence on camera, on stage and beyond, or scaling the way you communicate when it really counts. This podcast will help you use your voice to be heard in the moments that matter. My guest today is Savannah Madden, who is a confidence and speaking coach for female founders. Drawing on decades of performance training, vocal work, and somatic techniques, she helps women build the confidence to speak on stages and podcasts so they become known for their expertise and attract the clients they want. Savannah is also the founder of Madden Theatre Arts, an award-winning performing arts business in Hertfordshire and host of the Reclaim Your Voice podcast. Let's get into the conversation. Savannah, thank you so much for joining me. Savanna Madden: thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation. Sarah Collins: Me too, me too. Now I begin every guest episode by asking, can you share the moment when you realize that your voice truly mattered? Savanna Madden: Well, it's probably quite a long story, so I'll try and keep it as succinct as possible. But I actually lost my voice, literally, over 10 years ago. I was diagnosed with focal nodules, and I'm from a performing arts background, and I was still working as a performer at the time, but also doing some performing arts coaching as well. So it was a pretty big problem. I'm sure everybody would relate that. losing your voice no matter what industry you work in would not be ideal. But it was pretty catastrophic for me. But I was very, very lucky that I had access to speech therapy through the NHS and a wonderful speech therapist that I worked with. And I also sought out alternative therapies as well. So I had a lot of reiki. So I was able to recover. told me that my nodules were from overuse and from stress, stress related. And I later found out that it was a bit of a trauma response as well. However, the good news was that I was able to reverse it without having any surgery. And the speech therapy that I had was absolutely incredible. And you you don't realize what you've lost until you have lost it. You know, that whole kind of... We take our voices for granted because we use them every day. We don't really think about it. Well, most of us, obviously not everybody. And once I rehabilitated my voice and it sort of was coming back to full strength, it was actually the catalyst for what made me start my first business. I run two businesses and my first business is that I... own a theatre school. I've now grown and scaled that. We've got an amazing team running that for me. I'm just the decision maker now. But we give opportunities to young people to use their voices as well. So it was that moment where I was like, do you know what? I'm going to use my voice for good. I'm going to inspire and coach young people to use their voices, give them a platform. We give them all sorts of opportunities. So yeah, that was the moment, that was like a real turning point in my adult life where I was like, I can make a real difference here. Sarah Collins: Wow, I mean, what a journey. I can't even imagine what it would be like to completely lose your voice. Now, now. Savanna Madden: terrifying. Sarah Collins: Also, as you say, you're somebody who is in that world. Your voice is everything, isn't it, in that instant? It's your career, it's how you make your money. It's, wow. mean, when you were going through that, what kind of thoughts were you having in terms of, did you think you were gonna ever be able to use it again or to what capacity? Savanna Madden: Yeah, I mean also at that time I was going through so much in my personal life as well as my professional life. I had just left a nearly 10 year relationship. I was actually married so I had left that marriage and we were getting divorced. I was in loads, I was in thousands of pounds worth of debt. I was living in a shared house with people that I didn't know to try and save some money. So the stress of thinking I can't do my job and I can't earn money was multiplied because of all the other things that were going on in my personal life. And honestly, you know, when you look back on things, when you've had experiences and you sometimes can't quite articulate like how you got through it, but I always thought to myself that this just can't be it. There will be a way out of it. And I am. glass half full sort of person and I was really lucky that I had an incredible support network around me. My parents are incredible, I had amazing friends and where I was working I had quite a few working relationships that were really really positive as well. So I had lots of people around me to support me. I had a bit of financial support from my parents. Thank you so much parents, you know. I'm really fortunate because I know not everybody is in that sort of situation. And I just knew that there would be something to come out the other side. And so what was incredible was because of the speech therapy I had, not only was I given exercises in the sessions to do and to practice and to... rehabilitate but I was given literal things and actual tools. For example, when I was teaching, I used a little sort of Britney head