100. Episode 100 Special with Annelise McCarthy
For my 100th episode the tables turn and my dear friend and colleague Annelise McCarthy interviews ME. This juicy conversation covers so much good stuff including why I started the podcast, my fave episode, my spiritual journey, what I learned on my silent retreat, how I deal with social media addiction, how to love yourself, my greatest fear, my favourite tongue twisters and my three proudest achievements of the year.
Big thank you to Annie for being such a wonderful host :)
Follow Annie on Instagram and TikTok @herspeakingcoach
Transcript
Welcome to Episode 100 of That Voice Podcast! I'm Sally Prosser. If you are joining me for the first time, what an episode to join on-- the big 1-0-0. As you might know, I'm a voice and public speaking coach, very passionate about helping you speak with confidence so you can get your message heard and actually enjoy the experience, not freak out and vomit in a pot plant. We're doing something very special to mark the big 100. I am genuinely excited to introduce you to a very dear friend of mine, the fabulous Annalise McCarthy. So Annie reached out to me in 2020 just to say, "Hey, we have a similar background in speech and drama. I love what you're doing and can we just Zoom it out?" I'm so grateful for that. Annalise is such an impressive woman. She's a speaking coach like myself, who helps women in particular show up with confidence and smash their speaking gigs.
She's a well champion speaker herself and just an all-around brilliant person. The ideal person to take the reins for Episode 100. Yes, I am the one who will be answering the questions today. We have such a juicy conversation. We talk about how to practice being confident, ways to deal with social media addiction, what I learned on my latest silent retreat...We also jam on manifestation, self-talk, speaking different languages, and there's a few tongue twisters in there for good luck. This is a longer episode than what you're used to, but it is Episode 100, so it's totally worth it. Okay. Without further ado, let's welcome Annelise McCarthy as the guest host of That Voice Podcast Episode 100.
Annelise:
Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much! It's such a pleasure to be here, Sally. Thank you so much for thinking of me to bring me on to your 100th episode. What a milestone! That is so huge. So fast, a big cheer of water to you, my friend, congratulations. That's very exciting.
Sally:
Seven o'clock in the morning. So, put your sunglasses on because that's a bit of a party thing to do.
Annelise:
Perfect. Beautiful. No, genuinely, I'm so proud of you and it just, it means a lot for you to bring me on here. And I'm really excited to do this episode because I think it's a great opportunity to talk a lot about you and your journey and how you got to where you are today. And I've got a lot of questions prepared as you'd seen some of them, so I'm really excited to get started. But the first thing I wanted to kick off with as it is your 100th episode, what inspired starting the podcast, because your podcast has become quite big now. And I love every single episode you released. Why did you feel it was necessary for you to really dive into creating a podcast for yourself?
Sally:
Oh, I think it just made sense as I was starting the business, I knew a lot of people who had podcasts. And of course being a speaking coach, everyone was like, "Oh, you should do a podcast!" And people were coming to me saying, "I want to do a podcast and I want to work on my voice." And so it just totally made sense to me to do. And I've got a background in radio as well, so
Annelise:
Yeah. And do you have a favorite episode from the podcast?
Sally:
It's like picking favorite children, isn't it? I'd have to say, one of my favorite episodes is with Andrew Frodsham. I don't know what number it is, but it's "How I stopped stuttering". And what I love about it so much is a lot of my guests, like us, have businesses and they've got incredible information to share, I've had so many great chats. With Andrew's, like literally just a punter. I shouldn't say just a punter in that way, but he contacted me on TikToK just to say, "Hey, I went through this and I've put together some information about what helped me." And he sent me this amazing PDF document of all of these strategies that he used and I thought, "Wow, that's just so incredible!". And our chat was just so full of heart and I absolutely love it.
Annelise:
I think that's really beautiful, because when you said, you know, it's so full of heart. I think that's one of the things that makes you so distinct as not only a coach, but as someone who creates content is you are so heart-driven and so soul driven. And it's really beautiful. And I wanted to actually ask you about this today because I've known you for a little while now, but I think over, just over a year or something? Which is crazy to me, it's crazy time flies! But one of the really beautiful things has been watching you really find your own path and find your own journey. And one of the things that I think is so beautiful is how a lot of your content that you're creating and a lot of the classes that you're leading are now very soul-driven, which I think is just really beautiful. Do you want to explain to us kind of how that, how that happened for you and why it's really important for you to create a life for yourself that is soul-driven and has that purpose?
