Astonishing how many ways one can say that phrase. And how different it can sound, depending on what part of the mouth it initiates from. The barista at Starbucks greeted me and I waited a beat, relaxed everything, took a breath and aimed for the middle of my tongue right where it starts to dive into the throat. And then I said it.
"Small black coffee, please."
The barista looked puzzled. "Is that all? Don't you want syrup or something in it?" She reeled off the choices.
For the record, vanilla syrup in black coffee does not taste good. But hey, they didn't charge me for it. It's a little thing, but indicative of what's been happening to me as a result of working on my voice.
When I nail it (or even get close), people fall in love with me. The swelling of hearts is palpable. Do you know I can make people feel good just by asking for coffee? And when you make people feel good, you tend to get what you want because people want to feel good.
Amazing.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
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.
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.
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