Confidence Classic: Speak with Gravitas and Command the Room with Caroline Goyder

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One of the principles on stage is stillness and movement, movement and stillness. And often you can tell on stage who the most powerful person is. You know, think of any good mafia movie that you've watched. The most powerful person is still because everybody else moves around them is there in the animal kingdom as well. And so often stillness is the kind of paradoxical thing that makes you powerful. And stillness in the breath underpins stillness in the body because you can't be still in the body if your breath isn't calm.

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much as I do. Hi and welcome back. I'm so glad you're here today to meet our guest, Caroline Goiter. Caroline's global reputation as a speaker and voice coach is built on her warm, engaging, relaxed and highly practical style. And her expertise honed by her work with actors, teachers, broadcasters and the corporate sector. That means you. She worked for many years at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama as a voice coach. Her skill is to take ideas previously known by performers and broadcasters and to make them immediately usable for the audience in their personal and professional challenges. She's regularly sought after by the media as an expert in her field and her work has featured her on television and numerous national and international newspaper articles. Her TED talk, which is amazing, has over 9 million views. And yes, I am very jealous. At Caroline's website, caroline goiter.com I'll link it in the notes you will find information about booking her to speak, signing up for her, find your voice events and and you can download her short audio courses and help you speak with confidence. Caroline, thank you so much for being here.

Oh, it's great to be here, Heather. And your TED Talk I know will have as many views in as much time they go up from your lips to God's ears.

I am hoping so. And I want to start with the TED Talks for two reasons. One, I saw your talk. It's unbelievable. Definitely warrants the views that it got. It's so unique and different but you seemed so confident and so calm. Did you feel that way, like, break it down for me, because I was a nervous wreck when I gave my.

So the backstory to this one is that I had a wonderful coach called Denise Graveline who really sadly died. She ran a site in the US Called the Eloquent Woman, and she died three years ago, which is awful. But at the time she was coaching me, she said this is a massive risk because, of course, a speaker coach, I mean, you know, right. A speaker coach standing on a TED stage, you've got to nail that. You've got.

You did, though. You did nail it.

So the backstory to that is that I did do a lot of work on it, and I spent time with Denise working on script, I spent time thinking about the prop, and I spent quite a lot of time rehearsing with a standup comedy coach. It's not a funny talk, but stand up comedy coaches are just good at nailing it. And when I got there on the day, one of the organizers said, you're the most prepared person in this room. And I was like, you bet I am. So I can't mess this up.

But it's important for everyone to understand because I didn't even know this. Here you are. You're the coach. You are a speaker coach, and you're enlisting and investing in getting your own coach. That's a big deal.

I mean, it's like any tennis player will tell you or any executive will tell you, you can't do it without a coach. You can't cut your own hair because you can't see round the back. You can't coach your own talk because you can't see your blind spots. So you and I both know that coaching is essential. And even when you become this thing called an expert, a coach is even more important, because nothing is static. Learning has to evolve. And if you're not evolving, you're not an expert. Oh, it's so.

That's so true. And back to our conversation we were having earlier. With all the AI and technology changes and updates, we constantly have to be learning and growing. Well, Caroline, I found it interesting that one of the first things I thought when I listened to your talk was the way you speak and your voice just draws you in. It's so beautiful. And when I shared that with you, you said, oh, my gosh, it hasn't always been that way. So take us down that journey and how that could even be real.

I really am the archetypal teacher who teaches what she needs. And the reason I'm so passionate about teaching people to speak with calm and control and confidence is that when I got to Drama School, 2000 BC, they said to me, you have no presence. You're not centered, your voice is thin, you're not grounded, you're not listening. And a litany of kind of complaint that you often get at drama school. And I had no idea what to do with that. And I thought, there's nothing I can do. I'm just a bad actor. And I got the right teachers. And with their help over the last couple of decades, you unpick that. I wasn't breathing in the right way, I was standing badly, my throat was tense, my jaw was a bit tense, and I wasn't present to others because there was too much noise in my head. All the stuff that I'm conscious of now I had to learn about. And as soon as you unpick it, you realize you can change really quickly. And voices respond so quickly to a bit of gentle attention. So this is all so learnable. I am. I am evidence of that.