Sally:
Absolutely. I feel like I've always been a bit spiritual, if that's even a thing. I've done the journal writing and a bit of manifesting and like, you know, "Please bring me a man that I don't hate", you know, like these kinds of things, which might that was answered. So, you know, it works manifesting, get on it. But then I, throughout 2020, and throughout this year as well, just went in deeper and deeper into meditation, human design, astrology, numerology. I did my spiritual life coaching course this year. And so much of it really resonated with me and our voice does start within. And I found a lot of my clients. maybe in the past, I taught this way where people sort of were looking for external answers all the time, rather than really appreciating the magic they have inside. And that's where our voice physically and metaphorically starts.
Sally:
And so as I was going through all of the different spiritual concepts, I thought, "Wow, there's so much here that applies so well to voice and public speaking". And that's why I created Speak From Your Soul, which is my spirituality course. And I find for me, it's been so helpful to get perspective, to not fall into the hustle, hustle hustle, because you're kind of like me or we have a tendency, you know, one of our best attributes is that we get done, but at the same time we can fall into that. Go, go, go and learning.
Annelise:
I completely agree. I think there's, I was talking to a friend about this the other day, there's a really fine line, I think between like the hustle culture between like productivity and then toxic productivity. And one of the things I'm now trying to learn and teach myself is that like rest and downtime is productive, right? So that is just as helpful and useful to your growth and to your healing as is getting worked on and taking off a to-do list. One of the things we were just talking about this before we started filming together that I think has been huge this year, particularly being in lockdown has been feeling really overwhelmed, feeling really burnt out, coping with those kinds of emotions. And I think, in a field of work where you're expected to show up on camera consistently for people, that adds an extra level. What's your experience been like with that? Are these like experiences or emotions that you yourself have felt this year and how do you cope with that?
Sally:
Yeah, I think the biggest thing has been, or the first thing's going to change in perspective. I used to find myself saying, "Do I have time to meditate, meditate? Do I have time to go to the gym? Do I have time to watch this movie?" You know, and it's just crazy because it should be the other way around being a human and doing what you want to do should be first.
Annelise:
Yes.
Sally:
And look, I just need to say as well, I don't have any kids or any pets. And so I, I have a lot more control over my time. I guess we all have control over our time, but I really looked at everything and I still I've got no reason not to be able to create a life. That's not so busy as far as showing up on camera. The biggest thing for me has been forgiveness. So I'd put these expectations on myself as, okay. I have to TikTok everyday. I have to show up on Stories... I have to, I have to. But now if I don't feel like it, I just don't and I don't feel bad about it.
Sally:
I think that I, has anyone ever relate to this? I kind of attach this, "Oh gosh. Well, if I, if I don't, then everything's going to fall apart. No one's gonna want to work with me" and all these crazy things that just didn't have a correlation. And so that's what I do now. And I think that's why I show up on camera. Yeah, genuinely, because I want to, and I also batch, you know, so when I'm in the mood for filming, I'll try to film a few things and then I can just put them in.
Annelise:
It's a good way to do it. I think because I think energy is really important when, when filming and showing up on camera, as you know, so it's kinda like when you're in the zone and you're in the mood, you want to as much done as possible. So you don't have to kind of, you know, lift yourself back up the next day. You really have reminded me of a friend of mine, Declan Edwards. He's a Positive Psychology coach at a company called BU. And he said something in a podcast episode, which has always stuck with me. And he said, "We're so busy being a human doing that we're forgetting to be a human being". And that for me has been so powerful and so poignant and something that you actually taught me, Sally, when we started working together, I was learning from you.
Annelise:
And I was, I was so lucky to just have, you know, an hour of your time every month to just hear your words of wisdom and something you taught me. It's always stuck with me is how I talk about time and how I communicate my thoughts and my feelings about time. And something I don't practice as well as I'd like to, but it's something I'm very conscious of. Do you want to talk a little bit about that concept about talking negatively about time or why that, why that's something you even learned about in the first place?
Sally:
Yeah. Language matters. Earlier, I was saying, "Don't have time. Don't have time." Bad. If we're always saying negative words around time, "I need to kill time or I don't have time or I'm too busy". We are manifesting that. We're creating that. Time is us. We are time. We all know that some days go by in a flash and some days are really long. So time is really just a perception. So I try to say, "I have all the time in the world, especially when I'm, I do feel a bit pressured. I've all the time in the world." If you're always going, "I don't have time. I don't have money." What's going to happen? You're never going to have time. Then you're never going to have money.