mic to teach so that I literally just could use my voice as softly as possible or as quietly as I needed to and there was no need for me to project at all. So at the time I was also teaching a lot of dance. So you can imagine, you know, shouting over the music. So I was given so many amazing tools and techniques on how to use my voice to help it recover. And I just focused on that. That is what I focused on. All the tools, all the techniques, support, trying to remain positive and just that inner knowing that I was only 28, 29, just knowing that I would make it through, I would get through it, which I know... It's probably not like tangible advice because sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees. But I think it's just having that grit as well and building your resilience bit by bit. you take one step forward, you achieve something that helps you grow your confidence. Take another little step forward. And that was what I was looking at with my voice. Every time it got a bit stronger, I was like, great, I've hit another milestone. Great. now we can move on to the next thing. So it's those little step-by-step things that give you the proof that something's working and that's what helps you grow in confidence. Sarah Collins: those small steps and I bet that's how you've gone on to have a successful business and the work that you do now, I know with female founders as well. Now you mentioned your parents there and I'm just wondering when you were younger, what was it like in terms of using your voice? Were you always encouraged to use your voice at all? Savanna Madden: Well, it's really, really interesting because actually up until the age of 10, my grandmother lived with us, unfortunately until she passed away and she was deaf. She was made deaf at birth through forceps because she was born in the 20s. I know that forceps are still used to this day, but obviously it was a little bit different, know, 100 years ago. And I grew up not using my voice. physically or literally as much as perhaps a youngster of my age were growing up in sort of 80s and 90s because my grandma lip read. She didn't actually sign. So we did a lot of just talking without our voices because I could lip read her and she could lip read me and my parents spoke to her like that. And my mom grew up in a household with two deaf parents. So she's quite softly spoken and we didn't really live in like a house where you would shout from downstairs to upstairs. You would always go and find whoever it was that you wanted to go and speak to. And so it was a very vibrant and lively household. My mum and dad are real hosts and love throwing parties and we always doing fundraising events and having people over and all this sort of stuff. It was a very vibrant house, but quite a quiet house at the same time. Just because voices tend to not to be raised but my parents are the sort of people that would say you look great in a bin liner Savannah don't worry about it you know just go for it. Always instilling like unshakable confidence in myself and my sibling my brother and always believing in us that we could do anything. Probably almost to our detriment. I do feel like sometimes I'm a bit deluded with my ambitions and things. I think, God, can I really do that? Oh yeah, come on, let's just give it a go. Like the eternal optimist. So I had those two kind of almost like that sort of light and shade, those two dynamics of. It was very vibrant and lively and we were really encouraged and really pushed. And also my mum and dad really embraced my performing arts and creative side. And it was never kind of like, ooh, performing arts, bit of a hard industry to crack into, isn't it? Like I was really fortunate. I never had those kind of like limiting beliefs bestowed upon me. But we were also like, yeah, not like... shouting and screaming at one another which is nice. Sarah Collins: That sounds amazing. What a wonderful way just to communicate. You don't often hear stories about that, do you? Just that softly spoken, having to read. mean, that must have come with challenges at times. Savanna Madden: Yeah, and then losing my grandma as well when I was only 10 years old was really, really tough. My mum's father died when she was very young, and her brother was in the Navy and there's quite a big age gap between them. So it was just my mum and her mum for most of my mum's childhood from when she was nine actually. And because my grandma lived with us, I spent every day with her. I spent a lot of time with her after school. We used to play so many games together and I think that is what really opened my eyes to being imaginative and creating stories. We used to play restaurants and games together in her sitting room and we used to go out together and do things, just the two of us a lot. My brother is four or five years older than me and he went to a completely different school with longer hours. So yeah, I spent a lot of time with her and she's had an enormous impact on the way I see communication and inclusivity and diversity and also how we communicate so much physically, not just verbally. You can tell so much by people's