Transform Your Speaking Voice into a Powerful Tool for Success with Tracy Goodwin

Unknown: 0:00

Hi,

Christine Li: 0:01

everyone. Welcome back to the show. This is Episode Six. Have you ever wondered if there's something in your voice that might be holding you back? Well, I know I did. And that is why I decided to sign up to work with my very special guests, Tracy Goodwin, she is a voice coach who has taught 1000s of celebrities, professionals and entrepreneurs, how to use their natural voice to be able to captivate the room, you're going to learn all about her special technique, which is called the psychology of the voice. It's basically a combination of evaluating how the subconscious might be protecting you from using your full voice, and a mixture of really interesting voice exercises. And it's this blend of psychology and voice exercises that Tracy uses. To help her students remove the internal barriers that are blocking them from using their most powerful voice. Her work is truly fascinating. You have to take my word for it. But you can also see for yourself when you listen to this episode. Let's go. Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the make time for success podcast. Hi, everyone. Today, I am so excited to have Tracy Goodwin, who is a fantastic voice coach. She's also my voice coach. She's on the show with us today to share her wisdom and to help me help you get your word out into the world to get your best skills activated. And to do what you want to in the world so that you can feel like a success and achieve success. Tracy, welcome to the show.

Tracy Goodwin: 2:39

Oh, thank you so much, Christine, I'm so glad to be here with you today.

Christine Li: 2:43

Thank you for being here. I've learned so much from you. And I'm excited to share your genius with our listeners. And could you do me a favor and just introduce yourself a little bit more and tell us about the kind of work you do and the programs that you run?

Tracy Goodwin: 3:01

Absolutely. So I'm a voice coach. And initially, when people hear voice coach, a lot of times they think singing, or what is that or what's a voice coach. And the work that I do is a little unique. Even for a voice coach, I have been in this line of work for over 30 years. And it was not on my radar that this is what my purpose was going to be. But because of my own story, because of my backstory, because of a whole lot of things. And this being my purpose, I became fascinated with voice. And I had to find my own voice. And over time, I have created what I call psychology of the voice. And what this means basically is that our subconscious, is calling the shots on how we use our voice. And what people don't realize is they're not even maximizing the power of their voice, because of this psychology of the voice. So the work that I do is around that it's transformation from the inside out. I've heard people say it's finding identity, it's getting back to who we really are, and delivering the best version of ourselves. But it's all centered around how we're using our voice, how we're showing up in the world from a voice perspective, internally and externally. So I've been doing the work for a long time. And I I'm just absolutely fascinated with it to this day. I work with people individually, and I have a small group coaching program. And it's game changing work that people oftentimes don't even think Wow, I didn't even realize I needed that.

Christine Li: 4:53

Yes, thank you so much for explaining this very rich and complex work that you do. It is fast. In a day, I have to say, as soon as I listened to Tracy and what she had to offer, I was hooked because of my background, as a psychologist, my curiosity about my own voice and what I could do with it. And, Tracy, I'm just wondering if you could explain a little bit more about the subconscious role in managing our voice in allowing us to be present or to be in hiding with our voice, because I think that might be probably the most complex thing that I've learned from you the most mystical, magical, but also the most powerful factor in how we use our voice. Absolutely.

Tracy Goodwin: 5:46

So there's actually two components to subconscious and voice, the internal piece, which is what I hear you asking about the psychology of the voice, was really, I discovered it through research. And the research showed me that literally one phrase like, hey, nobody wants to hear what you have to say, Christine, or Be quiet, or even worse, shut up, can dramatically affect will dramatically affect how we use our voice. So the subconscious is number one goal to protect our heart, the voice is the orchestra of the heart. So this data comes into the subconscious, hey, nobody wants to hear what you have to say, the subconscious, trying to protect the voice trying to protect the heart says, Don't worry, I've got this. And little by little, the person locks their jaw, or just doesn't say anything, or go or speaks really, really fast. Because I've got to get to the I've got to get through this because nobody wants to hear what I have to say. So there's this driver is what I call it or a voice story running. Typical voice coaching, we think of singing, or we think of be louder talk slower pause. All of that is voice coaching. But until we look at what is calling the shots, what is the noise in our head that saying, you better get those words, right? Until we address those drivers, which are not ultimately true. We really can't ever change what we're externally doing. And there's always an external piece, somebody's going too fast or loud or not pausing, or whatever it is, like I mentioned, we can fix that. That's the easy part. But why are you doing that? That's the psychology of the voice. What is that driver? What is that noise? And where did it come from? And is it ultimately true, we don't have to do a deep dive on that we don't have to spend years digging it up, we can take a look at it. Let's say for example, nobody wants to hear what you have to say. And we can really start to look at is that ultimately true? Well, no, it's not. It's something the subconscious put in place a long time ago, and just didn't get the memo that you don't need that anymore. I believe that everything that was put there was put in place because we needed it. But as we move through our daily rounds, now we don't need that anymore. And it's, it's actually safe to show the world who we really are.

