107. How to be a naturally confident speaker - even if you don't think you are!

Have you decided speaking isn’t your thing? You’ve made up your mind that some people are naturals, and you’re just not.

Sure, professional stage speaking isn’t for everyone. But being able to tap into your natural voice to confidently share your value IS for everyone – including you! Speaking skills aren’t genetic. In this episode I explain how being a naturally confident speaker is in your reach, and I outline three key ways to get there.

Honestly, do these three things and you’ll change your tune about speaking not being your thing!

Click Here to join My Six Week Voice Makeover

Transcript

Hello, hello, surprise! If you are a regular listener to the podcast, you will be surprised because you know that my episodes normally come out on a Monday, but just for this week, I've decided to bring it out a few days earlier because doors to My Six Week Voice Makeover are closing on the weekend. And if you're on the fence or thinking about it or new to the podcast, welcome, hello, then you might be listening on Monday going, 'Oh, that sounds great!', and it's gonna be too late by then because the course is kicking off on Sunday night, Australian Eastern Standard Time. So today I thought we talk about how to be a naturally confident speaker - even if you think you aren't one. And that's because I hear this word 'natural 'quite a bit, people will say, 'Wow, they're just such a natural speaker. They just make it look so easy. And I wish I could be like that.' But then people will also tend to say, 'I don't wanna sound like I'm putting on a voice. I wanna sound natural. I wanna sound like me.'

And all it really means to sound natural is to sound connected to your voice is to have your soul and the meaning of what you wanna say, align with your voice. You might be in this position where you listen to your voice, played back and you're like, one, don't like it. Or two, you might not even recognize it as yourself. You might be hearing the voice going, 'Oh, do I really sound like that?' So there's this real disconnect and that's not natural to sound natural. We want to have that really deep connection. We want our speaking to be effortless, easy, free, not thinking too much. It just comes from the depths of our soul. And so today in this episode, I wanted to take you through three ways that you can connect with your natural voice. Three ways that you can be a natural speaker.

Because sure, I would say you know, I'm born with the Gift of the Gab, I suppose you could say, and not every single person is going to be a speaking coach and do speaking professionally. However, I do believe that every single one of us has something important to say through the power of our voice. So it's not necessarily about, well, not even necessarily. It's not about being a professional speaker. It's about feeling that you have a great relationship with your voice and that you have the confidence to say what you wanna say when you wanna say it, and you can get your message out to the world, through the beautiful power of your voice. And that's what we do in My Six Week Voice Makeover, which is starting on Sunday. So make sure you head to the link in my show notes.

In My Six Week Voice Makeover, we go through a step by step process for you to make an impact. Every time you speak, it's not about the content. It's about preparing your health and the value in that is its strategies you can apply everywhere. If you don't know how to prepare yourself for speaking, it doesn't matter how well you've prepared your content. You're not gonna go very well. So these are really great skills to have. So week one: mindset we get into that speaking story. Week two: body. Our body is our musical instrument. Week three is breath. Without breath, there is no voice. If you're not breathing correctly, if your breath isn't supporting your voice, you are not going to have a strong sound. And you're also so not gonna be able to control your nervous system, which is one of the main reasons that you can tend to freak out before speaking week four is all about the buzz, the vibrations. We get those vocal chords moving and how we can use our body to make a really attractive tone.

Week five is clarity. The clarity of our speech. How clearly do the words come out? And a little bit of that mind, voice connection. You know, if you're in a position where you think, 'Oh my gosh, if only I could just say what's in my mind, that would be good.' So we work on that in week five, clarity. And week six is all about expression. What are the fancy things you can do with your voice to engage an audience and not be terribly boring and have people yawning in the audience? So that's In My Six Week Voice Makeover, I haven't opened the doors for a long time. It was last August that we ran it. And it's only until the weekend. So, head to the link in the show notes. If you were listening to this after the 27th of February, 2022, then you're too late. Sorry.

