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How Do You Go From Hating Your Voice to Trusting It? | S1E001 · The Inspired Speaker Network

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  Danielle Benzon: If you're tired of hiding your brilliance behind
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  stage fright scripts or playing it safe, then you are in the
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  perfect place. This is the inspired speaker podcast, and I
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  am your host, Danielle Benson, professional rebel voice coach,
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  and your guide to speaking with confidence, charisma and zero BS
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  around here, we don't chase perfection. We choose
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  connection. So grab a hot beverage, warm up those vocal
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  cords and get ready to fall wildly in love with the sound of
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  your voice. Let's get inspired.
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  Welcome. I am so excited to have you here, embarking with me on
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  this journey to your authentic, inspiring voice. This is just
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  the first step of something truly incredible that we are
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  going to experience together. And I am so glad that you are
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  here before I get too excited, before I get ahead of myself,
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  let me introduce myself properly. My name is Danielle
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  Benson. I run the inspired speaker Academy, and I guide
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  speakers of every experience level who are aspiring and
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  inspiring. They want to get their message out there. I guide
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  them to fall wildly in love with speaking on stage and on camera,
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  because this is an important medium, and not a lot of us are
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  doing it in a way that is authentic and that is connected,
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  and to be frank, that is easier and more free. A lot of us are
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  over complicating it. We're getting scared. We're leeching
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  the life out of it. And that is not the way it's meant to be.
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  It's supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be fun and free and
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  flexible and genuine and authentic and connected. And
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  that is why I am here to help you to discover that now, if you
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  are listening to me and you're thinking, yeah, sure, that's
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  fine, it's easy for you to say you're obviously good at this. I
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  personally am not sure how I feel about that last little bit
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  I'm working on it. I feel like we are all works in progress.
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  But if you do look at me and think there's no way I could get
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  there. Let me tell you, it has not been an easy ride. It has
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  taken me an extremely long time to get to be as good as I am,
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  and I am not where I want to be, but even so, I acknowledge, you
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  know, we all, we're all somewhere on our journey, and I
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  have things that I can share to help you get from wherever you
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  are to better and on your way, and hopefully even surpass me in
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  your speaking prowess. Because this is all just technique. This
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  is the magic about the way that I have approached speaking, the
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  way that I learned it, and the way that I'm going to share with
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  you over this this podcast, is that it's it's technique, it's
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  repeatable, and you do it you do it again, you do it again, and
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  you improve. It's a skill. The same way that playing a piano is
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  a skill. Some people are born more talented than others, sure,
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  but without technique, you will never become a concert pianist
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  without practicing, without technique, without learning. You
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  may have an inherent skill there. There may be, you know,
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  you maybe have a step up over other folks, but you still have
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  to do the work. Technique is what allows us to trust
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  ourselves, to feel safe to understand this art. That when I
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  began this journey, I was so disconnected from myself. I was
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  terrified. I had this voice that I hated. I was so scared of
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  being humiliated, of saying the wrong thing, of people judging
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  me. I was really scared of doing this, and I failed a lot, but as
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  well as this big fear, I had this big fire inside of me, and
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  it would not be ignored. And so I persisted, and eventually I
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  figured it out, but it took me a while, because I didn't even
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  realize that I could change certain things, like my voice,
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  like the sound of my voice, I didn't realize I had power over
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  that. I didn't realize that I could never mind how no one was
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  there to teach me. I was learning breathing techniques, I
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  was learning elocution, but I wasn't learning how to connect
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  to myself. My stage fright had me so neurotic, and in my head,
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  I was so disconnected. It took me a long time, but eventually I
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  found someone who could teach me practices, breathing practices,
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  grounding practices to get into my body. Not just to work on my
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  body, but to inhabit it, to use it, to drive it from the inside,
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  so that I could use my body as an expression tool, so that I
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  could live in it. And by learning these techniques and
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  going through these exercises, it was a very physical practice,
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  but by doing that, I learned how to come home to my voice. I
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  changed my relationship with my voice. You know, so many people
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  think that their voice is like their height. It is what it is,
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  but your voice is more like your posture. You have the body you
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  have, but it's what you do with it that shapes it. And so I
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  learned what I was doing and what I wasn't doing, which
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  muscles were overworking, which ones weren't working, enough,
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  how I could connect to myself so that it was me that I could
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  hear, because that sound of my voice that I didn't like that I
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  heard. It wasn't me that I didn't like it was what I was
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  doing. It was the posture of my voice. If you think about it,
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  it's lots of little daily habits that create the way we stand,
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  the way we sit, the way we walk. So if you do the same thing over
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  and over, but it's bad for you. You will eventually maybe, if
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  you're constantly leaning over a computer, for example, you may
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  eventually develop a stooped posture. But if you find a
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  physio early enough and they give you some exercises, you can
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  change that. You can even undo a lot of the damage that you've