Well, I'm so glad you're here because I have zero knowledge around this topic. And it's so interesting to me to think that everything that you just described that you actually learned in access knowledge and now you're going to share that knowledge with us. So where do we begin? I constantly get DMs from people saying, I have to give a big speech or I have to get up in my office and talk. I'm freaking out. What do I do, Heather? How do I find the confidence? How do you direct people?

The first thing I would say to someone is understand that confidence is a set of behaviors. You know, whether you call it atomic habits or Aristotle's right actions, confidence isn't something you're born with. So if you're feeling, oh, my God, I can't make that speech, or I have to speak on that panel, it's like thinking, I can't drive. If you think I can't drive and I need to drive, the thing you do is go get driving lessons. So the first thing I would say to someone is, if you have that speech coming up and it worries you, don't ignore it. Seek out help. The beautiful thing about the US Is there is a good speech and voice coach in every town. You just put that put into Google and someone will come up, enlist their help, work on your speech with them, get support, find out what you do well, find out what you need to tweak, and then practice it. And if you spend three or four lessons with a voice and Speech coach and then practice it at home a few times. You will feel ready because you've practiced it. Just like when you do a driving test, if you've done enough practice, you pass. And that's the thing. People think it's magic, and it's not. It's not magic. It's practice.

You definitely. You share that in your TED Talk as well and in your books. That practice is so key. It was helpful for me. Very recently, I met with Tim Storey. We were both doing keynotes for the same live event, and backstage we were talking. He was closing the event as the largest speaker in the lineup for good reason. He's amazing. And I was asking him, I said, you know, you're years ahead of me in this. What's some of the advice that you can give me to get to your level? And he said exactly what you just did, which shocked me. He said, I practice five to seven hours to this day for every and any speech I'm gonna give. And I was shocked to hear that.

And that's just music to my ears. And what it means is that his speeches are also evolving. He's not just doing the same type of keynote in every city. You know, he's. He's creating new content. And it's that balance that's so important, because then it's living.

So you think people, even if it's just for a meeting that you're going into and you're giving a presentation at work, you think people should be practicing, even just for a work presentation?

It's leverage, isn't it? Right. If so, I was working with a hedge fund this week on a big presentation to the internal team, which is about creating a new vision. If you're creating a new vision and you need your team to buy into it, or if you're pitching to investors and it's going to make a massive difference, then put the time in. If it's that relaxed update to your team, then, yeah, run it through a couple of times at home, but you might not need the same input. So balance the leverage with the input and just do an equation as to how much time should I be putting into this and what's the benefit if I do? And I think we all know deep down the thing not to do is put your head in the sand and just ignore it because it terrifies you, which is what a lot of people do.

Like you said, their throat is going to tense up more on the actual day of. They're going to begin sweating. They're going to lose their Posture and create a domino effect of things that are going to make that speech worse.

It creates a trauma, I think. And you've probably come across so many clients who've had one disaster because they haven't prepped, and that puts them off forever. So they never practice. It's much better to face the fear and say, right, I'm gonna get as good as I can get for this speech. And that sets you up then with a positive memory that then allows you to repeat it. And the other thing to say is, if you can't practice, visualize it going well, because the brain is a predictive machine. And if the brain has seen it go well, you know, this is just good nlp, isn't it? If the brain's seen it go well, it thinks it's already done it before.

You are so right. And I am living proof of this. Before my ted, I watched every TED Talk that I loved every night for months leading up to the venue to put myself there and imagine myself there. And then I'll never forget, in the end of 2019, I had the opportunity to interview Sarah Blakely live on stage at a big sales conference. I was so nervous and intimidated by her that I knew I was, of course, right, of course, female billionaire. And I thought, oh, my gosh, what if I panic when I'm on stage? So I did just what you're saying. I would lay on my floor, close my eyes, and see her smiling at me. I would see me smiling back. I'd see the audience standing up and cheering. And I did that for weeks before I went to Boston to interview her. And it worked. I definitely. I saw her. I ran over and gave her a hug because I felt like I knew her. And she looked at me a little like, all right, dial it down, sister.

But that ease, that parody on stage is. Is so powerful. And you'd done it by visualizing it. So that is such a great strategy for anybody who's feeling nervous. You can do that in the car. You know, if someone's driving you somewhere, visualize your speech. You can do it waiting in reception somewhere, any downtime. Visualize success, but don't ever visualize failure, because that has. Exactly.