But if it's before, then jump on the link in the show notes and join us. If you are listening to this afterwards, then still go to that link because you'll be able to join the wait list for the next one. Okay. So how to be a naturally confident speaker - even if you think you aren't one. I'm gonna take you through three ways that you can do this. The first one is to lean into your why and lead with your why. Ask Why are you speaking? Why are you doing it? And ask it again? So it might be, why am I speaking? Well I said, 'Yes. And I think it's too late to back out.' Well, let's go a bit deeper. Why did you say yes because maybe you want to build your brand. Why do you wanna build your brand? Well, you might want to grow your business or grow your chances at promotion. Well, why do you want to grow your business? For example well, because you want to help people. And well, why do you wanna help people through doing what your business does? Well, because that's what you know, that you're here on this earth to do, right? So the more you dig down into the why, why are you speaking?

A lot of the nerves melt away. The nerves and the fears can melt away. When you remember, I'm making this video, or I'm stepping into this meeting, or I'm talking on this podcast because this is what I am here to do. This was my soul's purpose mission. This is what I'm doing. Then it really, really helps you tap into your natural voice because you'll be tapping into that passion, that 'well of why' I call it. That well of why, which will give you so much, not just great motivation to do speaking, but it will also help the voice to flow a lot more naturally because you're not blocked by all of those fears of, 'Oh my gosh, what will people think of me? And what if I say something wrong? And what if they don't like me? And what if I make a mistake?' Like all of that will move to this side, like the parting of the sea, when at your core, you are here doing what you're meant to be doing. So really keep that why at the forefront.

Okay. So number two, how to be a naturally confident speaker is to explore the range in your voice. You wanna know what you're working with. You wanna know what you're working with. You might be stuck on your default voice. I did an episode on that a couple of episodes ago. Remember, you can change your voice for the better and still be 100% you. You can change your voice for the better and still be 100% you. Think about all the other things we change. You know, we change our wardrobe, we change our hair. We change our body. If we start doing different training regimes, changing what we eat, you know, we change our relationships. We're constantly evolving. We're constantly changing. And our voice is something that we can change for the better. A couple of examples of that is, let's look at our breath flow. So take a deep breath in, and now start speaking while holding your breath. So start speaking, but don't let any air come out.

Now you might think, 'Oh my God, I actually do that. I actually speak while holding my breath!' And a lot of people do a lot of people speak while holding their breath. And that's why you'll get that very restricted tone. It doesn't sound very natural. Doesn't sound very warm. Doesn't sound like it's flowing, right? So now take a breath in and you're going to speak while the breath flows out. And if you put your hand in front of your mouth, you can actually physically feel the air coming out. So breath in. Now speak while the breath flows out and hear how much better that tone is. And you can feel that warm, warm breath on your hand? So changing the breath flow, just something as simple as that, you're gonna have a better voice. Think about the placement, the placement of the voice. So you can use the power of your mind. Can you put your voice up into your skull? Up into that high pitch up there? What about, can you put it into your nasal cavity, push the voice all the way into the nose? Can you push the voice to the back of the throat? So the vibrations are sitting back there?

Now I think that all of those are not particularly attractive, really. It shows that you, we can change our voice just through the power of our mind. We can direct that airflow, those vibrations to different parts of the body. So I'd love this to perhaps challenge your belief that you are stuck with your voice. If you think 'I'm just stuck with my voice, this is how I sound. I don't like it.' I dunno why I'm doing a nasal voice. I'm sure you don't have a nasal voice, but whatever it is, of course there are components that are natural, but there's a lot of components that you can change as well. So, you know, don't be the victim, be the player and take charge. Another thing you can change is like the pitch of your voice. Can you raise the pitch? Can you lower the pitch? I'm going up, I'm going down. And that's a really important one, because if you don't raise or lower the pitch of your voice, then you get stuck on what we call a monotone, which is staying on one pitch the whole entire time.

So there you have it. If you can explore the range in your voice, this is just a few examples. There's a lot more. And we go over them in My Six Week Makeover. Then you start to feel really empower, hopefully, because this is really something you can take control of and use for the greater good to share your message. Alright. So we've got the first thing is leaning into your why and leading with your why. Really remembering why you're doing it. The second thing is to explore the range in your voice, have fun with it.