Christine Li: 8:37

So beautiful. And I think it's such a loving process to be able to encourage people to dig deeper, examine what's holding them back, and then encourage them to come forward in a new way. Can you give us some examples of some of the kinds of exercises you take students like me in your program through so that we can challenge those drivers and we can show up using our fuller voice?

Tracy Goodwin: 9:05

Sure. Psychology of the voice in the form that it is today after you know it's morphed over all these years. It has three pillars to it. And the first pillar is what I call an Earth. So based on what I hear the sounds that I hear in a voice, and it's, you know, 30 years ago, I did not have any clue that I was a voice intuitive. I did not. I knew I heard sounds, but I didn't quite understand the magic of that. So I'll hear sounds, I'll hear layers of sounds I'll hear simple sounds like going too fast. We'll use that as an example because that's so common. And I'll start asking questions, I'll say, Do you realize you speak really fast? And the person generally will say yes. And I'll say well, why do you do that? So Sometimes they don't know, sometimes they do know. And I'll continue prodding a bit, I will always based on the way that I hear the sound have a pretty good idea of what the driver is. So I can get to the questions pretty quick. And so I might then say something like, Are you trying to get to the other side of it so that you can make sure you got it? Right? Do you always have to get things right? And the person will say, Oh, my gosh, yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. And then I'll propose the idea that maybe they already got it, right. And then it's like this light bulb goes off all these things, that the subconscious has not let the person think about, like the fact that maybe they are going to get it right. Maybe we do want to hear them. All of a sudden, now that belief can get reframed. And we can go, we know what, actually people do want to hear me it, I can't slow down. Does that answer the question?

Christine Li: 11:00

It does, it does beautifully. And I feel as your student, I feel like those exercises are really wonderful at getting ourselves to slow down. And also to just trust that it's okay to project it's okay to show up. It's okay to be spontaneous. All those things that I think we tend to feel aren't okay. Because we're wanting to be more in control, and we're wanting to do things correctly, our class happens to be mostly women. And I feel that many of us have probably been encouraged to speak very carefully in some way, or to hold back in another way out of fear out of fear of feeling like we would

Tracy Goodwin: 11:48

look too

Christine Li: 11:50

arrogant, you were mentioning that in last night's class that we would be too confident there's some sort of danger if we just relax. And if we just let the words flow.

Tracy Goodwin: 12:03

Absolutely. And there are all kinds of societal implications around women's voices, and men's voices, too. But the world tells us Don't do that. Don't do that. And then you've got the subconscious really working against you, in many, many ways, trying to keep you safe. One of the things that I hear from people all the time is, well, I've got to be professional. Because the world said, You've got to be professional, we just buy into these things, because everybody's doing them. And and then all of a sudden, I'll use the word. Well, how do you really feel about it? Well, I can't express my feelings, I've got to be professional. Well, hold on a minute, let's take a look at that definition of professional, what makes you think you're not going to be a professional. So the world societal implications, women have to be nice, you've got to be nice girls, you know, we start all hearing all of that, at a really young age. All of that absolutely plays into how we show up vocally. And this is where we can really talk about perception reception. What we perceive we're putting out is not what is being received, and everything gets real distorted over time. Think about a young child. They're loud, they're fast. They're saying it they're doing it. Give me a 40 year old that's doing that. Well, what happened? We were all born with an expressive voice. The world took it away. Little by little by little, by putting things in our subconscious that then altered how we use our voice. And it might be as simple as nice girls don't talk that way. Nice. girls aren't loud. Oh, well, hold on. I want to be nice. I want to be a nice girl. That's a huge one for women. Mm hmm.

