Vocal Confidence Coaching
A Deeper Look
What’s this all about?
Your voice is an observable physical representation of your inner world. When you speak, you convey all sorts of information about yourself, from your age, gender and culture of origin. You also convey information about your state of being, such as your energy level, health status or mood. You also convey information that may reside deep within, such as your level of confidence, fear, freedom, and reluctance.
Vocal Technique:
Vocal technique will help you gain command of how your voice sounds. You can quickly integrate tools to help with tone and pitch, volume, resonance, projection, breathing, pacing, enunciation, intonation and stamina, etc.
All this mechanical stuff is weirdly easy, and we can fix most vocal issues with some simple exercises.
Inner Confidence:
In order to get the most out of your vocal technique, it is also important to understand the relevance of internal and external factors that impact the way your vocal mechanics work. For instance, if your voice is sometimes strong and resonant and confident, and other times weak or quiet or nervous, then it’s highly probable that you don’t have vocal problem, per se.
How confident or hesitant you feel in any situation will directly impact your ability to command the sound your voice – whether you study technique or you don’t. This is because your voice and speech are hardwired to your nervous system, where your fight-flight-freeze-fawn response lives. If you’re confident, your voice will resonate effortlessly. If you are nervous or hesitant, it will be breathy, break up, crack, etc.
The degree to which your nervous system will inform your voice and speech in any particular situation has its roots in the stories, patterns and survival strategies that you have picked up throughout your life. These are shaped through your experiences with:
- Family background
- Cultural norms
- Physical body and health
- Community, friends and social circumstances
- Education background
- Professional experience
- Mindset, and more
Think of a time when your voice felt confident or strong. Where were you? Who was there? What were you doing? What was at stake? How did you feel before, during and after?
Now think of a time when your voice felt unconfident or weak. What were the conditions?
When you feel strong in your purpose, confident in who you are as a human, and clear about your worth and what you bring to the table, your voice – since it is a physical representation of your inner world, will shine bright and clear.
Developing a deep sense of self-awareness and inner safety, cultivating a growth mindset, and developing tools to help you rewrite your own story are the fundamental keys to owning your voice.
Communication Skills:
When you communicate from a place of deep inner confidence through a strong, clear voice that you know you can trust, your experience with the world around you completely transforms. People will respond to you differently. You will be able to set better boundaries, ask for and receive what you need, and share your brilliant ideas – even if they’re not fully baked. Your insecurities and imposter syndrome will decrease, along with any shyness or social anxiety. Your happiness and your sense of safety and belonging will increase.
Maybe this sounds like impossible magic, but it is 100% real and you already have everything you need to get started inside of you. I cannot wait to help you Own Your Voice.
Common areas of exploration.
Though the coaching is tailored to each individual’s needs, common topics include:
Foundations:
- Mindset
- Somatic awareness / presence and grounding
- Self-awareness / situational awareness
- Emotions in communication
- Establishing your practice
Voice:
- Vocal technique
- Clarity, projection, stamina, breathing, pacing, timing
- Speaking skills
- Enunciation, pronunciation, inflection, accents
Confidence + Authenticity
- Being seen and heard / taking up space
- Intention, curiosity, courage
- Knowledge + Intuition / limiting beliefs
- Empathy, connection, service
Communication:
- Communication basics:
- Listening skills
- Setting the tone
- Choosing the language / clarifying the message
- Gestures and non-verbal cues
- When is it my turn to speak / interjecting
- Challenging or high-stakes communication:
- Improvisational speaking vs. prepared speaking
- Brainstorming vs. speaking to the data
- Navigating conflict or pushback
- Establishing boundaries
- Asking for/receiving feedback
- Distilling complex ideas into shareable information
- Preparing for a meeting/presentation
- How to effectively prepare
- Pre-presentation warmup
- Post-presentation wind-down
- Room, stage, location logistics, and technology
- Speaking in front of a crowd