Annelise:
So true. It's so true. And I think that, you know, when you said language is so important, it is so important. And I know that in the work that we do, we know that the language that you use about yourself has a huge impact on your self-worth, your confidence and whatnot. But it's amazing to me how the language that we associate with other aspects as well. Like you said, like time, like money, can have the same impact. I find that incredible. And I want to thank you Sally cause that's been one of the big takeaways for me. That's always stuck with me from our time knowing each other. But speaking of time, I'm so excited to hear about this because I'm genuinely so intrigued. You recently went on a silent retreat and it wasn't your first time. What was that experience like? And, cause to me the thought of not speaking we're voice coaches, right? So our job is to talk. So the thought of not talking for how long is it? Two days, three days?
Sally:
It's very doable. You would love it, Annie! It's so peaceful. You love getting out into nature and having the peace. It's so nice. It was just from Friday night to Sunday lunchtime. There are more extreme silent retreats like the Passionate it's called, which is the 10 days where you sit in meditation. And I do feel like I want to work towards that because when you can read and when you can write, you actually can still distract your mind. And that's what happened a little bit on the last retreat is I found myself writing business plans and ideas for my next courses and a whole lot of things that I probably shouldn't have spent that time doing.
Sally:
But the best thing about it is when you really bring down the noise and everyone's quiet around you. You hear things that you don't normally hear and you notice things you don't normally notice. So I was sitting outside my little room. It was in the Springbrook National Park, this beautiful Gold coast hinterland. And having my cup of tea outside my room. And there was this little bird, you know, doing its thing and then a plane came overhead. And I don't think you would have even heard that plane have you been talking cause it was quite distant. But of course, because it was so quiet, you could hear the plane and the little bird did as well. So like both of us just kind of went, you know, the birds gone, "Oh, what's going on up there?" Just in that moment, I felt so connected to nature. It was me and this little bird going, "Hang on, what's thaat little noise up there?", which is just a whole experience that you would never have noticed had you been in conversation.
Annelise:
Wow, that's so beautiful. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of people really struggle with is being present and how to actually ground themselves in the present moment and be really aware. It's something I struggle with as well. But yeah, the reason I ask you is because I'm really interested in going on a silent retreat and I think it's a great concept. How did you find going without not using your phone?
Sally:
Oh, so this time was great. The first time I had to hand it in and get it out of my reach. This time I turned it off and had it in my hand bag. So I feel like I've really progressed and I didn't even feel at all. It was kind of like when we finished, I was like, "Oh, I better turn it back on and message Patrick". Just like that, I'm ready to get picked up. So I've definitely been able to progress there. I was also helped with, I'm doing Sober November. And I remember the first time, "How bad is this?" I mean, well, I shouldn't say how bad it is, but you notice your growth the first time. I thought, "oh my gosh, this is going to be the first Friday, Saturday night. I haven't had a drink in like, my whole life!"
Annelise:
Wow, yeah.
Sally:
Because this time, cause I was not drinking anyway and I have been eating quite vegetarian meals as well. I don't eat a lot of meat really. And so I think that the vegetarian diet and the no alcohol, those things were just super easy. When you're just by yourself with your thoughts. It's so telling. As we talk about all the time with public speaking, our biggest challenge is the little voice in our head. And I was reading "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle, which is all about living in the present moment. Have you read it?
Annelise:
No, I haven't.
Sally:
Oh, you love it. Yeah. And it's quite deep, which is why it was good that I read it on the silent retreat because I could read a book and really immerse myself in it. You know how sometimes you're reading, but then you go, "Oh, I better check something here" or "What's going out there?". And you kind of didn't have to reread the page. Whereas this just really involved reading. And he talks about the anxiety gap. And the anxiety is when we're always in the future, it's like, "What's going to happen?" And we're projecting this horrible situation. And that gap there, that is the anxiety gap and makes us stress and worry. And I thought, "Wow, that is exactly what happens with public speaking!"
Annelise:
Yeah, it is. It is. And you're so right about like the voice in our head. Cause often the only thing that psyches us out or makes us feel really terrified of speaking or whatnot is that voice in our head. And for people that maybe struggle with that, or say, for example, really struggle with feeling confident day-to-day or don't know how to healthily communicate with that voice. Is there any advice you would give to someone who's struggling with that at the moment?
Sally:
Practice. Mirror work is a good one. Looking in the mirror saying "I'm so glad I'm you, I'm so glad I'm you." And another thing that resonated with me on the weekend, just thinking about the ego, it can be like that little monster. And you can also think of just any negativity is like a little monster in your head. And if you feed it, it's going to get bigger. So every time we say to ourselves, "I can't do this." It's not going to work out anything negative. We are just feeding the monster and the monster gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And this is why when you get down into those depths of that way of thinking, it is harder to get out. So, if you're in that situation, start starving the monster and feeding yourself.