body language and how they express themselves with their facial expressions and things like that. yeah. She was also a dancer and that's how I started off in my performing arts journey was in dance and I feel like that was heavily inspired by the stories she told me of what she got up to as a child which is also ironic because obviously she couldn't hear and she used to feel all the music through the vibrations which again is just so fascinating and really interesting. Sarah Collins: That's absolutely incredible. So a real, real inspiration then for you going into that performing arts career. What did that look like for you? in terms of using your voice and being surrounded by like-minded people, but having to use your voice in a certain way. Savanna Madden: hugely. Yeah, that's a really good question because, you know, the performing arts industry has lots of labels attached to it. And I would say that on the whole, my experience was pretty positive. However, when I was training at performing arts college, you know, when I was sort of 19 to 23, I did four years. I definitely felt vocal issues arose a little bit. And this was way before I was diagnosed with nodules. I had had laryngitis and tonsillitis and glandular fever as a teenager. And I felt like it kind of just like lurked a little bit in my early 20s. So I did feel myself kind of not necessarily getting the absolute best out of the singing training that I was offered. And the main singing teacher at my college, he was incredible, but he explained things so... flamboyantly and so like almost like mysteriously to me that it wasn't until later on in my training where I was more trained in the astil singing technique that I was like no this makes way more sense to me like it's all really logical you're talking literally about how your larynx works and how your vocal folds vibrate together not about like you know squeezing a lemon to get the the sound out and things like that you know just a sort of non It was sort fluffy advice, but he was amazing at what he did and is still helping people today with their voice. But I definitely shied away from the singing element a lot. It was the thing I was least confident in. I was a really confident dancer, I a really confident actor, and I loved using my voice in acting terms. And then I would say in terms of more on like a personal level, that I was kind of labelled in my year. I was one of the eldest. I started my training at 19, which when you're at a performing arts school that's quite dance based, it's a bit different if it's acting and singing. They do like you to start a bit older because you've got bit more life experience. And I had been travelling on my gap year and done all of that sort of stuff that people do. But I had a lot of 16 year olds in my year and I was sort of labelled like the sort of organised together motherly sort of figure and I just did not want that label at school. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I also full transparency at that time, I had no idea whether I wanted to have a family or Sarah Collins: I'm going to you. Savanna Madden: have children. I know some people are like they know from the moment they set foot on this earth that they are going to be a mother when they become an adult, And I am a mum. I have a two and a half year old at time of recording my little boy. He's incredible and the best decision I ever made to become a mum. it's been life changing for all the right reasons. But when I was 19. It was not on my vision board, shall we say. And I was always kind of labeled like the really organized one. And now I really feel like I've got loads of markers for ADHD. I'm looking on the right to choose at the moment. I also have an underactive thyroid. Lots of things for ADHD are mirrored by an underactive thyroid. So it's all a bit confusing. And I feel like I did quite a lot of masking in that time to just sort of be like, well, I've been given this label, I should probably stick to it. Whereas I actually can be quite chaotic and quite spontaneous. And I feel like a lot of my training kept those parts of me really squashed and really contained. Whereas actually if I'd let go. I'd probably have been even more successful in my performing career because I would have had so many lessons in ambitions. But you know, you don't know what you don't know at the time do you? When you're 19, you're always trying to fit in and making sure everyone likes you and well, maybe not everybody, but that's, that's what I wanted. I wanted to be an environment where we all got along and that, you know, it's, can be quite a difficult, know, quite a female heavy usually environment, Sarah Collins: Mm. Savanna Madden: lots of women or lots of young women all together really striving for the same thing. It can be quite a difficult place to be sometimes. But as I say, on the whole, I did have a good experience and I felt like I could voice my opinions and things in that space, but I felt like I kept a lot of some things sort of like suppressed, shall we say. Yeah. Sarah Collins: did you feel more comfortable sharing things then and using your voice when