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  done. And the same is true for your voice. It's habit, habit
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  that has become so normal that it feels like you can't change
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  it, but you can. You can through small daily habits, through
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  practices, through learning and understanding how it works. So
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  this was huge for me. And as I was doing these exercises, as I
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  was building this relationship with my voice, I felt that my
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  voice was changing like the sound changed. Just because I
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  was doing these, these physical exercises, my tone changed and
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  my attitude changed, and I realized that those things that
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  I was listening to, they were my judgments. They were the
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  defensiveness I had, the despair I was in. That's what I was
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  hearing, that I was reacting to. And as that melted away, and I
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  became to enjoy this relationship with my body and my
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  voice, I began to hear that in my voice. I love the sound of my
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  voice. Now it feels good. It should feel good. We don't
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  really address self love in speaking training, but I feel
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  like we should, because it's a huge part of what's going on. If
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  you are a speaker, you are standing up there, and you are
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  sharing your essence, you are exposed, you are speaking about
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  your passions. You're standing for something. And if you don't
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  feel confident, if you don't love what you're talking about,
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  and you don't feel at least some type of love or acceptance for
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  yourself, it's going to create a barrier. Those insecurities are
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  going to create a barrier between you and your audience,
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  and all they're going to see is the insecurity, because that is
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  a it's like a mask that we wear, and it covers everything else we
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  have to get rid of that we there's so much we need to undo
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  all those defense mechanisms and those insecurities so that we
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  can be seen for who we are, and it's only then that we can stand
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  in our truth and be heard, because speaking takes courage.
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  And then what's cool about that is I learned that by being
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  authentic, by being transparent, by being humble and earnest and
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  honest about where I was, letting myself feel the fear,
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  letting myself feel everything
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  I didn't have anything to be scared of anymore, because when
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  you are being totally transparent and standing In your
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  truth, no one can hurt you. They can hurt you when you're
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  pretending, when you're pretending to be more confident
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  than you are, when you're pretending to know more than you
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  do, when you're pretending to be more together than you are.
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  That's when people can hurt you, because they can see the chinks
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  in your armor, and they can poke and they can say, oh, but that's
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  not true. And oh, but that's not true. This is where imposter
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  syndrome comes from. By trying to inhabit something that we
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  don't feel and reality might be something different, like maybe
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  you really do know what you're talking about, but you don't
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  feel it. If we don't bring those feelings with us, that imposter
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  syndrome is just going to get bigger, which is why embodiment
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  is so important instead. Standing in your truth is
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  everything, because then you are safe again. You know your truth,
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  and everyone can see it, and it feels vulnerable and it feels
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  exposing, but it is also so strong and so courageous, and I
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  learned too, that by stepping into that courage, I wasn't
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  waiting for confidence to come along. Competence is a side
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  effect. It comes later. Confidence is the reward you get
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  after doing the hard work. You have to prove your competence.
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  You have to stand up and be courageous. Courage over
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  confidence. Courage comes first. Confidence is your reward. You
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  don't need your reward first. You need to find your engine.
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  What drives you? What is your passion? Is it longing? Is it is
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  it anger? Is it frustration? Is it love? What is it that makes
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  you go? I want to speak. I have something to say. When you can
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  find that you can tap into that, all this kind of self
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  insecurity, self image stuff doesn't become it falls away. It
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  doesn't it's not important anymore, and you can stand at
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  who you are. It's a beautiful thing. That's what we need right
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  now. Your voice doesn't need to be beautiful. You don't need to
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  be perfect. You need to be expressive. You need to be
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  transparent and flexible and fun and fragile and agile, all these
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  things we need more human communication. A perfect voice
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  is not useful. A transparent voice, one that shows what's
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  going on, one that connects on a human level. That's what
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  technique is for. Is to help you find that agility, that vocal
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  variety, if you will, that energy to connect with other
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  people. Because now is not the time to be quiet. Now is the
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  time to speak your truth. It is your time to be loud, not to
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  shout, but to be fierce in your compassion and your courage and
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  your message. Now is the time for you to speak more than ever,
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  we need people who are aligned with who they are, who are
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  compassionate, who are human, who are loving and empathetic,
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  who have a message and have something to say. So I'm so glad
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  that you're here. I am over joyed that you are here. We are
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  going to have so much fun. I'm going to share everything that I
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  can with you about speaking techniques, how to look after
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  your voice, how to have fun with it, how to throw your script
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  away, rip it up and use it as confetti to celebrate this new
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  way of speaking that is free, that is fun, that is flexible
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  and human and connected, because that is what the world needs
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  right now. So I hope for you today, find some time to connect
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  to your fire. What is your engine? What makes you want to
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  get out there and speak, connect to that today, and I'll see you
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  in the next episode.