Sally:
"Every day. I'm so glad I'm you. Today I choose an ally, not an enemy." "You and me, go! We're going to slay the day, we've got this." "Like there's enough people in the world that are going to berate us. We don't want to berate ourselves. You know, you often hear people say, "Oh, look, you can say whatever you want to me. Cause it's not going to be as bad as what I've said to myself". And I think we can all relate to that. And it's, you know, we wouldn't be friends with people who spoke to us the way we speak to ourselves. And so I made a decision. I'm similar to you, used to be real big perfectionist. And I just made a decision one day going, "I'm not going to hate myself. I'm going to love myself. I'm going to think that I'm the best person in the world. I'm going to make no apologies for that."
Annelise:
I want to dive into that for a sec. That decision, that moment was there. Was it actually like a turning point for you? Like a pinpoint, like a moment where you realized like, "I want to, I want to change" or did it happen over a prolonged period of time?
Sally:
I'd say it happened over a prolonged period of time. I guess the big turning point for me is I was in quite an interesting relationship. How many years ago now? Five, six years ago, probably now. Where it had me questioning my sanity to the point where I was going to check myself into a psychiatric ward.
Annelise:
Wow.
Sally:
I thought I was losing my mind. Things would go out of my wallet for example. And I'd say, "Oh, did you take 20 bucks?" And he'd go, "No, I don't know what you're talking about." And it wasn't about the 20 bucks. It was me going, "Have I dreamed this?" It was the time when I went to the movies because we agreed to meet. It was so funny. It was Gone Girl. What a funny movie. On the way there, the premiere. Well, no, I was there empty seat next to me.
Sally:
I thought that we'd arranged to meet there. No, never showed up. Couldn't get hold of him. Couldn't get hold of him. And then the next day it was like, "Oh, I don't know. We never agreed to do that." So I totally dreamed, you know what I mean? I dreamed up that we were supposed to be there. So things like that kept happening really, really questioned myself. My confidence, of course, at the same time, I had some people in my life who, I guess you don't know if you haven't been through it, but they were all like, "How can you be so stupid? How can't you see what's right in front of you? I just don't understand it. I don't get it. You're just so stupid!" I'm just saying it now, but it's exactly what it was like. And I just spent almost every night in 2015 sitting in the bath, drinking wine, thinking, "How am I going to get myself together, to go to my job and not have a meltdown?"
Sally:
It was just, I, I think of that. And I think now, how now I'm here going, "How am I going to launch my course? And how am I going to do this? Now I'm going to do that." And back then, and anybody who's been had dark times in their life can relate to that. Your world becomes very small and you think, okay, "How can I just get to the next thing?" And so that's why it wasn't really a moment. But coming out of that, I really relate to that idea of like rising, like the Phoenix. Rising like the Phoenix. And I feel fortunate that I had before all that happened, throughout my childhood, I had lots of things to help me feel confident. And so I was able to return to a lot of those.
Annelise:
That's funny, because one of the many things that I absolutely adore about you is your confidence and is how sure you are of yourself. And one of the questions that I get a lot, and I have no doubt that you get it a lot is when people say, "How are you so confident?" It's a really difficult question to answer. Because confidence, in my opinion, it's not like a trait or something that you kind of have and then you hold onto and then it's there forever. It ebbs and flows, right? And you said before that you practice being confident in something. I'm a big believer that you practice being confident in yourself. That is something that you choose to practice. So, in terms of that turning point for you, in those incredible things that happened in your life to get to where you are today, were there things that you did in particular that you feel really helped shape your confidence and really help become the person that you are today? Is it what you said before? Things like, xxxx or were there other things that you did as well?
Sally:
I think it's about really celebrating the wins. That's the biggest thing, because I could have focused on every person who didn't want to work with me. Every speech that went bad, like I had a speech, when I started my business that I thought went pretty well, but people hated it so much that there were grown men who felt the need to send me messages on LinkedIn afterwards, just to make sure I knew how bad they thought it was.
Annelise:
No!
Sally:
How dare they? Straight off that, I had to go and give a lecture to uni where there was like one person in the audience. And so you can, you can always choose. You can always choose how you see things. I could have gone, "Oh, well that didn't work. That didn't work. That didn't work." Or "I'm just going to go do something else." There are so many things to be grateful for and happy for all the time. And it's really reaching out for lots of opportunities. So yes. Oh, for example, I've applied for TED talks, but being rejected. I've applied to be on post. Haven't heard back. But I've applied for other things and they have come off. Do you know what I mean? So it's kind of like always accepting. I love this quote the other day that there is failure in every success and there's success in every failure.