We don't want to create that. Now, Caroline, you talk a lot about breathing and the power of breathing, which, yet, again, I could have used this information years ago. I really did. It's embarrassing to say this, but I didn't really think about it. And I was hoping you could share some of the breathing techniques that can empower us to Be more confident when speaking.

It's funny, isn't it, because we know about breathing for yoga or Pilates. We know that when we run, we need to think about our breath. What we don't think about is breath for speech. The basic principle that everybody needs to understand is that because all speech is out breath, your pause is in breath. If you understand how to take a really relaxed in breath, then everything you say is relaxed. Whereas if you forget that and do what most people do when they get really scared, which is kind of chest breathe, and their shoulders come up and they gasp the air in. And that's when your system says you're running away from someone really scary now. And so you're going to speed up and you're going to get flat. It's going to become just really hideous quite fast. So in other words, the full stop for a speaker and the quality of your in breath is the quality of what comes out next. And I just wish that everybody understood that, because then you can be on stage in front of 4,000 people, you relax, you look out at the audience, you breathe and you're with friends. And that's the art, isn't it? To speaking now is to seem really at ease in that situation.

You seem so at ease in your TED Talk. That's definitely the sense that I got. And specifically in that talk, you talk about the importance of the diaphragm, which, again, is something that I had never thought about. Can you share with us how that works?

I remember being at drama school and then talking about the diaphragm, and I was like, I kind of think I should know what this is. It's if you take a thumb the best. I mean, I do this in the TED Talk. If you take a thumb and just stick a thumb. Women, it's below where your bra strap is. Men, you just kind of have to imagine between your ribs somewhere and just feel that squishy point that is the front point of attachment for the diaphragm. And the diaphragm kind of cuts you in half like the skin of a drum, like a jellyfish, all the way across your torso. And when you breathe in, the diaphragm descends. And when you breathe out, the diaphragm rises. So if you just put your hands on your tummy, then you feel that as you breathe in, your tummy moves away from your spine. And as you breathe out, your tummy moves back to your spine. Now, when you pause, you want the tummy to move away from the spine. That's a Pause and then you speak. And it's just like when you sing Happy Birthday to someone. If we all think about the feeling of singing, you're going to sing so you breathe into your tummy and then you sing. Speaking should feel the same. When you do that, some really good things happen. Your voice has power because you're giving it air power. Voice is supported by air. You feel relaxed because your system is breathing in a relaxed way. Your audience get time to think because you're not rushing and the whole thing starts to feel relaxed, you know, George Clooney esque rather than rushed and stressed and I don't know the horse racing speed. So it's the breath is the secret, the master key to good speaking. Because without it you wouldn't be able to speak full stop.

So do you recommend right before someone's going into meeting, a presentation or a speech to find a quiet place to go and find your diaphragm and feel that?

Absolutely. I mean good actors will always before a show, certainly in the West End in London, I suspect in theaters in the US they have a half, they spend half an hour before the show goes up just sitting quietly. And what they're doing is exactly that, Heather. They're tuning into mind, breath and body. They're getting present. And what that means is when you hit the adrenaline of the audience, your system meets it and it spikes performance. If you're not centered, if you've been checking TikTok or you know, watching TV or checking your messages, looking at slack or something, you hit the adrenaline and your system panics. So yeah, quiet is the most important thing before you perform.

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confidence clear I asked you to try to find your passion. One of the things I'm thinking about as I'm hearing you speak is the power of the pause. Can you tell us a little bit about how we can use pause in speaking?

It's so interesting, isn't it? Because I know My editor, my video editor will say, if he's editing YouTube videos, you got to cut out all the pauses. People hate pauses on social media. That's not the same in speaking, because a pause, it's like good poetry. You know, you look at a poem or a song lyric, a film script, there's loads of white space. And what happens in the white space? We process stuff, because not everything is speaking. If you lay out speech like a poem or a song lyric, then you create a space for the audience to connect with it. Whereas if I just talk at you and I don't stop and I keep going because I'm nervous and I'm just kind of on a roll because I can't really. Then you zone out because there's no white space.

No one can think that fast to hear you.

