21. How to avoid a silent night

Let's have some fun as we farewell season 1 of the podcast and get ready to celebrate Christmas! I share three quick tips to keep you in full voice this festive season, reveal a surprise for season 2 and I even sing, that's right SING, a verse of Santa Baby!

Transcript

How good is Christmas time?! I just love this time of year, you know it's all about food and friends, family, fizzy alcoholic drinks, so let's face it, it's a pretty bad time of year to lose your voice. So in the final episode of season one of That Voice Podcast, before I reveal what's in store for next season, I thought I'd share with you three quick tips for how to avoid a silent night.

I'm Sally Prosser, you're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters and unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

Thank you so much for joining me on the very last episode of the very first season of That Voice Podcast. Woo! It has been an absolute blast to make and I thought today we'd have a little bit of fun. I'm even going to sing for you later on. I don't know whether that's motivation to keep listening or motivation to switch off. I really hope it's the former, so I'm going to go through three really easy things you can do this festive season to make sure you don't lose your voice and it's not going to be new information. It's more of a reminder.

And the first reminder, and I don't want to sound like your mother saying this, but the first reminder is drink more water. Stay hydrated. It's really easy to forget to drink enough water, especially if you're in the southern hemisphere like I am and it is bloody hot at the moment. So when the weather's so hot, you're drinking more alcohol, you're eating more salty foods and you're generally talking more. It can be very easy for the vocal cords to dry out and that's when it can become scratchy and things can go downhill. So keeping your water intake up and you know, I'm not a health professional or anything like that, but they say it's good for you in general, but I can definitely say it is good for your voice.

Now the second tip is keep an eye out for warning signs of your voice going downhill. So if you start to feel that scratchiness, you can feel the phlegm build up a little bit. Don't just ignore it and power on. That's when you need to smash the water, rest your voice. Or in my case, just start gargling that Betadine sore throat gargle. Now this isn't a sponsored post or anything, I'm not, I'm not big enough to get sponsored by anything, but it is what I genuinely use. The Betadine sore throat gargle, not the one that comes already diluted, but the one that's in the tiny bottle that you dilute yourself. I find that is fantastic and I use that whenever I get that first inkling that something might be creeping in because of course with what I do, it's really, really important that I don't lose my voice and I keep it sounding as good as I can. So keep an eye out for those warning signs so you can get on top of things early and get back to partying.

Now the third tip is to celebrate your voice, joy to the world, joy to your voice. So this is the time of year to be really grateful and thankful for everything that your voice has done for you this year and to celebrate it. So I thought this was a good opportunity for me to lead by example. It is definitely out of my comfort zone. So I'm also leading by example on that point. My business cards say I'm a voice coach. No, it's not singing. I like to stick to speaking. I don't like singing. I really feel like I can't stay in tune, which you're about to find out. But nevertheless, I think we need to stop being so hard on ourselves, hard on our voices, and really embrace what they do for us and celebrate it. And Christmas is the perfect time of year to do that. So without further ado, I am going to give you a rendition of just one little verse of one of my favorite Christmas carols. Are you ready for it?

"Santa baby - a 54 convertible too light blue. I'll wait up for you dear - oh that was flat! Santa baby, So hurry down the chimney tonight." I cannot believe I just sang on my podcast. You know what, if you're still here, that's a fantastic sign. So thank you very much. I really appreciate it. The point is even if you haven't been blessed with vocal cords of Adele, which I clearly haven't, still celebrate your voice, celebrate what it's done for you and love it because the more that you do, the more you'll relax and the more it will be there for you - next decade can you believe?

So there you have it. My three very quick tips to avoid a silent night this Christmas. The first thing is make sure you drink enough water - hydrate. The second thing is keep an eye out for the warning signs. If things start going downhill get on top of it. And the third thing is to celebrate your voice and sing and speak to your heart's content. Honestly, thank you so much for tuning into my podcast. It is the first podcast I've done.

You are a very small group of listeners, let's be honest, but I really, really appreciate that each and every one of you has tuned in. Hopefully you've enjoyed it. And my website is finally up and running. So if you go to thatvoicepodcast.com you can find all of the past episodes and also the transcripts. If they're not there, they will be very, very soon.

So if you're thinking of getting me a Christmas present, champagne, just joking. No, not really. If you think you're doing something for me, I would love if you could make sure you subscribe, rate and also write me a review about the podcast on Apple Podcasts and the other thing you could do is tell your friends and tell your family. I would love to have some new listeners next year. So speaking of next year, the plan at this stage is to keep the format the same as it was this season, so it's going to be about a 10 minute episode with myself and then a 20 minute episode with a guest. It's still Mondays, Mondays at 5:00 AM and all going to plan. The first episode will be coming out on the 3rd of February. So set your alarms.

Now next season, I'd like to turn the attention a little bit more to the issue of confidence and I'm going to get a little bit personal as well. A lot of people say to me, Sal, it's so easy for you. You're so confident. But honestly, there has been many times in my life where I have been anything but, and a lot of things have happened to me and you know, without giving too much away, there was several months where I'd be sitting in my bath with a glass of wine cranking up the sad country music every single day in tears. So confidence is something that we've got to work on all the time and I hope by sharing some experiences about my life, it will encourage all of you no matter what you've been through, that you can find your confident voice.

So Christmas, what am I doing? I'm heading up to a place called Tannum Sands, which is in central Queensland and catching up with my beautiful two sisters and my two nieces and my nephew. So that should be fantastic. Lots of swimming in the pool. We've got a wood fired pizza oven, presents, craziness. It's also my niece's birthday. She's the 23rd of December birthday. I feel a bit sorry for her. Anyone out there with Christmas birthdays, you'll feel her pain, but we are having a little party for her, which should be a lot of fun. Then on Christmas Eve I'm flying to New Zealand with my boyfriend and we're doing about 10 days driving around the North Island, which I'm really looking forward to because I've travelled a lot of the world and I feel a bit bad - New Zealand's only next door and I've never been there, so that should be fantastic and I'll be back on deck from January 7th but remember the podcast comes out on February 3rd.

So whatever you're doing at Christmas, I really hope that it's full of love and fun and not too many family arguments. I've had a few of those at my family Christmases and the main thing is is I really hope you all stay safe. I want you all to be back here listening next year. So look after yourselves, look after your family, look after your friends, and I will see you in the next decade.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. Have a very Merry Christmas, and I'll see you in 2020. Now how about a bit of Mariah? I can't resist!