you kind of left that environment and went into doing it more professionally? Savanna Madden: Yeah, definitely in the professional world, I've definitely felt a little bit more comfortable for sure. However, my professional career, I would say got cut a little bit short a bit earlier than I wanted to because of marrying my ex-husband. And then I fell into another loop there because that was when I really felt squashed and suffocated and silenced and What's really interesting is that when I was diagnosed with my vocal nodules, it was like an 18 month sort of post leaving my ex. And it was the NHS medical professional speech therapist that said, this is a trauma response from everything you've told me. you've been working yourself into the ground, you're burnt out. Yes, all of those things. But if we look at the emotional side, because she just was really great and asked me lots of questions made me feel really safe and secure with her like absolutely wonderful woman. She brought loads of things out and made me realize quite a lot of stuff and she was like yeah the the throat is so attached to so many different areas of your body and because I also have a thyroid issue there's all of that intertwined with it. It's all so fascinating. But yeah, I just felt like I didn't have a voice in that relationship and that my opinions just didn't matter at all. And again, I've picked up other labels and it's always the other people put upon you. I don't feel like I've ever really created anything for myself. I just like to try and be myself as much as possible, but. in my marriage, I was kind of labelled as like, the performing arts one, the bubbly, one, but she's a bit too much and she's a bit loud and she's a bit out there and with my very sort of like long blonde hair and fair skin and blue eyes, she's a bit silly, like, she doesn't really know what she's talking about, and I found myself over and over again in situations where I was made to feel like I was less than or that I didn't know what I was talking about or that I'd didn't have any knowledge about that because you only know performing arts. And it was so tiresome and looking back, really debilitating and it's no wonder that I had such a strong response to it when I picked myself back up and was like, no, I cannot live my life like this at 28 years old. I've got a whole life ahead of me. This is not the end. You Sarah Collins: You were only 28. I mean, that is a lot to go through to get to that age, isn't it? That's unbelievable. obviously, you spoke about then, creating Madden Theatre Arts and, looking at that next generation. So it must be so empowering to kind of take everything that you know now and to help that next generation with their... Savanna Madden: Yeah. Mmm. Sarah Collins: communication, with their acting, with everything that that entails. Tell me a bit more about that. Savanna Madden: So, yeah, so I started MTA in a Porter cabin in a car park with 12 students, as you do. And referrals, word of mouth is how I grew that business in the early days. I didn't have a Facebook page, didn't have an Instagram. This was in like 2018. It wasn't even called Madden Theatre Arts then. I was just doing Lambda Speech and Drama Sessions. I was calling it Lambda with Savannah. I was sending invoices in a Word document, how you do it when you're first starting out. I didn't even have a business account, probably shouldn't say that, but yeah, it was, all very flying by the seat, ear pants, not really sure what I'm doing, just go with the flow sort of thing. However, what I'd like to caveat that with is when I lived in Glasgow, I had managed an acting studio for five years and then... The Porter cabin that I started these sessions in was by a theatre school in the area that I was living in and I'd been managing that theatre school for nearly two years as well. So I did know how performing arts businesses worked and that was why I was like, I could easily do this myself. So I just took loads of the things that I had learned from that and just, yeah, again, had that kind of like unshakable belief of just about myself and just get on with it. I have to say my partner who I am with now, who I've been with for nearly 10 years, he was absolutely instrumental as well into that decision of really instilling more confidence in me that I could do it and that he would back me every step of the way. So again, I love to shout out to the people who are in my support network. It's just so important to me. now I've got 150 kids on our books, six coaches, two admin staff, and then I just sort of make the decisions. I am still heavily involved in exam season though, so I conduct all the mock exams before they go and do their Lambda exams. A lot of our work is on a one-to-one basis, so some people might think, 150 students, that's not actually that much, but we see all of them on a one-to-one or a pair, like they're in pairs. So we're stationed in an independent school locally. yeah, it's amazing. And then because of how well that business went and giving these opportunities to all these young people, that is when I started realizing so much where there's