No. And yet people do, because we're all so speedy. Our lives now are so speedy. And I think there is a movement to all this. Productivity, movement. And the emphasis on time and managing time, I think is coming as a response to the overwhelm. But most of us are still in the overwhelm. And so as speakers, you gotta put the brakes on. You've got to slow down, because that helps an audience. Doesn't mean that you have to be like a kind of, you know, speak your weight machine. You can be energized, but you need pauses.

What about using or varying how quickly you speak at different points in a speech? How do you think that can work for a speaker?

Oh, gosh. I mean, you know that and I know that, that a good speech has dynamics. And I say to speakers when I'm coaching them, think about what energy you want the audience to feel at each section of the speech. Because another cool thing about the diaphragm. Such a nerd. Is that the diaphragm responds to different emotion. So if you think, I really want the audience to be excited about this bit now. And if you think about something that really makes you feel excited, guess what? They do. And if you want them to feel frightened, you know, think about something that really scares you. And chances are you don't have to work very hard. If you're feeling it, they'll feel it, too. And so we can really move an audience through emotional gears. Just like a good movie. A good speech is like a good movie, isn't it? The dynamics are so important, because if it's just one note all the way through, people get so bored so quickly.

Oh, gosh, that's so incredibly true. And we do not want a Bored audience and when I bored audiences. Right. Right now with everyone on virtual, how do you coach people to be as powerful and effective and engaging through a computer?

This question is coming up so much. In fact, I did a session today for a big group and it came up the first rule I learned from business schools really early on in lockdown, which is stand up. And you know, I work a lot with a laptop stand or a standing desk because if I have, you know, you'll know this if you have a big aud on zoom or teams, whatever platform, if you're sitting at the desk you sit to write emails, it doesn't have the same feeling of excitement that it would if you walked out on the conference stage. And standing up can start to replicate that and it makes it feel more like a performance. And I think that's the game changer note for most people is stand and gesture because that brings your voice into it.

Explain to us the role that gestures play or how we know when we're gesturing too much or too little, whether it be on a computer or if you're on a stage.

So there are some good rules which are like broadcast rules which are, you know, don't wave your arms around as if you're on, you know, a huge Royal Albert hall stage. But the gestures that you would naturally do if you were chatting to a friend or a group of friends are probably going to work on screen. The reason that's true is that because of the hands being connected to the shoulders and the shoulders being connected to the ribs, everything I do with my hands affects my breathing and my voice's breath. So gesture affects my voice. And the more I use my hands, the more engaged my voice is, the more resonance it has and usually the more power it does. If I'm sitting at a desk and I've got my hands clamped and my ribs tight and I'm not moving, my voice is going to be much flatter. So it's just a really simple way to liven up delivery. Stand up gesture the way you do when you're relaxed. It's so simple.

I worked with a coach for my talk. Only time in my life I've ever engaged one, which now I want to again now that I'm learning from you right now. One of the things she taught me that I just hadn't thought of was I was doing a five step process was to put your hands out and use your fingers to sit one to. And I asked her why is that important for me to do? And she said that visual that you're gonna provide with the audience is really gonna make this very powerful. It was a very subtle thing to do, but it definitely worked.

There's so much science on the power of gesture to lock things into memory for audiences. So that's the other layer to it. Absolutely.

And for the speaker, too. For me, it helped me. Knowing that I was signaling like that with my hand helped me remember what I was going to be saying.

And it slows you down, doesn't it, because you're kind of committing to it. Use the body. The body is the. The most important engine of good speaking. Be in the body, definitely.

And what about actually walking and your posture? How does that play into giving a speech?

It's interesting. Different people do different things. There are definitely speakers who do a lot of walking. You know, I think Tony Robbins or someone that motivational speech style, I think you can really march around the stage. I'm often the counterpoint to that when I coach people, because I say, unless you're Tony Robbins, actually moving when you're not talking is quite powerful. So you land a point, and you land the energy of that point, and then you pause and you take a wander. And this comes from acting. Often when directors are working with actors, they'll say, move the thought. Let the thought move you across the stage, because it shows that you're changing your thinking. So maybe I've made my point, and now I want to move it on. If I move to another point in the stage, the audience kind of follow me in thinking. So it's a way to move ideas on for you and for the people listening. And it's really different to the Tony Robbins school, but it can be really powerful.

It's so interesting to me how much thought. Thought goes into this and how strategic it is. And it's also making me feel excited right now because these are things I frankly haven't thought about for myself when speaking. But I know that these are things that I can implement. So thank you so much for sharing them.