Christine Li: 14:06

Yes. I feel all the layers that you've taught me all the different layers that impact how safe we feel when we're using our voice. And you've helped me to feel like I can experiment or that I could add the feeling back in when I'm talking. And that I've enjoyed literally feeling the feelings inside my body. When I do the exercises with you. It feels like when I'm doing practice speaking without your help without these principles in mind that I can come off a little bit more careful, a little more robotic. But then when I have your training, and when I have this openness in mind, I feel like I could really get to my message I could really get to what I really want to express and Communicate. So I want to thank you again for teaching me all these wonderful things.

Tracy Goodwin: 15:05

Well, I'm glad to hear that. And, you know, at the end of the day, I can teach you how to captivate the room, I can teach you to remove the masks that are blocking the connection, we can do all of that. But what I just heard you say, is my greatest love in this work, and that it, it gives you inner freedom. And that's what I see people, they might be incredibly successful, incredibly professional, incredibly, all these things, but they're struggling inside, there's no inner freedom to be like you said, expressive, or have a little more play about it or say what it is, you really want to say, it might stun you to know how many people in the course of a day struggle to say what it is they really want to say. And they have no inner freedom. They're just literally tortured inside, about using their voice and using their voice. Right? Whatever that is. And that's all about judgment. That's all about being out in the future, worrying about judgment. And so that's one of the things we have to look at, too, is what is our perception around judgment? And is that judgment even about us, because if we're afraid we're going to be judged? Oh, she's too bold, she's too, you know this or that, then we're not going to use our voice. But that, again, is a perception. Maybe they're judging you, maybe they're not, maybe they're thinking you're great. But even if they are judging you, judgment isn't about us. And we'll never really be able to step into the power of our voice. Until we can embody that.

Christine Li: 16:51

Wow, such powerful advice for for me for my listeners. So thank you for sharing that to that we really need to release our thoughts about what is coming our way, when we're speaking, we just have to let the voice be free. We have to let ourselves be free, and have the voice carry that through to the world. So thank you. That's such beautiful advice. And I know it's going to help everyone who's listening? I hope it does.

Unknown: 17:22

I have one

Christine Li: 17:24

question that I prepared before we got on because it is a factor that I see with people that I know, my clients. And I think it's probably an issue that many of our listeners today might be facing. It's this issue of what to do when there's silence in conversation, or when we're feeling that nervousness. If you could just share some tips about that.

Tracy Goodwin: 17:52

Yeah, that's a great question. So first of all, silence is golden. It's the most powerful of the five elements, I believe they're five elements of vocal variety. Pause is the most powerful. So again, I'm going to go internal, and I'm going to say, what's the meaning you're giving that silence? Have you failed? Because their silence? Are you a terrible communicator? Because their silence? What if we could simply reframe that that's actually a powerful position and get okay with it. I constantly am working with people to get them comfortable. In the uncomfortable. You've heard me say this, if it's not uncomfortable, I'm probably not loving it. You know, when I work with people, you know, when people say, Oh, I hate this, and I'm like, excellent. we're on the right track. Not that I want people to be miserable. But we've got to get comfortable in the uncomfortable and we've got to reframe the meaning we're giving things. Maybe it's not horrible, to be in silence, maybe it's very, very powerful. And if we can get out of the future, we're going to get out of the nervousness. nervousness is fear. Of all the things that could go wrong, I'm gonna say the wrong thing. They're thinking, I don't know what I'm talking about. They don't like me, I just messed that up. I shouldn't have said that. All of that is past and future. And if you can get back to the Now, that doesn't exist, that fear doesn't exist, because it's in the future. That regret and oh my gosh, I can't believe all of that. That's in the past, if you can get and again, this goes back to pillar one. If you can get right here with me in this conversation, and stand in the now and get comfortable standing in your own power. Silence won't bother you. I love the pause. I love the silence. But I've given myself permission to stand in that power. But nervousness, if you think about it, it's all the things you think are going to go wrong. All the things you can you think you cannot do look at the meaning. What about a reframe? And you said something earlier about confidence versus arrogance. I think I want to circle back to that a minute, because that plays into it. Why can't you just stand there and be good in the silence? This is why I call it psychology of the voice. We got to look at what's going on inside, you know, what are the stories that are happening? When you're nervous? about whatever? What what meaning? Are you giving? What stories are there? Now, you know, that's a, that's a psychology of the voice answer. A technical answer is, make sure you're breathing.