Annelise:
That's beautiful. I love that.
Sally:
It's so good.
Annelise:
That is good. And it's funny, the thing that you're talking about, a dear friend of mine, Justine Campbell, she has a concept. Was not her concept, but I was first taught from her and it's called "sliding doors". And I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but it's exactly what you're describing. And it's that those moments are sliding door moments. So, you have kind of two options there, for example, with the rejection from a TED talk, right. You've got the option of "All right. And clearly I'm just not good at what I do and I should just stop and never try it again" or "Okay. Well, that's one thing that rejected me, but there's a lot of other things I could apply for. And who knows there might be someone from the organization who can introduce me to someone else that could be another opportunity. Right?"
Sally:
I really liked the idea. And I was taught this by Glenn Warshauer, who I met on clubhouse. He's an actor. Yeah. He's so cool. He taught me about the four rooms that people live in. And did you know, have you heard about this?
Annelise:
You told me about it when he told you, cause it was so groundbreaking to you.
Sally:
I just love it. It's like people in the room of impossibility where I can't, I won't, not going to happen. The room of possibility. might happen. maybe. Probability is the next one. Oh, it's likely. Yeah, probably will. And he said, you need to live in the room of inevitability where it's not even likely to happen. Like it's as inevitable as the fact that you're going to have a coffee in the morning, we'll have dinner tonight or get dressed or brush your teeth. All the things that we accept as things that just happen. So I try to, in my meditation, they say it's really important to ground, to the present moment and feel the feeling now. So it's not, "I will do a Ted talk." Let's just use that example. "I see myself doing it. It's inevitable. It's going to happen."
Annelise:
I love that. I love that. And this is reminding you, what are your feelings about? Because I feel like this is kind of coming on to that kind of theme. I'm still trying to understand manifestations personally. And it's something that, in my opinion, from my experience, what you've described to me is my understanding of what manifestation is the idea of it's going to happen. I know it's already out there and it's just a matter of me attracting it into my life. Is that what manifestation is? Is that something that you use or you practice?
Sally:
I'm not an expert manifesta, there's really great benefits. It's @manifestationbabe. She's awesome. So I think for me personally, I was cleaning up my desktop the other day because I had like so many things on my desktop. It's really embarrassing. I never liked to do share screen because of that. And I found like this document called "goals" and it was what I've written a couple of years ago. And it was all always in the present tense. So always write in the present tense, always feel in the present tense. And it was all these things and they'd all come true. That all happened.
Annelise:
Wow.
Sally:
Yeah. I mean like with a bit, a few variations here and there. But what I meant by manifestation is it helps you think about what you really do want. So that when people say it doesn't work, it's because there's not that emotional connection. Like somebody might say, well, I want to manifest a million dollars. It's like but really, is that, is that what you want? Do you feel that, like, why do you want that?
Annelise:
Yeah, yeah.
Sally:
Feeling the why. And yes, sitting in the emotions of already having, I find that that's a good way to manifest. So if you really want something, if we always sit in desire of, "Oh, I want it", we'll always put it in the future. And again, I'm not a manifesta!
Annelise:
I mean, you don't have to be an expert to talk about it. I'm just, I'm genuinely very interested. And I don't know about you, but I spent a lot of my lockdown doing a lot of soul searching and a lot of, you know, work, which for people that have done in a work, it's not something that you actively choose to do. Like it's, it's hard and it's difficult. It can be super confronting and super challenging. But I feel like lockdown really gave me the breathing room to, even if I didn't want to, look at myself in the mirror because God knows this is nobody else's problem. And to actually confront and face what was looking back at me. And lockdown, gave me an opportunity to really work on myself in a way that I feel if we weren't in lockdown, I wouldn't have had that experience or that opportunity to do so. What was your experience, like in lockdown? Did you, how did, how did you find it? Were you okay? Cause Queensland's lockdown was a bit different to New South Wales lockdown. How did you find your experience this year?
Sally:
Annie, yeah, I really feel for you. It's been really, really hard for Sydney, for sure. For me, being a former journalist, I work with lots of journalists. I really do like, love the news, but this has been a bit of a change for me. And even though I wasn't in lockdown, I still became a bit addicted to the 11 o'clock press conference.