What about isn't it.

It's super fun. What about expelling your voice? Or. I don't want to say louder, but projecting, maybe. What are some tips around projection?

Oh, gosh. I mean, I was told, you know, way back when, your voice is thin, you have no resonance. And I just thought, oh, it's never going to change. And all I can say is that I've spent the last 10, 15 years doing five minutes of humming, chanting, singing every day. And if you just spend five minutes singing in the morning, your voice Will naturally start to have more projection and more resonance. But if you're on a stage and you're worried that you don't have enough power, first thing to think about is ground. Get your feet really planted. Then think posture. Get your spine aligned. So make sure that everything is lined up properly, as if you're in a pilates class or standing against a wall and you're not doing text neck. Because when we stick our heads forward, it's really difficult to project. Then think about sending the voice from the tummy. You know, if you think about where you laugh from or yawn from, that kind of big yawn or big, deep laugh that you do with friends, it comes from your lower torso. We don't speak from the throat. That's just the channel. The power is the belly. So feet grounded, straight spine, power in the belly. Then find something at the back of the room that you want to send a thought to and think of pulling your voice from that point. So rather than pushing your voice out at something, you stand up straight and you pull in. Because then the voice naturally connects and it's easy. Whereas if I think. If I stand to the side, if I think, oh, I've really got to reach that point, if I start pushing in my throat and pushing my head forward, that's. That's straining the voice, it's going to make it tired. So just get strong, pull in, and you'll naturally have power. And we do it when we sing.

That is such an interesting idea, and my son is going to love that. I will be singing even more in the car on the way to school. Caroline, thank you for that one. I will give him your email for his. He'll be filing complaints. Cause I'm not a very good singer, but I'm willing to try it. I always want to get better. I always want to grow.

They're fine until a certain point, aren't they? And then they don't like it anymore. Mommy, please don't dance.

You're right. When they're little, when they were little, they liked it. At 14, not so much.

No, not so much.

Okay. You talk about gravitas and how to have more of it. Can you explain what that is?

Yeah. Gravitas is the book I wrote in 2014. And it's something that I think it's kind of my word. And it's a weird one that it's become my word. I think I have lawyer parents, and I wonder if there's something to do with that. Gravitas. I was asked to teach at a big corporate in London. And they said to me, people keep saying, oh, she has no gravitas. He has no gravitas. And we don't know what to do with that. And I suspect in the US that is a word that is also bandied about. What it means is seriousness, dignity, weight, and it was a Roman virtue. What it means to me, after researching it, is grounded presence. Sully, you remember the incredible pilot Chelsea Sellenberger, who landed the plane on the blooming Hudson river and everybody walked out or swam out or got onto a boat. I imagine his voice is for me the epitome of gravitas. It's calm and measured, honest, congruent expert. That's it. It's not charisma, it's not impressive. It's you at your best helping someone. And so you see it in the midwife, you see it in the doctor, you see it in the, you know, preacher. There are lots of places in the world where people who don't have famous titles have gravitas.

And I know you share in your TED Talk about when you look at a king, what does a king look like? And what does that confidence look like? And who is that most powerful person in the room?

And it is that stillness. I mean, a lot of these principles come from acting. And one of the principles on stage is stillness and movement, movement and stillness. And often you can tell on stage who the most powerful person is. You know, think of any good mafia movie that you've watched. The most powerful person is still because everybody else moves around them, you know, is there in the animal kingdom as well. And so often stillness is the kind of paradoxical thing that makes you powerful. And stillness in the breath underpins stillness in the body, because you can't be still in the body if your breath isn't calm.

That is again, something that I really haven't thought about. But you're so right when I envision, and I love that analogy, you know, of a king, or you know, Sully for that matter, is just that calm, quiet power that we all want to project. And taking it back to our breathing is great, it's simple, but I just want to become disciplined about it. I want to incorporate this into my regular routine. What are your suggestions for people to, to get breathing work or be mindful of it in their day to day?