this, I don't want to call it a gap in the market because it sounds a bit sort of businessy, but where there's this lack in adults because there are so many people like me providing these opportunities for young people. Like my school is no exception. It is obviously amazing and it's award winning. Come on, it's fabulous. However, there are loads of other wonderful people doing very similar things. So in general, I would say young people are getting more opportunities to be believed in and we're very sort of young people led these days. Whereas I think maybe not as much when we were children, but maybe when our parents were children, it was like that fallacy of, be seen and not heard and all of that kind of thing. I just have loved this pivot into working with adults. to show them that their confidence is already there. It's somewhere, it might just be a bit buried. And my job is to find where maybe that blockage is as it were, and then bring it out. And it's just the best thing ever to see the transformations in people. It's just amazing, it? Sarah Collins: So you mentioned confidence there. Sometimes it's that the confidence is the underlying thing, isn't it? And actually, there's a bigger thing going on. But what do you find people come to you for? Savanna Madden: Yeah, so... So a lot of people will come to me because they want to share their expertise in certain environments, whether that's in their workplace, whether they're a business owner themselves. So it could be that they're going on to podcasts, speaking on stages, hosting webinars, or in the companies that they work in, whether they're hosting a workshop or pitching to clients or something. And they are just absolutely crippled by the nerves because they've never been given any tools. to speak in front of people. I know that public speaking particularly is one of the biggest phobias that we have. I think it's like the second or third most common one and people were just expected to do it. So many people I know that work for big organizations or people that I've worked with as well, where it's just like. they're expected to get up and speak in front of, you sometimes it's in front of 10 people or it could be in front of a hundred people, but it doesn't really matter the size of the audience. The nerves may still be the same. So yeah, people come to me for nerve management particularly, and I've had clients have been, literally physically shaking in front of, full of five or 10 people. It's the same nervous system reaction basically. Sarah Collins: You mentioned in the notes that you sent over to me how you work with your clients is based on decades of performance training, vocal work, somatic techniques. Is there one particular technique that you use or you find yourself using with your clients? Savanna Madden: Yeah, so I'll give you two. One of them is a breathing exercise and I know that there is just such a thing of people being like, just breathe, you know, just take a breath. And it's just not that. It is literally sending signals to your nervous system that you're safe. So it is a simple, you breathe in for four counts, hold for two and then exhale for six or longer than that. And you need to do it least three or four times. And it doesn't have to be this big, like, dramatic thing. you could be doing it in a room full of people and no one would know that you're doing it. But the thing that is really important is to breathe into the belly using your diaphragm. So as you breathe in, your body expands as if you're blowing into a balloon. And then as you exhale, everything comes back to neutral, as it were, and you repeat that process. And some people might need to do that. in advance leading up to something, every day sort of five or six times, or whenever they're just approaching a moment where they feel their triggers. So their triggers could be shaking, sweaty palms, a shaky voice, a bit of a croak in the voice sometimes. I do predominantly work with women, but a lot of men that I've worked with, we get quite a lot of like shaking of the shoulders, almost like trying to get rid of whatever. is that is making them feel really nervous because yeah it's just a nervous system response because your brain is telling you that you're in a dangerous situation and you've got to obviously tell it that you're not you are very safe although I totally appreciate that some of these speaking situations may feel very scary and then one that I think that not many people talk about, is a peripheral vision exercise, which is absolutely fantastic for doing before you just press record, before like stepping out to wherever you need to be, because again, no one is going to know you are doing it. And that is just focusing on something that is in front of you. and then just widening your vision. So without moving your eyes, you're just trying to look as far left and right as possible and just trying to catch what's in your peripheral vision. And then once you've done it from left to right, you then would start doing it up and down. So you're trying to see something as high up as possible and something as low down as possible. And the