Sally:
It became like a 11 o'clock oh, Gladys. But I had to make a decision. I can't just do that. And I stopped watching the numbers. I sort of found myself consuming, just what I need to know. And this is a real big change for me because I always believed I need to know what's going on and stay up with current affairs. But really, it's all just what you're feeding yourself in the same way as your body. And whether it's social media, I don't know Annie, you've been really, really good with you know, being able to turn off notifications and not being on social all the time. And I'm also having more phone free time and computer free days. And, you know, finding myself, sitting in front of the TV, mindlessly or scrolling mindlessly or sitting in front of emails and being signed to say, "Well, no, this is, this is sort of me like the dumb kind of person just walking towards the light." I so don't want to be that person. I want to be more intentional. So that's what I'm working on.
Annelise:
It's actually one of the things, I'd love to hear your experience on this, like our life and our job is through social media. Right? So how it's free marketing, it's how you promote yourself. It's how you sell your brand, your personality, your image, all of that. How do you actually make the distinction between, "Okay, I am working like I'm scrolling through TikTok, I'm on this app to work" or "You know what, this is actually tiptoeing into unhealthy leisure time where I'm just scrolling aimlessly for the sake of it." Do you have boundaries that you set with yourself or ways that you actually try to strictly monitor your social media use and the time that you spend on the apps? I'll be the first to admit. I've definitely tiptoed into unhealthy use of my phone during lockdown and this year. It's hard not to really, when it's a device, that's, you know, it's comfortable and it's constant and it's predictable and it's constant entertainment. And it's, you know, you're really feeding that the instant gratification that we get.
Sally:
Yes, actually reminds me something that I did practically do. So I found myself and like, I'm sure people can relate to this or maybe it's just me, where I found myself in this like unhealthy death loop of social media, where I went like Instagram, doo doo doo. Twitter, doo doo doo. TikTok, doo doo doo. Emails. You know what I mean? Like you sort of have this sort of cycle of the different things. And then when you get to the end of one, then you go back to the first one. Bad. And so I went onto my phone and I changed all my icons where. And it's actually really helped. And I found how much was habit. I was going to screens going, "Hang on. That's where I'm used to finding TikTok." And I had to actually intentionally look where I put it. And I found that's really helped because even just that interrupted, "Oh where's the icon?" Made me think, "Hang on. Do I actually need to go in and check that?"
Annelise:
Yeah, it's so funny, much not. I met a really interesting guy at an event that my friends were holding the other night. And he said that he had such an issue with social media addiction, that he actually created a folder in his phone called "addict". And he put all of the social media apps in that folder. And he said it was a really confronting way of before he clicks into a social media app to be reminded, Hey, you're potentially fueling an addiction. Hey, like, let's, let's do this intentionally. Do you really want to do this right now? So, that's more of an extreme, but I thought the concept behind it was really interesting, but slightly changing tack. I don't know about you, but being in Australia has made me want to be anywhere but Australia right now. And I'm so excited to travel and to get out again. If you could leave on a plane tomorrow and just jet and leave, where do you reckon the first place you'd go?
Sally:
Barcelona. Yeah, definitely. So my brother actually lives there. He just got, he got engaged and he's getting married in July. So hopefully I'll be able to get over there for that. I mean, it till seems a little bit up in the air surely by then it's going to be okay. But yeah, I'd go to Spain, go to Portugal. My sister lives in Denmark.
Annelise:
I have a question about Portugal. Now I know that you speak Portuguese, correct. Which for me is I find that phenomenal, incredibly beautiful, unique language. Why Portuguese? Do you know someone in Brazil or what sparked that interest in studying?
Sally:
Oh yeah. So I did a rotary youth exchange. So when I finished school, I went on exchange to Brazil. Yes. There was an exchange student and learnt the language and it was awesome. It was great. It was a really big learning year for me.
Annelise:
Wow. And do you actively practice Portuguese to try and keep up your language skills?
Sally:
Oh, look, I am inspired by the amazing Duolingo account on TikToK. Have you seen it? It's so good. Oh my gosh. You've got to, get on the owl, the little owl.
Annelise:
Oh, I have seen at top on my page occasionally. It's one of the most, in my opinion, beautiful things as human beings that we can do is intentionally learn how to communicate with others. And if that means learning another language, you know, I'm studying Mandarin. I got really emotional yesterday. Cause I had my last exam.
Sally:
Congratulations, that's so exciting!
Annelise:
Thank you so much, but I got really emotional at the end of it. Cause I was like, I am so proud of making a commitment to learning how to communicate with other people. And I think that's so beautiful. So get back on Duolingo and because I want you to teach me some Portuguese. Because I don't know if I'd ever have the opportunity or the, you know, the thought to even learn it ever. So I'm going to hold you to that. And you're going to teach me Portuguese and I'm so excited.