I mean, I find my best days are the days when I get up a bit early and I sometimes do a bit of yoga, but sometimes I just sit on a bolster or a chair and I put my hand on my tummy and I just monitor my breathing for five minutes. Most days, as we've said, I will do some chanting or singing because that's also really calming and it warms up your voice. But what I would say to people is anything that gets you into your body gets your body released and gets your voice centered. And for some people that's tennis, right. For some people it's going for a run. The one thing I would say is I keep coming across clients doing peloton who have really tight hips and psoas and that makes their voices tight. So the thing I warn people about is a loss of peloton and a lot of weights. If you're doing those, they won't help your voice and they're fine to do. Of course, everything's fine, but balance it with some stretching because if the hips get tense, the jaw gets tense and then the voice gets tense because hips like jaw are really connected Meet a

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I asked you to try to find your passion. I'm a spinner and you are speaking my language because I constantly have tight hips and that makes a lot of sense but I didn't think of how that could connect to or restrict my voice at all.

But I bet you also stretch out because I don't Hear, it's the balance, it's everything in moderation, isn't it?

Well, I mean, that sounds easy, but it isn't always the case in my life.

Yeah, not with kids.

Definitely not.

Anything at all sometimes is an achievement when you got kids.

It's so true with breathing. Is it in through the nose, out through the mouth, or is it in through the nose, out through the nose?

So yoga often teaches in through the nose, out through the nose. In speaking, the big principle is in through the nose, out through the mouth. Because mostly the air when we speak comes out through the mouth. Not exclusively, you know, an N sound comes down the nose, but in through the nose, out through the mouth is a good way to breathe. It's also really calming. And breathing in for four, out for six, in for four, out for eight, in for four, out for ten is a really good thing to slow your heart rate, calm you down, get you centered. So if you just have time to do that before a speech, lengthen the out breath. And it really is magic.

It's already calming me down right now. I'm totally serious because as you're talking about, and I hope everyone listening is practicing this with their breath right now because you'll immediately feel a difference in your heart rate and just feel more calm.

It's magic. And we're all so adrenal that just taking a minute to slow your out breath before you walk into an important situation is a game changer. We're just more present. We smile. One other smile. Our voices are more musical. We have good vagal regulation and good nervous system regulation is the key in a stressed out age. We love those people. We remember them as speakers. We really, we gravitate to them because they make us feel calm.

Well, there's something interesting that you shared with me that I would so love for you to dig into and that's that you're an introvert. However, you take the largest stages in the world and have millions of views of your speeches. How do you develop confidence personally and take being an introvert and put that to work for you?

It's funny, again, I learned from my mistakes. So I was working way back with an actress who was Peter Brooks, Titania, in Midsummer Night's Dream. She's a very famous actress in the uk and we were running a session and I was introvert, but trying to extrovert. So I was kind of being loud and high energy because that's what I thought I should be in a drama school, right? And she said, this is a lot of Work for you, isn't it? And it was quite a harsh bit of feedback at the time and I was a little bit like, oh, no. But I really thought about it and I thought, yes, I was kind of putting on a mask. It was like the kind of primary school teacher, you know. And I went away and thought about it and I thought, if I was going to be myself in that situation, what would I be? And I would be stiller. So now I don't make quite as much fuss, as much energy. I'm able to be more myself. I honor my pauses. I don't feel I have to dance around on stage. I'm okay to be Caroline. I don't have to be Tony Robbins. And I think for introverts there is something about just embrace the introvert. And of course, Susan Cain, right, her TED Talk is the model for introverts of what that can be because she owns that stage with incredible grace and stillness and calm. And I just say to introverts everywhere, just, it's fine not to be Tony Robbins, just be you. And as long as you are congruent and really polished and clear in what you want to say and passionate about your message, you don't have to be the loudest person in the room because often the stillest people are the most compelling.

That is so completely true. And I actually have on a piece of paper that sits right next to me. Just be you.

Yes.

And it's just a reminder that I keep for myself, for overthinking sometimes. Oh, how am I going to take it to the next level today? How can I push myself further and better and faster and stronger? But sometimes that answer is just to be me and just to trust myself. And like you said, I don't walk around as fast or as powerfully as Tony Robbins, but I shouldn't try to be junior Tony Robbins, right? I need to be the best version of me. And that answer is just to be you. It's so much easier.

And, and that's when people's voices open up because they stop pushing, they stop trying. And then it's like, then you're Cyndi Lauper. It's your true colors show up. And so it's that paradox that you will be your best self when you try less hard. And my voice teacher used to always say to me, try less hard, try less hard. And it was find ease. And the whole thing opens up. The world is pushing against ease because we're so over scheduled and there's so many messages and everybody on Instagram is So polished. As you said, just be you.