reasons behind that is again, is taking you out of that fight. response as an analogy when you're driving, you're in peripheral vision because you're driving quite nicely and you can sort of see and that's how we like overtake and you know make sure we manage who is around us. However as soon as some silly person comes up on the inside of us and cuts us up or something we're like oh no what's this person doing? We go into that tunnel vision and you literally can't see the wood for the trees and because you're just in like oh my god you know we nearly had an accident there. and your body goes into that like mode and then just doing a breathing technique would then bring you back out of that. So those are two of my real game changes, but obviously I've got loads in my toolkit. Sarah Collins: was amazing and for the purposes of people listening to the podcast I was watching Savannah's eyes then and they didn't move. When you were describing that exercise it definitely didn't move. Now you've also got a podcast and it's called Reclaim Your Voice as a coach Savanna Madden: Yeah. Sarah Collins: I'm really interested in what the different meanings of words mean for people. So when you say reclaim your voice, what does reclaiming your voice mean to you? Savanna Madden: I love it, because I ask people this question on my podcast all the time. I love this. So for me, reclaiming your voice is all about bringing out what is already within you. So we've all got some sort of special source, I like to call it, within us. And reclaiming it is all about just having the absolute audacity to back yourself and and use it because if you've got something to say or a message to share or a story to tell, you don't need permission from anybody to share it. That's why I started my podcast because I was like, I wanna go on to more podcasts and talk to more people and have more conversations. And at the time when I started my Reclaim Your Voice podcast as a different name last year and I rebranded it earlier this year. I was like, I really want to go and talk about this with people, but I don't quite know where to start. And I just thought, I don't need permission from anyone else. I'll just start my own show. And the more people I invited on, the more podcast swaps I got. And then it opened me up to this amazing other world of audio and, well, I am visualed, but podcasts still are very much an audio form. And then you start talking to people and then you have more conversations and it is just amazing. So just absolutely back yourself. And even if you don't think what you've got to say is that interesting, I bet you it is because someone else will be listening and will resonate with you in some way or another. Sarah Collins: We love hearing about other people. Savanna Madden: We're nosy! Well, I am. Sarah Collins: Yeah, we all are, we all are. And I love how you describe it there, the audacity to back yourself. I feel like although our journeys have been different, I think that kind of underpins essentially the journeys we've both been on, hasn't it? Just that, that real courage to kind of back ourselves and believe in ourselves. And I think it's just such a wonderful place to be. And obviously something that we, support our clients to be able to get to that place as well. Savanna Madden: Mm. Yeah. Sarah Collins: Now, we're coming to an end, but I just want to know, where can people find out more about you, Savannah? Savanna Madden: So I am usually hanging out on Instagram and you can find me there at I am Savannah Madden. And I've got a little freebie as well, which is a reclaim your voice series. And there are loads of tips and tricks in that audio series about overcoming nerves and that peripheral vision exercises in there. So it's the breathing exercise. And then there are a few more as well. So if you're looking for that kind of thing, then you can grab that there. Sarah Collins: Brilliant, and to wrap up every episode, I like to ask my guests to complete the blank. So if you could encourage listeners to speak with and then add your own word or phrase, tell me what that would be and why. Savanna Madden: speak with confidence, be tenacious, have audacity and be unapologetic. Sarah Collins: Brilliant. Any reason why those words? Savanna Madden: Just because you don't need to apologize for your message that you want to share, you don't need to hide it away. We want to hear it, we want to hear about your expertise, back yourself and yeah, just really show up with confidence and if you haven't quite found your confidence yet, then you can come and find people like Sarah and I and we will help you. Sarah Collins: I absolutely love that. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to speak to you today. Savanna Madden: Thank you so much for having me. Sarah Collins: Thank you for listening to this episode of She Speaks to Scale. If you liked the episode or you think it will be useful for someone else, please follow and leave a review. If you've got any questions, do let me know via the social handles in the show notes. And remember to speak with intention, not hesitation, and let your voice be heard.