Sally:
Oh, I'll teach you my favorite word, which is the word for butterfly, "borboleta". It's so cute!
Annelise:
"Borboleta?" Oh that's so cute. You know what's so funny when you say butterfly, some reason I know how to say butterfly in German, it's the only German word I know which is "schmetterling".
Sally:
"Schmetterling". Oh my gosh, that's so cute. I love as well how you just said that you've made the commitment to communicate with others because that's really what we do as speaking coaches, isn't it? Helping people use their voice to communicate with others. I often often say that, you know, public speaking gets put on this pedestal of like, "Oh my gosh, it's this big, bad, scary thing!" When all it is, it's just a channel for us to share what we know and love.
Annelise:
Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And speaking of public speaking, this has been an incredible episode and I've got some rapid fire questions for you to finish it off, if you're ready. So we both connected (some people might not know this) because we were both speech and drama teachers in Australia. And I reached out to you for was like, "Oh my gosh, she's a bit on the similar path and whatnot". But being a speech and drama teacher normally means that as a kid, you've been through a lot of eisteddfods and you taught a lot of competitions and a lot of performances. Do you still remember any of the poems or any of the drama pieces that you did when you were a kid? And the eisteddfods?
Sally:
Pretty much all of them! The other day. Oh my gosh. Somebody was like, "What are we having for dinner?" And they're like, “Spaghetti!” And I just broke into Shel Silverstein,
"Spaghetti, spaghetti, all over the place, Up to my elbows--up to my face, Over the carpet and under the chairs, Into the hammock and wound round the stairs."
Gosh, it's all about oh, I forget the second stanza. What is it?
"The party is ruined, I'm terribly worried, The guests have all left (unless they're all buried). I told them, "Bring presents." I said, "Throw confetti." I guess they heard wrong 'Cause they all threw spaghetti!"
Annelise:
So xxxx a classic. That's incredible! And I find the memory so amazing in that regard that you can just remember those things. That's crazy! And okay, so next question. What would you say is your greatest fear that you have?
Sally:
Not meeting my potential? I feel like our greatest fear is not putting everything on the table because it's not so much kind of constantly having to go higher. Cause that's the curse of the perfectionist, right? We always feel like we failed because we never reach it. It's more than I just have this well of stuff inside me. Like somebody asked me in a social situation about speaking. Like I like sit down. I'm like, I just have to tell them everything I know to try to help them, like it's just inside me and I probably find it very annoying. But so I guess I just feel like that's really flowing and sometimes I get a bit impatient and I'm like, I've got so much to give him so much to do. And I just want to keep doing that.
Annelise:
Yeah. Beautiful. Ah, okay. So karaoke night, you're out with the gals. What's your go-to song?
Sally:
Because I'm a speech and drama teacher and my articulation has, you know, is pretty good. I often do Sophie Ellis-Bextor's "Murder On The Dancefloor" because she's so articulate. You know, "It's murder on the dance floor You'd better not kill the groove. DJ..."
Annelise:
Oh, that's incredible! That's so good. Is that speaking of articulation, as a voice coach, we've done more tongue twisters and we could probably even count. Do you have a favorite tongue twister? Do you have one? This is, I'm throwing you kind of out of the blue here, but just might remind me of it. Do you have a tongue twister that you really like, or that's really impressive to do all the most difficult one that you've done?
Sally:
Look, I do have a lot of tongue twisters to hand. I like Fuzzy wuzzy. Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?
Annelise:
Oh that's a good one, that's tricky.
Sally:
Yeah. The most difficult one that I give to my students is eleven benevolent elephants, eleven benevolent elephants. It's always easy to change the L with the N, and you get "belevolent" rather than "benevolent".
Annelise:
Yeah. Good one!
Sally:
And "I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch".
Annelise:
That's a good one. Yeah. There's so many!
Sally:
There's so, so many. What's yours?
Annelise:
My favorite would be "Thistle sifter" because you have to quickly change the TH to the S sound.
Sally:
Oh yeah, that's a hard one.
Annelise:
She is a thistle sifter. She has a sieve of sifted thistles and a sieve of unsifted thistles, and it goes on, there's like seven sentences also. But for me, because I grew up with a lisp, I had to do so many exercises with TH sounds and S sounds to learn to pronounce them differently. And that's the one tongue twister that has been seared into my brain. I would just, I would never forget it.