And the last thing is to... It's my very dodgy drum roll. Oh gosh. I think I actually chipped a nail doing that. My goodness. The last one is to find the joy. Find the joy. So if you are familiar with the chakra system, then you're wanting to get right into that secret chakra, which is in the belly, that weather, the seat of joy and creativity. What can happen when we put public speaking on this pedestal and we cover it in all of these fears, like, 'Oh, I have to speak and I've gotta do this presentation. And I'm really stressed. And I dunno how it's gonna go.' And we have all these fears, we lose the joy. You know, nothing will suck joy, like stress, of course. And this links back to the why, if we can find the joy and the fun in speaking, oh my goodness, isn't it?

It's so cool. We get to connect with people through the power of our voice. Like right now I'm podcasting to you. This wasn't even a thing like, well, oh, I dunno when podcasting was invented, but let's just say to be safe, say 30 years ago. 30 years ago, podcasting wasn't even a thing people would be like, 'What are you talking about? You can just talk a microphone and people will listen to you. Like that's wild!' Same with online stuff. If you are worried about making videos on social media. Well, like, isn't it incredible? You've got this opportunity to be able to reach people this way. Whether it's a webinar, you can just look in a little circular lens and reach people all around the world. We've got all of these means of communication, ways of using our voice that we never had. And it's so exciting. Oh my gosh, how fun to be able to do that? And we can also have some joy with our voice. So let's just do a bit of a funny voice warm up that I like to do, which is trailing the lips. So before you speak, you're going to...

And that is a great warm-up because it will help with the breath flow and warm your lips. But it's also kind of funny. One of my other exercises is 'Mayo, mayo, mayo, mayonnaise.Mayo, mayo, mayo, mayonnaise!' And come on, you can't say that and not have a little smile, like, it's just fun! I mean, I'm really all about the joy, which is why you'll see my love heart glasses. You actually get a pair of those if you sign up for My Six Week Voice Makeover, but I've got my stress ball lips and my sunglasses and my hairbrush microphones. And I'm really big about having a good time. Because, you know, I would much rather, I know it's not about me, but I think you would much rather this as well, much rather that you feel good about speaking in the lead up to whatever it is.

You're not losing sleep. You're not panicking. You know, you're eating, you're looking after yourself and you're actually looking forward to it. And then while you do it, you are enjoying it. You're in the zone. And then when you finish, you're feeling good about having done it. And even if let's say it doesn't go as well as you would've liked. If you feel good about that whole process, I feel like that is so much better than stressing out about it, losing lots of sleep, having lots of panics, doing the presentation, not really enjoying it at all, just wanting to get it over with and then spending the next three days beating yourself up about how bad it went. Even if it went really well and everyone gave you lots of great feedback, you know, like where's the joy, where's the joy? What is the point of sharing our voice and sharing our message if we can't enjoy it?

And so three things will help you connect with your true voice. And you'll be able to sound like a naturally confident speaker. If you're always connected to your why, you explore the range in your voice, and you look for the joy, right there, you are gonna create great connection. You're gonna sound authentic. I wasn't gonna use the A word, but there we go. You're gonna sound authentic. You're gonna sound real. You're gonna sound like you. You're gonna sound natural and you're gonna feel great about it. So how, how can you do all this? And that's what we do in My Six Week Voice Makeover. I take you through all the different ways that you can lean more into your why. This is in our mindset week. We go through lots of different ways where you can explore the range in your voice. That's the bulk of the course.

And by exploring the range, it just it's like so cool. Time and time again, people who've done the course are like, 'Wow, Sally, I can't believe that I made that sound!' And then finding the joy. That is a focus throughout the whole entire course. And after every single class you'll be smiling and you'll be feeling good. And you'll be saying, 'Woohoo, I love my voice. And this is just so awesome!' And that just sounds so much better then freaking out about public speaking and having it as this burden in your life, this, this bug bed, this thing that you just, oh, want to avoid. It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be that way. So come and join us for My Six Week Voice Makeover. The link is in the show notes as mentioned, we're closing the doors this weekend. So it's midnight on Saturday, the 26th of February, Brisbane time, Australian Eastern Standard Time. And you know, let's do this, let's do this! I can't give you a good voice, but I can sure as hell help you release the voice that you already have have inside you, your natural voice that is just waiting to come out.