lenavoice

A few months ago, one of my clients introduced me to Ita Olsen, founder and president of OlsenSpeech and one of the world’s foremost authorities in corporate speech techniques. She wanted expertise PR and I’ve always wanted to improve my verbal communication and presentation skills, which have proved unreliable at best.

I didn’t know the work would be life changing.

One of our main goals is for me to learn to speak Standard American English, which is rich, resonant and totally beautiful. I also love how it feels to speak this way and how people respond to it (amazingly).

We’ve had about seven sessions so far, via phone and Skype. I have normal issues: a Midwestern accent; a vocal tone/timbre that is too nasal and too high pitched. All are being addressed.

But we discovered something else. When I reach a certain level of tension and stress, I literally choke. If I’m talking and I hit that threshold, my ability to broadcast is immediately disabled. My station just goes off the air. No flag, national anthem or striped slide for me. I go straight to snow pattern.

Not coincidentally, this happens not only when I speak but also when I am on stage playing bass. In fact, it happened half way through my gig this past Friday night. I was most unhappy.

According to Ita, freezing is what happens when not enough oxygen is getting to the brain. She is helping me to learn how to avoid it in the first place and how to pull out of it if I start to go there. Me: You mean there's a way to fix this? Halle-frikken-lujah!

Anyway, it's an ordeal, but is already shaping up to be one of the most profound and powerful changes I've ever made in my life. Interested in how it goes and how it will turn out? Subscribe.