Christine Li: 21:06

Yes, you're making me think that with the silence issue, it would be very helpful if we could train ourselves to assume that everything is fine. to assume that we're under no threat, we are not about to mess up, that we can just stand as you said in our confidence. And be well actually, and actually enjoy the moment and take a breather, instead of feeling like we have to have the perfect next sentence or overcome objections or defend ourselves against some sort of verbal attack from the person we're talking to.

Tracy Goodwin: 21:44

Absolutely. And you have no voice power, except in the now. And what you just said right there encapsulates the concept that I teach of, you cannot control the outcome. That is an illusion that everybody in the world has bought into, again, that's the way we're trained to be, I've got to control this outcome. You cannot control an outcome. But you can control the conversation. So when you get in the now, you know, I know, you've heard me say this technique before, act as if the outcome is yours, doesn't mean I want you to be an actor. But I go into everything, as if I'm going to get the outcome I want. Now, that's not in my mind arrogant, it also doesn't mean I'm going to get everything I want. But if I have a choice to act as if and work from the place that, of course, I'm going to get the outcome I want. Or, oh, I better work hard to get this outcome, this outcome is probably not going to work out because this guy's difficult. And I don't really know if I have a choice of either, because it could go either way. Where's the most vocally powerful choice? Well, of course, it's coming from the place of I can be right here, listening to you, in this conversation, trusting that I will have the words not desperately shoving and forcing and grabbing for the right words, and knowing that the outcome is mine.

Christine Li: 23:27

Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Easier said than done. Maybe. But I, I feel calmed by listening to what you teach. So that's why I'm saying yes, it's, it's, it can feel difficult. But it really when you learn these techniques, and you apply them in your everyday speaking efforts, I think things become easier, they don't become harder, they become more fun.

Tracy Goodwin: 23:53

Yeah, and it's, you know, I say easier said than done, you know, kind of tongue in cheek because it's all a choice. And in the moment, the reframe can feel extremely difficult. on anything, right, you, you're going to go start working out or you're gonna start you know, whatever it is, it can feel really difficult in the moment, voice work is no different. But if you just start making another choice, you build another habit, because that's all we're dealing with here. We've created habits based on thoughts in our head, and we locked them in. So now it becomes difficult to be in the now or difficult to sit in the pause. But it's not really it's just a mental reframe, and a physical, new habit created and it can happen in less than 30 days. This work is fast when you go after the internal peace and the external peace at the same time. It's shocking how fast things shift.

Christine Li: 25:04

Yes, powerful, powerful, powerful work. And it's fascinating to watch my classmates thrive with their voices as well, I think people come to your program already having some experience, being public with their voices. And just to see the levels to which people can move, while you're trying to move along with them is another part of the learning that we do really well, when we don't feel alone. And we don't feel like we have to be perfect. And we feel like we can just expand,

Tracy Goodwin: 25:39

right? And here's the thing we can hear is the permission slip to your listeners, that you really can, that we really do want to hear what you have to say, and we really do want to know who you are, it is in those bits of you it is in those little elements of who you really are, that you've hidden for so long. It is when you release those or unleash them. As I like to say, that's when we can identify, that's when we can go ooh, she gets me, or Oh, I know, I know, I felt that too. So we've got to stop hiding who we really are. It's a mask with the subconscious puts it in place, making us believe it will get us the result that we want, if I'm professional enough, or if I get the words, right, or if I don't really show them who I am. But I'm so slick and good. You know, delivery or whatever, then they'll buy from me, then they'll love me, then they'll want to follow me know, it's the snort laugh and the sarcastic moment, and the guttural sound, and the frustration, and the excitement and the squeal and all those bits that people identify with. And that's what makes them stopped the tune out. That's what makes them stop the scroll. And, gosh, I just, it's so much less work. It may feel like more work initially. But to just show up as you, man, there's nothing better.

Christine Li: 27:27

He's just made me break out into a big smile. So you know, I agree with you. Could you do me the favor and explain the other pillars of vocal variety? Because I know that when somebody says there are five things and then they mentioned one I get my brain doesn't let that go. So I know that the first pillar was the pause. Could you explain the other for