Sally:
I like it. Yeah. My S is a little bit fat as well. Like it's a little bit lispy and I had to keep trying. Six silly snakes sing six silly songs, some sing softly, something strong. Six silly snakes sings so softly. So some say some xxxx sounds so some snake stayed", and I'm still like, it's still a little bit not as clear or something.
Annelise:
That was so impressive though! It's like a party trick. Oh my gosh. That's amazing.
Sally:
Yeah but I think this is good. If people watching this going like, "Whoa, this is crazy!" I mean, this, this show's voice and speaking is something that you practice. And just like any skill, if you practice it, you can learn it and master it.
Annelise:
And what would you say is your biggest pet peeve?
Sally:
Ghosting.
Annelise:
Oh, wow. Oh, that's interesting.
Sally:
Yeah. Ghosting. So I've, you know, of course in dating as well. And I never ghosted. I mean, I was a serial first data for a while, but I always used to have these. I had like three templated texts that I used to send back. You know, the whole "It's not you. It's me." The "Not good timing." I would always, I would never leave them hanging. I would always just do the cut and paste and I'd send them an answer. And what's interesting is yeah, I see it in business as well. There's some clients who disappear and I don't know what happens to them and I text them and I email them. And I want to have a conversation. And I don't think I'm scary. I try to be really approachable.
Annelise:
There's a lot of guilt and a lot of shame associated with not reaching out or not reconnecting. And so then it's just easier to avoid it than to make that connection. From experience, it's never something that you've done wrong. It's just the person individually. There's a lot of shame and a lot of guilt association associated with reaching out. But the list came out that you got associated with reaching out again. So unfortunately, I think a lot of people go through. Ghosting's really common.
Sally:
Yeah. So, and look, I probably have ghosted somebody in my life as well. If you're watching this and you're like, "Sally, that's hypocritical. You ghosted me." I'm like, "Please get in touch and let me know."
Annelise:
"Reach out, we'll have a chat!" All right. The very last question I have for you is the question that I'm the most excited about, because I feel like it's a really important question to ask, and that is, you've had a really massive year. You've done so many things and I am so proud of you for all the things that you have done, but I think it's really important to reflect on things that you yourself are proud of for this year. So if you could try and list them for me, what are three things this year that you're really, really proud of that you've done?
Sally:
The thing I'm most proud of is doing my spiritual life coaching course, committing to that and doing it because it's really improved my life and opened up the second thing, which is launching my new course, Speak From Your Soul, which has just been such a joy. And then I guess the third one would have to be paying off my mortgage.
Annelise:
Oh, well done. That's huge. Congratulations!
Sally:
Thank you. It's probably the only year I'll be able to say it.
Annelise:
That's a big deal, so well done. Well Sal, I'm incredibly proud of you for all the things that you achieve and continue to achieve. I think you inspire so many to just be a really good human being and despite all the skills that you have as a voice coach and all the value that you offer to people's lives through. You know, your social media and your content and whatnot. I think the biggest takeaway from learning from you and from, from getting to know you really well is you are just genuinely a beautiful human. And it's a real privilege today to be the one to have interviewed you in this episode, and to hear more about your incredible life and everything that you've learned. And it genuinely is. It's such an honor to know you personally, and I'm just so proud of you. So congratulation for your 100th episode. It is so exciting. And here's to again, with the water, the next 100 to come!
Sally:
Oh, Annie, thank you so much. Cheers!
Oh, isn't Annie just gorgeous. I hope you enjoyed our conversation as much as I did, please share on social media and tag the wonderful Anneliese McCarthy. Her handle is @herspeakingcoach. That's on Instagram and TikToK. And of course, me too. I'm on @sallyprosservoice. If you'd like to hear more, the full uncut raw version is up on my YouTube channel. So you can find out my other karaoke song, there's more tongue twisters and you get to see our weird facial expressions in the conversation.
So what's next for That Voice Podcast? At this stage, I'll be back in the new year with new guests, new solo episodes, and new practical, and inspiring ways to help you find your voice and speak with confidence. And please let me know if you have any topic ideas or guests or guest requests.
That's a bit of a tongue twister, guest requests, and I'll see what I can do. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for supporting that voice podcast. I really, really appreciate you. Without you listening there would be no show, so thank you! The best gift you could give me for Christmas, if I featured anywhere on the list, would be a social share and a review of the podcast if that's not asking too much. And remember to join the podcast mailing list so you're the first to know when the new episodes drop. You can do that at www.thatvoicepodcast.com. For now, I am dropping the hairbrush mic on Episode 100 and I'll be back with Ep 101 in the New Year. Bye!