Another example with my son, right? He was having an issue with a speech he was giving. Of course he does not want to listen to me, which I know moms

never get to coach, right?

Of course not. Doesn't matter who you are, so. And I said, that's fine. I'm going to invest in you, right? Because I wanted to show him you're worth it, you know, I just wanted to go through the whole process of hiring his own coach for a speech. I thought from a confidence standpoint, I thought it was gonna help him, and it did. And when I was sitting there watching while she was coaching him, he was trying to be very stern and trying to be the total opposite. He's very funny and quirky and making jokes. And she caught it. And just like your coach, she said, one of the best things I like about you, when you and I are just talking, is this funny little smile, and you elevate your left shoulder, and you turn your head sideways, and it's a dog. Adorable. And it's powerful, and it connects me to you. It makes me like you. Dylan, you're not doing that right now. Why? And he said, because I thought I'm supposed to be acting very professional. And she said, how about this? Why don't you act the way you would normally act if we were just talking, sitting, having, you know, a snack together and do your speech like that? And when he did, he was so much more engaging, and he even felt that it was super exciting to see.

That's great. Coaching in action. I have a phrase at the top of my notes on my Mac which says, what would I do if this were easy? And whenever I get stuck on something, what would I do if this were easy? And it's. And that's the coaching she gave him. You know, what would you do if this were you, if you were you? And it's so powerful.

You know, it's funny, that reminds me of that. Like, just get in the flow of life. And. Which I find super hard to do. And I try to remind myself, life doesn't have to be hard. It can just be in the flow. But it seems scary to trust that sometimes. And so I think that we've been conditioned, like you're saying, from, you know, so much pressure and intensity in our lives, that there's gotta be a way I can work harder at this. But it is nice to hear that sometimes it's great just to let go and make it easy.

And I suppose the paradox to that is great. Speakers on stage, as you know, have put lots of work into honing the content and the rehearsal. So in the moment they show up, they let it be easy. But it's like Roger Federer, isn't it? Ease on a tennis court is not as simple as it looks. It comes out of work and then how do you make the work feel easy and feel like fun? And I think when the work feels like fun, when we enjoy practicing, that flow then comes into the performance as well. The game is how to make the practice fun. That's it, that's when you get good.

How do you make practice fun?

I guess you do the stuff you love and then you get the coaching to gently persuade you into the areas you don't like working on. And that's a bit of a dance, isn't it? But I don't believe in forcing anything. I think if you force it, especially in voice terms, it doesn't work. We get stuck. We sometimes need someone to go try this.

Well, for everybody out there that is going to want you to coach them, don't you have a new course that's just coming out?

I have spent the last two years of my life learning about the digital course and we've been creating this course called Master your meetings which I am actually really excited about. And it's a self paced four module course which helps you find your gravitas in meetings and presentations. And it's going to be live on my site Caroline Gouda.com in spring and I'm very excited. If you sign up, you get a good discount now. So do sign up.

So I will link that in the show notes. And what are people going to get? Is that going to give them that confidence that, that, that quiet, calm confidence that they want to have in meetings?

This is all about taking people from anxiety to authority. It's all about the process that takes you from oh my God, I have to present to my board to I've got this. I know what I'm talking about. I can speak with authority and that is what it's all about. It's simple, it's practical, it's a process and anybody can learn it and everybody needs to.

Because it doesn't matter if you are on the PTA or you're an executive, there are going to be times where you need to speak and you want people to hear you. You're trying to give a compelling message and get people to be persuaded by your message. And like you said, it all starts with having that confidence to do it.

And it's my belief that when you get the process in the muscle that can take you from anxiety to authority, you've got it for the rest of your life. And it's a game changer. I mean, you and I both know that. That when you can walk on stage and own it, that changes everything.

Oh, there's nothing like it. It's such a powerful feeling. Caroline, thank you so much for all the work you're doing. Thank you for your books. I will link to your books, to your TED Talk, and of course, to the course. Guys. Definitely check out this course. Give yourself that investment in you to really find your confidence in your speech and own your power. Caroline, thank you so much.

My total pleasure, Heather. I've loved chatting.

Okay, guys, until next week, keep creating your confidence. I decided to change that dynamic. How do you like them?

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