Tracy Goodwin: 27:51

sure. So there's five elements of vocal variety, in my research in my belief in my training, and I'm a massive researcher, you know, I'm just fascinated with this stuff. And I'll get a, I call it get a hit on something. And I'll follow that trail. and years and years ago, it became really clear to me that what we do with our voice was affecting the listener senses, the senses triggered the emotion. It's not about the words, not about the words, I have a saying the words are everything, and they are nothing. It's how you say the words that has the power to make me feel. Science is proven the words cannot make us feel. So I thought five senses. Okay? What do we do locally that triggers those five senses. And what I believe is that there are five elements lined up with those five senses. The first and most powerful is pause. Then we've got shades of loud and soft. We've got shades of fast and slow. We've got shades of high and low and elongation, which is degrees of emotion, which is one of the most powerful of all next to pause. And yet, people don't even Wreckit you know, they don't even realize that they're not using it or how powerful it is or what it really, really does to another person. I can tell you that I really like chocolate pie and you're like okay, great. Or I can tell you that I really like chocolate pie. Well that just gave that a whole nother meaning. You don't have to care anything about chocolate pie, but you care about something. And if I can trigger that emotion, that degree of emotion in you by elongating something. Now we're committed On a whole nother level, it's no longer about pie and wine, or pie and green beans, or whatever it is, it's not even about that anymore. It's about I have loved something, and you have loved something. And that's the power of these elements. But you see the subconscious shuts all that down. Because what these five elements are, and I just explained it in a technical sense, when you are really being you, you're using them. But then when you get in video mode, or professional mode, or whatever mode, or sometimes it's just completely gone, you eradicate all the elements of vocal variety, because the subconscious tells you it's not safe. vocal variety tells me who you are, and how you feel. Well, that's subjecting you to judgment. So we can have that is what the subconscious is saying. But my belief and my work and what I have seen to be true, until you are willing to show me who you are and how you feel, you can't get to the ultimate level of where you want to be.

Christine Li: 31:19

I think that is the most comprehensive way I've heard you explain the power of the voice. So thank you, Tracy, for doing all of this work for doing all the research for helping so many people to connect with themselves and their voices, maybe leave our listeners with one or two success tips where you think the voice might be boosted? Or what they could experiment with today, after listening to this episode and to your wisdom, what what could we do to just have more fun with our voice and to see where we can take it?

Tracy Goodwin: 32:07

Sure. There's a part of me that wants to go to a technical direction. And I might do both. I might go technical and internal, I don't believe we can change the external. Let me rephrase, you can change the external voice. But it won't stick until you change the internal and the external. So one of the things I would suggest, stop deciding what we're thinking. I say that all the time. Part of the limitation and the way you're limiting using your voice is you've decided what we're thinking. And my data shows me that 99.5% of the time, what you think we're thinking is not what we're thinking. So stop deciding what we're thinking, and get in the now and get out of the past get out of the future. Another thing that I believe is very beneficial. And this is more of a technical thing. Everything is just a conversation. Everything's just a conversation, who are you talking to pick a person, pick a person you know, like and trust, put them in your mind's eye and have a conversation, remove the high stakes of what we're thinking and how you've got to get it right and that the words have to be this or you've got to do that or you can't be too expressive, or you can't be no, have a conversation, like you're talking to your best friend at your kitchen table. And you know what we're gonna feel from that, like you're sitting at our kitchen table, and you're our best friend. And that's from an organic perspective, when your voice will go to work.

Christine Li: 33:53

This is beautiful. I can hear the love that you have for this work, but I can also hear the love that you have for us. So thank you for sharing that and for being the person that you are. Please share with us also how our listeners can stay in touch with you start to learn from you, perhaps one on one or in a group situation.

Tracy Goodwin: 34:15

Sure, the best place to find me is captivate the room.com I am on most of the social media channels that captivate the room, or Tracy Goodwin. And if you go over to the website, there's a three video series that's free that you can sign up for. So that's a great place to start. I also have a podcast captivate the room. So that's another great place to go and listen and learn about psychology of the voice and things you can do to make a bigger impact with your message while using your voice. I do a group program about four times a year I launch it my next round will be in February, early February. But I am also doing a free masterclass training series in January. So that's coming up. And you can find about all of that, as well as working with me one on one over at the website. So that's really the best place for people to find out more information. And certainly, if you have questions or need information or just want to talk to me about your voice, feel free to email me.

Christine Li: 35:24

Wonderful. So it's captivate the room.com. And it's Tracy Goodwin, and we look forward to staying in touch. I know I'm going to keep Tracy with me as long as I can. She's such a powerhouse of a teacher. And I know that I know, like and trust her so deeply. So thank you again, Tracy, for joining us here and showing us how to make time for success.

Tracy Goodwin: 35:47

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really love the conversation.

Christine Li: 35:50

Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to this episode of The make time for success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, make time for success podcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.